Wikipedia:WikiProject Shopping Centers/Anchors and tenants
 | This is a WikiProject advice page. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more WikiProjects on Wikipedia or its process, as pertaining to topics within the WikiProject(s) area of interest. This page is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. |
 | This page in a nutshell: Wikipedia is not a directory, and articles on shopping centers should generally not contain tenant lists or unsourced anchor lists. |
Wikipedia is not a directory, and for that reason we should avoid including tenant lists (including lists of the largest tenants) in shopping center articles (except in the circumstances described below). Tenants include retail stores, restaurants and other services (such as cinemas). It is appropriate, however, to include a link to the center's website (if one exists) under the "External links" heading, where readers can refer to the store directory. These rules may also apply to other types of buildings, including office buildings.
The text of the article should also refrain from mentioning specific tenants (current or former), unless such tenants are noteworthy in the context of that particular shopping centre, and the tenant references assist in establishing the notability of the center. For example, some references to tenants are encyclopaedic in nature and arguably merit inclusion in an article (e.g. "The ABC Center contains the second largest IKEA store in the country" or "H&M opened its first store in Western Canada in the XYZ Galleria"), whereas others are not (e.g. "A new Verizon Wireless store opened recently in the south part of the mall"). In other words, a tenant should not be mentioned in an article simply due to its size or its location within the mall (such as in a new expansion), or solely because it exists in the mall.
An article about a shopping center does not need to repeat information about a particular tenant that is not unique to the mall in question and that more appropriately belongs in the article on the retailer itself. For example, every article on a mall that contains a Macy's need not repeat information that is already found in the Macy's (department store) and Macy's, Inc. articles.
Given their prominence within the shopping center and the role they play in drawing customers, it may be appropriate to mention the anchor stores in an article, as long as such stores are identified as anchors in a reliable source and the source is appropriately referenced. Not all sources purporting to identify the anchors in a mall are necessarily reliable or authoritative; in some instances, there may need to be some discussion and consensus among editors as to whether or not it is appropriate to rely on a particular source. Anchor lists that are not sourced may violate Wikipedia:No original research and Wikipedia:Verifiability. Do not put the anchor stores in a list format.