Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of cardinal-nephews/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured list nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page. No further edits should be made to this page. The closing editor's comments were: 11 days, 0 support, 1 oppose. After ten days there are still too many red links remaining. Fail. Crzycheetah 19:18, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Useful list spun-off from the recently-featured cardinal-nephew article, which I believe meets the featured list criteria. One potential issue may be the red-links. This issue is not addressed (as far as I can tell) in the featured list criteria, but I will create redirects/stubs for these if someone objects to them and can demonstrate policy/precedent against redlinks in featured lists. Wikipedia has been exponential growth in the area of articles about historical cardinals, and I believe that many (if not all) of these articles are likely to be created, eventually. Perhaps featuring this list will provide additional impetus for their creation. Savidan 05:57, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

• Comment The criterion (1.a.1) requests the list "brings together a group of existing articles related by well-defined entry criteria". With the word "existing" implying blue links rather than red. There is no exact threshold, but generally the red links should be a small minority. Removing the link is acceptable only if you think the entry could not be notable enough to deserve an article. I appreciate your comments about featuring providing "additional impetus for their creation" but featured material has to be useful to readers, not editors. A list of redlinks isn't that useful to our readers. If you don't feel you can create all the stubs in time, there's no shame in re-listing at a later date. Hopefully, you'll get some useful comments during this nomination. I'll have another more detailed look later on. BTW: what do you mean by "create redirects"? Why would you do this rather than stubs? Colin°^Talk 10:11, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
  • I think that both redirects and stubs would be a disservice to the project, in the same way that blank pages are harmful. They dissappoint readers looking for the article, and they demotivate editors from creating the article. I would in all likelihood redirect the nephew to the pope who was their relative, then at least the {R with possibilities} template could be employed. Is there a more specific criteria related to redlinks, though? The article does bring together a group of about 50 existing articles. Savidan 11:33, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

• The criteria used to say explicitly "A useful list must be composed of a large majority of links to existing articles (blue links)." This was changed on the 1st Feb 2007 after talk page discussions. We split 1a into three examples. The latter two remove the requirement for a majority of blue links, but only for specific cases (a timeline of events; and a finite, complete set on a notable topic iff entries weren't notable enough for articles). The first example was reworded but not in a way designed to change its meaning.
• As discussed on the criteria talk-page archive, stubs can be useful. Readers might get to them via a WP search, Google, or an blue-link elsewhere than just this list. So even the most basic stub bio info can be useful. I strongly discourage redirecting to someone else other than the person. If you use an appropriate stub category/template, a wikiproject could tackle these stubs. Colin°^Talk 13:09, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

• Alrighty then. I'll get started on creating these stubs. Savidan 13:57, 30 July 2007 (UTC)