Daniel P. B. Smith wrote:
I wish there were widespread general consensus that
there should not
be a "list of X" article unless there is already a high-quality
article on the topic of "X." And the list should begin as a section
within the "X" article and should not be broken out until it becomes
unmanageably long.
In many cases that's fine.
I wish there were widespread general consensus that
every item in a
"list of X" article should be individually referenced. A year or so
ago I tried checking out such lists, particularly those of which it
was asserted that a reference was not needed because "references can
be found in the linked article," and my experience was this was
usually not true.
That gave you an opportunity to add the references to the linked articles.
The reason why references are needed is that in many
cases list
inclusion involves a matter of judgement, and the judgement should be
that of an authoritative third party, not that of Wikipedia editors.
A lot depends on the saus that you accord to "List" articles. I tend to
treat them as a combination Index and To-do reference. Until standard
practice in books requires references to the index of the book, I don't
see why we should be so taken with ourselves as to require references there.
Some exceptions would still need to be made such as or lists where
membership would be derogatory.
Ec