User talk:Bulldog123/Overlistification

Overlistification is the Overcategorization guideline tweaked for application to lists. It is a tool useful for determining when and when not to create a list, as well as a helpful tool for determining if a list should be deleted in article for deletion.

Irrelevant Intersections by Race, Gender, Beliefs, Sexuality, Ethnicity, and Religion Lists
Examples List of Hindu sportspeople, List of Catholic businesspersons, List of LGBT mathematicians, List of Libertarian celebrities, List of Jewish publishers

Lists like this should have general backing for the relationship purported in the title.

The question of what relevance, if any, the relationship has cannot be answered by original research (such as purporting a lack of, or overepresentation of, some group in some occupation/area) There must be a reasonable amount of solid, mainstream articles, books, or documentaries specifically addressing the issue of a connection between the intersectees and how that relationship is manifested for it to have some notability as an intersection. The existence of the intersection outside of wikipedia is not proof enough to prove it is a notable intersection.

Trivia and/or Trivial Lists
Examples: List of songs about suicide List of films with female leads, List of Celebrity's pets

This is essentially expanding upon what wikipedia is not: an indiscriminate collection of information. Lists such as these may prove fun and even useful, but they are ultimately of little or no academic encyclopedic value. Trivia should be saved for sites such as www.imdb.com, or, if pertinent in some way, the articles for the listees.

Agenda-Oriented Lists
Examples: List of African-American criminals, List of Nazis by IQ, List of Caucasian billionaires, List of Jewish bankers, List of LGBT artists by ranking on the top 100 greatest artists of all time

Wikipedia is not a vehicle by which to address or promote ideologies of racism, ethnic pride, stereotypes, or revisionism. Such lists are often created by users who exist solely to create and maintain the lists, though sometimes long-standing users may create them with fair reasons without noting the appearance of the list. These lists exhibit original research without actually using any sentences. Often, the lists fail to provide a companion-article, and thus fall into the same box as non-notable intersections.

Over-extensive and Under-extensive Subdivisions
Example: List of University of Washington Honorary Degree Recipients, List of Bible writers

When a list is prone to having many listees that can never have an article written about them, the list can usually be deemed as over-extensive and the information should be merged into the listee's articles instead of standing alone as a list. If a list is brief enough to merit inclusion within a companion article, it is usually under-extensive and the merging should go through. Wikipedia is not paper but it is bytes.