[WikiEN-l] "Best of" lists

[Erik Moeller]

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