Wikipedia:OkayVsNotOkayListsOfPlaces

Many potential lists of places are legitimate list-article topics for Wikipedia. Many more are not.

Examples, existing
In Wikipedia, for pretty much any kind of "place", i.e. any kind of "thing" which has a permanent or semi-permanent location (i.e. for which a principal latitude and longitude can be determined), it is probably legitimate to have list of the notable examples of that type. Note, there may be no notable examples of the type, at all. And if the list of notables is a short list, it should just be included in the article about that kind of thing. For example, a List of C.S.P.S. buildings is fairly short, so that term is just a redirect, and the list is kept within the Czech-Slovak Protective Society article. But if the list is long, it is justifiable to split it out as a separate list-article. Examples include:
 * List of Congregational churches. Many individual church buildings are historic sites.  And some churches without distinctive buildings are notable as congregations/organizations.  It is not helpful to split articles between the individual churches as congregations or organizations vs. the same as buildings, so we have just one article for each building/congregation combo, and just one list, which pretty much looks like a list of places.
 * List of fire stations. This was created in 2018, starting with a list of some of the historic ones which happen to be listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.  It is organized by nation then by state, and includes notable examples in 15 nations.  It is too long to be included within the Fire station article.  You too can create a list-article for any one of many types of things in the hierarchy below Category:Places or Category:Buildings and structures by type or similar.
 * List of museum ships. Transportation vehicles are obviously movable, but most of the museum ones are permanently moored, and the usual berths of all the others are usually pretty well fixed, even if they go out for a sail occasionally.
 * List of Masonic buildings. This was hugely contentious;  it was endlessly debated by some editors whether a Masonic building is a thing, or whether the secretive Masons wanted Wikipedia to cover them or not.  However there are many obviously notable publicly known examples.  These, like Elks Clubs and some other club buildings, are salient landmarks in many U.S. small towns.  Europeans tend not to know that, it turns out.
 * List of women's clubs. Many women's clubs are associated with a specific building, and the ones that have a dedicated building, historic or otherwise, are more likely to be obviously notable.  So most of the items on this list are places, for which coordinates can be reported.  This is a mixed list including county-, state-, and national-level organizations that don't have a specific point location attached to them.

Examples, not-yet-existing

 * List of pizzerias (currently a redirect to List of pizza chains). Up until November 2011, Wikipedia had a "List of pizzerias".  It was pretty unmanageable, because there were too many arriving editors adding their favorite local pizzerias, or the one they owned, or the one they were being paid to promote.  Towards cutting down on that, the list-article was moved to List of pizza chains, instead.  And argument continues at its Talk page about how big a pizza chain must be to deserve mention there (10 or more locations? 100 or more?).  However, it is pretty obvious that some one-off pizzerias are notable, and surely it would be legitimate to re-establish a "List of pizzerias" to list them, with some very clear definition of list-item-notability (probably that each item must be individually notable).  In the past more new editors used to show up than do nowadays, so this would be more manageable now.  It might need to be protected for editing only by registered editors.
 * Many types of places that can be listed are suggested by browsing Category:Buildings and structures by type and in databases such as the NRIS database of U.S. National Register of Historic Places (with about 90,000 places; see wp:NRHPHELP about using an online NRIS search system) and the SAH Archipedia database (with about 26,000 places; try browsing "by type" at SAH Archipedia - by type). Some examples suggested implicitly in the latter:
 * List of A-frame houses (currently a redlink, though there is A-frame house article)
 * List of almshouses (currently a redlink, though there is List of almshouses in Ireland and List of almshouses in the United Kingdom and Category:Almshouses)
 * List of animal shelters (currently a redlink, though there is Animal shelter and Category:Animal shelters)
 * List of armories (currently a redlink, though there exists List of Confederate arsenals and armories and List of armories and arsenals in New York City and surrounding counties and List of armouries in Canada and Category:Armories (military))
 * List of assembly plants (currently a redlink)
 * And that is just a few suggestions from the types under "A"!

What about non-notable items, can they be included in a list-article?
Well, the general policy/practice has been that the editors of a list-article can determine, themselves, by discussion at its Talk page, what are the list-member inclusion criteria for that list. So, a redlink item might be included, at least with a supporting reference that establishes the probable-Wikipedia-notability of the item. Redlinks indicate to readers and editors that a separate article is wanted. Or a "blacklink" item might be included, also where supported by reference(s), but not suggesting that a separate Wikipedia article on the topic is likely to be notable and is wanted. Defining and managing list-item-notability criteria in this customized-to-a-list way is workable where there is an active/interested group of editors maintaining the list-article, and where sufficient attention can be brought to bear to make good decisions. When there is disagreement about list-item-notability, the usual processes for resolution of content disagreements should be followed: for example, use the relatively lightweight wp:THIRDOPINION service, or, use the more formal Requests for comment process.

Managing non-notable items, when there is insufficient attention of editors to consider everything
There exist many list-articles where there is no longer, or never was, sufficient attention of editors to manage the list properly. And it is possible/likely that hundreds of list-articles in certain topic areas can be mass-produced where only a bot, or only one or two editors, has any involvement. In these cases we do not have sufficient editor attention to allow for usual content dispute resolution processes to work, if/when there is any disagreement. And we probably do not want just one editor jumping in selectively, to one or a few out of the hundreds of similar list-articles, to set a different list-item-notability standard. Say if a paid editor was jumping in to set a different standard for the list-article which, if no one objects, could carry a lot of promotional stuff for their client. These low-involvement lists should be managed in a uniform way, to serve readers better and to preclude shenanigans.

For these, the default list-item-notability criteria should be that only items having a separate Wikipedia article are acceptable. If a computer program is run to generate thousands of list-articles, say of every business that has ever existed with name including the term or word "AAA" or "AA" or "Aaron" or "Aardvark", etc. (and supposing that each such list was allowed in Wikipedia), it would not be plausible that there would be an active editor group managing each one. So only "AAA" organizations that have a separate article should be allowed in its list. And, by the way, the list should not be a regular list-article, anyhow, it should be a disambiguation page, because the various businesses named "AAA" really have nothing in common, except the text-string in their names, which is a trivial, non-defining characteristic. Note, by rules for Wikipedia categories, we would not want to have a Category:Businesses with AAA in their name. Readers' need for navigation is served fine by a disambiguation page: AAA (disambiguation).

Breaking out lists of places by region
The lists can include all examples whose individual notability is clear, either as "bluelinks" from them already having an individual Wikipedia article, or as "redlinks with sources". Note some examples might be assumed notable because they are listed on a historic registry say, for which it is known that lots of documentation will be available. Any such list can be subdivided by region if necessary for reasons of length:
 * List of synagogues has a high level page but splits out List of synagogues in Israel, List of synagogues in Mexico, List of synagogues in the United Kingdom, and some more.

Each of these less-than-worldwide lists might be seen as, technically, examples of "cross-categorization lists": e.g. one itemizes the intersection of SYNAGOGUES and REGION, both of which are legitimate topics. It is surely legitimate to divide a too-long worldwide list of places by region (continent, nation, state/province, county, etc.), however finely is necessary to reduce down the area size so that sublists are manageable. It might or might not be legitimate to subdivide in more than one way, e.g. to have a system of "Lists of lakes by REGION", where areas are defined as legal regions, and also to have a completely parallel system of "Lists of lakes by WATERSHED", defined by rivers that drain them.

It is surely NOT legitimate to divide a world-wide list of places by TRIVIAL CHARACTERISTICS. Trivial characteristics are not valid for categories. For example:
 * We do not want a list of pizzerias by longitude, or by latitude. Maybe it is interesting to note that there is one pizzeria closest to the North Pole, which can be mentioned in List of northernmost places, but we don't want sublists of pizzerias in the range from latitude 40 to 41, from 41 to 42, etc.).  "Northernmost" is a superlative.  It might be legitimate to have, for every worldwide list of places, a sublist for each of several relevant superlatives.  For example, we have List of largest lakes by volume, List of largest lakes by area, and List of largest lakes by depth (see: 2017 AFD about them).
 * We do not want a list of lakes by name. There are millions of lakes in the world.  The ones having articles can be categorized by region, e.g. "Category:Quebec", but there is no legitimacy to categories "by name" like "Category:Things named Christine" vs. "Category:Things named Christina" etc.  We might need to disambiguate between same-named places, which is different.  Apparently two or more lakes named Christine are notable so we need to have a disambiguation page, Lake Christine (disambiguation).  (And Christina Lake (disambiguation) has five!)  But a disambiguation page is only to serve readers by allowing them to navigate to articles which carry substantial coverage.  A disambiguation page cannot include sources, and can't include descriptions beyond what is necessary for navigation. One does not have license to start a list-article reporting facts about each of the examples of same-named lakes, because the topic is not notable.  There exist no reliable sources, anywhere, discussing "Lakes named Christine" as a group.

There is a disambiguation page
Note, we have ___what approximate number?__ LOTS of disambiguation pages, i.e. collections of same-named items (places, people, whatever). There is no automatic pass allowing there to be a Wikipedia list-article corresponding to every disambiguation page. It would be awful if there were. We don't want BOGUS list-topics like: etc.
 * "List of lakes named Black" which could include more than 6,000 lakes and ponds, few having articles
 * "List of persons named Jefferson Davis", which could include a couple notable persons of that name, and many thousands of non-notable ones

Commercial places
The locations for all of these can be known: Hopefully Wikipedia will never enumerate these.
 * List of Planet Fitness gyms (currently a redlink). These gyms are famous as "no judgment zones".  The Planet Fitness official website provides a clickable map allowing one to zoom in and find all of their locations.  Wikipedia would add nothing by duplicating that.  And probably not a single one of them is individually notable.  Or do we want to exercise no judgment, and itemize them, anyhow?  After all, they are verifiable....
 * List of Subway locations (currently a redlink) In 2018 there were 43,985 of these, it is the biggest chain of restaurants in the world, ahead of McDonald's, KFC, Pizza Hut, and Starbucks!
 * List of Netto Marken-Discount stores (currently a redlink). There are more than 4,000 of these!

About list-item notability
In general, for any list-article, editors of that article are allowed to define, by discussion at the Talk page, what items will be allowed. Perhaps most often, only items whose individual notability is established by their already having separate wikipedia articles are allowed. These would show as redlinks. Also, some other examples may be included as "blacklinks", i.e. the example is sort of significant (established by linking to some article which mentions it, or by explicit references) but we don't want to suggest a separate article is wanted.

This is often modified by allowing, also, examples which are probably individually notable, established by dint of a good reference or two. Rarely (or never?) should any worldwide list allow just any example. We must exercise some level of judgment.

And, for any huge system of lists, perhaps generated by a bot run, where there will not be sufficient interest by editors to discuss membership criteria separately for each, we must impose some common standard. Probably that any members must be individually notable, and already have articles. We cannot allow just anyone, unsupervised, to create thousands of lists including lots of non-notable items. Else, for every existing place name covered in a disambiguation page, do we want to have a bot create a bigger list, including all those in the dab, plus tens, hundreds, thousands of others from databases or from searching Google? List of persons named William Allen (currently a redlink), could include the two notable architects of that name, the other notable persons in the dab page, plus 10,397 others found in White Pages?

For every "geographic place" in United States GNIS, do we want a list of all the same-named ones? Lakes named Black would have more than 6,000 members. Lakes with text-string "MARY" in their name would have lots. There are many more names that are obscure, but will still have multiple hits. Lakes named "McArthur" would get eight or so. The concept of "Lake McArthur" has been studied in several AFDs, so it is known that no pair of these are named for the same eponymn, even. Out of the smaller where the namesake is known. For most of them, nothing substantial beyond the triviality of its coordinates is known. From more than two million items in GNIS, there would be thousands of sets of same- or similarly named places, with each set connected only by the TRIVIAL characteristic of their naming. We already do have a disambiguation page, Black Lake (disambiguation), which lists the notable examples. Padding that disambiguation page out with non-notable examples helps no one. No one is plausibly interested in the larger collection of these, and if there was such a person, they could build a list of them easily enough, on their own.

More about McArthur
It has been suggested that a) List of lakes named McArthur is a "cross-categorization" list, and b) so it should be exempt, because it is noted that Wikipedia community is not clear about cross-categorization and other complicated lists. About a), no, this is NOT a cross-categorization list. If it were, then it would presumably be the intersection of two categories, which would be Category:Lakes (which is okay as a category, corresponding to a world-wide List of lakes), and Category:Things named McArthur and/or with alternate spellings.  But that is not a category, and would not be allowed, because it is trivial.  Consider the fact that there are many things in the world with McArthur name, including:
 * many people having that name (some listed at McArthur (surname) and MacArthur (surname).
 * bridges: McArthur Bridge redirects to dab page MacArthur Bridge which includes 5 examples (currently 3 being bluelinks, 1 redlink, and a blacklink for which an article is not :Sea, but linking to an article where it is mentioned).
 * mountains? McArthur Mountain Mount McArthur?
 * garages: MacArthur Garage is a redlink but Google finds a restaurant of that name (MacArthur Garage webpage. There is a Warren McArthur Garage which might be notable, being associated with Frank Lloyd Wright (/warren McArthur Garage).
 * houses: McArthur House designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, but no disambiguation page.
 * misc. historic sites including in the U.S.:
 * Willie T. McArthur Farm, Ailey, GA
 * McArthur-Council House, Grays Creek, NC
 * McArthur-Martin Hexadecagon Barn, Bloomville, NY
 * song: MacArthur Park, which is recorded by many artists, including by Richard Harris, Four Tops, and Glen Campbell
 * streets: McArthur St. in
 * Muscatine, IA
 * Waiainae, HI
 * Etobicoke, a neighborhood in Toronto, Ontario (with video about a house for sale)
 * Tallahassee, FL (where a body was found)
 * Charlotte, SC
 * Dyersburg, TN, the last one on the first page of 10 Google hits, i am not going further.
 * cats, dogs, other pets? maybe some of these? (cat video, "viral")
 * Google on "McArthur cat" brings up:
 * a pet hospital Bytown Cat Hospital, at 422 McArthur Ave., Ottawa, ON
 * Youtube video [Little Blue Cat] mentioning McArthur Cutting, which seems to be about McArthur Cutting Show, i.e. cowboy-types riding cutting horses to lasso cattle, in a rodeo in McArthur, California
 * White pages lists: 716 found in Ohio.
 * Companies: McArthur Landscape Co., McArthur Concrete, McArthur Dairy, McArthur Truckers, etc.

Does one get to list all of these and thousands more, in a List of animal, vegetable, mineral things named McArthur?

Great exception for "set index articles"????
It is claimed by some that any wp:SIA is notable. And, in contradiction to Wikipedia's guideline for set index articles, it has been argued that a set index article is any list of things whose definition is clear, i.e. where it can be determined whether a new item can be included or not. If true, that would be amazing. Consider any garage band anywhere, it can be covered in a new list of garage bands in its neighborhood, which you can just start up. Or if it has a non-unique name (and few do), you can just start a list of "Bands named X". Consider any person whose biographical article is up for deletion at AFD, e.g. there is one now for a person named Adam Achmed. well maybe the person is not individually notable, but if we add coverage of another one, then "List of persons named Adam Achmed" can be called a set index article. And by the supposed GREAT EXCEPTION FOR SET INDEX ARTICLES, there is no need to establish notability for the group or for any member of the group! That is a loophole any paid contributor can drive a few trucks through! Yay! (But no, in fact the requirements for set index articles include that they must meet all requirements of any standalone list, which include meeting wp:LISTN.)

We are not allowed to just switch off our brains, because we see that there exist several places sharing the same name, say.

But information would be lost!!!
Cue sad music. See "Lamp", a 60 second Youtube video, which presents the award-winning Ikea commercial about a red lamp, how you should just throw it away, please. You crazy!

If an existing list of places is deleted, the information that has been gathered together will be deleted, and that is intolerable, isn't it? Well, it is quite tolerable in fact. If you are talking about the trivial information of the places' locations, i.e. their coordinates, that information is readily available elsewhere, in Google maps, in the U.S. GNIS database, etc. If you are really concerned that some future reader might arrive and be unable to duplicate the job which you yourself have done, by your running Google searches and so on and rounding up a list of such places, well then, we suggest you write an essay about how to collect such a list. Please go to WikiHow, and write your essay about how other people could use Google and GNIS and whatever, to collect a list of places of the same name, or to collect whatever other random collection of places they might want to define. However, WikiHow probably has standards, too, and the how-to task of collecting a list of places sharing one name may not be deemed interesting or important to anyone at all, or not interesting to enough people for WikiHow to publish it. Or WikiHow might judge the advice ("use Google"?) too trivial to publish. So then you should go away and start your own blog about it, or drop the idea altogether because it is really not worthwhile.

However, if you do get WikiHow to accept your essay, say "How to identify lakes sharing your name", then this essay writer hereby promises to support you, if you want to add a little template at the bottom of every disambiguation page covering lakes, with the template providing a nicely formatted box that links to the WikiHow essay. To serve hypothetical readers, if any exist, who want to find their way to learn the coordinates and maybe a few trivial facts, for the numerous many non-Wikipedia-notable examples sharing that name.

Also, if you really feel that the topic of "lakes named X" is important for the world to know about, you are welcome to start up your own webpage, or to write for publication. If you can get your article published in a wp:reliable source, that may serve to establish the topic is legitimate for Wikipedia, and then you can come back and start your list-article. We have no idea why you would want to do that, but at least the notability issue would have been screened by someone else, i.e. the editor of the publication who exists if it indeed is a legitimate source.

But having a list-article allows information to be collected!!!
Umm, we don't want that information. Don't you have something better to do? Seriously, rather than trying to advance some trivial collection of lakes named X, or trying to coin some other group concept, couldn't you go develop one of the related articles, or try to figure out what are the most important/needed articles of that type?

Whether some examples must be individually notable
For any list of places included in Wikipedia, maybe some of them need to be individually Wikipedia notable? Well if there are sources talking about the items as a group, and listing some of them, then a list of them will probably be Wikipedia-acceptable. And not one has to have a separate article. Maybe that is good...maybe having this list in Wikipedia heads off creation of separate articles! But in practice, few lists of places, where none are notable, will likely be accepted in Wikipedia.

About bot-created list-articles
If a program can be written to churn out sublists of examples, breaking out the theoretical worldwide list of notable and completely non-notable examples of "things named X", well, we probably don't want that. Consider the possibilities:
 * A fairly well-defined program for this is effectively available to the public already. For example, there is the US GNIS database which allows one to find all lakes having character string "Mary", already.  So Wikipedia doesn't really add value by serving up a List of lakes named Mary.  Wikipedia's version doesn't help any reader who might, oddly enough, be interested in U.S. lakes of this name, and would require maintenance, and might not be as complete or current.
 * A program is not currently available, or not known to be available, but it is easily possible that one will be created and become available in the future. Or there is some method/approach which you could take, in order to build a list of these.  Well, Wikipedia does not need to jump in to serve every possible "need" which might well be served better, otherwise, either already or in the future.  As suggested above, you are welcome to write an advice column for readers about how to collect examples, and see if you can get "WikiHow" to publish it.

Google test for notability
Note, a general Google search is also available to the public. Consider the Google test for list definition. It often is not helpful at all for readers interested in a topic, for there to exist a Wikipedia list on it. Because the Wikipedia list just clutters up the Google search results. A reader might be interested in a "St. Mary's Lake" somewhere near Charleston, South Carolina which they saw had a dock that was painted yellow, but was not the similar named lake in Raleigh County. Then they probably can get better search results by googling if there is no Wikipedia "list of lakes named Saint Mary", because they won't have to wade through the Wikipedia list that turns up, which might not include it or sufficiently identify it. Even if the wikipedia list includes the one they are interested in, because in fact they want to learn something more about it, not merely to see its coordinates or what little is in the Wikipedia article. They could already see it on a map, they knew the location, but maybe their real purpose is to find out about an annual event at the lake, say, not covered in the Wikipedia list-article. Or maybe they want to find just the St. Mary's Lakes which have a summer camp on them, and the Wikipedia article is not going to help at all. They will do better with free searching, and you simply cannot anticipate and provide for all of their needs.

The Google test is: Will having a Wikipedia list on the topic help, or hurt, Google searchers?

And even if it might possibly help, why should Wikipedia do it? Couldn't Google or some other service do it better, by pre-packaging a list themselves, or by programming a more useful return from new searches for that topic? Certainly many services are trying hard to be there with the best results for any question asked by anyone. Wikipedia, instead, should provide substantial content, and not try to compete with the trivial and directory-like stuff, that others can do better and have powerful financial incentives to do so.

Databases of places / features

 * GeoNames, e.g. this search on places having word "McArthur", yielding 225 items with "McArthur" in their name and/or being located within a McArthur Township or whatever.