Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of lists of lists (6th nomination)

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was Snow keep. However, there's no prejudice against Aymatth2 renominating this with a proper rationale. (non-admin closure) –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 22:23, 10 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

List of lists of lists

[Hide this box] New to Articles for deletion (AfD)? Read these primers!

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

Self-referential meta nonsense page. Jtrainor (talk) 23:41, 8 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Keep extremely useful page and the nominator has not provided any proper rationale. Mccapra (talk) 00:19, 9 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - It's a list of lists of lists, and even if it could be seen as "meta nonsense", that isn't a reason to delete it. This list has also survived 5 deletion discussions: the first, way back in 2012, was withdrawn [1]. The other 4 deletion discussions ended in keeps, the most recent being a snow keep in August 2017 [2]. This list meets the purposes of lists. The list itself has also been mentioned by multiple media organizations. Clovermoss (talk) 01:38, 9 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per the last 5 times this was nominated. – Anne drew 01:52, 9 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, prohibit future noms. Hyperbolick (talk) 03:53, 9 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Snowball keep - see previous 5 failed noms. [Belinrahs|^talk⁄ _edits] 04:09, 9 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Keep No valid rationale for deletion has been presented by the nom. Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 12:35, 9 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. It is not clear what value this article provides compared to Category:Lists of lists. Both are organized by subject area (although they do not have the same breakdown). The article has about 700 lists of lists while the category has just over 1,100. Most lists are not in any list of lists, so neither this article nor the category would help a general reader. They might be useful to an editor who is starting a new list of lists and wants to see how similar lists of lists have been structured. But why do we need both this article and the category? Aymatth2 (talk) 14:31, 9 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

WP:NOTDUPE covers this pretty well; basically, categories and lists may cover the same topic but they aren't considered unnecessary duplicates because both have advantages and disadvantages compared to the other. [Belinrahs|^talk⁄ _edits] 22:16, 9 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Ordinary list articles can provide additional information, structure, sources and so on compared to a category. For lists of lists the value is less obvious, particularly when the list of lists simply duplicates the category in the same alphabetical sequence, with no additional information. This is discussed in the essay Wikipedia:Lists of lists#Purpose. For this article, at yet another level of abstraction, I struggle to see any value that is not provided by Category:Lists of lists. Aymatth2 (talk) 23:48, 9 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Even if the norm had not been (for years, and even on other projects such as Wikia, as was already mentioned above, as a reply to your previous comment, and before you made this comment) to provide both categories and list articles, there would still be only 48 articles in that category and hundreds in the article. Anarchangel (talk) 02:19, 10 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

List of lists of lists has 707 entries. Category:lists of lists has 1,113 entries, including sub-categories. See this scan. Aymatth2 (talk) 13:32, 10 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Inasmuch as it contradicts WP:NOTDUPE's "arguing that a category duplicates a list (or vice versa) at a deletion discussion is not a valid reason for deletion and should be avoided", it is Lists of Lists#Purpose which is redundant, and should be deleted. It is an essay, while DUPE is a Guideline. NOTDUPE has a rationale: "Consider that lists may include features not available to categories", which has already been presented here, and which "Purpose" does not address, somewhat ironically given its title. Anarchangel (talk) 02:28, 10 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Lists of lists do have value, as noted in "Purpose", but they are not useful if they give no more information or structure than a category. Aymatth2 (talk) 13:32, 10 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Per WP:LISTPURP, particularly Navigation, which probably says this better than I can. I'm kind of shocked people think this page isn't useful. As a reader I've frequently used this page for navigating on subject matters I'm not familiar with. I've particularly found it's useful for identifying things like specific films whose names I can't remember, but have used it many times to read up on other subjects that I don't know very much about and would otherwise have difficulty researching in. It's hard to search for lists of lists if you're not sure if the list you're looking for exists. Darthkayak (talk) 05:26, 10 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Darthkayak:. You may find Category:Lists of film lists more up-to-date than List of lists of lists#Performing arts. Compare List of Araneidae species to List of Cyatholipidae species. The first is a list of lists and is in Category:Lists of species lists (but not in List of lists of lists#Biology). The second is not a list of lists. A reader looking for members of a spider family is unlikely to find it in the category or the list article. Both only give access to a very small subset of lists, and an even smaller subset of articles. Aymatth2 (talk) 13:32, 10 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Aymatth2: Ah thanks! I'll definitely start using Category:Lists of film lists when I have trouble identifying films. That said, my point is less about the current state of the article, which I think is not up to date, and more about the potential value of the article for casual navigation - I am certain there are readers who have used it for similar purposes as I have, but for whom it wouldn't occur to look further into the category pages. Darthkayak (talk) 20:07, 10 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

My concern is not that List of lists of lists is out of date and incomplete, but that even if it were a perfect match to Category:Lists of lists, and even if that category were fully populated, it would still lead to a very arbitrary subset. Most articles are not in lists, and most lists are not in lists of lists. A reader who tries to locate an article through the lists-of-lists tree is very unlikely to find it. c (talk) 21:06, 10 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.