Wikipedia:List guideline
From Free net encyclopedia
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- For general information on creating lists see Help:List.
Contents |
Purpose of lists
Lists on Wikipedia have three main purposes:
- Information
- The list may be a valuable information source. This is particularly the case for a structured list. Examples would include lists organized chronologically, grouped by theme, or annotated lists.
- Navigation
- If the user is browsing without a specific research goal in mind, they would likely use the See also lists. If the user has a specific research goal in mind, and there is only one or two words that are used to describe the research topic, and they know exactly how to spell the word, they would probably use the search engine box. If the user has some general idea of what they are looking for but does not know the specific terminology, they would tend to use the lists of related topics (also called list of links to related articles).
- Development
- Some lists are useful for Wikipedia development purposes. The lists of related topics give an indication of the state of the 'pedia, the articles that have been written, and the articles that have yet to be written.
Like categories, lists can be used for keeping track of changes in the listed pages, using the Related Changes feature. Unlike a category, a list also allows detection of deletion of pages from it, and, more generally, a history of its contents is available. Template:-
List styles
There are three common ways of presenting lists on Wikipedia:
Unordered (bullet) lists
The format is:
== Title of list == * Example 1 * Example 2 * Example 3
Title of list
- Example 1
- Example 2
- Example 3
As a matter of style, list items should start with a capital letter. They should not have a punctuation mark such as a period, a comma or a semi-colon at the end, except if a list item is one or more full sentences, in which case there is a period at the end.
This style is appropriate for long lists, or lists of entries which consist of both a link and explanatory text. Also, it is appropriate when the article already has several titles and/or subtitles.
The Title provides a direct edit point, if one enables section editing. It also enables the automatic table of contents system to detect the list. It is not required, however.
Many Wikipedians feel this style is the easiest to read.
Ordered (numeric) lists
Similar to the above, use a # symbol to obtain a numbered list. The format is (note that to ensure sequential numbering, list items must not be separated by empty lines):
== Title of list == # Example 1 # Example 2 # Example 3
Title of list
- Example 1
- Example 2
- Example 3
Streamlined style or horizontal style
The format is:
Title of list: example 1, example 2, example 3
The style requires less space on the page, and is preferred if there are only a few entries in the list, it can be read easily, and a direct edit point is not required. The list items should start with a lowercase letter unless they are proper nouns.
Definition lists
The format is:
; Term 1 : Definition 1 ; Term 2 : Definition 2 ; Term 3 : Definition 3
- Term 1
- Definition 1
- Term 2
- Definition 2
- Term 3
- Definition 3
Use these real definition lists instead of fake ones like
* Term — Definition
- Term — Definition
or
* '''Term''': Definition
- Term: Definition
In many cases tables are better suited than definition lists.
Tables
Although the use of tables to display lists is discouraged (because it introduces unnecessarily complex code and makes editing difficult), there are some instances where they can be useful, such as when three columns and more are required. See Wikipedia:How to use tables
Types of lists
A list can stand alone as a self contained page, or it can be embedded in an article.
- Stand-alone lists, or "lists of links" are entries consisting of a list of links to articles in a particular subject area, such as people or places or a timeline of events. The titles of these entries always begin with List of or Timeline of. The title and bullet style or vertical style is common for this type of list. These Wikipedia entries follow the Wikipedia:Lists (stand-alone lists).
- Embedded lists are either included in the article or appended to the end of articles. They present information or aid in navigation to related articles. Some examples include: See also lists, Compare lists, Related topics lists, and Reference lists (also called External links). To see how to include a list in an article, go to Wikipedia:Lists (embedded lists)
Boilerplate text
Before or after an incomplete list, insert the following text which will be automatically substituted:
Template:Tl