I would apply more lenient standards when looking at lists of arts or crafts. Sure, Spike Lee is a professional in the field, and I am not. But many of the films I see in his list, I would consider "boring". This is his personal list of films that contain important teaching moments. And because it is the arts, the list has to be personal.
Knuth leaving out an important CS paper may do grave disservice to a huge chunk of the field (Edit: I mean disservice to the readers who intend to learn from the list). Science and technology builds on prior work. The arts, not so much. If I ignore the lessons taught by "The Godfather", the film I'm making may be weak in some aspects, as judged by some people. If I ignore the lessons taught by Turing's works on computability, my software (or research paper) could potentially be stillborn.
I would apply more lenient standards when looking at lists of arts or crafts
Why? I would expect the top of the line people in the arts to be as professional as in any other field. I would expect that great directors (and actors for that matter) have a notebook (or something) of great scenes and why they are great. I would expect artists to have their equivalent.
I mean, goddamn, if you are a great director and you say you have a list of essential viewing, then, yeah, I would assume that according to you the list would be at least very nearly complete. If may evolve a bit over time after review and discussion, but I wouldn't expect a 30% change in the list.
Knuth leaving out an important CS paper may do grave disservice to a huge chunk of the field (Edit: I mean disservice to the readers who intend to learn from the list). Science and technology builds on prior work. The arts, not so much. If I ignore the lessons taught by "The Godfather", the film I'm making may be weak in some aspects, as judged by some people. If I ignore the lessons taught by Turing's works on computability, my software (or research paper) could potentially be stillborn.