Wikipedia talk:Lists (stand-alone lists)

Lists of films

Editor Zsteve21 (talk · contribs) has moved multiple "list of X films" articles to be "lists of X films" articles. A lot of these have been named the same way for a while and are technically still one list, being split out due to size. Is this really a proper set of moves? Example is list of cult films being moved to lists of cult films even though the list is merely broken out alphabetically due to size matters. Erik (talk | contrib) 20:40, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

That doesn't seem like a proper move to me. I'd attempt to revert it if I wasn't about to head out the door. I'd endorse a reversion, in any case. DonIago (talk) 21:06, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and reverted that. DonIago (talk) 02:53, 9 May 2026 (UTC)

Thanks! To be clear, it's only because of the specific internal alphabetical breakout that you reverted? What about something like Lists of Bangladeshi films (moved from List of Bangladeshi films) where the breakout is by year? I guess I'm trying to get a better sense from WP:SAL editors about when to do "lists" vs. just "list". Erik (talk | contrib) 15:03, 9 May 2026 (UTC)

I think if we are dealing with a list that has been divided into sub-lists (either by alphabet or by year) we are principally dealing with one list, albeit spread over several pages. If it were a book we wouldn't refer to a single list spread over several pages as "lists". Betty Logan (talk) 23:48, 9 May 2026 (UTC)

I concur. I'd expect a list titled "Lists of Foo" to feature different kinds of lists about Foo, not a singular list about Foo that just happens to be broken up for convenience or similar reasons. DonIago (talk) 00:49, 10 May 2026 (UTC)

32 KB

There is a claim in the page about complete lists:

These should only be created if a complete list is reasonably short (less than 32 KB)

What's the rationale for that specific number?

In fact, is it ever observed? Selbstporträt (talk) 05:43, 17 May 2026 (UTC)

For reference, the number 32K survived since the very first revision of the page in 2003: Special:Diff/2004846. The wording with "less than" was added in Special:Diff/364773243, wikilink to kilobyte in Special:Diff/839429632, and finally the current version of formatting was written in Special:Diff/1226423182. —⁠andrybak (talk) 19:34, 17 May 2026 (UTC)

Thanks!

The first diff mentions a List of Finns, which I read has:

• HTML document size: 199 kB
• Prose size (including all HTML code): 218 B
• References (including all HTML code): 4028 B
• Wiki text: 48 kB
• Prose size (text only): 215 B (36 words) "readable prose size"
• References (text only): 182 B

Which of these numbers refer to the 32 KB limit?

(Assuming that a partial list too needs to respect that upper limit.)

Looks like this has very little to do with tables, for a citation alone can have almost 1K characters! Selbstporträt (talk) 00:30, 18 May 2026 (UTC)

Generally size corresponds to Wiki text in WP. List of Finns is now a dynamic list, so it isn't covered by this criterion any more. I think some guidance is good, otherwise you may get editors who want to build complete lists that are megabytes long. Those would almost always be WP:INDISCRIMINATE — hike395 (talk) 13:47, 18 May 2026 (UTC)

The link under "dynamic list" leads to weird text:

Some lists, such as List of numbers, are intentionally inexhaustive, as they are only meant to list notable examples from a given category.

The first part is contradicted by the text for the dynamic list template itself:

This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by editing the page to add missing items, with references to reliable sources.

The point of having dynamic lists is that there are many lists for which we don't know the full extension. The call to action presumes we could one day get it.

The second part of the text is also completely wrong: N is for pages, not entries. We could choose notability as a selection criterion. Which means dynamic lists thus interpreted would need to abide by the 32KB standard, if it is one.

In both cases, if size corresponds to Wiki text, then the very example mentioned in the edit is 50% bigger than the 32KB requirement. Why should selections be 50% shorter than complete lists?

We already have N to meet INDISCRIMINATE. Once a stand-alone list meets notability, the argument seems to fizzle.Selbstporträt (talk) 18:11, 18 May 2026 (UTC)

Per MOS:LISTTYPES, a dynamic list is any list that may never be fully complete (since it will only include notable examples from a given category), or may require constant updates to remain current. TompaDompa (talk) 20:39, 18 May 2026 (UTC)

"or may require constant updates to remain current" indeed. Selbstporträt (talk) 20:58, 18 May 2026 (UTC)

One random hit from the Category:Dynamic lists:

1540 in poetry

Which items are "notable" in the sense of N? Selbstporträt (talk) 21:02, 18 May 2026 (UTC)

Clicking on "Dynamic list" in the text of the Dynamic list template leads back to the project text.

The text has a "To display all pages, subcategories and images click". If we click on it, we get a list. The first item from the list is List of ship launches in 1930. A sea of red links for the ships themselves. Very few pages on launches of ships in 1930, if any.Selbstporträt (talk) 21:14, 18 May 2026 (UTC)

Now that I understand where that 32KB comes from, I would propose that we:

(a) remove it from the examples section

(b) put it in a section that discusses the page size of stand-alone lists

(c) clarify that this is about lists, not tables

Any reasoned objection? Selbstporträt (talk) 13:40, 20 May 2026 (UTC)

I don't think it is clear that this suggestion would be an improvement, in part because it is not entirely clear to me what points (b) and (c) would look like in practice. TompaDompa (talk) 11:48, 23 May 2026 (UTC)

What would be the other part? Selbstporträt (talk) 16:04, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

Chesterton's fence and an inclination to agree with Hike395 above that some guidance is good. TompaDompa (talk) 18:59, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

The problem with any size limit is that it will encourage list splitting (e.g., Electoral results for the Division of Clark (state, 1913-1969) and Electoral results for the Division of Clark (state, 1972-present) which are split for valid technical reasons).

I would propose guidance that encourages thoughtfulness rather than simple rule-following. How about something like

If a list article contains more than 1,000 entries, it may be an WP:INDISCRIMINATE list of data. Under that circumstance, editors are encouraged to restrict the list criterion to be more specific: either converting a complete list to a filtered list, or making a more restricted set of examples. Splitting a list by an arbitrary criterion (e.g., alphabetically) does not relieve editors from the WP:INDISCRIMINATE guideline.

— hike395 (talk) 20:45, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

I agree on thoughtfulness, not on the appeal to INDISCRIMINATE, which is mostly about databases. More generally, NOT items (the page is not far from being a list) are negative: they only guide indirectly. They share the same limitation as negative definitions. That is, they don't do what they're supposed to be doing.

The very idea of a list is to list items. By default, we should list them all. I don't want to look at the list of only the Tube stations that have wiki entries. I want to have the list of Tube stations. Sometimes those who appeal to INDISCRIMINATE forget that point. It is a crucial point.

That doesn't mean we should always list them all. It rather means we have to come up with good editorial reasons not to, and size is not one of them. This to me could be why we never had guidance on list size.

Yet we do feel that, sometimes, a list is just too big. The list is not only very big: it becomes "overkill", or "bloated", too "difficult to maintain", carries "too much information" for our own good, etc. There are many ways to express our editorial decision.

Size is thus a symptom of a need to cut.

In any event, guidance should be written in a section on guidance, not examples. It should not come out of nowhere, like it does here, and certainly not on the example on notability as selection criterion. It'd be really hard to have a worse state than the actual status quo, so being conservative here (ideologically, like Chesterton, or not), may not be warranted.

There is simply no guidance at all for lists. Nothing like Article Size. So to answer an earlier concern: we do know what AS looks in practice. We could easily impose the same word count for lists as for articles. This way we'll solve the "KB ain't for tables" bug.

For it's a real bug: one citation can suffice to get a table 1K. Get 50 citations, win the pleasure to face editors who surfed WP:SAL and saw that it might be a good idea to impose notability. Selbstporträt (talk) 16:35, 28 May 2026 (UTC)

I don't think it's self-evident that there is a problem in particular need of a solution here, even if I almost certainly wouldn't have set it up this way if I were writing the page from scratch. Do we run into issues with this in practice (I can't recall ever running into any)? If so, what are those issues?

I don't agree that listing all items should be the default, and that we need a good reason for doing otherwise. That may be true for certain kinds of lists, but not across the board. Wikipedia, as an encyclopaedia, aims to provide a summary of information. That goes for lists as well as prose articles.

What you describe as the "KB ain't for tables" bug sounds more to me like a "byte size is not for citations" bug, no? I don't think I've ever run into a situation where problems have arisen because byte size guidance has been interpreted as applying to citations. That tables and bulleted lists are not included in "readable prose size" as calculated by tools used on Wikipedia is rather a separate question.

I could see an argument to change

These should only be created if a complete list is reasonably short (less than 32 KB)

to

These should only be created if a complete list is reasonably short (fewer than 50 entries)

or something similar (100 entries? Could be discussed). That would be more in line with the later However, if a complete list would include hundreds or thousands of entries, then you should use the notability standard to provide focus to the list. TompaDompa (talk) 21:46, 28 May 2026 (UTC)

Yes, I think that "fewer than n entries" would be a significant improvement. I'm inclined to start with a larger number. Even 200 entries is manageable, especially if they're organized in some sensible way.

When this "32KB" standard was introduced, those little blue clicky numbers didn't even exist. It's really helpful to understand this in context, so take a look at what some articles looked like back then. Here's the Main Page that day; notice that there was no Featured Article. FAs existed. There were about 250 of them. Here are what some of them looked like on that date: Take a look at the wikitext for the "infobox" on that last one. It's an HTML (not wikitext) table. We didn't have infobox templates yet. The creation of {{cite web}} wouldn't happen for another year. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:50, 28 May 2026 (UTC)

"I don't think it's self-evident that there is a problem in particular need of a solution here"

Yes, that's why I tried to explain it: not the place, not the right units, not for tables.

"I don't agree that listing all items should be the default"

Color me surprised. Comprehensiveness is still one of the advantages of a list. See also this other point:

An embedded list, one incorporated into an article on a topic, can include entries which are not sufficiently notable to deserve their own articles, and yet may be sufficiently notable to incorporate into the list. Furthermore, since the notability threshold for a mention is less than that for a whole article, you can easily add a mention to a list within an article, without having to make the judgment call on notability which you would need to make if you were to add a whole article—if someone else feels that it is notable enough, they can always linkify the mention and create an article anyway.

The concept of "notability threshold" is cute, but it creates an equivocation that can be exploited by folks who would rather have lists with only notable entries as default.

Know anyone like that? Selbstporträt (talk) 04:13, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing: A list with 200 entries can perhaps be manageable, but that still sounds like way too many for what we are talking about here. Is that what we mean by Short, complete lists of every item that is verifiably a member of the group? I would perhaps describe a list with 47 entries of which 13 are notable that way, but not a list with 198 entries of which 43 are notable.

@Selbstporträt: The current text doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense to me either, but does it cause issues in practice? That's what I mean by a problem in particular need of a solution. If it doesn't, leaving it as-is would be a perfectly cromulent alternative. That it has been like this for many years suggests that there isn't a pressing need to fix it and that we don't necessarily need to keep looking for a fix if we can't find a good one right away.

There are many different kinds of lists, and different considerations apply depending on the kind of list in question. Treating them all as basically the same and applying a one-size-fits-all approach to the threshold for inclusion as the standard way of doing things is liable to cause a lot more problems than it would solve. Comprehensiveness can be an advantage for certain kinds of lists, but by no means for all of them. Similarly, only listing notable entires can be the best approach for certain kinds of lists. The default shouldn't be listing every item or only listing notable entries. The default should always be reflecting the sources accurately—as with all articles—and this does not necessarily have any correlation to WP:Notability in the Wikipedia-specific sense, nor is it necessarily accomplished by listing items exhaustively. TompaDompa (talk) 17:28, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

"but does it cause issues in practice?"

I already explained twice. I won't explain thrice.

"Comprehensiveness can be an advantage for certain kinds of lists, but by no means for all of them"

Yeah, that's what we mean by "the default". Selbstporträt (talk) 17:38, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

Might as well add: listing notable entries is first and foremost for navigation lists. Even there we might prefer to red link the entries that have no page instead of omitting them. At least unless we have a good reason not to.

Comprehensiveness is critical to the objective of being an encyclopedia. Selbstporträt (talk) 18:31, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

No evidence that it causes actual harm then, though some theoretical arguments that it perhaps could. I'm not opposed to changing it, but I don't see any compelling reason to treat it as an urgent matter. More reason to worry about unintentional consequences of a new version than issues caused by retaining the current flawed version, basically. My concrete suggestion is to change "less than 32 KB" to "fewer than 50 entries", as noted above. It need not be the "final" version, but I think it would at least be an improvement.

There are plenty of lists for which none of the three WP:Common selection criteria make sense, e.g. ranked lists such as List of highest-grossing films and timelines such as Timeline of science fiction. It does not make any sense for such lists to have either "notable entries only" or "all verifiable entries" as the default threshold for inclusion. Instead, those lists are (and similar lists should be) designed to reflect the sources accurately. That is, giving due weight to different aspects of the overarching topic in accordance with the coverage found in the overall literature on the topic. Doing so is in fact mandated for all articles—including list articles—by WP:PROPORTION, a non-negotiable WP:Core content policy. The only default that we should ever consider imposing on lists overall is "reflect the sources accurately".

WP:NOT says An article should not be a complete presentation of all possible details, but a summary of accepted knowledge regarding its subject. Some might say that this is in conflict with your assertion that Comprehensiveness is critical to the objective of being an encyclopedia., depending on exactly how they interpret the term "comprehensiveness" in this context. If you don't see these as contradictory, there is not necessarily any disagreement between us on this point. If you do think they are contradictory, I expect we will simply have to agree to disagree. TompaDompa (talk) 23:30, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

Do you think we need something about the occasional need for an arbitrary cutoff, like editors choosing to limit a subject such as "highest-grossing films" to the top 50, or to a certain dollar amount, or whatever? WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:00, 30 May 2026 (UTC)

Need? No, that already happens regardless. It might be helpful to write something about it, but we can evidently make do without. TompaDompa (talk) 10:13, 30 May 2026 (UTC)

So no evidence you actually read what I wrote, then.

You're "not opposed to changing it, but" indeed. Selbstporträt (talk) 02:23, 30 May 2026 (UTC)

@TompaDompa, how many characters do you think are listed in List of Star Wars original trilogy characters? And how many are don't qualify for a Wikipedia:Separate, stand-alone article? I'm guessing about 100 characters, and maybe 20 could qualify for a separate article. Does that list bother you? Do you think that list bothers the community? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:26, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

I don't think that's a Short, complete [list] of every item that is verifiably a member of the group, and so not the kind of list under discussion here. The WP:Lead of that article says This incomplete list contains only the major characters and storylines featured in the three films of the Star Wars original trilogy. TompaDompa (talk) 22:48, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

Part of the notion of the "short, complete" list is that we always have editors pushing the "notable only" (and those same editors often mean "blue links only", which isn't the same), and we need something to push back against that. I believe that I've previously given the example of a list of 12 restaurants, and 10 are notable, but why would you exclude the other two, when so little effort is needed to make a complete list? I wouldn't want people to associate "short" with "12", however, as a significantly longer list could still be "short" in this sense. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:03, 30 May 2026 (UTC)

I don't particularly share the perspective that we need something to push back against that, which probably has something to do with differences in where we spend our time on Wikipedia. The example given in the text is Listed buildings in Rivington, which has 21 entries of which 5 are bluelinked (unsure how many are notable in the Wikipedia-specific sense). I might still think of a list like that as short and complete per WP:CSC 3 if it were twice as long, but not if it were five or ten times as long. TompaDompa (talk) 10:20, 30 May 2026 (UTC)

I think we do need to push back against the "blue links only" idea, usually by pointing people to item #2 in Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists#Common selection criteria, "Every entry in the list fails the notability criteria". Inexperienced editors often add a non-notable subject to a list, and it gets removed with a statement that only notable or blue-linked entries are permitted. The explanation usually omits the words "for this list", and Wikipedia:Nobody reads the directions, so they think it's the rule for all lists. Soon, they're off blanking lists that correctly include non-notable or red-linked entries, and repeating what they were told: "Only notable entries are permitted". We have to push back against this false rumor. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:32, 30 May 2026 (UTC)

Unless I'm misunderstanding something, it sounds like the solution you want for the problem you perceive already exists and is in use by you? Not much more to do here, then. TompaDompa (talk) 21:50, 30 May 2026 (UTC)

Why rewrite anything when we have Whatamidoing to do all the grunt work for everyone? Selbstporträt (talk) 05:51, 31 May 2026 (UTC)

"the kind of list under discussion"

You don't get to decide that in my thread, Tompa.

I'm talking about stand alone lists.

This is the talk page on stand alone lists.

This is such a list. Selbstporträt (talk) 02:30, 30 May 2026 (UTC)

Besides, some might argue that the 32KB limit applies in general, including lists with selection criteria. Otherwise we'd have a rule that allows larger than complete lists. They might even argue that such interpretation would amount to wikilawyering. Whatever they may think, it still is odd that this 32KB limit appears in an example of a selection criterion. Selbstporträt (talk) 03:27, 30 May 2026 (UTC)

And just so we're clear:

I asked for reasoned objections. Not I-don't-sees and could-be-worses.

The 32 kb is deprecated. It makes no sense, in general, but particularly where it actually is. There is absolutely nothing to lose to let go of it.

The first part of my proposal should not lead to horse-trading about the other parts, which should have started nearer to 1000 than 50-100. You'll never get less than 500 (in fact 1000 for two columns), but that's beside the point: that parenthesis should be gone by now. No ifs, no buts. Selbstporträt (talk) 04:40, 30 May 2026 (UTC)

I see that you realized that I'm talking about Short, complete lists of every item that is verifiably a member of the group because that's where the "32 KB" thing appears.

What we have to lose by removing "(less than 32 KB)" is the emergence of arguments/disagreement about what the preceding "These should only be created if a complete list is reasonably short" means in practice. That would need to be weighed against the problems currently caused by having the arbitrary byte size. Removing it without replacement thus comes down to existing problems (that I think seem fairly minor) versus unknown future problems (that could be big, small, or nonexistent). To me, the cost–benefit analysis favours inaction at this point. I suggested an alternative course of action with a replacement that I gather that you find unsatisfactory, and it does not seem like we are going to reach agreement there. TompaDompa (talk) 10:39, 30 May 2026 (UTC)

I see you still don't get you're not being asked to wave your arms, but to provide a reasoned objection.

Moreover, I see you still don't realize that there's nothing to lose by removing a deprecated limit that isn't even coherent where it actually is.

Lastly, I see you still don't realize the first two times you tried horse-trading here it hasn't worked. Selbstporträt (talk) 12:58, 30 May 2026 (UTC)

I was not under the impression that we were in any way negotiating, and you don't get to dictate how I voice my objections to your suggestions. Either you are not understanding me correctly, or I am not understanding you correctly (possibly both). Either way, I doubt we are going to reach a common understanding given that we have despite our best efforts not yet done so, and since the tone here is getting increasingly abrasive it is probably for the best that we let that be the end of our back-and-forth. The discussion would likely be better served by letting others voice their views and responding to their points rather than each other's. TompaDompa (talk) 14:12, 30 May 2026 (UTC)

I understand "not opposed to changing it, but" just fine.

I understand that if a complete list has a suggested limit of L, the suggested limit for a list with selection criteria should also be L. Nothing more, and certainly nothing less.

I understand that this L should not appear as a parenthetical remark in an examples section.

I understand that our current L is deprecated.

I *know* that this L has been misrepresented.

I think commenters should try to understand this before opining. Selbstporträt (talk) 14:29, 30 May 2026 (UTC)

I heard (now years ago, but long after that was added) that the 32KB limit was due to a web browser bug/feature that wouldn't load more than 32KB. Back then, file size (=bytes in shown in the history page) had a pretty strong correlation with what the web browser would get, because there were very few pictures and very little formatting. See https://nostalgia.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random if you want to know what Wikipedia used to look like. If you limited pages to 32KB, you could be fairly certain that nearly everyone on the web could read the whole page.

If we wanted to update this, I suggest looking at the numbers of words in Wikipedia:Article size#Size guideline (especially the second table, which shows the actual distribution of the number of words).

Additionally, I think we should consider what it would be like to use a stand-alone list of different sizes. This is a subjective experiential analysis that requires editors to use their judgment, just like we used our judgment to create the WP:SIZERULE for prose-oriented articles. The goal here is to consider the reader's experience rather than the amount of space the revision takes on the server's hard drive. For example, if a stand-alone list has 5 entries, then that's no problem; you can find what you want at a glance. If it has 50 entries, that's fine if they're organized somehow. If it has 500 entries, it might be complicated to find what you want, especially if you don't know the exact name so you can't use ⌘F to get there. If it has 5,000 entries – well, maybe that wasn't the best idea.

I'd usually suggest a split somewhere between 500 and 5,000 (sooner if it's more than a bare {{navigation list}}). What would you suggest? WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:52, 28 May 2026 (UTC)

Thanks. I suspected that it was a technical limitation. It seemed written as such.

If a stand-alone list only has 5 items, I'd wonder why we'd need a list and not an article. Most list of 20 items or less can be sectioned and written long form. When we get to more than 100 items, they need to fit on as little lines as possible. That may require abbreviations, key systems, all kinds of things for which we have little guidance.

For more than 500 items, information might need to be stripped down to its bare minimum. The second line if my comment has about 20 words. Divide by 10K and that's 500 lines. So your guesstimate seems to be in line with our current ballpark. More than that may require a discussion about the need to split, and the effort that imposes on editors.

If we feel that can lead to exploits, then we may need to focus on the reason why we exclude databases. Is the idea of having a list of song lyrics something "worth noting"? Probably not. Is the idea of having the list of viruses "worth noting"? Probably. But then biologists come by and tell us: perhaps what readers want is a list of taxa and a list of genera. Then a list of higher viruses taxa. Are these all "notable"? Perhaps they are, but most are red linked.

So beyond technical limitations, and barring editorial decisions regarding the existence of the page itself (what is usually called N), we should try to seek completeness. If that can't work, then we should shoot for comprehensiveness.

This may nudge editors to take the bull by the horns and argue more directly. Selbstporträt (talk) 17:33, 28 May 2026 (UTC)

With short lists, sometimes it's because we just haven't developed the article fully. However, sometimes it's because it's the usual thing to do. All of the discographies are fundamentally stand-alone lists, and you'd hardly want to say that because only five albums have been released so far, that we can't have a list of the ones that exist. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:02, 28 May 2026 (UTC)

About why we exclude databases: We don't really "exclude" databases; we just don't want Wikipedia to "be" a database. (AIUI song lyrics get a special mention because of historically significant problems with copyvios.) The goal is to have an article with some encyclopedic content, plus the data/lists as an extra. But with SALs, part of the problem is that many lists fall into the {{Navigation list}} category (and nearly all of those are not tagged). WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:19, 28 May 2026 (UTC)

Good points. Looks like I'm being unfair to NOT:

To provide encyclopedic value, data should be put in context with explanations referenced to independent sources.

This criterion speaks to me, at least for the kind of tables that made me come back here.

It may prompt also discographers (should be a real word) to imitate bibliographers and work on putting context and explain the list of 5 albums.

I will add the navigation list template whenever I find one. Selbstporträt (talk) 02:44, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

Found it:

With changes resulting from bug #21911, the role of the warning message "This page is x kilobytes long, some browsers may have problems editing pages approaching or longer than 32kb." is evolving. Specifically, now that the share of browsers with that 32kb limit has shrunk to an almost negligible level, some people are arguing that it would make more sense to use the warning to direct users to Wikipedia:Article size where the page size exceeds 70 or 80kb.

Selbstporträt (talk) 13:26, 30 May 2026 (UTC)

June 2006:

The guideline you talk about is *only* concerned about the size of the *prose* in an article. Things like references (esp inline ones), external links, see alsos and tables bloat the page size while not affecting the all-important size of the prose. Summary style further states that the *starting point* where an article may be considered too long is about 30KB and the likelihood of being too long goes up with size until one reaches 50KB of prose; only a small handful of topics require that much prose and vanishing few need more than that. What drives the need and/or ability to take more space than 30KB of prose? The scope of the topic and quality of the writing. This article has 43KB of prose and is about a huge work of fiction that has had a very dramatic impact on culture and even a bit on society itself. So the scope of this topic alone warrants going over 30KB. Whether or not the writing is also brilliant enough to warrant the extra reading time is up to debate though; we must be extra careful to ensure writing is engaging when going above 30KB of prose.

The 32KB could very well have been what is now 10K words, which should be around 60KB. Selbstporträt (talk) 14:14, 30 May 2026 (UTC)

Getting to the technical side:

The article reads that by June 2006, Firefox is the only commonly used browser which cannot handle the bug with pages with more than 32KB of content.

Good ol' Firefox. Always the memory hog.

Selbstporträt (talk) 14:44, 30 May 2026 (UTC)

Looks like the 32KB has been removed from AS in January 2007. Enjoy some nostalgia:

Edit byte count isn't a good measure for dial up users, it's merely a remnant of the days when 32kb was the maximum size that many browsers could load that has been repurposed to mean something it shouldn't...Long story short, there isn't a meaningful number for edit byte count that can be used to determine whether or not an article should be broken up or not. Every article is going to have a different threshold of edit byte count depending on how many images they use, what kind of templates and how many are included in the article, and how many references the article has.

Sorry, Bobblehead. We failed you. Selbstporträt (talk) 14:52, 30 May 2026 (UTC)

I've removed the "(less than 32 KB)" from the page. From here, we should consider whether there's anything that we'd like to add instead of that. I think a list of the number of entries could be appropriate. Another option is to write a Wikipedia:What is a short list? essay. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:37, 30 May 2026 (UTC)

Thanks. I will try to rebuild my understanding of list making from first principles. Too many statements in the documentation are completely misspecified. Perhaps it's been too long. We should not wait until history gets completely lost. Before I try to pull this off I need to seek some kind of consistency Selbstporträt (talk) 18:53, 30 May 2026 (UTC)

I think the absence of a firm rule is fairly likely to cause more problems (editorial disputes, mainly) than an outdated and largely unenforced rule (which the 32 KB limit seems to have been? I could be wrong on that point). Perhaps the vague guidance that puts the crossover point somewhere between 12 and "hundreds or thousands of entries" will be sufficient alongside the example Listed buildings in Rivington.

If we want to replace the byte size limit with something in the same place (i.e. something that only applies to "Short, complete lists of every item that is verifiably a member of the group"), I would favour a relatively low number of entries—it's about lists that are explicitly meant to be short, after all. My suggestion would be 50, as noted above. Providing more general guidance for list size overall is probably very difficult since different types of lists—outlines, timelines, glossaries, indices, orders of battle, bibliographies, ranked lists, and so on—have completely different considerations. TompaDompa (talk) 21:53, 30 May 2026 (UTC)

I think 50 is at the low end of reasonable. I think the rule of thumb for such a number should be that if we have a Featured List that would "violate" that number, then the number needs to be changed. I looked at 10 random FLs and found Katy Perry discography and List of games by Epic Games which are both "complete lists of every item that is verifiably a member of the group", which have a mix of notable and non-notable entries, and which have more than 50 entries. So maybe 100? WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:46, 31 May 2026 (UTC)

Check this absolute unit:

List of compositions by Franz Schubert

The table for the legend is itself a masterpiece! Selbstporträt (talk) 04:36, 31 May 2026 (UTC)

That being said, I agree with the text: a short, complete list should only be made if it's short. I would add that it should also be possible to complete it, which is less trivial. Selbstporträt (talk) 06:11, 31 May 2026 (UTC)

Those are perhaps complete lists, but are they "short, complete lists"? I don't think this is that what WP:CSC#3 means. Bibliographies, discographies, and similar lists of works by creator are typically expected to be complete. To use another example: do we think Crew of the Titanic is an example of CSC 2, or 3, or neither? It is a a full list of known crew members who sailed on the maiden voyage of the RMS Titanic. per the article itself—is it a list that was created explicitly because most or all of the listed items do not warrant independent articles (CSC 2) or a short, complete [list] of every item that is verifiably a member of the group (CSC 3) even though if a complete list would include hundreds or thousands of entries, then you should use the notability standard to provide focus to the list? Not every list needs to use one of the three common selection criteria, and indeed many don't—I'll go back to my earlier examples of ranked lists such as List of highest-grossing films and timelines such as Timeline of science fiction. We should therefore avoid treating CSC as if all lists are expected to fall into one of the three categories. For CSC 3 specifically, there's also the issue of whether "complete" is intended to mean "every item that is verifiably a member of the group" alone or if it also means "and it is verifiable that there are no additional members of the group". TompaDompa (talk) 11:46, 31 May 2026 (UTC)

"Those are perhaps complete lists, but"

There is no "but" there: they are complete lists, and complete lists need not be short. The whole idea that only complete "short" lists should be made whole has no bearing in reality. Furthermore, one does not simply impose a more stringent limit for lists than we currently have for articles by clinging to a parenthesis hung up more than 20 years ago for technical reasons. More so in an example that does not even cohere with the other ones: (a) every entry meets the notability criteria; (b) every entry in the list fails the notability criteria; (c) short, complete lists of every item that is verifiably a member of the group. Find the odd duck.

Enough Vogon poetry. The lowest you'll ever get is 500 items with descriptions, and 1000 when 2 per lines. And that's not a limit at all: it's a rough ballpark. For anything more precise we should look at what we got. We claim these are common criteria. We should be able to support that.

We're at another "but" to go to an RFC. Choose your time to voice it wisely. Selbstporträt (talk) 13:41, 31 May 2026 (UTC)

You are treating WP:CSC as if it covers all cases, or is supposed to. It doesn't and isn't. The rest is misapplication, apples-to-oranges comparisons, and WP:Instruction creep. The only instruction for selection criteria we would actually need, if followed, is "reflect the sources accurately as mandated by other policies" (WP:No original research, WP:SYNTH, WP:PROPORTION, and so on). TompaDompa (talk) 14:29, 31 May 2026 (UTC)

I am reading "these should only be created if a complete list is reasonably short and could be useful" as applying to every single list. The criterion is pure membership. It means: you can't list them all unless it's short enough.

And you want "short" to mean "50 or less". That is too far away from most if not all the perfectly fine examples of complete lists provided so far to be taken seriously. It is absurd.

The text actually reduces to "short lists should be short". On that I already said I agreed. This was meant to suggest that the text, as it is, is trivial to the point of needing change too.

I am reading "list size limits" (as stated below) as a limit for list size.

To me, a limit applies to every single instance. We do not get to have complete lists of 32 KB next to "incomplete" lists larger than that. That's wikilawyering sanctified and enshrined in guidelines.

I am reading "list" as referring to stand-alone lists.

Tell me what "list size limits" and "these should only be created if a complete list is reasonably short and could be useful" mean to you. Selbstporträt (talk) 15:44, 31 May 2026 (UTC)

We have different perspectives on this at least in part because our starting points/assumptions/axioms differ. Yours is that the default for lists is that they should include all items. Mine is that lists should accurately reflect the sources on the overarching topic (same as all articles). That's in line with policies like WP:PROPORTION and WP:NOTEVERYTHING.

I think you are making a category error that renders the whole thing more-or-less moot. I do not see a problem with imposing a size limit on certain kinds of lists while allowing other kinds of lists to be longer than that. It just means that the topic is not suited to the former kind of list, though it could still be appropriate for the latter kind of list. In this case, the former kind of list is "list everything—regardless of WP:Notability and significance to the overall topic" and the second is "take other considerations than pure membership into account". There are many different kinds of lists, and different considerations apply for each. Even if we discount things like indices, timelines, and glossaries for the moment, a list like List of science-fiction authors is basically just an enumeration of entries, while something like List of box office records set by Avengers: Endgame contains a fair amount of additional information about each entry to provide context, and a list like List of ironclad warships of the Ottoman Empire is mostly in prose. Which kind(s) of list would be appropriate in any particular case depends on the topic and sources. Attempting to craft guidance that applies to all of them simultaneously is bound to result in fairly non-specific stuff such as "reflect the sources on the overarching topic" and/or guidance that is counterproductive for some of them. How such theoretical guidance should look is therefore a red herring—guidance should be written for specific types, as is already the case, and possibly for the "none of the above apply" category.

Given that Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lists of works says Lists of published works should be included for authors, illustrators, photographers and other artists. The individual items in the list do not have to be sufficiently notable to merit their own separate articles. Complete lists of works, appropriately sourced to reliable scholarship (WP:V), are encouraged, particularly when such lists are not already freely available on the internet., we could add something like Certain types of lists, such as lists of works by a single creator, are encouraged to include all items regardless of how long the list would be; such lists may nevertheless need to be subdivided, e.g. chronologically, alphabetically, or by type, to keep the page size manageable. to WP:CSC#3. TompaDompa (talk) 19:37, 31 May 2026 (UTC)

Giving me your interpretation of "these should only be created if a complete list is reasonably short and could be useful" did not require any of this.

Your blanket assertion that I'm making a category error was also unrequited.

See you in RfC. Selbstporträt (talk) 20:54, 31 May 2026 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lists of works is mainly about a ==Books== section inside a biography, rather than Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:35, 31 May 2026 (UTC)

I don't understand why you say that when it explicitly covers separate list articles:

Lists of published works should be included for authors, illustrators, photographers and other artists. The individual items in the list do not have to be sufficiently notable to merit their own separate articles. Complete lists of works, appropriately sourced to reliable scholarship (WP:V), are encouraged, particularly when such lists are not already freely available on the internet. If the list has a separate article, a simplified version should also be provided in the main article.

When to split out articles: If an article already exists on an author or artist, then a separate article for a list of that person's works (such as Jorge Luis Borges bibliography or Robert A. Heinlein bibliography) is warranted if the list becomes so long that its inclusion in the main article would be unsuitable. See Category:Bibliographies by writer, Category:Filmographies, and Category:Discographies for specific examples.

TompaDompa (talk) 22:31, 31 May 2026 (UTC)

Yes, these three sentences exist, but it is "mainly" about the embedded lists of works inside a larger article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:44, 31 May 2026 (UTC)

While working on my notes, I stumbled upon WP:FLCR's mention of eight items:

In length and/or topic, it meets all of the requirements for stand-alone lists and includes at minimum eight items

I would be remiss not to note that the second criterion is comprehensiveness, which starts with:

It comprehensively covers the defined scope, providing at least all of the major items and, where practical, a complete set of items; where appropriate, it has annotations that provide useful and appropriate information about the items.

We should seek excellence. Emulating featured lists should be the default. Selbstporträt (talk) 21:56, 30 May 2026 (UTC)

List of entire families killed in the Gaza war

The discussion at Talk:List_of_entire_families_killed_in_the_Gaza_war#LISTCRITERIA could use some guidance as to what would be good selection criteria for that article. VR 18:28, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

Short, complete lists of every item

How is that a selection criterion? Selbstporträt (talk) 06:02, 31 May 2026 (UTC)

How is "everything" a "selection" criterion? Well, it tells you what's been chosen: "Select all" is still "selecting" (just not selective in the sense of exclusive/excluding things). WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:19, 31 May 2026 (UTC)

The lead says a selection criterion should present the characteristics required for an entry to be included in an article. "Short" and "complete" characterize lists, not their items.

If we truly need a selection criterion for a complete list, it should be membership, i.e. it fits the description expressed by the title, described by the lead, etc. We want all the French departments: the selection criterion is being a department of France. Or equivalently two criteria: it's French and it's a department.

(That example shows a problem with the 50 lowball. Also, that page is 77KB. Good luck trying to slap it with a hat: it's already quite tight. The title containing to word "list" is a redirect to the page.)

To insist that items should be "verifiable" is redundant: that comes with V. Same for the criterion itself, but because of N.

That's really not a well-formed example. Selbstporträt (talk) 07:00, 31 May 2026 (UTC)

Just noticed that the "Page Size" tool does not exist in French. The information on the page only gives 146 667B, which means very little. No word count, nothing else. That limit is truly worse than nothing.Selbstporträt (talk) 07:07, 31 May 2026 (UTC)

I'm not sure that Departments of France would be considered a Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists; it looks like 50% of the page is non-list content. But I agree with you that the community would reject any claims that a complete list of all 101 departments is too long. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:07, 31 May 2026 (UTC)

Rather a moot point given that they are all presumably WP:Notable, no? TompaDompa (talk) 19:14, 31 May 2026 (UTC)

No. Selbstporträt (talk) 20:58, 31 May 2026 (UTC)

Wasn't particularly talking to you, but I know that you believe that guidance that explicitly applies to WP:CSC#3-type lists should be treated as applying to all lists. Category error, as before. TompaDompa (talk) 22:35, 31 May 2026 (UTC)

From now on, please stay out of my threads. Selbstporträt (talk) 22:53, 31 May 2026 (UTC)

I don't understand how the two of you got cross-wise of each other, but I would appreciate it if you stopped picking at each other. By "picking at each other", I particularly mean repeatedly saying things such as that the other person has made a category error or that you'll see them at the RFC. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:17, 31 May 2026 (UTC)

I didn't make any category error. That's just silly. I do intend to open an RfC on "list size limits".

For now, "Short, complete lists of every item that is verifiably a member of the group" does not correspond to any selection criteria. By contrast, "Every entry in the list fails the notability criteria" or "Every entry meets the notability criteria for its own article in the English Wikipedia" do.

The criterion is "every entry is a member of a group". This criterion can be used for incomplete lists too. This criterion can definitely be used for more than short lists.

You introduced that sentence 16 years ago. It needs to be corrected. Selbstporträt (talk) 23:45, 31 May 2026 (UTC)

In re I didn't make any category error: I don't care whether you made such an error. I want Tompa to stop claiming you did, because it's not helpful. And I want you to stop telling Tompa that you're going to start an RFC. Start an RFC, or don't start an RFC, but stop "threatening" Tompa with an RFC, because it's not helpful.

I agree that the common selection criteria could be improved. The question is how we want to improve them. I think we agree that we don't want more lists to appear in Special:LongPages just so we can have the satisfaction of "completeness". We similarly need to keep the statement that the entries are "verifiably" members, because it's not unusual to have editors know that a non-notable member would belong in a "complete" list, but to not be able to verify that in a reliable source (e.g., if they have private knowledge about what should be in the List of largest employers in Ruritania or if they just attended the soft opening of a new candidate for the List of restaurants in the Las Vegas Valley). WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:26, 1 June 2026 (UTC)

If we need to say that items need to be verifiable, then it should be put right at the beginning of the section. Every single item must be verifiable. Every criterion needs to select verifiable items. There's nothing special about that specific example.

By the same token, we should distinguish the fact that an item itself is verifiable from the fact that its membership is. We want to make sure that Bełchatów Power Station is a power station. We don't need to find a source that says it's the 8th biggest or even among the largest power stations in the world. That's the result of our own criteria to make the List of largest power stations. Those who insist that this would be OR needs to be intimated in gentle terms to pipe down once and for all. That we list power stations has already been granted by the notability of the page itself.

That a criterion is a criterion needs not be verifiable: it's an editorial decision. (*That* is a category error; using the expression without having read at least one paper from Gilbert Ryle should be forbidden.) "We pick the 1000th first prime numbers" is not something we need to verify. That should be clarified. Same for the suggestion that notability is objective. It's not: "the following sets of objective criteria" is incorrect. Again, *we* decide what's notable—it's an editorial decision. Two things that have been left there for no valid reason in our previous episode, four months ago.

This stonewalling has kept the only page we got in a morass of absurdities that should have taken an afternoon to make disappear. Genug ist genug. Selbstporträt (talk) 15:06, 1 June 2026 (UTC)

Having found back WP:BLAME, I can report that "Short, complete" has been added in 2010. Selbstporträt (talk) 12:30, 31 May 2026 (UTC)

Notes on list size and other nits

Here are 66 notes I drafted for an eventual AfC—On selection criteria.

Please forgive the typos and the rough formulas. It's a first draft.

I care enough about these matters to have spent an inordinate amount of time on this. It made me discover some things about the Metapedian framework. In the long run, this will save me time in future discussions based on mutual misspecifications.

I will work on a TL;DR soon.  Done Selbstporträt (talk) 17:52, 2 June 2026 (UTC)

I don't know if you want feedback on/further discussion about this, but here goes:

To points 62–65: I do not share your priors. Most crucially, I do not share the perspective that We seek comprehensive lists—complete when practical, with the major items otherwise, and detailed. (point 12). Rather, we seek to accurately reflect the coverage of the overarching topic found in the relevant sources (same as all articles), as per policies like WP:PROPORTION (An article should not give undue weight to minor aspects of its subject but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight proportional to its treatment in the body of reliable, published material on the subject.) and WP:NOTEVERYTHING (Information should not be included solely because it is true or useful. An article should not be a complete presentation of all possible details, but a summary of accepted knowledge regarding its subject. Verifiable and sourced statements should be treated with appropriate weight.). That does not necessarily correspond to listing all items or the major items, and "reflect the sources accurately" is a better guiding principle than "be comprehensive" overall. There are a number of points that are so-to-speak downstream of this.

Similarly, I don't agree with point 3: A size limit for stand-alone lists should apply to all of them, not only a subset. (and as a consequence, I also disagree with several of the points that follow). It may very well be appropriate for different kinds of lists to have different size limits (and both upper and lower limits may be appropriate). As an analogy: a haiku is three lines long, a limerick is five lines, a sonnet is fourteen lines, and an epic poem can be thousands of lines long. These are all (different kinds of) poems, and yet the length constraints are different. Different kinds of list articles use the list format in different ways, and there is no particular reason the same limit(s) should apply for e.g. a list that is basically just an enumeration of items (e.g. List of science-fiction authors), one that contains a significant amount of additional information about each entry to provide context (e.g. List of box office records set by Avengers: Endgame), and a list that is mainly in a prose format (e.g. List of ironclad warships of the Ottoman Empire).

For points 51–52, which I largely agree with, I think it would be helpful to provide a link to List of largest power stations#Coal for context. I would also make an explicit reference to WP:CALC. That being said: if we want to say explicitly (e.g. by providing a numeric rank) that Bełchatów Power Station is the 8th biggest power station (of its kind), that claim needs to be verifiable—i.e. it needs to be verifiable that our list isn't missing any larger entries (we don't need sources to verify that it ranks behind at least 7 others, since ordering entries by a numeric value is a WP:Routine calculation, but we do need sources to verify that it ranks behind exactly 7 others). When we don't have sources to verify that the rankings are correct, the proper course of action is to present an ordered but unranked list.

Perhaps we can find some kind of middle ground or rephrasings that we can both agree upon. Worth a shot, at least. TompaDompa (talk) 16:01, 7 June 2026 (UTC)

To make my main point a bit more succinctly, it boils down to this: let's say a situation arises where reflecting the sources accurately and making a comprehensive list (in the manner you define it) conflict with each other. Which of those two considerations should take precedence? I say the former. TompaDompa (talk) 16:12, 7 June 2026 (UTC)

Alright. Since an editor wants me to debate "ideas", I'll address the main one:

For your hypothetical case to work, you need to presume having access to knowledge that extends beyond reliable sources. It is in fact unverifiable knowledge.

That is a prior.

I dispute that prior: we only deal with what is verifiable. While you (even a group of editors) can have some privileged access to knowledge nobody else can read in reliable sources, this is not something editors should worry about when making editorial decisions about the scope of a page. Our pages can only go as far as V goes. That's even clearer when we are talking about major items from a list.

There's only a dilemma if we disregard V and pretend we know better than our own sources. In fact, that's only a problem for disruptive editors who keep asking for sources without checking themselves.(Those who have an itch can always scratch it. Another example of a prior.) ONUS was never meant to destroy information from pages. (Not a prior.)

Your other points rehash things you already said and are simply argumentative. For instance,

WP:PROPORTION is related to neutrality. It is not quite relevant here, as 5P1 obviously does not conflict with 5P2. Also, I haven't "defined" comprehensiveness. There's no special definition attached to my argument: "comprehensive" simply means comprehensive.

To make a more general point about the commitments behind all these discussions: I'm not here to adjudicate or even address concerns about everyone's pet edge case. Even less so when these are mere possibilia void of any rational basis. I'm still quite confident that everything I'm asking for should have been granted in less than a few hours in normal editorial settings. Selbstporträt (talk) 21:45, 7 June 2026 (UTC)

I haven't "defined" comprehensiveness. There's no special definition attached to my argument: "comprehensive" simply means comprehensive. You have said what you mean by "comprehensive", at point 12 of User:Selbstporträt/Drafts/On selection criteria, where you say:

We seek comprehensive lists—complete when practical, with the major items otherwise, and detailed.

and also at User:Selbstporträt/Drafts/Ways of listmaking#Comprehensive, where you say:

We seek comprehensive lists: ones that present all items when possible or practical (the major ones otherwise), and contextualize them when relevant.

That's what I'm responding to.
For your hypothetical case to work, you need to presume having access to knowledge that extends beyond reliable sources. My hypothetical case in which a situation arises where reflecting the sources accurately and making a comprehensive list [...] conflict with each other only requires sources differing on what is an example and what is not. Such cases are not too difficult to find. See e.g. List of military disasters, List of fictional antiheroes, or basically any list of works by genre. Those are cases where membership is subjective, debatable, and/or controversial. There is often tension between editors who think the lists should take an inclusive approach and list anything that any WP:Reliable source deems an example, even if that is a clear minority position, and editors who think the lists should take a more restrictive approach to inclusion and only list items that sources (more-or-less) agree belong. We might perhaps say that the former group seeks to make comprehensive lists and the latter seeks to reflect the overall body of sources accurately. It should hopefully not be too difficult to see how neutrality is relevant here. TompaDompa (talk) 14:30, 14 June 2026 (UTC)

When I read something like "we seek comprehensive lists", I assume that the meaning is more like "If you know that 100 entries should be in this list, it's not good to put six on the page and then stop; it's very bad to put six wildly unrepresentative people on the list and then stop." In other words, if you're making a List of Big University alumni, please try to put 100 names on the list, but if you only have time to put six on them, please don't put the only six notable murderers in the university's history, and then leave readers with the false impression that a lot of the the university's alumni are murderers. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:16, 7 June 2026 (UTC)

Relatedly:

It is our hope that other Wikipedians will pick up where we leave off, and add more items to the list, bringing it, if not to completion, at least to a mature state in which only minor updates are required as times change. Of course, it's not clear for all lists what should or shouldn't be on them, and completion may never be clear for these lists, but there should at least come a point where most representative and widely agreed-upon entries are present.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Lists#Dynamic_lists Selbstporträt (talk) 18:18, 10 June 2026 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing: I daresay your reading of "we seek comprehensive lists" is not universal. Another possible reading is "the inclusion criteria should be as inclusive as possible".

Another way of stating that there should at least come a point where most representative and widely agreed-upon entries are present might perhaps be that there should at least come a point when the list accurately reflects the overall body of sources. Of course, "representative entries" and "widely agreed-upon entries" may be quite different ones—editors may have different interpretations of which, if either, corresponds to "major entries". TompaDompa (talk) 14:30, 14 June 2026 (UTC)

I don't agree that inclusion criteria should be as inclusive as possible. If that's a realistic/common interpretation of "comprehensive", then we should define our terms.

The notion with a short, comprehensive list that doesn't depend on notability is basically this situation: You want to make a List of presidents of Big University. It is not an old university, so there have only been 12 of them. Ten of the 12 are notable, i.e., they qualify for a Wikipedia:Separate, stand-alone article. You should make a list that includes all 12, even two of them are non-notable. It does not make sense in such a situation to make a partial list of university presidents.

You do not, however, in that situation need to make the criteria as inclusive as possible. There is no requirement to include the interim president, the acting president, the dean who basically ran the university during that incompetent guy's tenure, the vice president who was in charge while the penultimate president was recovering from heart bypass surgery, etc. It's enough to include all 12 of the actual university presidents. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:11, 14 June 2026 (UTC)

That's fine for WP:CSC#3 lists, i.e. Short, complete lists of every item that is verifiably a member of the group. The problem becomes when we say "we seek comprehensive lists" across the board (or that comprehensiveness should be the default), because it doesn't apply neatly to all lists—especially something like List of military disasters, List of fictional antiheroes, or basically any list of works by genre, where membership is subjective, debatable, and/or controversial. TompaDompa (talk) 09:45, 15 June 2026 (UTC)

I don't think we always seek comprehensive lists. Also, "comprehensive" isn't in this guideline. It appears in Wikipedia:Featured list criteria, where it is defined as being something less than complete (e.g., "at least all of the major items"). It presumably takes the word from Wikipedia:Featured article criteria and is intended to carry the same meaning. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:36, 15 June 2026 (UTC)

I think you and I are largely in agreement here. I know that "comprehensive"/"comprehensiveness" is not in the guideline, but it has been used in the talk page discussion here. It is statements like The very idea of a list is to list items. By default, we should list them all. (here), Comprehensiveness is critical to the objective of being an encyclopedia. (here), and So beyond technical limitations, and barring editorial decisions regarding the existence of the page itself (what is usually called N), we should try to seek completeness. If that can't work, then we should shoot for comprehensiveness. (here) that I am concerned about. TompaDompa (talk) 20:11, 15 June 2026 (UTC)