docs: def validate_stringlist(s):
      """Validate a list of strings
  
      Parameters
      ----------
      val: iterable of strings
  
      Returns
      -------
      list
          list of str
  
      Raises
      ------
      ValueError"""
      if isinstance(s, six.string_types):
          return [six.text_type(v.strip()) for v in s.split(',') if v.strip()]
      else:
          try:
              return list(map(validate_str, s))
          except TypeError as e:
              raise ValueError(e.message)