Wikipedia:Featured list removal candidates/List of James Bond films/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 or in Wikipedia talk:Featured list candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

Notified: User talk:PSandboxx 123, User talk:Igordebraga, WikiProject James Bond

I am nominating this for featured list removal because...

It is not a list anymore; it is a standard article now. In addition to nominating this for removal as a featured list, this is a proposal and request to rename the article to James Bond (film series).

The list fails Wikipedia:Featured list criteria #5: Style. It does not conform to Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lists#List styles or Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists#General formats of list articles. The style it does implement is Wikipedia:Summary style, which is an article format, not a list format. See the example on World War II in summary style on that page.

This is an article about a film series, not a list. Other such articles that employ the summary style include X-Men (film series), Pirates of the Caribbean (film series), Underworld (film series), The Chronicles of Narnia (film series), Bourne (film series), The Twilight Saga (film series), and Harry Potter (film series). Articles might have embedded lists (such as tables) in them, but that does not make those articles lists.

When this page was approved as a featured list, it looked like this. As you can see, the original featured list content isn't even on the page anymore, and since then, the page has been converted into an article which includes a different (supplemental) list about the awards received for each movie. The Transhumanist 10:53, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that this has deviated, if not decayed, from its original content - and the other co-nominator, the now retired former FL delegate SchroCat, had a hand in that. Wonder if it can be reworked into a primarily table driven article like the version that passed the FLC or the one where SchroCat tried to split the plot summaries. Specially given James Bond (film series) when there's already a James Bond in film article seems counter-intuitive. What do you say, @The Transhumanist:? igordebraga ≠ 12:44, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Good idea. Having an article on the films, a list of the films, and an article on the production background would be fine. I'll split the article, and you tell me what you think.

Done See List of James Bond films and James Bond (film series). The Transhumanist 13:05, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Igordebraga: Well, I tried. Betty Logan reverted the split. So the featured list removal nomination still stands. The Transhumanist 14:17, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose de-listing This is an absurd nomination. Will somebody please explain as to how this article has "decayed"? This version of the article is the one that was passed as an FL. As you can see the table has expanded to two tables to accommodate extra information. The plot summaries have been removed from the table to reduce table clutter, but the article still clearly adheres to a list format. The accompanying article about the series of films can be found at James Bond in film. Betty Logan (talk) 13:53, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
- As a regular article, it is fine. But it is misnamed as a list, which it is not. In order for a list to be a list, it has to be in list format. The plot section is in summary style article format, which does not belong in a list, and also does not meet the featured list criteria for style, which requires that the style guidelines for lists be followed. Regular articles can mix content, such as regular prose along with embedded lists. But it does not work the other way around. Otherwise, there would be no difference between articles and lists. The Transhumanist 14:30, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  You have not explained at all what disqualifies it from being counted as a list. The page lists the plot summaries, then it lists the financials, and then it lists the critics' scores i.e. all of its content is in a listed format. All of the information on this page could be listed in one big table i.e. the two tables could be merged into one and the bullet-point plot summaries could be added back into the table as they were when it was passed as an FL. Would you still argue then that it is not a list? All that has happened here is it that a single table has been broken down into two tables and a bullet-point list to facilitate different display resolutions, but the page still primarily lists data. Your argument seems to be based on the formatting, not on the nature of the content (which is clearly listed) but you have put forward no policy or guideline in your de-listing rationale that backs up your stance that a list must not include more than one table, or more than one embedded list. In fact there are many counter-examples of list-class articles that include mulitple tables or embedded lists e.g. List of Game of Thrones episodes & List of aircraft accidents and incidents resulting in at least 50 fatalities. The information in this list belongs together and splitting it up is counter-productive: if the page really cannot be counted as a list anymore because it violates some technicality then simply de-list it and re-categorize it as an article, but carving it up and splitting the content to different articles is not a service to our readers. Betty Logan (talk) 14:34, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Betty Logan, Igordebraga, and Laser brain: I'm not concerned with how many lists are on the page. Having two tables or fifty is fine, because multi-sectioned lists are fine. My argument is based entirely on the fact that the plot summary section isn't in list format. It does not list the plot summaries. It presents the plot summaries in standard article (heading/paragraph) format, more specifically in Wikipedia:Summary style. "List" is a particular type of format, as opposed to "prose" or "paragraph" format. List formats include tables and the formats presented in Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lists#List styles and Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists#General formats of list articles. This is a bullet list (with annotations):

Dr. No(1962) – James Bond is sent to Jamaica to investigate the disappearance of a fellow British agent. The trail leads him to the underground base of Dr. No, who is plotting to disrupt an early American space launch with a radio beam weapon.
From Russia with Love (1963) – Bond is sent to assist in the defection of Soviet consulate clerk Tatiana Romanova in Turkey, where SPECTRE plans to avenge Bond's killing of Dr. No.
Goldfinger (1964) – Bond investigates alleged gold smuggling by gold magnate Auric Goldfinger and eventually uncovers Goldfinger's nefarious plan to contaminate the United States Bullion Depository at Fort Knox.
Thunderball (1965) – Bond's mission is to find two NATO atomic bombs stolen by SPECTRE, which holds the world to ransom for £100 million in diamonds, in exchange for not destroying an unspecified major city in either England or the United States (later revealed to be Miami).
You Only Live Twice (1967) – Bond is dispatched to Japan after American and Soviet manned spacecraft disappear mysteriously in orbit. With each nation blaming the other amidst the Cold War, Bond travels secretly to a remote Japanese island to find the perpetrators and comes face to face with Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the head of SPECTRE.
On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) – Bond faces Blofeld (Telly Savalas), who is planning to sterilise the world's food supply through a group of brainwashed "angels of death", unless his demands are met for an international amnesty for his previous crimes, recognition of his title as the Count De Bleuchamp (the French form of Blofeld), and to be allowed to retire into private life. Along the way Bond meets, falls in love with, and eventually marries Contessa Teresa di Vicenzo (Diana Rigg).

Diamonds Are Forever (1971) – Bond impersonates a diamond smuggler to infiltrate a smuggling ring, and soon uncovers a plot by his old nemesis Ernst Stavro Blofeld to use the diamonds to build a space-based laser weapon. Bond has to battle his nemesis for one last time, to stop the smuggling and stall Blofeld's plan of destroying Washington, D.C., and extorting the world with nuclear supremacy.
Live and Let Die (1973) – Harlem drug lord Mr. Big plans to distribute two tons of heroin free to put rival drugs barons out of business. Bond, investigating the deaths of three British agents, reveals Mr. Big to be Dr. Kananga in disguise, the corrupt dictator of San Monique, the fictional Caribbean island where the heroin poppies are secretly farmed. Bond becomes trapped in a world of gangsters and voodoo as he fights to put a stop to a drug baron's scheme .
The Man with the Golden Gun (1974) – Bond is sent after the Solex Agitator, a device that can harness the power of the sun, while facing the assassin Francisco Scaramanga, the "Man with the Golden Gun", who is of such skill his gun holds but a single bullet. The next bullet has "007" etched on it.
The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) – a reclusive megalomaniac named Karl Stromberg plans to destroy the world and create a new civilisation under the sea. Bond teams up with Russian agent Anya Amasova to stop Stromberg.
Moonraker (1979) – Bond investigates the theft of a space shuttle, leading him to Hugo Drax, the owner of the shuttle's manufacturing firm. Along with space scientist Dr. Holly Goodhead, Bond follows the trail from California to Venice, Rio de Janeiro, and the Amazon rainforest, and finally into outer space to prevent a plot to wipe out the world population and to re-create humanity with a master race.
For Your Eyes Only (1981) – Bond attempts to locate a missile command system while becoming tangled in a web of deception spun by rival Greek businessmen along with Melina Havelock, a woman seeking to avenge the murder of her parents.
Octopussy (1983) – Bond is assigned the task of following a general who is stealing jewels and relics from the Soviet government. This leads him to a wealthy Afghan prince, Kamal Khan, and his associate, Octopussy. Bond uncovers a plot to force disarmament in Europe with the use of a nuclear weapon.
A View to a Kill (1985) – Bond is pitted against Max Zorin, who plans to destroy California's Silicon Valley.
The Living Daylights (1987) –
Licence to Kill (1989) – after being suspended from MI6, Bond pursues drugs lord Franz Sanchez, who has ordered an attack against his CIA friend Felix Leiter and a rape and murder on Felix's wife during their honeymoon.
Goldeneye (1995) – Bond fights to prevent an ex-MI6 agent, gone rogue, from using a satellite against London to cause global financial meltdown.
Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) – Bond must stop Elliot Carver, a power-mad media mogul, from engineering world events to initiate World War III.
The World Is Not Enough (1999) – by while protecting the daughter of an assassinated billionaire, Bond uncovers a scheme by the mad man Renard to increase petroleum prices by triggering a nuclear meltdown in the waters of Istanbul.
Die Another Day (2002) – Bond must prevent a nuclear war, by stopping the owner of the Icarus, a satellite that concentrates sunlight into a beam, from using it to cut a path through the Korean Demilitarized Zone, allowing North Korean troops to invade South Korea and reunite the peninsula by force.
Casino Royale (2006) – after preventing a terrorist attack at Miami International Airport, Bond falls in love with Vesper Lynd, the treasury employee assigned to provide the money he needs to bankrupt a terrorist financier, Le Chiffre, by beating him in a high-stakes poker game.
Quantum of Solace (2008) – while seeking revenge for the death of his lover, Vesper Lynd, Bond uncovers a planned coup d'état in Bolivia the goal of which is to seize control of their water supply.
Skyfall (2012) – Bond investigates an attack on MI6, which turns out to be part of a plot by former MI6 agent Raoul Silva to humiliate, discredit and kill M as revenge against her for betraying him.
Spectre (2015) – Bond is pitted against the global criminal organisation Spectre and against their leader; Ernst Stavro Blofeld, who is revealed to be Bond's stepbrother as he attempts to thwart his plan to launch a global surveillance network.
This is a sample list item – and this is its sample annotation.

Headings followed by paragraphs makes this a regular film series article, just like X-Men (film series) and the other examples mentioned in the nomination above. Did you look at those? They are articles, which are allowed to have lists in them. There are two ways to fix this page. One is to replace the plot summaries section with a list of the movies with annotated descriptions. (Lengthy plot summaries are too extensive to be list items, but a brief description of a movie's premise could be short enough to be an annotation). The other solution is to rename the page to James Bond (film series). In the latter case, to retain featured status, it could be submitted for consideration to Featured Article Candidates. The first option would be the easiest way to retain featured status, because it wouldn't need to be resubmitted. The Transhumanist 16:27, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The version that passed the FL review also had plot summaries, but they were included in the table which made it unwieldy IMO. They can be put back in the table if it is that big a deal though. If you want to de-list it and re-categorize it as an article I think that is preferable to carving it up, because I don't honestly see what is to be gained by splitting the synopses out to their own article. If this costs the article is FL status then that's a shame, but we shouldn't curtail the information value of the article just to hold on to a gold star. Betty Logan (talk) 19:21, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This is pretty much the point I was trying to make. While I don't like to see anything losing its featured status if it is high quality, ultimately we should be serving the reader. --Laser brain (talk) 19:24, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comment This does seem to have become a strange hybrid of a list and an article. If this were to appear at WP:FAC, I'd oppose it as being too listy. But there is also quite a bit more prose than I'm accustomed to seeing in a list. I think the key question should be driven by audience analysis—is a reader coming to this page well-served by larger and longer plot summaries? If so, we should delist this and retool it as a standard article. If not, we should trim it to be more in line with the promoted version and move that content elsewhere. --Laser brain (talk) 16:11, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@The Transhumanist:: List of Marvel Cinematic Universe films is a Featured List. Inspired by that, I added some production tables regarding each decade of the EON films, and the two unofficial ones, hope this helps with the "feel like a list" criteria. igordebraga ≠ 14:19, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Both are very nice. But they are regular articles with embedded lists in them.

There seems to be some confusion about the definition of the word "list". Some editors are mistaking articles about a set or collection of things as lists.

A list is a sequence of items, one item per line. Like a grocery list, a task list, a hit list, disabled list, set list, mailing list, wish list and list of lists. Wikipedia has traditionally included rosters (tables) as lists.

Lists are in contrast to prose. If a document includes prose (words that flow into sentences, that flow into paragraphs), it is not a list. With the exception of annotated lists, and tables with prose in the descriptive columns.

Lists contain items (also called "list entries"). The word "egg" could be an item on a list. A section about eggs written in paragraphs is not a list item. The word "egg" with a hyphen after it followed by a brief description or comment would be an annotated list entry.

Here is a list of some examples of regular articles about film series. Note that many of these articles have embedded lists in them.

Headings with paragraphs after them is a prose format, not a list format. I hope this explanation helps. The Transhumanist 18:29, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Betty Logan, Igordebraga, and Laser brain: Igordebraga has improved the article to be even better than it was. However, it is still not a list—it's an article with embedded lists in it. Perhaps one way to keep its featured status is to nominate it at featured article candidates, as an extension of this discussion, while it still has featured list status. We can let them know over there that the list has evolved into an article, and we'd like it to be transferred from one featured class to another. At the very least, that would generate more discussion as to the qualifications of the article. Or it may lead to its further improvement and acceptance as a featured article. The Transhumanist 20:22, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Speaking as someone who's been around FAC for a number of years, I suspect this would be quickly rejected as too listy, or outright as a list. I think it would be better to get a wider perspective from other editors as to whether this qualifies as a list or an article. --Laser brain (talk) 21:20, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Laser brain: I posted a list of articles to compare it with above. Check them out and let me know what you think. The Transhumanist 01:26, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@The Transhumanist:: reincorporated the plots into the tables, while adding some paragraphs to head each section, inspired by SchroCat's work in List of James Bond novels and short stories. It's better now? igordebraga ≠ 02:38, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Withdraw nomination: While I don't like the inclusion of section leads in lists, as they are not list elements and render a document a non-list (the same could be said for tables), they are a well-established feature of Wikipedia featured lists. The List of James Bond films now conforms very strongly to the featured list criteria, and I withdraw my nomination. The Transhumanist 18:38, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Closing as withdrawn. Speaking as a delegate, however, I wish I had had the time to comment on this nomination while it was ongoing- I completely disagree with The Transhumanist. While they are correct that the definition of a list is a sequence of items, that is not the definition of what is allowed at FL/FLC- this is the recognition process for list-based articles, which WP:FL? carefully does not define. There is no criteria that each element of a list must be bulleted, or be a single sentence versus a 1/2 paragraph section, or be in a table. The only criteria is that it's "listy", e.g. consists primarily of a series of items, each with their own line/section/row/whatever, as opposed to the flowing prose of the GA/FA track. The complaint that it was starting to duplicate the series article may or may not have validity, but I'm not sold on the complaint that it had too many words/improper list formatting- this isn't "featured html lists". --Pres N 00:03, 6 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Well, almost 50% of the article was in regular article format. And that was the section that covered the subject specified in the title (James Bond films). That is, the meat of the article was in regular article format. The tables contained supplemental information. Therefore, it seemed more "article-ly" than "listy". With respect to the what is/is-not allowed, FLC does define it, as follows: "it complies with the Manual of Style and its supplementary pages." That means Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lists and WP:STAND. By those standards, it no longer passed.

Speaking of standards, by your definition, all series articles are lists, which ignores the actual definition of the word "list". By referring to content as something which it is not, we would be pushing a neologism in the page titles of Wikipedia, thus violating the spirit of WP:Neologisms and WP:Neutral point of view. Calling series articles lists provides students with erroneous examples of what constitutes a list.

More fundamentally, such titles are misleading, and are examples of misadvertising. When a reader opens a page expecting to find a list and then finds something else, we are doing them a disservice while at the same time lowering the credibility of the publication. Either a page is a list or it is not. If it is not, we shouldn't be titling it "List of", because that would be a lie or a mistake.

And even though the page is better than it was, it still does not conform to the English definition of the word "list". It would be more appropriate to call it "James Bond (film series)". But, according to WP:STAND, list pages are expected to have leads which explain the list on the page. It follows that if a page contains multiple lists, each list could have its own lead. Thus, it is now in compliance with WP:FLCR, and since it is also a high-quality presentation of its subject, it's a keeper. (But it still isn't the ideal match between content and page title, IMHO). The Transhumanist 11:48, 6 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Closing note: This candidate has been kept, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FLC/ar, and leave the {{featured list candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through.

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.