A list of individual washing machines in Ontario would usually not be appropriate in the article on Ontario.

This project's goal is to reduce the number of inappropriate laundry lists in Wikipedia articles. This page and its subpages contain their suggestions; it is hoped that this project will help to focus the efforts of other Wikipedians. If you would like to help, please inquire on the talk page and see the to-do list there.

[edit] Scope

A laundry list is a lengthy item by item enumeration,[1][2] of items, typically in "bullet point" format, often of minutiae. Having lists instead of article text can in some cases make Wikipedia worse, not better. They sometimes can be hard to read, accumulate cruft, and tend to wander from list guidelines.

The goal of Wikiproject:Laundromat is to scrub laundry lists from articles when they detract from an article's usefulness, and salvage usable content from those laundry lists into readable, encyclopedic text. A list can also be the best way of presenting detailed material, and it is not intended to remove such lists.

[edit] Goals

1. To identify non-list articles that are overbalanced with laundry lists. As a rule of thumb, if more than about 30% of a non-list article consists of a list, it may be a problem.
2. To identify entries in lists that are nonnotable, nonencyclopedic, and unhelpful, and to remove them from both the list and the article.
3. To identify entries in problematic lists that are notable and encyclopedic, and to remove them from the list and incorporate them into the article's main body flow, with appropriate text.

Laundromat is not primarily intended to address NPOV violations, poorly written text, or general style problems, although of course you should feel free to fix those while doing the wash. The goal of Laundromat is specifically to find "laundry lists"--inappropriate lists of miscellaneous items--, and salvage usable content therein and turn it into well-written text.

[edit] Resources

The following resources are useful for labeling articles with potential problems.

• {{cleanup-laundry}} to place at the top of articles or sections with lists that need attention. Category:Wikipedia laundry list cleanup lists all such labeled articles.
• {{cleanup-list}} to place at the top of lists that are ill-defined. Category:Wikipedia list cleanup lists all such labeled articles.
• {{cleanup-spam}} to label articles that have lists that mainly promote external web sites. Category:Wikipedia spam cleanup lists all such labeled articles.
• See Wikipedia:Cleanup resources for other cleanup templates.

[edit] Tasks

[edit] Identifying articles to be cleaned

When you find an article or section with a list that needs cleanup, add {{cleanup-laundry}} to the top of it, which will add it to Category:Wikipedia laundry list cleanup, and produce this notice:

The lists in this article may contain items that are not notable, encyclopedic, or helpful. Please help out by removing such elements and incorporating appropriate items into the main body of the article.

Alternative ways of writing the template:

• {{Cleanup laundry}}
• {{CleanupLaundry}}
• {{Cleanup-laundry-section}}
• {{Laundry}}
• {{Listy}}
• {{Listcruft}}
• {{TriviaList}}

[edit] Cleaning in progress

When you are starting to clean an article, move it from the above section to here. Other Laundromat members can help and monitor it for a while.

• Information security - Committed to rewriting. Added "Underconstruction". WideClyde 05:53, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
• Nintendo - Cleaned up, but keeping under "in progress" due to heavy chance of revert war.--SeizureDog 13:12, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
• Trickster - "Modern day tricksters" section.
• Omega - not that bad, actually. Just needs a little work.
• Art deco - Artist lists and achievements go on and on. Help by adding corrections to my reformatting.Homosexual 12:18, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
• Aragon High School - Removed a bit of the lists. Hydrogen Iodide 05:14, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
• San Mateo High School - Removed a bit of the lists. Hydrogen Iodide 05:14, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
• El Camino High School (South San Francisco) - Removed a bit of the lists. Hydrogen Iodide 05:14, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
• Wichita, Kansas, cleaned up a bunch of the lists, but still needs a lot of work. Hydrogen Iodide 05:40, 29 May 2007 (UTC) (see talk, with respect to schools)DGG 02:38, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
• Gladiators - various lists of dubious importance - being heavily edited by User:Gladboy Right now. Kl4m 21:49, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
• The Banquet (1991 film) - part of the list of actors was rewritten into prose. _{Hydrogen Iodide (HI!)} 22:30, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
• Element Skateboards - most of the article consist of a list. _{Hydrogen Iodide (HI!)} 02:45, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

temporarily cleaned teams lists by hiding with comments

• Al-Ghurair Group, more than half of the article consists of lists, especially a lot of link-spam. Link-spam deleted, but there still a long timeline there. Cheers. _{Trance addict} 02:00, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Cleaned

When a list is cleaned as much as it needs to be, move it here.

• Cambridge City Council, England - the article is mainly a list of all the current councillors Already cleaned by 62.254.222.161
• Xbox 360 - Overlong list of third-party games. Currently in revert war with tendentious anon. now removed from main article into separate list, which is out of scope. DGG
• Dartmouth Crossing - mainly a list of stores in a retail area All minor stores deleted DGG 02:38, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
• Macy's South - again, mostly a list of locations Lists have apparently now been removed. DGG 15:10, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
• Walnut Street (Philadelphia) -Most of the article is a long unencyclopedic list of retail establishments. 16:34, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank you User:Chubbles!

• Organ builder - still some lists. - Article changed into redirect of List of organ builders. _{Hydrogen Iodide (HI!)} 22:34, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
• Eurotrash (TV series) - the whole thing is basically one long list of (mostly red) links - Entire list was deleted late May 2007. _{Hydrogen Iodide (HI!)} 22:47, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
• Open University - Two lists. 11:19, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

perfectly normal lists in my opinion, no cleanup needed DGG (talk) 03:58, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

• Coptic Orthodox Church in Canada - horrid amount of unencyclopedic lists. _{Hydrogen Iodide (HI!)} 06:11, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

I removed the blatant violations of WP:NOT#DIRECTORY, and it looks a lot more pleasant on the eye. I think the list is now within bounds. Ohconfucius 03:28, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

• Hellmuth, Obata and Kassabaum - article consists of mostly a list. _{Hydrogen Iodide (HI!)} 06:08, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

only list of locations left. Ohconfucius 06:27, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

• Gnome - Popular culture section

I believe this article is now within bounds. Ohconfucius 01:58, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

• Viral marketing - everything but the first two sections. small list, better left alone
• Mona Lisa - "Role in popular culture and avant-garde art" section. formatted as customary.
• Kit Kat - huge huge list of varieties of Kit Kats

115 lines of special or limited editions removed. The others can be left. Ohconfucius 02:18, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

• Dragon ("In myth" section).

Acceptable, best left Ohconfucius 02:25, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

• Heaven's Gate (cult) - A paragraph saying the cult has been parodied on television and movies should be sufficient.
• Sandwich - too long list

Acceptable, best left Ohconfucius 02:25, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

• Tapping - More examples and guitarist summary list -sections
• Unseen character Too many examples, basically entirely a trivia article. 13:03, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Out of scope

This section is for apparent lists that don't fit in the scope of the project, or are best left as they are.

• List of 21st century classical composers - I noticed the tag after viewing Recent changes and figured I could help. (not for this project--we're working on non-list articles) 03:36, 22 June 2007 (UTC)~
• List of pseudosciences and pseudoscientific concepts- Nearly all list, and probably not NPOV even in conception. (not for this project--we're working on non-list articles)03:36, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
• Ischaemic heart disease - the article is comprised entirely of laundry lists, it reads like a brochure

not a list purge. Partially transformed, remainder tagged {{prose}} 03:30, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Projects

1. Fantasy Laundromat: Articles connected to fantasy and science fiction tend to collect listcruft. For example, fans of imaginary fantasy author J. Worthington Prufrock will know that he once mentioned a dragon in passing in one book, and will rush over to the Dragon article and add a line to "Dragons in Modern Culture" along the lines of "Famed author J. Worthington Prufrock's Raven Darktalon Blood saga has a Dragon character named Euphemistus."
2. Trivia Laundromat: Trivia sections are to laundry lists what agar-filled petri dishes are to bacteria.
3. Link Laundromat: Related to Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam. When cleaning laundry lists of links, use Wikipedia:External links as your guide.

[edit] Similar WikiProjects

Similar WikiProjects are:

• WikiProject Trivia Cleanup
• WikiProject Spam

[edit] Participants

• User:Nandesuka
• brenneman ^{L}
• ˉˉ^anetode╞┬╡
• Jaranda ^{wat's sup} 04:42, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
• —this is messedr͏̈ocker (talk) - I'll play a role... a barrel role!... oh wait. 04:48, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
• Sabine's Sunbird - Talk to me
• The Spith (talk · contribs) - Does this make me a laundryman?
• Hydrogen Iodide 05:02, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
• Aboyall 18:59, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
• Arknascar44
• Vikrant Phadkay 08:31, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
• Amadscientist 05:40, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
• SilkTork 11:17, 15 August 2007 (UTC) I like the idea of this. Pass me a scrubbing brush.
• Ohconfucius 08:50, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
• Illinois2011 | Talk 23:20, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
• Unionhawk ^{Talk E-mail} 04:10, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Laundryrack

I decided to be a little bolder than usual, and added a template analogous to Template:Cleanup-laundry which I named Template:Cleanup-laundryrack where the suggested solution is to convert an ugly list into a table. This frequently applies to the many articles which list software programs where the lists tend to be annotated as free/proprietary, web-based or not, etc. MaxEnt 01:03, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] See also

• Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists#Appropriate topics for lists