First of all, I strongly disagree with the following 2 ideas:
1. To not "create 'Michael's Favorite Robot Books'—instead create 'Best Robot Books'"
2. "If a 'Best Fantasy Books' list already exists - no need to create another - it will be merged eventually anyways."

I'm not saying that lists driven by the community at large don't have value—those are perfectly valid things to document. But there is so much more that we can do! We shouldn't limit ourselves to only thinking as a collective, and forgetting the value of the unique individual.

If someone has extremely unique and creative ideas, how is he/she supposed to break into the mass of already established thought? Imagine if every music listener only had access to a single, mass-consensus-driven, "Best albums of all time" list. It would create an incredibly dull and homogenous landscape of art, with stale and hackneyed discussions and ideas.

Anyway, for now this is just an ongoing project of listing my favorite books. We are all individuals with a myriad of different tastes and values. Alas, I guess the nature of this website's system allows anyone to come in and put any books they want in here. But I'll at least try.

NOTE: If you want an example of a superior method of discovering, archiving, and categorizing (both on a creative and technical level), look at RateYourMusic's list community for music and film. There are tens of thousands of individuals who have created enough lists to take up hundreds of lifetimes of discovery and artistic edification! This includes highly niche and specific lists. For example, a list can document every release from a '90s underground metal collective. To maintain this, it does require strict individual ownership of lists that prevent input from the masses who don't know anything about the topic.