Talk:List of counties in Delaware/GA1

GA Reassessment edit

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This article is being delisted because it is a list and lists can not be Good articles. It is being prepared for a run at Featured list candidates. AIRcorn (talk) 03:55, 15 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

Undone. This list, perhaps ironically, cannot be a Featured List. Their criteria requires a certain number of topics (counties) to be eligible; three certainly is not enough. Wizardman 17:18, 22 February 2013 (UTC)Reply
But unfortunately the Good article criteria specifically says a list can not be a Good article (under What can not be a good article?"Stand-alone lists, portals, sounds, and images: these items should be nominated for featured list, featured portal, featured sounds, and featured picture status, respectively"). For what its worth I did ask at the Featured List talk page whether there was a minimum limit to the number of items on a list and didn't really get a straight answer. The comments seemed to be suggesting that it should be merged into the Delaware article and I was going to put some merge tags on it, but the main contributor wanted to have a shot at featured list. Can you point out where their criteria asks for more than three items as I could not find it. I think we need to decide whether this is a list or an article. If it is an article we should move it to Delaware Counties or Counties in Delaware. If it is kept as a list then it can't be a Good article or we need to change the criteria. AIRcorn (talk) 21:45, 22 February 2013 (UTC)Reply
Can you give a good working definition of what a "stand-alone list" is, and how this article meets that definition? Jujutacular (talk) 16:40, 28 February 2013 (UTC)Reply
Is it an article with an embedded list or a list with a lot of prose? I have seen this asked a few times and I still don't know if anyone has given a good answer (will try and find the discussions). Television series are a good example, where some are given list status and some are given article status, seemingly based on the whim of the main editors. I think the case here is slightly different and considering all the other articles in this group are undoubtedly lists then I would say that this one should be considered a list as well. As far as my working definition goes I would say that in a standalone list the topic of the article is the list itself. In an embedded list the list just compliments the topic. To test it I would ask what would happen if the list was removed? Would the article still make sense without it? I don't think numbers should really be used as it seems quite arbitrary (where do you draw the line)? Saying that it is possible to turn a list into an article with a slight change of focus. The title will need to be changed obviously, but the County lists could be converted to summary style overviews of the three counties (Kent County, Delaware, New Castle County, Delaware or Sussex County, Delaware). The list can still stay as an overview, but if it is removed the article still stands with the summary style descriptions. AIRcorn (talk) 23:49, 28 February 2013 (UTC)Reply