About

FigCat is an independent website maintained as a hobby project by one very obsessive person – me, wargaluk.

I originally compiled most of these lists in my spare time for personal reference, simply because I was interested in the topics they cover; only after I had accumulated a lot of them over the years did it occur to me to update them and make them public. I hope some of them will be relevant to your own interests.

How the lists were made…

All my lists are based on data collected personally by me through a rather laborious process, with little automation involved. Each list is the result of weeks, months, or even years of painstaking research.

For each topic, I started by making a spreadsheet. Then I consulted numerous (dozens or even hundreds) hand-picked sources, which depending on the topic might have included:

• authoritative books or academic articles;
• recommendation threads on message boards and social media platforms;
• other lists published on various websites and blogs.

Whenever a specific item was mentioned in one of my sources, I gave it a tick in my spreadsheet. Then I sorted all the items by the number of ticks; or, in the case of some lists of creative works, by the total number of ticks their respective authors received.

…and what does it mean

There are several important corollaries to my using this method:

• I am merely a compiler and curator, not an author. The lists do not reflect my personal opinions and do not contain my own recommendations. I make no claim to any special authority or expertise on the subjects they cover. In some cases, I’m at best vaguely familiar with a small minority of the items on a list! I did, however, exercise discretion in choosing my sources, selecting those I considered reliable and relevant.

• The lists measure popularity rather than quality. I don’t claim that the lists necessarily indicate the “best” items. I certainly don’t want to persuade you to get acquainted with any of them before you die. Instead, the lists reflect which items are most frequently recommended within their respective categories – based on the sources I selected according to my own criteria.

• The lists are not intended to be exhaustive or “objective” (whatever that means). In fact, they are necessarily incomplete and biased (but there’s nothing inherently wrong with that).

FAQ

Who are you?

I’m wargaluk.

What’s in a name?

‘Cat’ stands for ‘catalog’. ‘Fig’ stands for ‘fig’ (the edible fruit of Ficus carica).

What do the ratings mean?

I use ratings on a scale of 1 to 5 to give a rough idea of the relative popularity of items on a list. An item with a score of 5 was recommended more times than an item with a score of 1 (but not five times more! the numbers are normalized and “squeezed” using logarithmic transformation). However, they do not indicate quality! An item rated 1 may very well be “better” (according to some measure) than one rated 5.

Why is item X not included in a list? That’s my favorite!

Most likely, it is not included because it didn’t receive enough ticks when I compiled the list using the method described above. It is not a slight against you, and it is not a reflection of my views about the item in question.

But can you add item X to a list, as I assure you it really, really belongs there?

No, because that’s not how it works. The lists are compiled according to a specific method that precludes arbitrary additions. I intend to update all of the lists on an intermittent basis. If your favorite item is mentioned enough times in my sources by then, I guarantee it will be included.

What about item Y that I dislike or believe doesn’t belong on a list?

You should already know this by now. Unfortunately, some of my sources might be wrong or imperfect.

Can’t such lists be made using “artificial intelligence”, by which I really mean a machine learning model? Why do you insist on making them by hand, like some sort of a medieval monk? Are you weird? Are you stupid? Seriously, what is wrong with you? Why not automate it, bro?

The main thing to understand is that the lists I publish here are a byproduct of my research into various topics, not a goal in and of themselves. If I used “machine learning”, I would never learn anything myself.

Contact

I’d be happy to hear from you, but have you read this page thoroughly to see if it contains answers to your questions? In particular, do you understand that I cannot accept submissions for new items to be added to the lists? If the answer is yes, you can email me at [email protected].

You can also fill out an anonymous feedback survey to tell me what you think about this website.

Colophon

This website was built using Eleventy static site generator created by Zach Leatherman. It is based on the aptly-named Eleventy Excellent starter by Lene Saile. Like the starter itself, it was influenced by techniques and principles developed by Andy Bell and Heydon Pickering: it makes use of the CUBE CSS methodology, layouts from Every Layout, and components from Inclusive Components. Fluid design was enabled by Utopia calculators.