Wikipedia:Featured and good topic criteria/Overview topics

An overview topic is a good topic or a featured topic in which there are too many articles within the scope of the topic to consider including them all in the topic (see examples below). If you are considering nominating an overview topic, then you should ensure that every article within the scope of the topic that is not included in the topic is also within the scope of a non-lead article that is included within the topic. If it seems natural, you may consider creating summary style articles to reduce the number of articles needed to be included in your overview topic.

Example 1: Solar System

Below is the Solar System featured topic, which is a good example of an overview topic. There are literally hundreds of articles within the scope of the topic. Attempting to include them all in the topic would be extremely difficult and of limited value. Instead, an overview topic is used. Notice that Pluto is not in the Solar System topic, even though it is within the scope of the topic. However, the topic is still complete because Pluto falls within the scope of another article in the Solar System topic, Dwarf planets. In this example, editors have actually gone one step further and created the Dwarf planets featured subtopic.

Overview topic

19 articles

Jupiter ^(subtopic)

Dwarf planet ^(subtopic)

Asteroid belt ^(subtopic)

Kuiper belt

Scattered disc

Oort cloud

Formation and evolution

Subtopics

Jupiter

14 articles

Galilean moons

Exploration

In fiction

10 articles

Gonggong

Orcus

Quaoar

5 articles

2 Pallas

4 Vesta

10 Hygiea

Example 2: Michigan State University

Here is a hypothetical example of what a university overview topic might look like, as well as three hypothetical subtopics. As with the example above, trying to create a topic with every article related to a university would be almost impossible, but virtually all other articles about the university would fall within the scope of at least one of the non-lead articles in the overview topic. As such, this topic would be considered complete.

Note that the Michigan State University student life article does not currently exist, but it would be very natural to create it, as can be seen by its well-defined subtopic. Also note that articles can be in multiple subtopics, as demonstrated by Michigan State University Libraries.

Michigan State University used to be a featured topic, but was demoted due to comprehensiveness concerns.