Lists serve as an organizing tool. They show what we have and don't
have. [[List of people from the United States]] is too broad to be of
much use, but [[List of boogie woogie musicians]] is invaluable, both
as an aid to those of us working on the topic, but also the reader.
There may never be a full article on Drive'em Down, the legendary New
Orleans piano player, but he's in the Wikipedia, and in a place where
his contributions can be best understood.
In addition to their use as indexes, the "Related changes" and "What
links here" are helpful to writers working in a particular area and
the talk pages serve as a meeting place.
There are all kinds of lists.
The best lists are:
- confined to a single graspable topic. If the topic is vast, the
better lists will have been largely assembled by some outside
authority, Hall of Fame or the like.
- annotated, why is the person place or thing on the list?
- organized in a useful fashion. They can be grouped by topic, in
alphabetical order, or chronological, whatever helps make the list
more useful.
Further observations:
- [[List of novelists]] is barely tolerable. It is huge, but at least
it is grouped by an amalgam of language/country identifiers that is
not intellectually rigorous. but works for the reader.
- [[List of gay movies]] is in alphabetical order and unannotated. I
have been arguing on thetalk page that if it were annotated (why is
''Rebel Without a Cause'' a gay movie) and in chronological order
(showing changing attitudes) it would be more useful (and interesting,
always a big number with me).
- [[List of musical topics]] is vast, alphabetical, and unannotated, but
it shows the scope of Wikipedia and give music-minded writers
something to chew on.
- The alphabetical biography lists are much more useful if they are
annotated, which has been a side project of mine.
- [[One hit wonders]] went immediately off the tracks. It started as
a list ofthose odd but classic numbers but was quickly mired down by
objections that so-and-so had had two hits (one of which was never
heard of and did not matter) and also by diligent folks with reference
books listing every song that had ever been on any hit parade for at
least a week.
I'm very pro-list, and willing to take the good with the bad.
If [[List of Mexican restaurants in Los Angeles]] shows up, so be it.
[[List of glass harmonicists]] will soon be along to make up for it.
Tom Parmenter
Ortolan88