Do we have a policy on "best of" lists?
A page "List of best physicists" was quickly deleted. It consisted of several such lists, some of them with a reference, others without it. Similarly, our anonymous "year in music" user added several "<year> in KROQ" pages (KROQ being a radio station); those were also deleted. In case 2 I agree without reservation, in case 1 I think it might have been rewritten to be useful (perhaps under the title "Lists of best .." rather than "List of best ..").
In both cases, we have authorities who are being cited as selecting information from a larger sample. There could also be "Lists of best science fiction stories", "Lists of best novels" etc. Some of these lists would be written by authorities, others based on collaborative filtering such as the IMDB top movie lists. In the latter case, when the list is dynamically changing, an external link might be most appropriate.
But if we allow such lists, do we open the door to all kinds of spam-type, largely useless lists like the "year in KROQ" pages? Will people enter never ending NPOV disputes over whether their particular list should be included? I'm uncertain here and would appreciate some feedback. In any case, we need a clear policy if it doesn't already exist.
Regards,
Erik
I do feel that the modest [[One-hit wonder]] article that I started was pretty well rendered meaningless by fights about "well they had two hits in England" followed by going through a reference book and adding every single record by anyone who never had another hit to the list and splitting it up between England and US so you couldn't see any relationships. Perfectly normal, now that I look back on it, but the phenomenon of one-jit wonders was not well served by it. I had thought of making a [[One-hit wonder hall of fame]] so that genuine, standout singular singles would have a chance of their proper notice. I'm thinking of "Radar Love" by Golden Earring in particular. but there could be a densely packed little list of truly memorable, even influential, one-hit wonders.
Likewise, in the music articles, to have sax players off of someone's favorite album in between [[John Coltrane]] and [[Charlie Parker]] makes it hard to understand the development of style on the instrument. Again, I considered shoveling a ton of them off into something called [[Beloved favorites]], but couldn't face the talk-page wars that would surely follow. [[List of novelists]] grows more "complete" and less useful with each passing day.
Anything that anyone might try to do bogs down in "that's just your opinion" and "Kenny G has sold 22 billion albums, how can you say he's not important". Seems hopeless. The best chance might be to make lists of members of rock and roll hall of fame, Pulitzer Prize winners (Duke Ellington was turned down for one), Booker Prize winners, whatever can be made to look objective.
Tom Parmenter Ortolan88
|From: erik_moeller@gmx.de (Erik Moeller) |Sender: wikien-l-admin@wikipedia.org |Reply-To: wikien-l@wikipedia.org |Date: 25 Jan 2003 01:07:00 +0100 | |Do we have a policy on "best of" lists? | |A page "List of best physicists" was quickly deleted. It consisted of |several such lists, some of them with a reference, others without it. |Similarly, our anonymous "year in music" user added several "<year> in |KROQ" pages (KROQ being a radio station); those were also deleted. In case |2 I agree without reservation, in case 1 I think it might have been |rewritten to be useful (perhaps under the title "Lists of best .." rather |than "List of best .."). | |In both cases, we have authorities who are being cited as selecting |information from a larger sample. There could also be "Lists of best |science fiction stories", "Lists of best novels" etc. Some of these lists |would be written by authorities, others based on collaborative filtering |such as the IMDB top movie lists. In the latter case, when the list is |dynamically changing, an external link might be most appropriate. | |But if we allow such lists, do we open the door to all kinds of spam-type, |largely useless lists like the "year in KROQ" pages? Will people enter |never ending NPOV disputes over whether their particular list should be |included? I'm uncertain here and would appreciate some feedback. In any |case, we need a clear policy if it doesn't already exist. | |Regards, | |Erik | | |_______________________________________________ |WikiEN-l mailing list |WikiEN-l@wikipedia.org |http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l |
Tom Parmenter wrote:
The best chance might be to make lists of members of rock and roll hall of fame, Pulitzer Prize winners (Duke Ellington was turned down for one), Booker Prize winners, whatever can be made to look objective.
Agreed. We are an encyclopedia. Let's leave it to other people to decide who is good, and report it.
on 1/24/03 5:07 PM, Erik Moeller at erik_moeller@gmx.de wrote:
Do we have a policy on "best of" lists?
A page "List of best physicists" was quickly deleted. It consisted of several such lists, some of them with a reference, others without it. Similarly, our anonymous "year in music" user added several "<year> in KROQ" pages (KROQ being a radio station); those were also deleted. In case 2 I agree without reservation, in case 1 I think it might have been rewritten to be useful (perhaps under the title "Lists of best .." rather than "List of best ..").
In both cases, we have authorities who are being cited as selecting information from a larger sample.
There could also be "Lists of best science fiction stories",
There are. Several of them in fact, even a website that incorporates most of them into a grading system. (although I can't find it right now by googling). Despite being ultimately based on opinion, the information is of enclyclopedic quality and is useful, for example, in selecting books for a library collection. No reason we couldn't have an article on the subject.
Fred
"Lists of best novels" etc. Some of these lists would be written by authorities, others based on collaborative filtering such as the IMDB top movie lists. In the latter case, when the list is dynamically changing, an external link might be most appropriate.
But if we allow such lists, do we open the door to all kinds of spam-type, largely useless lists like the "year in KROQ" pages? Will people enter never ending NPOV disputes over whether their particular list should be included? I'm uncertain here and would appreciate some feedback. In any case, we need a clear policy if it doesn't already exist.
Regards,
Erik
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@wikipedia.org http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
I don't see how any "Best of" can be NPOV. Rick Erik Moeller erik_moeller@gmx.de wrote:Do we have a policy on "best of" lists?
A page "List of best physicists" was quickly deleted. It consisted of several such lists, some of them with a reference, others without it. Similarly, our anonymous "year in music" user added several " in KROQ" pages (KROQ being a radio station); those were also deleted. In case 2 I agree without reservation, in case 1 I think it might have been rewritten to be useful (perhaps under the title "Lists of best .." rather than "List of best ..").
In both cases, we have authorities who are being cited as selecting information from a larger sample. There could also be "Lists of best science fiction stories", "Lists of best novels" etc. Some of these lists would be written by authorities, others based on collaborative filtering such as the IMDB top movie lists. In the latter case, when the list is dynamically changing, an external link might be most appropriate.
But if we allow such lists, do we open the door to all kinds of spam-type, largely useless lists like the "year in KROQ" pages? Will people enter never ending NPOV disputes over whether their particular list should be included? I'm uncertain here and would appreciate some feedback. In any case, we need a clear policy if it doesn't already exist.
Regards,
Erik
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Zoe wrote:
I don't see how any "Best of" can be NPOV.
Rick
Agreed. Any of these "Best of" or "Most famous" lists are bound to be subjective. Be that as it may, (and even though I generally favour consensus to voting for Wikipedia policy) this is one place where voting could be helpful. Mostly because the outcome doesn't really matter. If each registered Wikipedian could cast some kind of weighted or preferential vote for names on a candidate list of indefinite length, and votes could be tallied automatically as they're cast the software could then determine the top 10 (or 50 or 100 ...) that it would put on the list. Of course, this all assumes technical feasibility.
Eclecticology
It strikes me that "best of" inherently tempts people into POV arguments, whereas "noted" or "famous" do not. I may think that Britney Spears is the best female artist, while you may think she's terrible. But we both can agree that she's famous.
--Jimbo
Jimmy Wales wrote:
It strikes me that "best of" inherently tempts people into POV arguments, whereas "noted" or "famous" do not. I may think that Britney Spears is the best female artist, while you may think she's terrible. But we both can agree that she's famous.
Wishful thinking! In October we had a major blow-up at [[List of famous Canadians]]; that involved such questions as the meaning of "famous". Of course it didn't help that DW was one of the participants in that debate.
Eclecticology
Even though I've been here since February 2002, I've consistently avoided requesting sysop status on Wikipedia. I am, however, taking a different role in Wiktionary, and would find it useful in that project.
Eclecticology