Wikipedia talk:Vital articles/Archive 22

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Archive 15 ← Archive 20 Archive 21 Archive 22 Archive 23 Archive 24 Archive 25

Modified proposal: Swap: Remove Infant, add Village Rural area

I have decided to split the discussion as people in the discussion doesn't seems interested in dealing with the addition and the removal of this two topics together.C933103 (talk) 22:02, 13 April 2022 (UTC)

Remove Infant

WITHDRAWN
Withdrawn

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

With Infants being another state of life, being cover under child, I think it can probably be replaced for a more significant unit of human settlement which reflect how human live together and organize together to build up the scale of human civilization, which is still a prominent part of human society nowadays. C933103 (talk) 15:16, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

Support
  1. Nom.
  2. Support removal. I've never liked that we have infant and child both listed at this level when an infant is just a young child. Rreagan007 (talk) 01:18, 8 February 2022 (UTC)
  3. Support removal per above. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 01:44, 8 February 2022 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Oppose Infant is important topic in developmental psychology. --Thi (talk) 08:27, 8 February 2022 (UTC)
  2. Oppose per Thi. I can't understand why people would think the redundancy between year and calendar is acceptable, but that between child and infant is not. Cobblet (talk) 19:19, 13 February 2022 (UTC)
    Year is a length of time. Calendar is the way human recognize and organize time into something traceable and recordable C933103 (talk) 02:09, 17 February 2022 (UTC)
Discuss
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Add Rural area

NO CONSENSUS
--Thi (talk) 09:04, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Currently the list have 20 cities and an article on the concept of "city" itself, which represent half of the world's population living in cities, but the world still have another half of the population not living in some form of cities, aka they would be living in villages/rural area and such, yet the list lack representation of them. C933103 (talk) 16:18, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

Edit: Replaced "Village" with "Rural area", as the article on Rural area appears to cover a boarder concept and more organized than the article of Village. C933103 (talk) 22:02, 13 April 2022 (UTC)

Support
  1. Support as nom. C933103 (talk) 22:02, 13 April 2022 (UTC)
Oppose
Discuss
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Swap: remove Human history or arts from level-1 or 2 and add social Sciences or ideology for level 1 or 2

NO CONSENSUS
No consensus C933103 (talk) 12:12, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

If human history is already included in being human, why not take it out and deposit it in level 1 or 2 just with the social sciences? All is ideology and human history is concern about social science.Luizpuodzius Sisiphu (talk) 18:58, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

Support
Oppose
Discuss — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sisiphu (talk • contribs) 22:09, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
The name of the article human history is a slight misnomer or at least a little bit awkward and confusing. It's meant to be about the history of the world, i.e. the most fundamental topic in history. It's the grandparent article of the 83 history articles and arguably some of the historical biographies at this level. Society has already been added at Level 1 so I definitely oppose adding the social sciences. And ideology is too specific to be a such a high level. Gizza (talk • voy) 02:24, 1 March 2022 (UTC)
I don't believe I have enough knowledge to comment on this matter. I leave it in the hands of the community and support the decision. Dr. LooTalk to me 17:14, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Remove Olympic Games

WITHDRAWN
Withdrawn

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

With all the scandals and disappointment over arrangement of multiple Olympic Games over the past decade, with incidence like corruption and collaboration on human right abuse, and its choice of sports being unable to reflect a global audience demand hence facing a decline in viewership, I think the Olympic Games have lost its symbolic value as "the" sports event to attend and to watch, that can warrant its inclusion as the top 1000 most vital English Wikipedia article. As thus I propose the Olympic Games be removed from the Level 3 list, instead let it stay at Level 4.

It was previously proposed as a swap, but due to trouble over swap target, the amount of votes it attracted was low. Thus, I am relisting the Olympic Games for discussion in itself, without proposing any addition for the time being (That would be for another vote). C933103 (talk) 02:14, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

Support
  1. [nom]C933103 (talk) 02:15, 13 March 2022 (UTC)
  2. Support per nom. --Thi (talk) 10:04, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Oppose to me 4 articles on sports is reasonable at this level and the Olympics Games makes it as one of those 4 articles. Corruption and controversy doesn't make something less vital. Do you have a source for global "decline in viewership"? Gizza (talk • voy) 05:46, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
    Audience counts. We actually have six sports-related articles now, including Sport, Association football, Sport of athletics, Olympic Games, Martial arts, and Swimming. But then, even when it come to the topic of sport programs to be watched by people over televisions, I think competition, racing, athletes, and sports league are all more vital than the specific event of Olympics, and among entertainments, I think party and puzzle are some examples of entertainment activities that are more vital to people than the 1-in-4-years Olympics event. C933103 (talk) 08:01, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
    But now the Olympics are every two years -- Summer and Winter alternating. Have been for some years. Hyperbolick (talk) 08:07, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
    Still not something like sports leagues which goes on most of the year, or party which many people do multiple times every year in their regular life and have deep cultural and interpersonal connotations either besides being an entertainment. C933103 (talk) 09:35, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
  2. The corruption, scandals, etc. may be a reason to want the Olympics to be less important, but it doesn't make them less important. Still a top-1000 article today. Maybe it will be different in 20 years. User:力 (powera, π, ν) 18:02, 19 March 2022 (UTC)
    I mentioned that as that make the event less attractive to the people and less universally appreciated. Thus I doubt their role as the representative competition for sports. Instead of let say having an article on sport event (somehow such article didn't exists as an article on enwp) that cover different people's most enjoying events. And certainly the Olympics can no longer be said as the event that bring all of humanities together given how divisive people have been getting over the Olympic event. C933103 (talk) 11:54, 20 March 2022 (UTC)
  3. Oppose no matter the recent controversy over locations (which seems to me recency bias — clearly the Cold War-era boycotts have been forgotten) the Olympics are still the only event where 200+ organizations, and countless sub-organiations, compete. They remain the largest sporting events ever conducted, and their preparation and staging sometimes consumes entire countries. Moral opposition should not be a reason to remove articles from this list; nor should a slight decline in popular interest be. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 21:52, 29 April 2022 (UTC)
Discussion
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Addition proposal via ranked voting system.

WITHDRAWN
Withdrawn

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Currently, the list is now a bit short of 1000, after removal of a few international organizations.

Meanwhile, in the past few months, there were some discussions about aspects of the list that are currently not comprehensive, as well as some addition proposals that were rejected on the ground of being not sufficiently vital enough against other articles proposed for removal or that quota have already been filled.

Here, I would like to propose filling in the list back to 1000 through a ranked choice system (specifically Dowdall system according to characteristic of this voting), where the most preferred articles that most people feel are vital in Level 3, can get to fill in the list.

In doing so, it's more likely to reach a result that most people would consider appropriate to be part of the list.

Let nominate articles that are to be included in the voting first. C933103 (talk) 18:03, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

Nomination

  • Strongly oppose the proposed system. I hate to say anything when I have nothing good to say – hence my recent relative inactivity – but I feel I have no choice but to push back on what seems to me is a poorly thought-out proposal. First of all, the majority of the so-called "nominated" articles have only recently been rejected. Rehashing such proposals so soon is a complete waste of everyone's time. Second of all, the proposed system is too much of a departure from the existing procedure of supports vs. opposes, which is based on almost a decade of experience and has been fairly effective at achieving consensus through focused, well-considered discussions. Of the 35 articles you've listed, there is only one article I would !vote in support under our current system. In order to properly reflect my preferences (i.e., my distaste for the other 34 suggestions, some of which are in fact my own! I never said they were good suggestions, only that they were better than what others had suggested) in a ranked-choice ballot of the type you're suggesting, I would have to nominate the literally dozens, quite possibly hundreds, of pages I would personally consider better proposals. I would also be compelled to explain why I thought each and every one of those suggestions would be better, and why I think the others would be worse. I have no intention of going to the trouble of proposing and commenting on so many articles for the sake of finding three articles to add to the current 997. It would again be a waste of everyone's time. If you feel strongly about your fresh suggestions, please propose their addition following our existing procedure. Cobblet (talk) 03:44, 20 March 2022 (UTC)
    I picked the "Dowdall system" specifically because it would make less preferred candidates have very limited influence against the result. C933103 (talk) 09:05, 20 March 2022 (UTC)
  • Procedural oppose. I must concur with what Cobblet says above. Our current voting procedure, while not perfect, works quite well for the purposes of refining this list. Rreagan007 (talk) 16:17, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The Core Contest

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

People here may be interested to know that this year will see another Core Contest, starting on April 15 and drawing heavily from the list of vital articles :). Signups are open. Femke (talk) 08:29, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Remove Bhagavad Gita

FAILED
earned at least 3 opposes and failed to earn two-thirds support.C933103 (talk) 12:12, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The Bhagavad Gita is one of the greatest literary outputs that human civilization has ever known, ranking well with Homer's Illiad, Dante's Divine Comedy, One Thousand and One Nights, etc. But at present we list two works of Hindu liturgy, the Gita along with the Vedas, and I'm not sure why we have both. Of the two, the Vedas are more historically, culturally, and religiously important. I am also not sure why we list the Gita alone and not the entire Mahabharata, and if we did list the Mahabharata, we should be asking ourselves why we list it and not the Ramayana, a work of like stature, as well. In order to avoid this awkwardness, I propose the Gita be removed.

Support
  1. Support as nom Zelkia1101 (talk) 00:12, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Oppose per Gizza's and Redtigerxyz's comments in the previous discussion from 2014. Cobblet (talk) 00:27, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
  2. Oppose my views from 2014 still stand. There was also some related discussion in 2013 here and here. Gizza (talk • voy) 06:36, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
  3. Oppose Apart from my old views, Britannica notes it being called "the pivotal Hindu text".--Redtigerxyz Talk 17:41, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
  4. Oppose, pivotal text indeed. Hyperbolick (talk) 01:23, 25 March 2022 (UTC)
Comment
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Remove all countries that are not a regional power

FAILED
earned at least 3 opposes, and failed to earn two-thirds support.C933103 (talk) 12:12, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Currently there's no guideline for which countries are added as level 3 articles opposed to level 4. We have countries that are not very significant at the present international sphere nor are historically important, they were added merely for numerical reasons (population), such as Myanmar, the Democratic Republic of the Congo or Colombia.

So in order to make it more fair and have a concrete criteria, I proposed the removal of all the countries that are not considered a regional power. The definition of a regional power is, according to the European Consortium for Political Research, the following:

"A state belonging to a geographically defined region, dominating this region in economic and military terms, able to exercise hegemonic influence in the region and considerable influence on the world scale, willing to make use of power resources and recognized or even accepted as the regional leader by its neighbors."

Personally I find this a good basis as to which countries should be level 3 articles because it encopasses economical, demographic, military and geopolitical factors, though it neglects historical but this seems to be case in the current list anyways. SadAttorney613 (talk)

If we follow this through it would result in the removal of the following countries:

Support
  1. Support per nom. SadAttorney613 (talk)
  2. Support removal of UAE. Purely because of Middle East becomes lightly overrepresented (especially by comparison to Africa) and Iraq from Middle East is not listed. No comment about other proposals (but I do not like idea to remove so many countries from Africa and Asia ahead of cities from Europe, in terms of improving Wikipedia, I believe population is at least quite important factor for our readers from future generations). Dawid2009 (talk) 21:29, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Oppose We just talked about how Southeast Asia have been under-represented in aspects outside list of countries. Yet this proposal is going to remove most Southeast Asian countries too. C933103 (talk) 16:01, 28 March 2022 (UTC)
    Weren't you precisely the one who proposed the removal of a Southeast Asia country? SadAttorney613 (talk) 20:14, 28 March 2022 (UTC)
    Yes, but I was not proposing removal of 5 out of 6 SE Asia countries, and my proposal also specified four SE Asian countries that should probably be keep, and I didn't cast my vote in the discussion either, and also withdrawn the proposal after discussion have shown that SE Asia would be otherwise under-reperesented if not for the amount of the country on the list. Hence, I currently don't support removal of any of them until other non-country SE Asian articles are added to the list. C933103 (talk) 22:50, 28 March 2022 (UTC)
    Well, having countries listed just for the sake of diversity doesn't seem a good norm but okay. If you really need Southeast Asia articles you have, Bruneian Sultanate (long-lived sultanate, primarily on Borneo) , First Toungoo Empire (prepotent power in mainland Southeast Asia), Majapahit Empire (prepotent power in insular Southeast Asia), Srivijaya (prepotent power in insular Southeast Asia), History of Southeast Asia, Borobudur (world's largest Buddhist temple, dates back to the 9th century, UNESCO World Heritage Site) and Angkor Wat (largest religious complex in the world by land area, dates back the 12th century, was built by the Khmer Empire, UNESCO World Heritage Site). SadAttorney613 (talk) 11:16, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
  2. Oppose making anything a sole criterion, whether it's population, economy or "power" doesn't reflect the multiple reasons why a country may be vital. And 40-50 countries out of 1,000 articles is a reasonable number. If anything they are still slightly underrepresented compared considering the coverage they receive in traditional encyclopedias and number of page views countries get on Wikipedia (they are more popular than every other type of article on this list by a distance). Even a relatively obscure country in the Anglophone world such as the Democratic Republic of Congo consistently gets more attention from readers than articles like volcano, evolution and the bronze age. Gizza (talk • voy) 23:30, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
  3. Oppose This could work on a list of 500 articles, but I think that readers want more at this level. --Thi (talk) 10:39, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
  4. Oppose The list of countries in regional power comes from cherry-picking quotations from random sources that make no reference to the ECPR definition of the concept. So the entire proposal is a non-starter. But even if the article meaningfully applied the ECPR definition, no reason is given why this particular conceptualization of power (i.e., one that emphasizes regional hegemony and hard power) should be given priority over other measures, such as those explained at middle power or soft power.
    Also, the notion that "no criterion" was used to determine the current list of countries is false. The current list includes the following 42 countries:
    • All of the world's 34 largest national economies by PPP-adjusted GDP. Many of the more recent additions (the Netherlands, Taiwan, the UAE, Malaysia) were made for basically economic reasons. Using PPP-adjusted rather than nominal GDP makes sense because it better reflects relative economic productivity between countries.
    • Seven more countries with large populations (Algeria, DRC, Ethiopia, Kenya, Myanmar, Tanzania, Ukraine), such that we also list 33 of the world's 34 most populous countries. The only exception is Uganda, which we rejected since nobody identified a compelling reason to add it ahead of other African countries such as Sudan, Morocco or Ghana, apart from Uganda's somewhat larger population. But from the standpoint of basic human dignity, population remains a reasonable baseline measure of significance. And countries do not have to be rich and powerful to be significant even from the narrow perspective of geopolitics (for instance, GDP doesn't quantify reserves of natural resources), to say nothing of a more holistic perspective that takes into account culture, history, etc.
    • Israel, for its exceptional cultural, historical, and geopolitical significance.
    We may have arrived at this list through a circuitous, even chaotic process, but in the end, I think we actually made very reasonable choices. Cobblet (talk) 03:41, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
Comment

I'm reserving my opinion for now but can we please make it a practice not to entertain bulk proposals like these? Our policy has always been to evaluate individual proposals on a case by case basis. If you want a mass roll-back of countries, that's fine, but propose individual countries for removal first. Doing it that way allows us to debate the merits of each proposal. Bulk proposals like these just invite contention. What if I agree with some of the removals? I'd be forced to oppose the proposal even if I were to agree with the majority of the removals. It's silly. Zelkia1101 (talk) 23:14, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

Well, the proposal is made on the basis if the country is a regional power or not, so should I just make an individual nomination for each of the 18 countries? It's much more practical to make a bulk nomination. SadAttorney613 (talk)
There's no hard and fast rule, but I think people are usually OK with smaller batch proposals (up to 3, rarely 4 articles) if they're clearly linked. You can definitely have a rubric in mind and mention it too, but I agree with Zelkia1101 it's best to make the proposals more granular (at least at this level, Level 5 is another matter). It's purely a practical thing so the discussion stays manageable even when people partially agree or spin-off new proposals. Zar2gar1 (talk) 19:26, 27 March 2022 (UTC)
Alright I can see that, but I don't have the patience to make an argument for every single country and to be honest this is more of a criteria proposal so it wouldn't even work. SadAttorney613 (talk) 20:00, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

Using power status as a criterion is an interesting idea, but I think it gets complicated in the details. For example, I'd strongly disagree with removing Poland (as a historical great power & a rep for Eastern Europe) and I honestly would consider the UAE a regional power too (it wields significant influence in several forms, despite its small size). It gets even fuzzier based on how you interpret power. Like in the Americas, the largest populations & economies don't really compete as powers with the US much, while Venezuela and Cuba (which has even sent expeditionary forces overseas) act more like independent powers despite being outsized by many others in the hemisphere. Zar2gar1 (talk) 19:26, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

China and the US are the only two economical superpowers, so no one competes with them, but at the regional level, Argentina and especially Brasil are the Golias in South America, both economical, militarily and demographically. Poland is a emerging power, and it's good to stress this word, emerging power in the European Union, but as of today it is not a regional one. Additionally, if we were to select countries for their historical significance then Greece, the Netherlands, Spain and Portugal (colonial empires), had a much more influence throughout the world than Poland with the fairly short-lived Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth had. All social sciences are subjective, it's one of their defining characteristics, so yes it's hard to reach a consensus to which countries are regional powers or not, but I think this criterion is better than the one we currently have, which is none. SadAttorney613 (talk) 19:52, 27 March 2022 (UTC)
After cheking in google "ranking of historical countries" what I can see Netherlands was ranked #41, by USNews (first website which appear by google search on my computer, probably the only ranking of countries with richiest history I found. Yes everyone can do their own anyway), meanwhile Poland #18 and Morocco (not listed) #17. We could say that US had short history as was ranked #28 here, meanwhile it is no surprising the oldest country Eghypt was 1st. Dawid2009 (talk) 21:44, 27 March 2022 (UTC)
The same list ranks the UAE ahead of the Netherlands for "having a rich history". Make of that what you will. Cobblet (talk) 13:32, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Add Kidney

NO CONSENSUS
3-1-2, no consensus because the discussion is stale and consensus is not decided by a vote. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 01:58, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

We currently do not list anything related to homeostasis and excretion, 2 processes which are crucial to pretty much all life. Since the kidney is involved in both of these processes, I think it's inclusion is merited. I would also support adding either or both of the processes mentioned, but I think that that is unlikely to pass. INDT (talk) 11:15, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

Support
  1. As the nominator. INDT (talk) 11:15, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
  2. It can go under digestion with liver, although it is somewhat odd we don't list stomach. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 14:33, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
  3. Support Basic topic. --Thi (talk) 17:23, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
Oppose

Oppose because we are close to the 1000-article limit. But I would support swapping hormone for homeostasis. Excretion is sufficiently covered by metabolism at this level. And the stomach is not a vital organ. Cobblet (talk) 17:33, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

  1. Oppose There is other organs I think are more important to list. -- Maykii (talk) 22:22, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
Discuss
  • I am vocally neutral on this proposal. User:力 (powera, π, ν) 18:09, 19 March 2022 (UTC)
  • Neutral now that we are below the 1000-article limit, although I will continue to oppose the addition of any other organs. Note that we swapped kidney for eye back in 2013. Cobblet (talk) 03:47, 20 March 2022 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Swap: Remove Women's suffrage, Add Social movement

NO CONSENSUS
2-2, no consensus. --Thi (talk) 09:20, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The list of 1000 articles currently includes a few different examples of social movements, including Environmentalism, Feminism, Secularism, and such.

However, there are still many different types of social movements around the world, and this list failed to cover them.

Given such situation, I propose adding the article on social movement to the list that cover all these different types of social movement and also other social movement with different goals and for different purposes that are not covered by the list now, including social movement for democracy, equality, liberty, anticorruption, and so on.

To make room for the addition, I suggest removing Women's suffrage, as it is much narrower in scope and too specific to say it have the degree of vitality to make it into the most vital 1000 articles list. C933103 (talk) 05:18, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

Support
  1. Nom.
  2. Support. Women's suffrage is already covered under Feminism. Listing both at this level is unnecessary. Rreagan007 (talk) 05:56, 17 February 2022 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Strong oppose Women's suffrage must rank as one of the most important social advances in modern history. Suggesting it is redundant with feminism is like suggesting that every subtopic of Christianity is redundant with Christianity. Cobblet (talk) 07:00, 19 February 2022 (UTC)
    Well, for most of human history most men didn't really get to vote either. Then modern democracies finally came along in the last century or two, and men beat women to voting in most countries by only a few decades. Rreagan007 (talk) 02:46, 23 February 2022 (UTC)
  2. Oppose Women's suffrage is a common topic in textbooks and Level 4 lists several suffragists. Social movement would be a useful chapter in the textbook, but too broad topics are not useful for an online encyclopedia. --Thi (talk) 18:09, 19 February 2022 (UTC)
    Number of "common topic in textbooks" are much more than 1000, and "social movement" is very likely to be one of such common topic also. As for the article's scope, listing different forms and ways of social movement as well as some influencing examples are already very helpful and vital. The current article as it stand is not up to this yet, but that's room for improvement and such room for improvement is also why we list articles into this vital article list. C933103 (talk) 19:49, 3 March 2022 (UTC)
Discuss
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Swap: Remove Arabic alphabet, Add Arabic script

PASSED
swappedC933103 (talk) 08:56, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The Arabic alphabet article specifically focus on the characters themselves that are used in Arabic language. Unlike Arabic script which cover it as used in all languages that use the same writing system. Information like writing styles and its global use is also only found in the Arabic script page. Hence I think it is an article that better represent the writing system as one of the 1000 most vital articles on English Wikipedia. C933103 (talk) 05:31, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

Support
  1. Support as nom. C933103 (talk) 05:31, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
  2. Support per nom. Gizza (talk • voy) 07:59, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
  3. Support --Thi (talk) 10:40, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
  4. Support Rreagan007 (talk) 22:51, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
  5. Support per nom. Arabic script has broader relevance, and likely contains more of the information that a generalist audience would want to see. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 19:21, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
Oppose
Discuss

Arabic script is not listed at level 4. Do we have a consensus to add it there as well? Cobblet (talk) 16:46, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Swap: Remove social class; Add social stratification

WITHDRAWN
Withdrawn.

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

In my opinion, the inclusion of "social class" in top 1000 most vital article is an undue representation to the idea of classism. Most society nowadays aren't organized into classes. The explanation in the article, "Class society or class-based society is an organizing principle society in which ownership of property, means of production, and wealth is the determining factor of the distribution of power, in which those with more property and wealth are stratified higher in the society and those without access to the means of production and without wealth are stratified lower in the society.", is a Marxist view of society classification and is far from mainstream. The article claim the most common classification are upper class, middle class, and working class, yet "upper class" isn't a commonly used term in English nowadays, and "Middle class" often overlap with "working class" in developed countries nowadays, and represent the general public who are not in the state of poverty, an article already included in the vital article list. Hence I believe the article social class should be removed from the vital article list level 3, to avoid undue representation of fringe idea. C933103 (talk) 11:01, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

Edit: @Zelkia1101 and Thi: I have changed the proposal to include a replacement target in order to cover the important social phenomenon of social stratification more appropriately, instead of the current vague social class article which lack focus and is open for interpretation by different schools of thoughts. C933103 (talk) 10:37, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

Support
  1. Support as nom. C933103 (talk) 11:01, 9 April 2022 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Oppose Social stratification is important concept in history and modern sociology. --Thi (talk) 20:18, 9 April 2022 (UTC)
    At least I totally cannot see that from the article as it is right now. C933103 (talk) 22:04, 9 April 2022 (UTC)
    Also, this proposal is about the article of social class, not social stratification. C933103 (talk) 13:38, 10 April 2022 (UTC)
  2. Strong oppose social class is an extremely important component of any advanced society and suggesting that its relevance extends only to Marxist analysis is farcical. Zelkia1101 (talk) 10:04, 10 April 2022 (UTC)
    Proof?C933103 (talk) 13:35, 10 April 2022 (UTC)
Discussion
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Remove Henry VIII

PASSED
Removal passes 5-0 Zelkia1101 (talk) 16:12, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Now that the moratorium has been lifted, I reckon it’s time we cleaned up this biography section. Starting with one of the most egregious inclusions. There is simply no reason to have Henry VIII on this list. At best he is a well-known figure in pop history (dur hur six wives). But what does Henry have to show for himself? His one great achievement, the English Reformation, is important to the Anglophone world, though it’s far less of a notable event in itself than the defeat of the Spanish Armada, which established Britain as a colonial power, or the English Civil War, which enshrined the power of the legislature and planted the seeds of parliamentary democracy. Cromwell, Charles I, Edward I, Marlborough, Wellington, are all leaders of equal stature to Henry, and yet they are not listed. Cromwell and Edward I are arguably far more influential. Why on a list of the 100 most important people must there be two Tudors? And why one to represent a Protestant reformation in a country when we already have Martin Luther?

Support
  1. Support as nom Zelkia1101 (talk) 21:59, 21 May 2022 (UTC)
  2. Support per above. Gizza (talk • voy) 00:44, 25 May 2022 (UTC)
  3. Support Goes without saying. Dawid2009 (talk) 08:41, 11 June 2022 (UTC)
  4. Support Queen Elizabeth is listed. --Thi (talk) 09:22, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
  5. Support Indeed probably not one of the approximately hundred most important people in human history. C933103 (talk) 01:57, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
Oppose
Comment
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Introduction section

On the introduction section of the main page, there is a sentence which said:

This list is tailored to the English-language Wikipedia. There is also a list of one thousand articles considered vital to Wikipedias of all languages, as well as Vital Article lists tailored to different Wikipedia languages accessible via the languages sidebar.

However, the "language sitebar" now link to wikidata item d:Q43375360, where the linked Chinese entry is "Wikipedia:Vital Articles/English Wikipedia Level 3 List", thus making the introduction doesn't match the reality.

Is the situation the same for other linked Wikipedia pages, that the Introduction section need to be fixed, or is this unique to Chinese Wikipedia, that its entry in Wikidata should be changed? C933103 (talk) 05:54, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

I doubt anyone has given much thought why certain articles link to d:Q43375360 and others to d:Q5460604. Cobblet (talk) 03:58, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
Q5460604 is meta's list.
What I want to confirm is, nature of other langauge wikipedia item entry in 43375360. It would be best if someone speak those other languages can tell what is the links there, are they unique lists or a copy of English Wikipedia's list. C933103 (talk) 07:08, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

Add Maritime history

Ocean, covering 70% of the earth, are essential to humanity to trade and exchange via and extract resource from for the growth of our civilization. The history of human utilizing and exploring it allowed faraway people to reach each others, and obtained resources that wouldn't be otherwise obtainable, and also caused numerous conflicts throughout the world along the history. Thus, I believe Maritime history as a history of human use of ocean, is at least as important as the History of Antarctica. Thus I propose adding the article "Maritime History" into this list at Level 3. C933103 (talk) 01:39, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

Support
  1. Support as nom. C933103 (talk) 01:54, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
  2. Support per nom. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 21:55, 29 April 2022 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Oppose it’s vital in the history of the planet in general, and absolutely essential if you’re a fish, but it’s not supremely relevant for the species of ape that uses this website. Level 4 is fine. Zelkia1101 (talk) 23:51, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
    Human use the ocean. A lot. Read the article. C933103 (talk) 03:50, 31 March 2022 (UTC) (n.b. At least more than human use of Antarctica. C933103 (talk) 08:05, 7 April 2022 (UTC))
Discuss

Add Musician to level 4?

Currently Musician is on the level 5 list, but I think it might deserve to be included higher? I'm not familiar with the vital articles process, so I'll leave it up to the project to decide what's best. — PerfectSoundWhatever (t; c) 17:24, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

What would be removed to make the place? Hyperbolick (talk) 23:07, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

Add Zhou dynasty

Five of the six generally accepted cradles of civilization are represented on the list: Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt, Indus Valley Civilisation, Mesoamerica, and Andean civilizations. Representation of Ancient China (a redirect to History of China) is conspicuously missing. I suggest adding the Zhou dynasty, China's longest dynasty, when among other technological advances, China first saw the introduction of iron, coinage, and horseback riding. Even more importantly, the Zhou dynasty also marks the first great flowering of Chinese intellectual culture, witnessing the development of Confucianism, Taoism, and Legalism; the Mandate of Heaven; Classical Chinese; and the writing of the Four Books and Five Classics (including the Analects and the I Ching) and The Art of War. The political and military intrigues that characterized the Spring and Autumn period and Warring States period at the end of the dynasty have been endlessly referenced in Chinese culture to this day. Cobblet (talk) 00:22, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

Support
  1. Support as nom. Cobblet (talk) 00:22, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
  2. Support, I would say the importance of spring and autumn period and the warring state periods, roughly within the time frame of Zhou dynasty, is *the single most* important period of time in ancient China. It's the basis to China's development in the next 2000 years, until the West start engaging with it militarily. Much of Qin Shi Huang and Han dynasty's historical significance, two other vital article already in the list, came from fixating things that were developed during this period of time. C933103 (talk) 12:35, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
  3. Support Per @Cobblet: Dawid2009 (talk) 08:44, 11 June 2022 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Oppose It's not a bad proposal in the main, but since we are so close to quota I would rather spare pure additions for absolute essentials and focus our energy on cleaning rather than clogging up. As for the proposal itself, we already have the Han and the Tang dynasties, which should be sufficient. Zelkia1101 (talk) 03:03, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
    What makes Ancient China not an absolute essential like the other listed cradles of civilization? Justifying that by saying the Han and Tang dynasties are sufficient is like saying Ancient Greece isn't an absolute essential because Ancient Rome, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, etc., are sufficient. Cobblet (talk) 04:13, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
    That isn't an applicable comparison. China, be it large, is still one civilization with a single lineage of history going down the dynasties. Ancient Greek and Ancient Rome are two different civilizations; the Renaissance impacted the whole of Europe, and the Middle Ages are a period in history and not a political regime like the Zhou. I don't see why we, being so close to the quota as we are, absolutely need three articles on this list that deal almost exclusively with the interior history of China when this is an English-language page and netizens in China are prohibited from using Wikipedia in the first place. As I said, I'm ambivalent about the addition of the Zhou Dynasty, but not so close to the quota, especially since our focus now should be trimming away superfluous additions. Zelkia1101 (talk) 12:03, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
    As discussed above, the article on the Zhou is not just about events directly influenced by the central government, but also about the development of Chinese civilization as a whole during this period, which was consequential for world history as a whole. (And even today, American executives read Sun Tzu, not Plato or Cicero.) Indeed, China's history is one of constant interaction with all its neighbouring civilizations and articles about Chinese dynasties deal with these relationships; these are not just articles about China's "internal history". For example, Tang China's direct influence in East and Central Asia (see e.g., Nara period, Tang dynasty in Inner Asia, Third Era of Northern Domination) is comparable to the impact of the Renaissance in Europe. Why can't we list three Chinese dynasties when South Asia gets Indus Valley Civilisation, Gupta Empire and Mughal Empire, the Middle East gets Mesopotamia, Sumer, Achaemenid Empire, Islamic Golden Age, Ottoman Empire, etc., and Mesoamerica gets Mesoamerica, Maya civilization, and Aztecs? By the way, netizens in China have VPNs. Cobblet (talk) 13:57, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
    If you think Sun Tzu is important, you may propose his addition, but we shouldn't need to represent Sun Tzu indirectly through the Zhou dynasty. Political periods are not important just because important people inhabited them. And obviously the Chinese dynasties had important effects outside of China. I never claimed the contrary. Nevertheless, almost all of their history pertains to the modern day nation of China, particularly the Zhou dynasty. By contrast, the Middle East is an entire region of the globe replete with different countries and ethnicities, while the Indus Valley Civilisation, Gupta Empire and Mughal Empire cover not only India but Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, etc. There is no such cross-over between countries or ethnities with the Zhou dynasty to merit its inclusion. I'm sure Chinese netizens are able to get over the firewall, but the number of those who do and use English wikipedia is likely very small as a percentage of our user base. Zelkia1101 (talk) 17:13, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
    China's historical influence extends to every country in East Asia as well as to much of Southeast Asia. Why call out Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Nepal but not Japan, the Koreas, Vietnam, Mongolia, or Taiwan? Also the PRC officially recognizes 55 ethnic minorities (there are in fact many more) and I'm sure you've at least heard of the Tibetans and Uyghurs by now. How is East Asia not "an entire region of the globe replete with different countries and ethnicities"? Cobblet (talk) 17:38, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
    As I mentioned below, in my personal opinion I would definitely consider the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, the 春秋戰國時代, to be more important than other periods of the Chinese history, like the Tang dynasty. C933103 (talk) 11:58, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
Discussion

#Oppose Spring and Autumn period and Warring States period are the periods when these different schools of thought being developed, and that is the time which see the central government authority, aka the ruling Zhou dynasty, being extremely weakened. Hence, an article on Zhou dynasty will not be able to represent the social and cultural development in China during this period of time. Many social reforms are conducted independently by each kingdoms which are in no way possible to be mentioned in an article for the Zhou dynasty, and different schools of thought are only allowed to flourish because academics are welcomed by different rulers in different kingdoms independently. And, per sources like [1], Mandate of Heaven as a concept already existed in Shang dynasty or before. (Contrary to what the Wikipedia article currently claim.) Hence both the Spring and Autumn period and Warring States period are much more important articles than an article on Zhou dynasty. C933103 (talk) 04:50, 21 March 2022 (UTC)changed vote as of 12:35, 23 March 2022 (UTC), C933103 (talk)

What you suggest cannot be covered by this article is in fact covered in Zhou dynasty#Eastern Zhou and Zhou dynasty#Philosophy. The article covers everything that happened during the dynasty's existence, not just what happened when the dynasty held real power. Cobblet (talk) 05:38, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
It describe what happened during that period of time, but cannot describe how things operate in each states' own system. C933103 (talk) 16:18, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
To use a rough analogy, I don't recall anyone suggesting that we need to add something like Classical Greece to cover in greater detail the societal differences between Athens, Sparta, and the other city-states at the height of Ancient Greece. There is a limit to the amount of detail that can be contained within a thousand articles. Cobblet (talk) 18:13, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
Have you consider adding Eastern Zhou instead which more specifically focus on this period of time?C933103 (talk) 14:20, 22 March 2022 (UTC)
Eastern Zhou is not listed at level 4. Cobblet (talk) 14:41, 22 March 2022 (UTC)
Well, being in Level 4 is not a requirement to be considered in Level 3 C933103 (talk) 11:55, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
It is a requirement: we have closed many past discussions for this reason alone. See the FAQ: "All articles from higher levels are also included in lower levels." Cobblet (talk) 13:57, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
What I thought this mean is that, if somehow people agreed article X deserve to be put into Level 1, then it will be automatically added into Level 2 3 4 5. C933103 (talk) 15:35, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
Such an occurrence is extremely rare, because issues tend to arise at the lower levels that are best discussed there first. For example, the fact that Spring and Autumn period and Warring States period are already on level 4, while Western Zhou is not, makes it unlikely we would agree to simply add Eastern Zhou to that level without making other changes there too. Cobblet (talk) 16:45, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

Adding reasons why people are vital for levels 3 and 4

I think when considering which people to include for levels 3 and 4, there is a lot to consider when deciding who to include and not to include. I wouldn't do this for level 5 just yet due to its size. I think adding reasons shows readers why we selected some people over others. Sometimes it's obvious, other times, it's not. I think including a reason why those people are listed at a particular level would help alleviate confusion on why we include them. Please let me know what your thoughts are on this. Interstellarity (talk) 20:55, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

Reward for improving a level 1 article to GA

See here, I'm offering $1000 USD to the first editor(s) to get one of the level 1 articles to GA. Have fun! --Cerebellum (talk) 13:07, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

Cerebellum, :) CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 13:47, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

Improving science to GA

I'm currently trying to improve the level 1 vital article to GA and it's been an interesting start so far. What do you think about the article so far? What parts of it need a lot of improvement? I'd love to hear your comments! CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 11:18, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Maybe a section on what is considered science? C933103 (talk) 04:52, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
I think we have that, at Science#Branches. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 10:20, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
I actually think there is a chance here. There are just over 10 tags in the article which need fixing up, and also the item needs the lede cleaning up. Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 12:32, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
Lee Vilenski, It's not that simple, but I like the enthusiasm! The main problem is presenting info in due proportions, which require multiple people looking at the article. So, here's my broad checklist:
  1. Verify text with sources
  2. Add more information
  3. Fixing layout
  4. Prose and stuff
So yeah, back to work after a GA withdrawal... CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 12:38, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
I have promoted the odd GA or two in my time. The lede is by far the worst part of this article. The things that are marked as requiring sources (as well as some other bits that aren't tagged) is the first step. The general level of sourcing is very good, there would need to be a dedicated effort to check what is being cited is actually in the source. I don't think the layout is particularly bad, and I don't think we need to add additional info, unless there is something specific that is missing. There's certainly some poor prose in this article, but perhaps that could be resolved at GOCE. Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 12:52, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
I think that would require a complete rewrite of the lead. Let me make a prose proposal and post it on science's talk page. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 13:40, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
For your information, the article is now at good article nominations page. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 10:45, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

Swap: Remove Women’s suffrage, Add Suffrage

Suffrage is a much broader topic than women’s suffrage. Interstellarity (talk) 18:15, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

Support
  1. Interstellarity (talk) 18:15, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
  2. —CX Zoom[he/him] (let's talk • {C•X}) 04:57, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
  3. Support I've thought about this one a while and I'm going to support. Women's suffrage beats out suffrage in terms of pageviews handily, and historically the women's suffrage movement has been the most prominent suffrage movement in most countries. All the same, I think it's best to list the general, overarching article rather than a specific example. Women's suffrage is contained in the broader context of the right to vote, which is an essential liberty in all free societies. Zelkia1101 (talk) 15:11, 22 July 2022 (UTC)
    But then suffrage is also a close subset of democracy. Of course there are other key aspects to democracy than the simplest right to vote, but that is why we have democracy at VA3 explaining them. Do we need another article at VA3 describing specifically the right to vote part of democracy? C933103 (talk) 18:27, 22 July 2022 (UTC)
    suffrage is a subset of liberty more so than democracy, but the point is that with a list this large we are going to have a significant degree of overlap in places, people and things. Why do we list Louis Armstrong and Jazz? They clearly overlap. Well, we list them because we think that each is important in its own right. My point about suffrage and women's suffrage is that women's suffrage is a specific species of suffrage that we have decided is more important than the general concept itself. It would be like if we listed representative democracy and not democracy. Zelkia1101 (talk) 14:28, 24 July 2022 (UTC)
  4. I Support this LightProof1995 (talk) 05:00, 2 August 2022 (UTC)
  5. Support per above. -- Maykii (talk) 05:44, 3 August 2022 (UTC)


So I guess this PASSED. How do we add it?

EDIT: I made the swap here, and listed Suffrage as vital-3 on its talk page, and listed Women's Suffrage as vital-4 on its talk page. This needs one more vote to pass.

EDIT: Hey @Cobblet, I see you undid my edits to swap Woman's Suffrage and Suffrage. I was going to go to the vital-4 list to swap them as well when I saw you undid my edits in vital-3. Is this because you want to ignore Interstellarity's rule change, so it needs one more vote? LightProof1995 (talk) 19:33, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

I am not aware of any consensus for any rule change. Interstellarity does not make the rules. Cobblet (talk) 20:51, 2 August 2022 (UTC)
The condition to pass was "After 15 days any proposal may be closed as PASSED if a) at least five !votes have been cast in support, and b) at least two-thirds of the total !votes support the proposal." before changed by the user, and this now match this criteria. C933103 (talk) 20:31, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

That makes sense, I just want to add I only saw the conversation about Interstellity’s edit/rule change after I made the Suffrage edits, because I actually was going by the Introduction section’s statement about if 15 days pass and there is 67% consensus, then it passes LightProof1995 (talk) 21:00, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

Interstellarity changed the rules without even attempting to gain any sort of WP:CONSENSUS for the change. That is unacceptable behaviour, and I have reverted their changes. Cobblet (talk) 21:07, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

This has now officially PASSED. I edited the Vital-3 page, Vital-4 page, Suffrage talk page, and Women's suffrage talk page accordingly. LightProof1995 (talk) 21:14, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

William Utermohlen

I don't understand this addition; I find no discussion in archives, and it is hard to imagine how this obscure artist is "vital". SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:08, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

Unwatching now; should anyone decide to explain how an editor who writes an article on a mostly unknown person can add the article themselves to VITAL, they will need to ping me. I don't understand what makes this article vital, or why there is no process governing who adds what. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 09:45, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

No minimum number of votes required?

User:Interstellarity has recently altered the consensus rules on the Vital Articles Project at all levels so that instead of needing a minimum of 5 supports, a proposal can pass with only one support (i.e. only the nomination) and then applied this change of rule to every existing proposal retrospectively. With all due respect, I found this to be a ridiculous change when 1. It wasn't discussed at all 2. Many proposals would've been opposed in greater numbers had people known about this change (I could not be bothered opposing many proposals which only had the nominator supporting because it didn't look like they were going to be successful and I imagine many others were in the same boat) and 3. A nomination with no further comments or agreement doesn't signify "consensus" in any shape or form.

It's one thing to change things slightly in order to make the project active (although even then it's good to discuss and ping all major long-term editors of the page) and another to go to such extreme lengths. You might as well make it a free-for-all and take away the requirement to discuss any changes if one support is enough for a proposal to pass. Gizza (talk • voy) 02:54, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

This is unacceptable behaviour. Cobblet (talk) 03:03, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
Hello and I am sorry that I did not discuss this before implementing the change. I do have a few ideas on how we can make the rules better. My first idea is for the first rule, to change the minimum number of support votes needed to pass to 3 and as well as for the second rule, change the number of opposes to 2. My second idea I have would be to allow anyone to edit the vital articles pages as they please, but if an addition or removal is reverted within 48 hours, then they must take it to the talk page to get a consensus. Please let me know your thoughts regarding these ideas. Interstellarity (talk) 11:06, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
This project goes through cycles of activity and inactivity. It's a feature, not a bug. The rules are fine as they are. Cobblet (talk) 16:38, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
Please do not ignore ongoing discussions like Wikipedia_talk:Vital_articles/Level/4#Change_the_!voting_rule C933103 (talk) 04:40, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

Compare to Encyclopædia Britannica

Hello, I have made a page on Wikipedia:WikiProject Vital Articles/Compare to Encyclopædia Britannica to compare articles from both encyclopedia together. Spoiler: Britannica is much closer to our Vital article quality than you might think. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 04:10, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

This leave me with a question: how could we make this project more active? CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 08:54, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

Barnstars

There's new barnstars at the WikiProject Vital Articles for those bold enough to improve a Vital article towards GA and FA. Here it is:

The Good Article Barnstar
Make 1, get 1 for free!
The Featured Article Barnstar
The course of FA never did run smooth...

CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 13:55, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

What article should we collectively push towards GA first? CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 04:22, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Reassessment of Vital articles

I'm currently going through the vital article list to update the assessment. If you see the article goes from B-Class to C-Class, it is most likely for the following reasons, of decreasing importance:

  1. The article is lacking reliable citations. Usually this means that the article have a lot of uncited material (>10%) and/or relying too much on primary sources.
  2. The article is lacking important content. Usually the tell-tale sign is very short sections (lots of 1-2 paragraph sections) or again, a lot of uncited material.
  3. The article is too long, exceeding 90 thousand characters of readable prose. This criterion doesn't usually meant automatic demotion, but rather as a consideration for ambiguous cases.

If you have any concerns or questions, feel free to message me here or at my talk page. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 02:40, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

@CactiStaccingCrane: Can you also go through the FAs and notice them (per the instructions on WP:FAR) if they do not meet the featured article criteria? This will help with efforts to review these articles at WP:URFA/2020. Thanks, Z1720 (talk) 13:36, 30 July 2022 (UTC)
Z1720, yes, I will probably go through the FAs at some point. But that will be a different process, let me just draft it out in my sandbox... CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 13:38, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

User:Z1720 Done, and to sum up the situation: "Hell is the truth seen too late". CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 03:39, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

Article URFA comment Last action date
Amphibian no No comment 2012-12-16
Ancient Egypt no No comment 2008-03-30
Antarctica  Passed, keep at FAR 2022-06-25
Archaea no No comment 2008-07-02
Archimedes no No comment 2007-10-23
Atheism  Notes given... 2007-04-28
Augustus no No comment 2007-08-31
Australia no No comment 2010-06-29
Bacteria  Remark: 2 satisfactory 2006-12-03
The Beatles no No comment 2009-11-03
Bird  Notes given... 2007-12-20
Byzantine Empire  Notes given... 2012-06-27
Canada no No comment 2010-04-20
Charlie Chaplin no No comment 2014-01-14
Climate change  Passed, keep at FAR 2021-01-21
Charles Darwin  Notes given... 2006-12-19
Dinosaur  Remark: 1 satisfactory 2005-12-17
Walt Disney  Not applicable 2016-05-21
DNA no No comment 2007-04-25
Earth  Not applicable 2020-11-14
Electron no No comment 2009-08-30
Elizabeth I no No comment 2007-12-10
Evolution  Notes given... 2007-06-10
Leonhard Euler  Passed, keep at FAR 2021-09-04
Fungus no No comment 2009-08-22
Galaxy  Notes given... 2007-02-10
Genetics  Notes given... 2008-03-25
Germany  Remark: 1 satisfactory 2011-06-13
Han dynasty  Notes given... 2009-04-21
Hydrogen no No comment 2008-04-20
Immune system Checked, 3 satisfactory 2007-01-09
India  Notes given... 2011-07-28
Influenza  Notes given... 2006-11-02
Michael Jackson  Notes given... 2008-07-28
Japan  Notes given... 2011-04-14
Jesus no No comment 2013-08-15
Joan of Arc  Reviewing... 2006-08-31
Logarithm no No comment 2011-06-01
Nelson Mandela  Not applicable 2017-02-10
Mars  Passed, keep at FAR 2022-06-25
Maya civilization Checked, 3 satisfactory 2015-07-24
Mercury (planet) no No comment 2008-06-06
Metabolism  Notes given... 2007-03-30
Middle Ages  Deferred 2013-05-26
Moon no No comment 2010-05-18
Murasaki Shikibu no No comment 2011-09-16
Neptune no No comment 2008-03-14
Emmy Noether no No comment 2008-06-22
Olympic Games  Notes given... 2009-05-12
Oxygen no No comment 2008-02-06
Periodic table no No comment 2012-11-07
Pi no No comment 2012-06-04
Planet  Reviewing... 2008-02-08
Primate no No comment 2008-12-03
Rodent  Remark: 1 satisfactory 2014-10-22
Saturn  Notes given... 2007-08-02
Sea  Notes given... 2013-10-05
Solar System  Passed, keep at FAR 2022-07-09
Sun no No comment 2009-07-30
William Shakespeare no No comment 2007-08-14
Sheep no No comment 2008-02-13
Shen Kuo no No comment 2007-06-01
Speed of light  Passed, keep at FAR 2022-03-19
Star  Notes given... 2006-10-13
Supernova  Reviewing... 2007-02-10
Tang dynasty no No comment 2007-08-03
Uranus no No comment 2007-09-29
Venus  Not applicable 2016-06-26
Virus  Remark: 1 satisfactory 2008-09-23
Wind  Reviewing... 2009-06-27
Mary Wollstonecraft  Notes given... 2007-01-20

FAR for Wind

I have nominated Wind for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Z1720 (talk) 13:35, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

New Topics and Replacement Ideas

Hello, Since this is currently at 997, I propose we add these articles as Vital-3: Protist, Elephant, and Whale.

Both species of African elephant were listed as endangered in 2021 because of habitat loss and the ivory trade. Elephants have also been important in warfare historically. Currently Elephant is a featured article.

The blue whale is the largest animal known to have ever existed. Many species of whale are also endangered because of their importance humans (whaling).

Protist seems so vital I'm surprised it isn't listed yet.

Replacement Ideas:

Under weapons, I vote we replace Knife with the article Blade, which is more general, referring not only to knives but also swords, axes, spears, etc. I feel the Blade article needs more work.

If we are going to have a business-person, I vote John D. Rockefeller takes the place of Henry Ford. Not only is Rockefeller the richest person of modern history, he only became so wealthy because the government broke up his business into 34 companies over anti-trust concerns after he had already retired, and for some reason this made him even wealthier than he already was. He then became one of the greatest philanthropists of all time. Ford, on the other hand, was antisemitic, and not as successful as Rockefeller.

Furthermore, I vote Reincarnation takes the place of Greek mythology. I feel Egyptian mythology, Celtic mythology, and more are just as cool, and the Myth page doesn't even mention them, so other cultures' mythologies besides the Greeks deserve more love. Reincarnation, on the other hand, is an idea seen across many cultures and religions, notably being a tenet of all four major Indian religions (all are vital-3 articles: Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, and Jainism), but also seen in faiths such as the Druze, Jewish Kabbalah, and Wicca. LightProof1995 (talk) 06:27, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

First of all, it is a bad idea to try to fill empty slots for the sake of filling it. Those animals being declared endangered is just part of the much larger topic of Holocene extinction which see many more species going down the same path. Second, it would be better to have each unrelated proposals separated into different sections, so that arguments and counterarguments can be laid out in a more easy to read manner. Third, Ford's prominence was more than merely his wealth, as discussed in some other recent proposal for swapping him out, including one removal proposal I raised just not too long ago. And vitalness of an article should not be impacted by how good or bad the subject is. C933103 (talk) 08:43, 2 August 2022 (UTC)
I mention the fact elephants and whales became endangered because their animal products were so important historically to humans that we almost wiped them out. The fact that they were so important historically is why I feel they are both vital-3. LightProof1995 (talk) 09:21, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

I want to add, it was a coincidence all of the topics I want to add are organisms. I truly went up and down the list and decided these three were most important, and should be added. LightProof1995 (talk) 08:55, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

I would suggest to halt adding or replacing Vital articles for now. It's a waste of time if we don't make use of the list to improve articles. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 15:11, 2 August 2022 (UTC)
I would feel more inclined to edit Wikipedia if there were an even 1000 vital articles. I was happily editing away, but then noticed this, and I'm way too organizationally quirky to not try to fix it. It's the entire point of having this list, is to choose the most vital 1000. I spent a long time going through everything trying to decide what to add and I genuinely believe we should add Protists, Elephants, and Whales.
Protists are insanely important and there are sooooooo many. As soon as I noticed they weren't listed I was like "well that's the most important to add". Haha.
It's not just the importance of elephants and whales historically to humans, it is also the fact they are such majestic and fascinating creatures. Just think about what elephants look like. They have distinctive ears, trunks, and tusks. The hippocampus of the elephant is larger relative to its size compared to humans which is why elephants are known to be such emotionally intelligent animals and is why you've heard the phrase "An elephant never forgets".
Now think about whales. Imagine you were an extraterrestrial looking at this list of vital articles. You might say "Ah, yes, humans arose from abiogenesis and evolution, first they were single-cell organisms, then fish, then they moved on land and evolved into primates, then humans, and that was the peak of evolution. So surely no animal went back into the ocean after having evolved on land right? Because that would make like no sense??? And they would see dinosaur and say "Ah yes, these were the largest animals to have ever existed on Earth for sure. Because how could these humans not include the largest one on this list?"
We need to consider all three of these added. LightProof1995 (talk) 18:27, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

Add Protists

We should add Protists. I'm surprised they haven't been added yet. LightProof1995 (talk) 08:53, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

Oppose We have discussed this before, "protists" are not really a proper group and is basically just a catch-all for any eukaryote that isn't an animal, plant, or fungus. Maykii (talk) 05:30, 3 August 2022 (UTC)
I considered this when I made this recommendation. Regardless of that fact, I think protists should still be listed, because there are so, so many. I also feel if algae, a type of protist, are listed, we should list protists too. However, if it comes down to adding protists or wetlands, I would vote wetlands over protists.

EDIT: Apparently some algae are sometimes considered plants, and sometimes considered protists. Green algae seems to be considered a plant. LightProof1995 (talk) 13:43, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

Elephants

We should add Elephants. It is currently a Featured Article which points to their importance. Elephants are the largest living land creatures and have been vital to humanity for millennia. First domesticated by the Indus Valley civilization, they were historically important in warfare, such as when Hannibal crossed the Alps on elephants. Both species of African elephant were listed as endangered in 2021 due to the illegal ivory trade and habitat loss.

It's not just the importance of elephants and whales historically to humans, it is also the fact they are such majestic and fascinating creatures. Just think about what elephants look like. They have distinctive ears, trunks, and tusks. The hippocampus of the elephant is larger relative to its size compared to humans which is why elephants are known to be such emotionally intelligent animals and is why you've heard the phrase "An elephant never forgets". LightProof1995 (talk) 08:59, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

Oppose The only specific animals we list are domesticated ones that are especially important to humans, elephants are not on the same level. Maykii (talk) 05:31, 3 August 2022 (UTC)
Support: Aside from their major significance in human history and culture as beasts of burden, war animals and a source of luxury goods, elephants are ecosystem engineers - their size and bulk means they literally reform entire landscapes - making glades and pathways through forests and stripping scrubland back down to open plains. Hugely important animals. Iskandar323 (talk) 06:26, 5 August 2022 (UTC)
I definitely feel elephants are, in fact, on the same level of importance to humans and domestication, given their use in warfare. I still Support. Not that domestication is necessary for inclusion anyway, e.g. insect, mollusca, crustacean are all vital-3.
I will add, my idea to add both elephants and whales comes from playing Civilization IV, where both of them are resources due to their importance for civilization. This game also taught me about Mansa Musa, Hatshepsut, Ramesses II, and Saladin, so I think it is a useful reference for composing this list of vital-3 articles. Because of this, I will list the other animal resources in the game:

Cattle

Horse

Sheep

Pig

Beaver (A type of Rodent, which we have) This is the "Fur" resource

Fish

Clam (A type of Mollusca, which we have)

Crab (A type of Crustacean, which we have)

Deer We don't have this.

Elephant We don't have this. In the game, it is called the Ivory resource and shows elephants, but you also need this resource to make War Elephants.

Whale We don't have this.

Camel We don't have this. Represented as Camel archers, but only if you play as the Arabian civilization as Saladin. Comparatively, you can have War elephants playing as any civilization. In Civilization III, war elephants were unique to the Indian civilization. In Civilization V, war elephants are unique to the Indian civilization as a unit called "War elephant" and the Carthaginian civilization as a unit called "African forest elephant", replacing chariot archer and horseman units, respectively. The ivory resource is still present, but isn't required by the Indian and Carthaginian civilizations to make their elephant units. There is also a Bison resource in Civ 5. LightProof1995 (talk) 04:47, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

I didn't think about deer until I made this list, but I'm not recommending we add them. I do think we should have both elephant and whale, however. Additionally, when zooming in on a town in the game, you can hear dogs barking and chickens clucking, which we both have. LightProof1995 (talk) 15:17, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

Wouldn't Camel be more important? Ivory is a luxurious good, and war elephants aren't really something too common in the history of the earth, so I don't think they are more appropriate to be part of this vital list. C933103 (talk) 01:32, 5 August 2022 (UTC)
Omg Camels!!! Nice catch haha yeah I forgot about them!! They are in Civilization IV too, but only if you play as the Arabian empire, led by Saladin, as Camel archers are a unique unit that replaces the knight. I'll add them to the list. LightProof1995 (talk) 04:34, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

Whales

We should add Whales. Like elephants, whales have also almost been driven to extinction due to their importance to humans. The whaling industry was important from the 1600s to the 1900s for products such as oil for lamps and ambergris. The blue whale is the largest animal known to have ever existed. Whale watching is a popular form of tourism worldwide.

Imagine you were an extraterrestrial looking at this list of vital articles. You might say "Ah, yes, humans arose from abiogenesis and evolution, first they were single-cell organisms, then fish, then they moved on land and evolved into primates, then humans, and that was the peak of evolution. So surely no animal went back into the ocean after having evolved on land right? Because that would make like no sense??? And they would see dinosaur and say "Ah yes, these were the largest animals to have ever existed on Earth for sure. Because how could these humans not include the largest one on this list?" LightProof1995 (talk) 09:02, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

Support LightProof1995 (talk) 13:53, 3 August 2022 (UTC)
Oppose Same reason as elephants. Maykii (talk) 05:32, 3 August 2022 (UTC)
Support: Similarly to elephants, whales have a major degree of significance in human history and culture as sources of food, and critically, oil - which literally kept the lights on for an entire period of history. They also literally stir the oceans with their bulk, mixing nutrients between water layers, their waste feeds plankton and their carcasses ocean floor ecosystems - altogether serving to play a major role in global carbon sequestration - on a similar level to significant numbers of global forests and jungles. Not sure if all this is all properly covered in the article, but it should be. Iskandar323 (talk) 06:33, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

Replace Knife with Blade

Under weapons, I vote we replace Knife with the article Blade, which is more general, referring not only to knives but also swords, axes, spears, etc. I feel the Blade article needs more work. LightProof1995 (talk) 09:03, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

Support LightProof1995 (talk) 13:53, 3 August 2022 (UTC)
Oppose Knives are an important part of human history and culture and should be kept. Maykii (talk) 05:33, 3 August 2022 (UTC)
But a knife is a type of blade... LightProof1995 (talk) 15:31, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

Replace Ford with Rockefeller

If we are going to have a business-person, I vote the oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller takes the place of Henry Ford. Not only is Rockefeller the richest person of modern history, he only became so wealthy because the government broke up his business into 34 companies over anti-trust concerns after he had already retired, and for some reason this made him even wealthier than he already was. He then became one of the greatest philanthropists of all time. Ford, on the other hand, was antisemitic, and not as successful as Rockefeller. LightProof1995 (talk) 09:03, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

Oppose: "Richest person in modern history" and "Being made this rich due to government antitrust action" are interesting trivia, but I do not believe they constitute vitalness of most important 1000 articles on the Wikipedia. As for removing Ford, there are some aspects to consider, but "antisemitic" obviously isn't one given we have some dictators and genociders like Adolf Hitler on the list, and "not as successful as Rockfeller" is not just a subjective judgement of what is successful but also fail to address other reason that Ford is notable (Like the way he run factories and how he lead the world into the era of motorization). C933103 (talk) 15:26, 2 August 2022 (UTC)
Oppose per above. Maykii (talk) 05:34, 3 August 2022 (UTC)
It is true that antisemitism or being bad in general is not enough to say he shouldn't be included. However, his antisemiticism was not notable enough for it to get him in the vital articles list, like Hitler. I do feel if their bad qualities aren't their notable qualities, their bad qualities should be considered as a reason to kick them off the list, so long as there is a better replacement (i.e. just as historically impressive, but no bad qualities), just because I like to think those people that didn't have bad qualities deserve to be more recognized and known.
I thought I was being objective when I said "not as successful as Rockefeller" because whenever I search him I find phrases like "Rockefeller was the richest individual in American business and economic history." https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=47167#:~:text=Rockefeller%20(1839%2D1937)%2C,American%20business%20and%20economic%20history.
However according to this list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wealthiest_historical_figures Ford is at the top, although it should be noted Rockefeller is mentioned in this paragraph at the top of the same page: "While the Rothschild family rose to the status of the wealthiest family of bankers in the 19th century, their wealth was distributed among a number of family members, preventing them from appearing among the wealthiest of individuals. The richest among the Rothschilds was the head of its English branch—Nathan Mayer Rothschild —the richest person of his time. Bernstein and Swan in All the Money in the World (2008) mention the top four richest Americans ever—all tycoons of the Gilded Age—respectively: John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and William Henry Vanderbilt. Henry Ford was ranked only the 12th."
I wonder if Rockefeller is not at the top of the list but is still often cited as the "Richest" American ever because he gave away a large portion of his wealth. It seems Andrew Carnegie gave away even more of his wealth away as a percentage than Rockefeller, but both of them were still way more philanthropic than Ford.
It is true Ford invented the assembly line and cars are very important to humans. But how could you have cars without oil (Rockefeller) or steel (Carnegie)? Oil is used for waaaay more things than just cars. It is used in asphalt, pharmaceuticals, synthetic dyes, and most important of all: plastics. The 34 companies that came from Rockefeller's Standard Oil company have since remerged into corporations like Exxon-Mobil and Chevron, and they have monopolized the entire oil-to-plastic supply chain at the detriment to the environment. The importance of the oil industry on the industrialization of society cannot be understated. So I still vote Support but I appreciate your response.

Also, I looked into that list more -- Rockefeller *is* only at #4 on that list because he gave his wealth away -- The numbers on it were extrapolated from his net wealth when he had died. Not his total wealth. Check out this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_richest_Americans_in_history Rockefeller is consistently ranked #1. So I am not being subjective when I say "Rockefeller was more successful", if you equate success with wealth, which I was in the sentence. LightProof1995 (talk) 19:03, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

Replace Greek Mythology with Reincarnation

I vote Reincarnation takes the place of Greek mythology. I feel Egyptian mythology, Celtic mythology, and more are just as cool, and the Myth page doesn't even mention them, so other cultures' mythologies besides the Greeks deserve more love. Reincarnation, on the other hand, is an idea seen across many cultures and religions, notably being a tenet of all four major Indian religions (all are vital-3 articles: Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, and Jainism), but also seen in faiths such as the Druze, Jewish Kabbalah, and Wicca. LightProof1995 (talk) 09:06, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

Oppose: Remember this list is the most vital 1000. "Other deserve more love" is not exactly a good reason. C933103 (talk) 15:26, 2 August 2022 (UTC)
I agree other mythologies not being here is not reason enough to delete Greek mythology, but I do think Reincarnation is more important a topic than any specific culture's mythology, as reincarnation is seen across many cultures. It is more broad. So I'm leaving my vote as Support. LightProof1995 (talk) 19:46, 2 August 2022 (UTC)
Support addition, very important concept across many religions. Actually surprised we don't have it on here yet. Maykii (talk) 05:35, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

Replace Ramesses II with Saladin

I think we should replace Ramesses II with Saladin because then Saladin would fulfill a Middle East/Arab/Islam niche, and we already have Hatshepsut, who is cooler than Ramesses, to fulfill the Ancient Egyptian ruler niche. Not only was Hatshepsut one of the four female leaders on the list of 26, but also her tomb, the Mortuary temple of Hatshepsut is one of the most-studied structures in Egyptian archeology. Ramesses was known mostly for his war campaigns and territorial conquests, but he mostly just reconquered lands lost previously, and looking at maps, Egypt's borders under Hatshepsut in the Eighteenth dynasty were roughly the same as in the Nineteenth dynasty under Ramesses.

As for Saladin, his empire was larger than any Ancient Egyptian empire, as he was the sultan of not only Egypt, but he also conquered Syria, Palestine, and large portions of Arabia. Saladin was one of the few Muslim crusaders who was actually respected by his Christian enemies. I think for Ancient Egyptian topics, as long as we have Ancient Egypt, the Pyramid of Giza, and Hatshepsut we cover it pretty well, especially since we can't add Egyptian mythology which I also feel would be better than having Ramesses. LightProof1995 (talk) 09:07, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

Oppose I don't think your reasoning here is very good, we already have a good few articles for Islamic empires and the Islamic Golden Age. Maykii (talk) 05:38, 3 August 2022 (UTC)
I agree this was a more difficult swap for me to come up with and is not as obvious. This is less about adding Saladin and more about taking Ramesses II off. I don't see any articles listed about Islamic empires, but we do have Islamic Golden Age and Crusades, which are both Saladin-related. Compare those two covering the Islamic medieval time period with Ancient Egypt, the Pyramid of Giza, and Hatshepsut covering the Ancient Egypt time period already. That's why I felt Saladin would beat Ramesses, however I'm not expecting this swap to vote successfully, which is why I'm writing this comment. If there is support to add say wetland, reincarnation, and elephant, I want to add I think whales are more vital than Ramesses II -- I really think we need a marine mammal on the list. I think elephants are even more vital than whales. I think protists are probably more vital than Ramesses but I could be swayed. LightProof1995 (talk) 15:29, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

I just realized I had been reading Martin Luther as Martin Luther King Jr. I would also vote for replacing Ramesses II with Martin Luther King Jr. In fact, I think MLK Jr is a more important addition than Saladin. LightProof1995 (talk) 08:52, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

Replace Piano with Wetlands

This replacement, unlike my other suggestions, is not a swap between related subjects.

I feel pianos, while cool, are not more vital than a number of other musical instruments such as the drum, the guitar, the flute, the trumpet, the harp, etc.

Wetlands are an extremely critical part of Earth's ecosystem. The term wetland includes swamps, marshes, bogs, fens, and mangrove forests. The fact that water constantly inundates the soils of wetlands gives rise to anaerobic conditions that provide unique and important functions for the environment, such as giving rise to a wide range of plant and animal diversity, and protecting the soil integrity of the area. They are found worldwide, from the taiga in Siberia, to Florida. LightProof1995 (talk) 09:18, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

Addition of wetland would be a good idea that I would Support, however I would oppose the removal of piano, given it is indeed more vital than some other equipment, can even be said as representing all the different instruments. C933103 (talk) 15:26, 2 August 2022 (UTC)
Oppose I feel like wetlands are already covered by some of the other articles here. Maykii (talk) 05:41, 3 August 2022 (UTC)
Which ones? LightProof1995 (talk) 13:44, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

Changing the voting rule for level 4

Please see the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Vital_articles/Level/4#Change_the_!voting_rule regarding changing the voting rule on the level 4 talk page. Interstellarity (talk) 17:22, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

Remove Mansa Musa

Another superfluous addition (my fault, sorry) that we could do without. Mansa Musa is not renowned for anything besides his enormous wealth, and he has no great achievements to his name that put him beside Qin Shi Huang or George Washington. We have four African leaders as it stands, only two of which are actually vital at this level, and along with math history is probably our most bloated section, so someone needs to go if we are to get to 100.

Support
  1. as nom Zelkia1101 (talk) 17:43, 16 July 2022 (UTC)
  2. Support The like of Hanseatic League seems more vital than that in term of businesss and wealth than such (king?). In term of African history, the like of Umayyad Caliphate seems more vital than this. C933103 (talk) 12:20, 21 July 2022 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Oppose I see no pressing need to cut bios further when we are already under the quota as it stands. I don't see anything wrong at all with listing two Ancient Egyptian monarchs and two sub-Saharan African leaders. Cobblet (talk) 00:12, 17 July 2022 (UTC)
  2. Oppose We are already lacking in African figures and Mansa Musa is one of the most important. -- Maykii (talk) 05:46, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

I vote Oppose and I agree with Cobblet. Mansa fulfills both a niche for both sub-Saharan African leaders and Islamic leaders pretty well. I thought about proposing we switch Saladin for Mansa Musa, but we have Islamic Golden Age and Crusades already, which both cover Saladin, but not the vast wealth of Mansa Musa nor the great scholarship he inspired by founding the University of Sankoré in Timbuktu. Maybe we can replace Ramesses II with Saladin because then Saladin would fulfill a Middle East/Arab/Islam niche, and we already have Hatshepsut, who is cooler than Ramesses, to fulfill the Ancient Egyptian ruler niche. Not only was Hatshepsut one of the four female leaders on the list of 26, but also her tomb, the Mortuary temple of Hatshepsut is one of the most-studied structures in Egyptian archeology. Ramesses was known mostly for his war campaigns and territorial conquests, but he mostly just reconquered lands lost previously, and looking at maps, Egypt's borders under Hatshepsut in the Eighteenth dynasty were roughly the same as in the Nineteenth dynasty under Ramesses. LightProof1995 (talk) 05:01, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

Discuss
The question is why? What does cutting the article out of the Vital list helps with improving Vital articles as a whole? Nothing. It doesn't hurt to keep the article in here for now. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 12:50, 19 July 2022 (UTC)
The point of paring down the biographies to a nice round number like 100 is to clear room for non-biography articles that are more worthy of addition than many of the biographies on this list. Zelkia1101 (talk) 14:58, 22 July 2022 (UTC)
So? Why don't suggest these articles here instead? Better yet, why not improving them? CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 01:50, 24 July 2022 (UTC)
I agree. A swap would be more productive: ”Swap Mansa Musa for Alchemy” etc. I don’t see the point of removing several biographies only to leave a gap that needs filling. The list is already 3 below quota – which articles should those 3 be? Telepanda (talk) 10:49, 24 July 2022 (UTC)
It is sometimes difficult to find perfectly suitable articles to swap. Removals and additions can be less confusing. --Thi (talk) 14:30, 24 July 2022 (UTC)
Ok, I see your point. :) 1 removal/addition/swap a time should be fine. Just don’t see the point of ”mass-cutting” biographies just for the sake of it. I mean, if somebody gets a brilliant idea for a non-biography addition, then surely room can be found for it? (A gradual ”modification” of the list seems to me much more reasonable than chasing some random ideal of, say, 100 biographies – which could quickly lead to a list far below quota. But yes, I’m not very active here, so just my casual observation as somebody whose OCD is triggered when the total number is not 1000! ;) ) Telepanda (talk) 23:40, 24 July 2022 (UTC)
Generally it serves to clean your house up first before you move in all the new furniture. If you have any suggestions, feel free to make a nomination. Nothing immediately come to mind as a swap, which is why I proposed a cold removal. Zelkia1101 (talk) 14:24, 24 July 2022 (UTC)
That's not my point. My point is that the Vital article list is utterly useless if we don't improve articles in the list. Swapping/adding/removing articles from the lists don't help with improving our coverage of broad-topic articles in general. We should think more ways to improve Vital articles, not perfecting the Vital article lists. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 14:33, 24 July 2022 (UTC)
See also: Wikiproject Vital Articles. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 14:35, 24 July 2022 (UTC)
This is something of a late reply (I'm new here), but may I suggest Askia Muhammad I as an alternative to Mansa Musa? The current article on him is rather inadequate, but his reign is known in some detail, and he made the Songhai Empire into one of the most powerful states in African history. The other medieval West African rulers I would consider of comparable importance to Mansa Musa and Askia Muhammad are Sonni Ali and the semi-mythical Sunjata. Ornithopsis (talk) 15:51, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

All Vital GAs by 2032

Right, so I think everyone knows this by now, but if you don't, the WikiProject Vital Articles is now revamped with a goal of, well, 1000 Vital GA/FA by 2032. The reason for that specific goal is to stimulate the editors and to have a real sense of hurry (so no WP:Majestic Titan that lingers on Phase I for 14 years). I have outlined a vague direction about how this could be done, but I think that ultimately the plan should come from the group's consensus. What do you think is the best way to start on achieving the goal? CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 15:34, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

See also: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Vital Articles#First GA drive discussion. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 16:13, 2 August 2022 (UTC)
First, we should get the list to 1000. LightProof1995 (talk) 15:41, 3 August 2022 (UTC)
1. Wikipedia:NODEADLINE. 2. Is this even possible to think all the ten article on level 1 to GA within 1 year time? That would mean 1 GA per month. And with the scope each of those articles are covering it would be quite difficult. 3. Getting GA for the sake of getting article to GA isn't benefitial. C933103 (talk) 20:17, 3 August 2022 (UTC)
User:C933103, may you elaborate on these points? I do somewhat agree the arguments, at the very least to a certain extent. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 19:24, 4 August 2022 (UTC)
Not C933103, but I do agree somewhat on the first point. A year's time for all 10 is absurdly tight. These articles should be thought of as journal articles, which even with collaboration can take upwards of a year or more. And, of course, this deadline could hinder the quality of the articles' outcome which relays a bit back to the third point. I respect the enthusiasm but the turtle approach rather than hare is my advice. DMT Biscuit (talk) 22:05, 4 August 2022 (UTC)
I do agree with NODEADLINE in that don't just rush for the sake of meeting the deadlines. However, in my opinion some form of a deadline is still necessary. Take a look at a similarly ambitious project: WP:Majestic Titan, which aims to have a ton of articles improved to GA. The only thing lacking is a deadline, and this caused the project to slack and unable to move forward from Phase I for 14 years. Personally, I don't think that 10 years is an absurd goal if you taking account of exponential growth, but even if we just push 5% of Vital articles to GA during that timeframe, that's still a big win for me. As for rubberstamping GA, I think this is a real issue that must be sorted out. Perhaps we have two uninvolved editors instead of one to give comments to a Vital GAN? CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 23:29, 4 August 2022 (UTC)
Thinking about this a little bit, perhaps it would be better for us to improve our current GAs and FAs to be up to standard, as this requires much less effort compared to improving a Start-class article. See also: Wikipedia_talk:Vital_articles#Reassessment_of_Vital_articles. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 12:43, 5 August 2022 (UTC)
I agree with CactiStaccingCrane (talk · contribs). I thought of something similar too. Once we hit 1000, and we are discussing swaps instead of additions, we should consider the rating of the articles were are considering swapping. For example, if a C article is on the list and a Featured article is being recommended, it could make more sense to do the swap, as then it would be less work for us. However, we need to make sure that when this is the case, we are not swapping because we don't want to improve articles -- rather, we are swapping because both articles being considered are well-written for their topics, and the topic we are considering putting on the list is just easier/more interesting to write about than the article being taken off the list. LightProof1995 (talk) 14:31, 5 August 2022 (UTC)
This sounds like a great goal. I have done a few GA reviews for vital articles, and while I won't have time to do any for the rest of the year due to non-Wikipedia obligations, the ones I did in the past seemed so much more meaningful and impactful than just random music albums or condiments (seriously). Hopefully, we can motivate and encourage other experienced GA reviewers to support this. Jclemens (talk) 18:04, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

Proposal to prohibit mass nominations

Mass nominations by a single user at once, such as by LightProof1995 above, are not helpful or productive, and merely flood up the page with one person's opinion. This often happens when a new user finds the lists and proposes multiple nominations at once to 'fix the list'—when in reality they are merely oblivious of past consensus and most of their suggestions are ignored anyways.

I propose that no user should be allowed to have such mass nominations—this would be broadly constructed, as I think limiting to a specific amount would be unnecessary and too arbitrary. Aza24 (talk) 02:40, 7 August 2022 (UTC)


Support rule change with stated "no more than 3 recommendations at once" lol

Please go through all my suggestions anyway I tried really hard LightProof1995 (talk) 06:28, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

Suggedtion: If "FA review", user can report one time per one week ([2] - No more than one nomination per week by the same nominator.) then I think it is fine for VA to one(the same) user could do just three nominations per week (for example one swap, one removal and one addition) but it would be reffered only to level 1, level 2 and level 3, not level 4 and the level 5. By all that mean, user could do about 12-15 nominations per month, what probably is reasonable given fact how slow process we have and how long we were waiting after "mass nominations" by the same user (inluding mine one time, I admit/remember). Dawid2009 (talk) 11:07, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

Dawid2009 I think that's a good idea too. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 12:53, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

As big as possible doesn't equal to good article

I noticed someone added a banner to an activity encouraging editors adding as many bytes as possible to vital articles, with goal of 30KB and award at 50KB. But it should be noted that, article above 50KB is considered WP:TOOBIG and is deemed may need to be divided just because of its length. Note that 50KB is roughly 10000 words and take more than hallf an hour for most people to finish reading. Most people probably wouldn't spend this much time into reading a wikipedia article. Hence if an article is expanded beyond this length, then split should be considered for readability purpose. C933103 (talk) 14:57, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

C933103 We are using the wikitext size, which is that "(xyz bytes)" that you often see in edit history. The bytes you are referring to is "Readable prose size", which is the amount of displayed text, which you find out by using Xtool. We are quite clear about this: Our definition of the article size is the number that you see in the edit history, not the readable prose size found in XTool. In practice most articles are still way too short when expanded to 30 kB, see Arabic numerals and Skeleton for reference. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 17:17, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

Abolish voting for consensus

I think that this is a long overdue, per Wikipedia is not a democracy. With our current voting procedure, an empty vote would have similar leverage to a well-formed argument, as well as being time-consuming, divisive, and potentially set precedent for bad practices. We should form consensus just as most processes on Wikipedia does – a good old discussion. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 17:29, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

The current rule already specified that it is not votes that are counted. Thus in theory empty votes that do not provide any arguments or discussions should be ignored I guess. I guess it can be written more explicitly in the rule? C933103 (talk) 17:41, 7 August 2022 (UTC)
I agree. At the very least you should write "per nom" to clarify your oppose/support rationale. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 23:43, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

Support for level 5 only. Oppose the rest Dawid2009 (talk) 17:55, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

Changes to Level 5 do not usually require discussion unless list is full C933103 (talk) 18:16, 7 August 2022 (UTC)
  • Oppose This seems as though it would engender entropy and more hairsplitting - the relative permeance allows for the real intention to arise, in theory, at least. DMT Biscuit (talk) 18:20, 7 August 2022 (UTC)
  • Oppose I don't fully understand your dislike of the current rules. You say on the level 4 discussion page that you dislike the focus on the composition of the lists rather than actual improvement of the articles listed. I actually fully agree with you on this. But the point of the current rules is that by enforcing a minimum level of participation in discussions involving the selection of articles, we promote the list's stability, and discourage poorly considered attempts to significantly alter the list. I don't know why you would want to "incentivize making snappy decisions" regarding the selection of articles if you think such discussions are not productive to begin with. Your proposal seems to be self-defeating. Again, I stress that the !voting rules only apply to the selection of articles: "Individual topics are proposed for addition or removal, followed by discussion and !voting." Anything else regarding, say, the improvement of actual articles can be done by standard consensus-based decision-making.
You do have a point regarding empty !votes – there are people who have a habit of only leaving empty !votes and never actually contributing to discussions. On the other hand, sometimes people leave an empty !vote when they agree with the comment of a previous !voter and have nothing new to add. I try to assume good faith in such cases. Cobblet (talk) 18:59, 7 August 2022 (UTC)
C933103 I agree with your comment that some level of discussion is needed to be enforced in order to make the list resistant to swooping changes. However, the current rules aren't demanding a strawpoll, as the current rule very specifically said in a) and b) that the X number of supports is needed to be achieved. It doesn't matter how well developed your argument is, your !vote would have a similar power to a person giving empty votes. I think that the Vital article list should adopt a system like WP:AFD where there isn't a hard and fast rule for the outcome of the discussion, while still allow support and oppose !votes followed by a rationale. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 23:41, 7 August 2022 (UTC)
  • Oppose pbp 03:28, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
  • One idea I have for making the consensus rules better is anyone is to give more leeway in making changes to the list. I am thinking that rather than discussing every change to the list, we could make it so that anyone can make changes to the list as they please, but if the change is reverted within a certain time period (ex. 24 Hours, 48 hours, 72 hours, 7 days), then they must come to the talk page to get a consensus. This might work better for level 4 than with level 3, but just a thought. Interstellarity (talk) 12:50, 9 August 2022 (UTC)
    I think that's a great compromise. An anti-variant of this that works better with Level 1, 2, 3 is to propose a change here and if it is accepted yet people aren't satisfied, they could revert within a time period and get more consensus. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 12:52, 9 August 2022 (UTC)
    Again this seems self-defeating. If you genuinely want people to focus less on improving the list and more on improving the articles on it, don't make it easier for people to change the list. The less stable the list is, the less incentive anyone has to work on articles on the list that might get removed at any point. Cobblet (talk) 13:24, 9 August 2022 (UTC)
    I haven't explicitly said that this change would make editing the list easier. In fact, it could make editing the list harder, as the majority of votes would be opposes and you couldn't just simply pile on empty supports. What the new system allows though is quick closure clauses and promoting good arguments. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 13:29, 9 August 2022 (UTC)
    I'm specifically referring to Interstellarity's suggestion to allow anyone to change the list as they please – obviously that is going to make the list less stable. Nevertheless, I'm willing to at least change the current rules to say that empty !votes are to be ignored. Cobblet (talk) 14:41, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

Add Cotton

Done, passed

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Would be a useful addition to fill up the quota. Interstellarity (talk) 23:55, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

Support
  1. Interstellarity (talk) 23:55, 18 August 2022 (UTC)
  2. Telepanda (talk) 19:50, 20 August 2022 (UTC)
  3. This seems like an obvious inclusion given its importance in human history Thebiguglyalien (talk) 04:30, 23 August 2022 (UTC)
  4. Support One of the most important plants in agriculture. -- Maykii (talk) 11:45, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
  5. Support Important article in many printed encyclopedias. --Thi (talk) 14:47, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
  6. It has been a vital cash crop.--RekishiEJ (talk) 05:08, 31 August 2022 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Oppose I am not opposing the addition of cotton per se but using "fill up the quota" as argument for addition is bad precedent. C933103 (talk) 10:48, 28 August 2022 (UTC)
Neutral
Discuss

Neither supporter has provided a rationale. Are we counting these !votes? Cobblet (talk) 19:53, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

I think both of these votes should count LightProof1995 (talk) 11:08, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Add 3 39 more women

I hate voting to add/swap/remove articles from the list. However, I think this problem is serious enough for us to do, which is to balance out the gender bias a bit by promoting women articles from Level 4 or 5 to Level 3. See also: Women in Green's Hot 100 list and prior discussion at Ambitious goal proposal. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 15:39, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

Scrap it, we need a lot more. Since there are 112 articles, about 50 should be about women. 50 - 11 = 39 articles. Well, pick 39, and swap others out. Easy. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 17:14, 22 August 2022 (UTC)
I would be incredibly wary of nominating based on any criteria other than being essential for encyclopedic knowledge. You said as much yourself in the discussion you linked that swapping out based on other criteria would essentially be an attempt to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. Hopefully more notable women become prominent in this century and the centuries that follow, but well over half of notable people in the past have been men. If anything, I'm skeptical of including biographic articles on the Level 3 list at all. It moves away from the "broad concept" theme of the rest of the list. And even if we do keep biographies, I certainly don't think that Walt Disney, Roald Amundsen, or Frida Kahlo represent the hundred most notable people in all of human history. I would rather restrict the criteria for biographic articles than expand them. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 03:43, 23 August 2022 (UTC)
Agree with, Alien. We should rather curtail the list of male bios than try and match the number for ideological reasons. DMT Biscuit (talk) 07:17, 23 August 2022 (UTC)
Thebiguglyalien I somewhat agree with what you've said. It is true that this is teethering on the edge of WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. However, like what you've said, there's a few bios that have questionable amount of vitalness and I think they can be swapped by other women. For example, why Queen Victoria isn't on the list, when she is the second-longest monarch of the UK and has ruled the British India for 25 years since its founding? How about Hypatia, which her writing and murder have influenced generations of philosophers (which her life become obscured over time)? It would be an easy ask to add these two to our list given that we are under quota. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 09:54, 23 August 2022 (UTC)
Plus, having a super male-dominated list would not help us at all with our goal – the community when they found out about this would fight back and accuse us of sexism. That's not good at all for the fledgling WikiProject. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 09:59, 23 August 2022 (UTC)
History isn’t fair – the most influential people have traditionally been male. (Of course with some notable exceptions! And this will change to some extent in the future when women worldwide get equal opportunities.) Why should we rewrite history? I’m all for adding Cleopatra or Queen Victoria, but doing a ”mass swap” to please our modern sense of justice seems a little off to me. Speaking of representation, the list is also very white-dominated… (With Turing as maybe the only rep. of LGBTQ+ people…) --Telepanda (talk) 12:04, 23 August 2022 (UTC)
Disagree with most people here, who are missing the point of this list. This entire point of this list is too point to vital articles on Wikipedia, and encourage their improvement. I mean holy shit. who cares if the list perfectly represents the most important people in human history (which it doesn't, by the way), lets just make an interesting and diverse that makes people excited to work on articles!!! Wouldn't that be more beneficial?? This project is regarded as a joke by so many WP veterans, since they see an unacceptable obsession over curating an awkward assembly of white males. The frequently cited WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS is utterly irrelevant, and applies to the content of articles; this is a WikiProject, and the list serves a secondary function to identify important areas of improvement and then improve them, an approach which has utterly disappeared. Aza24 (talk) 16:32, 23 August 2022 (UTC)
If there are "WP veterans" who don't understand that most prominent historical figures have been men (for better or for worse), then I can't take the opinions of those WP veterans seriously. The fact that the list is haphazard should be cause for concern, not something that we lean into. If the focus is making it "interesting and diverse", then I want to add Sinbad (comedian), Vermin Supreme, and Anna Kendrick. That's an interesting and diverse group. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 18:35, 23 August 2022 (UTC)
I think you don't understand what Aza24 meant. What she meant is that the Vital list would always be subjective and will always going to contain biases and such. We shouldn't aim for perfection in this regard, as it is useless to do so. The list instead should list articles that are important to the readers and to a lesser extent, editors. Making the list balanced in gender and geography would also increase the project's reputation significantly and would avoid allegations of sexism, racism, etc. -ism stuff. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 23:30, 23 August 2022 (UTC)
tl;dr: The list should be used for improving articles, not ranking them. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 23:31, 23 August 2022 (UTC)
For a variety of reasons, the historical figures who have had the most renowned legacies are mostly men, so it's pretty much inevitable that this list is going to have more men than women. It is also unlikely that a protracted argument over either the nature of those reasons or the precise criteria that make something a vital article is going to make anyone happier. However, I think we can all agree that there are several women who are no less vital than some of the men on this list. Mary, Queen Victoria, and Cleopatra all come to mind. There are a few people on the list who could probably be trimmed to make space. For instance, the "Explorers" section could probably be trimmed somewhat; Ramesses II could probably be replaced with Cleopatra, and do we really need both Edison and Tesla? Ornithopsis (talk) 00:06, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
A consensus on what vital means has never been formed in this project. The idea that "the historical figures who have had the most renowned legacies" are the most vital, which is assumed by many users here, has no actual legitimization in the scope of the project, and is what got us here in the first place. Aza24 (talk) 19:05, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
My previous message probably did not come across the way I intended.
The things that make a person into someone considered worthy of a vital article, for just about any attempt to define that concept, are a complicated interplay of many factors, including their actions, their opportunities, their overall historical context, the limitations of the historical record, and what historical narratives people construct from the available data. That is to say, our understanding of historical figures is subject to many biases, which affect how "vital" various historical figures will appear from any given Wikipedia editor's perspective. "Most renowned legacies" was my (poor) attempt at condensing that vague line of thought into a few words. We can try and critically examine those biases, but there are some unavoidable limitations to our ability to do that, due to the nature of the historical record.
The other thing I was, apparently, failing to express is that the discussion at hand seemed to be heading in the direction of an ill-tempered debate over what made articles "vital" that made nobody happy and accomplished no significant changes. But, we should still be able to acknowledge that the article is biased and ask ourselves what our options for alleviating that bias are. Ornithopsis (talk) 03:22, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
I agree with your argument and I'm sorry for assuming bad faith. I think the best course of action here is to just not choose biography articles for the WikiProject for the timebeing, and to let time for decisions to be made accordingly. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 09:50, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
Perhaps we should relegate biographies to Level 4 then? ♦ Dr. Blofeld 11:05, 23 August 2022 (UTC)
A quick look at the level 4 bios reveals the same ”problem”: The number of notable men vastly outnumbers the number of notable women. (Look at the list’s writers, painters, politicians etc.) Of course there can be some adjustments. But you would have to change history itself to achieve full equality in a list of vital people from the past. Relegating the bios unfortunately won’t change centuries of skewness, even if it would be nice. :-) Telepanda (talk) 18:59, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
See above comments by Aza24. I think she put it well. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 23:38, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

Add suggestions below:

  1. Hypatia
  2. Mary, mother of Jesus
  3. Queen Victoria
  4. Diana, Princess of Wales
  5. Margaret Thatcher
  6. Boudica
  7. Cleopatra
  8. Marie Antoinette
  9. Mother Teresa
  10. Anne Frank
  11. Marilyn Monroe
  12. Grace Kelly
  13. Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
  14. Oprah Winfrey
  15. Nefertiti
  16. Queen of Sheba
  17. Eleanor of Aquitaine
  18. Fatima
  19. Caroline Herschel
  20. Hildegard of Bingen
  21. Elizabeth of Russia
  22. Teresa of Ávila
  23. Isabella I of Castille
  24. Rosa Parks
  25. Joni Mitchell
  26. Steffi Graf
  27. Martina Navratilova
  28. Billie Jean King
  29. Angela Merkel
  30. Golda Meir
  31. Doris Day
  32. Ella Fitzgerald
  33. Barbra Steisand
  34. Aretha Franklin
  35. Aung San Suu Kyi
  36. Lata Mangeshkar
  37. Virginia Woolf
  38. Audrey Hepburn
  39. Édith Piaf
  40. Astrid Lindgren
  41. Enid Blyton
  42. Coco Chanel
  43. Benazir Bhutto
  44. Rani of Jhansi
  45. Charlotte Brontë
  46. Emily Brontë
  47. Dorothy Hodgkin
  48. Shirley Temple
  49. Greta Garbo
  50. Ada Lovelace
  51. Harriet Tubman
  52. Emmeline Pankhurst
  53. Empress Dowager Cixi
  54. Maya Angelou
  55. Emily Dickinson
  56. Indira Gandhi
  57. Hedy Lamarr
  58. Helen Keller
  59. Amelia Earhart
  60. Miriam Makeba

Having a look at Level 3 I have to admit that it's difficult to consider many of these as important as something like Mayan civilization or Adolf Hitler etc. The ones at the top I think are the strongest.♦ Dr. Blofeld 19:11, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

I strongly Support adding Hypatia as Vital-3!!!!!!! I also support swapping her in and taking Ramesses II out. I've looked up more about him and think he may deserve to be on this list and his article just needs to be improved. So if we are having two pharaohs on here, I'm fine with him, but if we are trying to have less biographies and men, and we already have one Egyptian pharaoh, I see him being taken out once the list reaches 100 and we are trying to curtail it. I think trying to have an equal amount of men and women is just not going to work as there won't be enough votes per the discussion above. However, per the discussion above, there is consensus to not only have more women and less men on the list, but also to maybe have less biographies on the list in general. I Oppose adding Queen Victoria simply because we already have a female English monarch, and as others have stated, less biographies, not more. Hypatia, on the other hand, I feel would be a great addition, whether she is added on her own or swapped in. LightProof1995 (talk) 05:23, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

First, gender basis exists in world's history. It is not Wikipedia's ground to correct the history, but rather history should be created in reality for Wikipedia to record them. It is simply misleading if Wikipedia include as much women as men in the vital article list as if they were of the same vitality in history and cover up the gender gap that do exists in history. Second, closing the gender gap can be done both ways. Aka it can also be done by removing less vital articles of the dominant gender instead. C933103 (talk) 10:51, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

This could be a subjective list, but there are some here I have never even heard of, and there are others who I would not include in, say, a list of the 100 or so most important women in history, doing so may represent American or British bias: Princess Diana, Boudica, Jackie Onassis, Oprah Winfrey, the Queen of Sheba, Enid Blyton. PatGallacher (talk) 17:32, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

Elephants and Whales

Adding these back because they were only archived after 10 days. I'll bring up the other topics only 2-3 at a time per consensus. LightProof1995 (talk) 03:16, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

Elephants

I think we should add Elephants. It is currently a Featured Article which points to their importance. Elephants are the largest living land creatures and have been vital to humanity for millennia. First domesticated by the Indus Valley civilization, they were historically important in warfare, such as when Hannibal crossed the Alps on elephants. Both species of African elephant were listed as endangered in 2021 due to the illegal ivory trade and habitat loss.

It's not just the importance of elephants and whales historically to humans, it is also the fact they are such majestic and fascinating creatures. Just think about what elephants look like. They have distinctive ears, trunks, and tusks. The hippocampus of the elephant is larger relative to its size compared to humans which is why elephants are known to be such emotionally intelligent animals and is why you've heard the phrase "An elephant never forgets". LightProof1995 (talk) 08:59, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

Oppose The only specific animals we list are domesticated ones that are especially important to humans, elephants are not on the same level. Maykii (talk) 05:31, 3 August 2022 (UTC)
I definitely feel elephants are, in fact, on the same level of importance to humans and domestication, given their use in warfare. I still Support. Not that domestication is necessary for inclusion anyway, e.g. insect, mollusca, crustacean are all vital-3.
Support: Aside from their major significance in human history and culture as beasts of burden, war animals and a source of luxury goods, elephants are ecosystem engineers - their size and bulk means they literally reform entire landscapes - making glades and pathways through forests and stripping scrubland back down to open plains. Hugely important animals. Iskandar323 (talk) 06:26, 5 August 2022 (UTC)
I will add, my idea to add both elephants and whales comes from playing Civilization IV, where both of them are resources due to their importance for civilization. This game also taught me about Mansa Musa, Hatshepsut, Ramesses II, and Saladin, so I think it is a useful reference for composing this list of vital-3 articles. Because of this, I will list the other animal resources in the game:

Cattle

Horse

Sheep

Pig

Beaver (A type of Rodent, which we have) This is the "Fur" resource

Fish

Clam (A type of Mollusca, which we have)

Crab (A type of Crustacean, which we have)

Deer We don't have this.

Elephant We don't have this. In the game, it is called the Ivory resource and shows elephants, but you also need this resource to make War Elephants.

Whale We don't have this.

Camel We don't have this. Represented as Camel archers, but only if you play as the Arabian civilization as Saladin. Comparatively, you can have War elephants playing as any civilization. In Civilization III, war elephants were unique to the Indian civilization. In Civilization V, war elephants are unique to the Indian civilization as a unit called "War elephant" and the Carthaginian civilization as a unit called "African forest elephant", replacing chariot archer and horseman units, respectively. The ivory resource is still present, but isn't required by the Indian and Carthaginian civilizations to make their elephant units. There is also a Bison resource in Civ 5. LightProof1995 (talk) 04:47, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

I didn't think about deer until I made this list, but I'm not recommending we add them. I do think we should have both elephant and whale, however. Additionally, when zooming in on a town in the game, you can hear dogs barking and chickens clucking, which we both have. LightProof1995 (talk) 15:17, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

Wouldn't Camel be more important? Ivory is a luxurious good, and war elephants aren't really something too common in the history of the earth, so I don't think they are more appropriate to be part of this vital list. C933103 (talk) 01:32, 5 August 2022 (UTC)
Omg Camels!!! Nice catch haha yeah I forgot about them!! They are in Civilization IV too, but only if you play as the Arabian empire, led by Saladin, as Camel archers are a unique unit that replaces the knight. I'll add them to the list. LightProof1995 (talk) 04:34, 5 August 2022 (UTC)
  • Oppose We have plenty of mammals as it is. At this point adding something like cotton should be a much higher priority than adding another mammal. Cobblet (talk) 04:12, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

Whales

I think we should add Whales. Like elephants, whales have also almost been driven to extinction due to their importance to humans. The whaling industry was important from the 1600s to the 1900s for products such as oil for lamps and ambergris. The blue whale is the largest animal known to have ever existed. Whale watching is a popular form of tourism worldwide.

Imagine you were an extraterrestrial looking at this list of vital articles. You might say "Ah, yes, humans arose from abiogenesis and evolution, first they were single-cell organisms, then fish, then they moved on land and evolved into primates, then humans, and that was the peak of evolution. So surely no animal went back into the ocean after having evolved on land right? Because that would make like no sense??? And they would see dinosaur and say "Ah yes, these were the largest animals to have ever existed on Earth for sure. Because how could these humans not include the largest one on this list?" LightProof1995 (talk) 09:02, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

Support LightProof1995 (talk) 13:53, 3 August 2022 (UTC)
Support: Similarly to elephants, whales have a major degree of significance in human history and culture as sources of food, and critically, oil - which literally kept the lights on for an entire period of history. They also literally stir the oceans with their bulk, mixing nutrients between water layers, their waste feeds plankton and their carcasses ocean floor ecosystems - altogether serving to play a major role in global carbon sequestration - on a similar level to significant numbers of global forests and jungles. Not sure if all this is all properly covered in the article, but it should be. Iskandar323 (talk) 06:33, 5 August 2022 (UTC)
Oppose Same reason as elephants. Maykii (talk) 05:32, 3 August 2022 (UTC) LightProof1995 (talk) 03:16, 14 August 2022 (UTC)
  • Oppose per my comment re elephants. And who is to say an alien would not find Posidonia australis more interesting than any animal? Cobblet (talk) 04:12, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

Discussion at Level 2

Just a note to let you know that I opened up a discussion on Level 2 for swapping country with state. Interstellarity (talk) 18:08, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

Add Queen Victoria and Hypatia

Per my argument at § Add 3 39 more women: why Queen Victoria isn't on the list, when she is the second-longest monarch of the UK and has ruled the British India for 25 years since its founding? How about Hypatia, which her writing and murder have influenced generations of philosophers (which her life become obscured over time)? It would be an easy ask to add these two to our list given that we are under quota. If these articles are added, Queen Victoria should be in "Leaders and politicians" section and Hypatia to "Philosophers and social scientists".

Support
  1. As a nominator, CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 00:14, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
  2. After giving this some thought, I think these are as good as any option. The biography section may need some pruning, but we can cross that bridge when we get there. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 05:06, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
  3. See my reply to the discussion above as to why I support adding Hypatia. LightProof1995 (talk) 05:25, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
  4. Support Both should be on the list, honestly not sure we don't already have Victoria... and if we want to be more inclusive of women then Hypatia is surely one of the best examples of a scientist we could add. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Maykii (talk • contribs) 11:39, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
    Adding Victoria when we already have Elizabeth I but not, say, Isabella I of Castile, makes no sense. And as for female thinkers, I would rather start with Simone de Beauvoir than with someone whose contributions have basically been lost and whose vitality depends solely on her reputation. Cobblet (talk) 18:42, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. See my reply to the discussion on adding more women above as to why I do not support adding Queen Victoria. LightProof1995 (talk) 05:25, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
  2. Oppose These are worse choices than the recently rejected Wu Zetian and the recently removed Sappho. Cobblet (talk) 13:25, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
    I feel the Sappho vote was more about the swap instead of removing her. Even the nominator stated they felt Sappho was important, but simply had been beaten out by Florence Nightingale in importance (who was added, as the swap passed).
    5 Wikipedians voted for a swap.
    3 voted for removing Sappho.
    3 voted for keeping Sappho and wrote about how she deserved to stay on the list.
    Now since we are discussing adding more women to the list and it is under quota at 997, a second vote for "adding Sappho" might pass. LightProof1995 (talk) 04:50, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
    The swap did not pass. Nightingale was added as the result of a later discussion. Cobblet (talk) 06:09, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
    Oh... well it definitely could have been interpreted as a "swap" passed.
    The 5 who voted for a swap... their votes seem to be along the lines of "We want Sappho removed if and only if Florence Nightingale is added".
    Another way to look at it:
    8/11, or 72% of voters wanted either Sappho or Florence Nightingale on the list.
    Only 3/11 or 27% of voters wanted neither woman on the list.
    So a majority wanted one or the other, and a majority of that majority, i.e. the plurality, wanted Florence Nightingale over Sappho. That's why I felt Sappho shouldn't have been removed without Florence Nightingale added, and I'm glad she was added back anyway.
    Maybe from now on, when someone is proposing a swap, they could have options such as the following:
    Support for both articles on the list:
    Support for only Article 1 on the list:
    Support for only Article 2 on the list:
    Oppose either articles on the list:
    LightProof1995 (talk) 06:20, 27 August 2022 (UTC)
  3. OpposeDawid2009 (talk) 19:49, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
  4. Oppose I remember that Victoria was rejected before on the basis that se was more a witness to history than a participant. Actually Victoria is often among main articles in encyclopedias, but this wikiproject has removed many leaders from this level, such as Winston Churchill. Emmy Noether is listed instead of Hypatia. --Thi (talk) 20:27, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
  5. Oppose Neither demonstrated their vitalness as one of the ~100 most important people in human history. C933103 (talk) 10:55, 28 August 2022 (UTC)
Neutral
  1. I think that both of these articles qualify under the current criteria (or lack thereof), but as I said above, I think the standard is currently too low for individual biographies. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 00:32, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
Discussion

Add Vladimir Lenin

We already have Stalin, Mao and Marx at this level, we are slightly below the target number, he should surely be added. PatGallacher (talk) 15:34, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

This simply mean we have too much socialist people on the list. No way socialist worth 4% of the world's most notable individuals of all fields. C933103 (talk) 16:19, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

Please note that Lenin was removed last year. You can read the arguments here. :-) (Also, following the discussion above, if we add another person, it ought to be a woman.) --Telepanda (talk) 18:48, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

Replace Greek mythology with Olmecs

Myth is already a level 3 article, and Greek mythology is the only mythology above level 4. The Olmecs were the first major civilization in Mesoamerica and were influential in the development of subsequent Mesoamerican civilization. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 05:05, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

Support
  1. Support (obviously). Thebiguglyalien (talk) 05:05, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
  2. Strongly support deleting Greek Mythology, even if it makes the list go down to 996. It doesn't deserve to be on here over Celtic mythology or Egyptian mythology, and there are many more important articles that need to be added to this list. I also support adding the Olmecs to this list, but not as strongly (but not enough to say I am neutral about adding the Olmecs to this list). LightProof1995 (talk) 05:43, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
  3. Support removal of Greek mythology, there is no reason to have this over other forms of mythology. Maykii (talk) 11:43, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
Neutral

I am now neutral about the Olmecs on this list per the discussion below. LightProof1995 (talk) 03:57, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

Oppose
  1. Oppose addition of Olmecs, there is already multiple Mesoamerican civilisations on the list. I don't think another is necessary. Maykii (talk) 11:43, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
  2. Oppose Olmecs are covered by Mesoamerica. --Thi (talk) 14:49, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
  3. Oppose considering their differences in level of influence. C933103 (talk) 10:56, 28 August 2022 (UTC)
  4. Oppose adding Olmecs (I’m fine with swapping Greek Mythology if we find something more vital). Olmecs were early, but did not have the impact of the Aztecs or the Mayas. Being first does not necessarily make something vital. If the Olmecs deserve a spot, so do the Etruscans, for example. Telepanda (talk) 19:13, 28 August 2022 (UTC)
  5. Oppose removal of Greek mythology. And I adamantly disagree with the person who said, "It doesn't deserve to be on here over Celtic mythology or Egyptian mythology" pbp 02:21, 29 August 2022 (UTC)
Discussion

I'm not at all convinced that a third Mesoamerican civilization is a more significant omission than a pre-Inca Andean civilization; something related to Ancient China; or civilizations from areas such as West Africa or Southeast Asia which are wholly neglected by the current list, e.g., Songhai Empire or Khmer Empire. Cobblet (talk) 13:33, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree. Now that you mention it, Songhai Empire does seem like a much more glaring omission. I would support its inclusion. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 19:41, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
I feel the Khmer Empire is the most glaring omission of the three -- West Africa at least has Mansa Musa, and the Songhais were only the dominate power in that region for two centuries. The Khmer were the dominant power in Indochina for six centuries; they also built the Angkor Wat. The Olmecs at least have Mesoamerica; Indochina and Southeast Asia I feel are the most underrepresented. LightProof1995 (talk) 03:57, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Vital Article page group

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Vital Article page group. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 02:24, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

Pick 2 articles for improving to GA in 45 days

Yes. The WP:WikiProject Vital Articles is in business. So, what two articles should we choose for the Vital GA Drive? CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 15:47, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

How about Singing and Truth? LightProof1995 (talk) 06:33, 27 August 2022 (UTC)
Singing, which is a hodgepodge of OR, would probably need a complete rewrite and reorganization. Truth is one of the most complex topics in every philosophical tradition on earth—so I don't think either is ideal for our first GA drive.
I like CSC's suggestion of Coffee, and would again propose my earlier suggestion of Land. Aza24 (talk) 18:40, 27 August 2022 (UTC)
Aza24 Since nobody give any qualms, Land it is then :) CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 13:57, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

Vital GA drive

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Vital Articles § Is Coffee and Land go for GA?. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 15:01, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

Add 3 39 more women

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I hate voting to add/swap/remove articles from the list. However, I think this problem is serious enough for us to do, which is to balance out the gender bias a bit by promoting women articles from Level 4 or 5 to Level 3. See also: Women in Green's Hot 100 list and prior discussion at Ambitious goal proposal. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 15:39, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

Scrap it, we need a lot more. Since there are 112 articles, about 50 should be about women. 50 - 11 = 39 articles. Well, pick 39, and swap others out. Easy. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 17:14, 22 August 2022 (UTC)
I would be incredibly wary of nominating based on any criteria other than being essential for encyclopedic knowledge. You said as much yourself in the discussion you linked that swapping out based on other criteria would essentially be an attempt to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. Hopefully more notable women become prominent in this century and the centuries that follow, but well over half of notable people in the past have been men. If anything, I'm skeptical of including biographic articles on the Level 3 list at all. It moves away from the "broad concept" theme of the rest of the list. And even if we do keep biographies, I certainly don't think that Walt Disney, Roald Amundsen, or Frida Kahlo represent the hundred most notable people in all of human history. I would rather restrict the criteria for biographic articles than expand them. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 03:43, 23 August 2022 (UTC)
Agree with, Alien. We should rather curtail the list of male bios than try and match the number for ideological reasons. DMT Biscuit (talk) 07:17, 23 August 2022 (UTC)
Thebiguglyalien I somewhat agree with what you've said. It is true that this is teethering on the edge of WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. However, like what you've said, there's a few bios that have questionable amount of vitalness and I think they can be swapped by other women. For example, why Queen Victoria isn't on the list, when she is the second-longest monarch of the UK and has ruled the British India for 25 years since its founding? How about Hypatia, which her writing and murder have influenced generations of philosophers (which her life become obscured over time)? It would be an easy ask to add these two to our list given that we are under quota. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 09:54, 23 August 2022 (UTC)
Plus, having a super male-dominated list would not help us at all with our goal – the community when they found out about this would fight back and accuse us of sexism. That's not good at all for the fledgling WikiProject. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 09:59, 23 August 2022 (UTC)
History isn’t fair – the most influential people have traditionally been male. (Of course with some notable exceptions! And this will change to some extent in the future when women worldwide get equal opportunities.) Why should we rewrite history? I’m all for adding Cleopatra or Queen Victoria, but doing a ”mass swap” to please our modern sense of justice seems a little off to me. Speaking of representation, the list is also very white-dominated… (With Turing as maybe the only rep. of LGBTQ+ people…) --Telepanda (talk) 12:04, 23 August 2022 (UTC)
Disagree with most people here, who are missing the point of this list. This entire point of this list is too point to vital articles on Wikipedia, and encourage their improvement. I mean holy shit. who cares if the list perfectly represents the most important people in human history (which it doesn't, by the way), lets just make an interesting and diverse that makes people excited to work on articles!!! Wouldn't that be more beneficial?? This project is regarded as a joke by so many WP veterans, since they see an unacceptable obsession over curating an awkward assembly of white males. The frequently cited WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS is utterly irrelevant, and applies to the content of articles; this is a WikiProject, and the list serves a secondary function to identify important areas of improvement and then improve them, an approach which has utterly disappeared. Aza24 (talk) 16:32, 23 August 2022 (UTC)
If there are "WP veterans" who don't understand that most prominent historical figures have been men (for better or for worse), then I can't take the opinions of those WP veterans seriously. The fact that the list is haphazard should be cause for concern, not something that we lean into. If the focus is making it "interesting and diverse", then I want to add Sinbad (comedian), Vermin Supreme, and Anna Kendrick. That's an interesting and diverse group. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 18:35, 23 August 2022 (UTC)
I think you don't understand what Aza24 meant. What she meant is that the Vital list would always be subjective and will always going to contain biases and such. We shouldn't aim for perfection in this regard, as it is useless to do so. The list instead should list articles that are important to the readers and to a lesser extent, editors. Making the list balanced in gender and geography would also increase the project's reputation significantly and would avoid allegations of sexism, racism, etc. -ism stuff. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 23:30, 23 August 2022 (UTC)
tl;dr: The list should be used for improving articles, not ranking them. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 23:31, 23 August 2022 (UTC)
For a variety of reasons, the historical figures who have had the most renowned legacies are mostly men, so it's pretty much inevitable that this list is going to have more men than women. It is also unlikely that a protracted argument over either the nature of those reasons or the precise criteria that make something a vital article is going to make anyone happier. However, I think we can all agree that there are several women who are no less vital than some of the men on this list. Mary, Queen Victoria, and Cleopatra all come to mind. There are a few people on the list who could probably be trimmed to make space. For instance, the "Explorers" section could probably be trimmed somewhat; Ramesses II could probably be replaced with Cleopatra, and do we really need both Edison and Tesla? Ornithopsis (talk) 00:06, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
A consensus on what vital means has never been formed in this project. The idea that "the historical figures who have had the most renowned legacies" are the most vital, which is assumed by many users here, has no actual legitimization in the scope of the project, and is what got us here in the first place. Aza24 (talk) 19:05, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
My previous message probably did not come across the way I intended.
The things that make a person into someone considered worthy of a vital article, for just about any attempt to define that concept, are a complicated interplay of many factors, including their actions, their opportunities, their overall historical context, the limitations of the historical record, and what historical narratives people construct from the available data. That is to say, our understanding of historical figures is subject to many biases, which affect how "vital" various historical figures will appear from any given Wikipedia editor's perspective. "Most renowned legacies" was my (poor) attempt at condensing that vague line of thought into a few words. We can try and critically examine those biases, but there are some unavoidable limitations to our ability to do that, due to the nature of the historical record.
The other thing I was, apparently, failing to express is that the discussion at hand seemed to be heading in the direction of an ill-tempered debate over what made articles "vital" that made nobody happy and accomplished no significant changes. But, we should still be able to acknowledge that the article is biased and ask ourselves what our options for alleviating that bias are. Ornithopsis (talk) 03:22, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
I agree with your argument and I'm sorry for assuming bad faith. I think the best course of action here is to just not choose biography articles for the WikiProject for the timebeing, and to let time for decisions to be made accordingly. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 09:50, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
Perhaps we should relegate biographies to Level 4 then? ♦ Dr. Blofeld 11:05, 23 August 2022 (UTC)
A quick look at the level 4 bios reveals the same ”problem”: The number of notable men vastly outnumbers the number of notable women. (Look at the list’s writers, painters, politicians etc.) Of course there can be some adjustments. But you would have to change history itself to achieve full equality in a list of vital people from the past. Relegating the bios unfortunately won’t change centuries of skewness, even if it would be nice. :-) Telepanda (talk) 18:59, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
See above comments by Aza24. I think she put it well. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 23:38, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

Add suggestions below:

  1. Hypatia
  2. Mary, mother of Jesus
  3. Queen Victoria
  4. Diana, Princess of Wales
  5. Margaret Thatcher
  6. Boudica
  7. Cleopatra
  8. Marie Antoinette
  9. Mother Teresa
  10. Anne Frank
  11. Marilyn Monroe
  12. Grace Kelly
  13. Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
  14. Oprah Winfrey
  15. Nefertiti
  16. Queen of Sheba
  17. Eleanor of Aquitaine
  18. Fatima
  19. Caroline Herschel
  20. Hildegard of Bingen
  21. Elizabeth of Russia
  22. Teresa of Ávila
  23. Isabella I of Castille
  24. Rosa Parks
  25. Joni Mitchell
  26. Steffi Graf
  27. Martina Navratilova
  28. Billie Jean King
  29. Angela Merkel
  30. Golda Meir
  31. Doris Day
  32. Ella Fitzgerald
  33. Barbra Steisand
  34. Aretha Franklin
  35. Aung San Suu Kyi
  36. Lata Mangeshkar
  37. Virginia Woolf
  38. Audrey Hepburn
  39. Édith Piaf
  40. Astrid Lindgren
  41. Enid Blyton
  42. Coco Chanel
  43. Benazir Bhutto
  44. Rani of Jhansi
  45. Charlotte Brontë
  46. Emily Brontë
  47. Dorothy Hodgkin
  48. Shirley Temple
  49. Greta Garbo
  50. Ada Lovelace
  51. Harriet Tubman
  52. Emmeline Pankhurst
  53. Empress Dowager Cixi
  54. Maya Angelou
  55. Emily Dickinson
  56. Indira Gandhi
  57. Hedy Lamarr
  58. Helen Keller
  59. Amelia Earhart
  60. Miriam Makeba

Having a look at Level 3 I have to admit that it's difficult to consider many of these as important as something like Mayan civilization or Adolf Hitler etc. The ones at the top I think are the strongest.♦ Dr. Blofeld 19:11, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

I strongly Support adding Hypatia as Vital-3!!!!!!! I also support swapping her in and taking Ramesses II out. I've looked up more about him and think he may deserve to be on this list and his article just needs to be improved. So if we are having two pharaohs on here, I'm fine with him, but if we are trying to have less biographies and men, and we already have one Egyptian pharaoh, I see him being taken out once the list reaches 100 and we are trying to curtail it. I think trying to have an equal amount of men and women is just not going to work as there won't be enough votes per the discussion above. However, per the discussion above, there is consensus to not only have more women and less men on the list, but also to maybe have less biographies on the list in general. I Oppose adding Queen Victoria simply because we already have a female English monarch, and as others have stated, less biographies, not more. Hypatia, on the other hand, I feel would be a great addition, whether she is added on her own or swapped in. LightProof1995 (talk) 05:23, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

First, gender basis exists in world's history. It is not Wikipedia's ground to correct the history, but rather history should be created in reality for Wikipedia to record them. It is simply misleading if Wikipedia include as much women as men in the vital article list as if they were of the same vitality in history and cover up the gender gap that do exists in history. Second, closing the gender gap can be done both ways. Aka it can also be done by removing less vital articles of the dominant gender instead. C933103 (talk) 10:51, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

This could be a subjective list, but there are some here I have never even heard of, and there are others who I would not include in, say, a list of the 100 or so most important women in history, doing so may represent American or British bias: Princess Diana, Boudica, Jackie Onassis, Oprah Winfrey, the Queen of Sheba, Enid Blyton. PatGallacher (talk) 17:32, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I'm finding it difficult to find a single woman listed above that is more historically significant than any of the men currently listed at Level 3. Is it sexist that the vast majority of the most historically significant people throughout human history have been male? I suppose you could argue that it is, but we can't change the last 10,000 years of human history. The fact is that most monarchs have been men, most military leaders have been men, all U.S. Presidents have been men, etc. so of course a list of biographies such as this will be composed of mostly men. That's just the way it is, and to try to force this list to have an equal number of female biographies on it would just turn this list into a farce. Rreagan007 (talk) 01:01, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Proposal: Create WP:VA3WOMEN and WP:VA4WOMEN

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Earlier on the talk page, someone have raised the concern that there're relatively few women among the VA list. It was proposed to add more women to the list, but it received a number of opposition, as this would mean skewing the vitality metric of the list.

Facing such situation, I think we can create domain-specific VA sub-lists. On Chinese Wikipedia where they cloned English Wikipedia VA list, they found the globalized list from English Wikipedia do not accurately cover vital knowledge in the Chinese-speaking worlds, and thus created w:zh:WP:CBA, "Chinese Basic Articles". It then subdivided into fields of biography, history, geography, culture, and women, to cover aspects that are not included in the English Wikipedia VA list.

The advantage of domain-specific sub-list would be it can help pick and list out vital articles in a specific domain and let editors with interest in it improve on it. It would be different from importance rating in relevant wikiprojects in the sense that wikiprojects importance rating determine how important an article is to the theme of the project itself, while such domain specific vital article list would list out topics within domain that is vital in the overall sense to the collection of knowledge in Wikipedia. Also sone wikiprojects like wikiprojects women do not have importance rating. Therefore I think creating such a domain specific vital article list could be helpful. C933103 (talk) 05:41, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

I think this could be really useful. Specific lists for women, and maybe also for different regions/cultures would be a great compromise. My one reservation is that we'd be overextending ourselves. I would want to avoid getting too invested in sub-lists until we've made more progress on the main VA list. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 05:49, 31 August 2022 (UTC)
Wouldn't WP:WOMEN be the logical WikiProject to tackle this? Cobblet (talk) 13:55, 31 August 2022 (UTC)
As I have mentioned, wikiprojects determine how important a subject is to the wikiproject, for example mobile phone is to the development of technology if it is in the wikiproject technology, but it doesn't determine how vital an article on mobile phone would be to wikipedia as a whole. C933103 (talk) 03:35, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
Just don't. Divert that effort into building articles, not making lists. It's a mistake that I propose replacing these male bios with female bios – at the end of the day it's not gonna worth it if we don't actually improve articles. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 14:46, 31 August 2022 (UTC)
Second this. To whose benefit would this list truly be? DMT Biscuit (talk) 16:19, 31 August 2022 (UTC)
Also, have you noticed that the regulars of ranking the list did not help out at the 30 kB drive? Seems more than a coincidence to me... CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 02:03, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
Indeed. Agreed on the avoidance of further lists, plus WikiProject Women in Green already has a Hot 100, if a list is needed by some folks that badly. Aza24 (talk) 02:44, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
Well there you go, there's your list vital list for women's biographies. Also, important side note: making lists is fun. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 03:05, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
If you have a problem with the conduct of said regulars, take it up with them on their talk pages. Cobblet (talk) 14:42, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
I couldn't really force people to edit Vital articles. Honestly, it's kinda expected, as sorting list is x1000 times easier than pushing them to GA. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 14:50, 2 September 2022 (UTC)
  • Sure, go ahead, create the list. But Cacti is correct that you should also be improving articles. pbp 15:27, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
    I oppose the proposal, since doing so makes maintaining VA lists more burdensome.--RekishiEJ (talk) 08:39, 19 September 2022 (UTC)
  • Creating a separate list seems unnecessary. A virtual list already exists. Just take all the women currently listed at Level 4 and there's your list of most vital female biographies. Rreagan007 (talk) 01:06, 28 September 2022 (UTC)
It depends if you want the lists to diverge, or if you're just proposing creating a Wikipedia category of articles that just includes vital women biographies.
The point of the Chinese list was to diverge, since what they consider vital will inherently be different from us. The existence of a "split" chinese list is simply an attempt to "localize" the vital list. Same with French Wikipedia, that over time diverged from the en.WP list due to different culture and interests.
You can just create a new category and include these. Wikipedia Petscan makes it easy to get the list anyway. DFlhb (talk) 01:58, 28 September 2022 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Make 50 edits to vital articles before you are allowed to propose changes

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I think that this should be codified into our rules. I don't expect this proposal would gain traction nor receiving support here but I would try it anyways: Having an edit limit would encourage editors to actually go out to the field and get a better feel on what topic is vital or not. For instance, at § Swap: remove Abstract algebra, add Algebraic structure, if not for Mathnerd314159 editing the article they would not be able to make such a sound argument. Having an edit limit would also make editors to actually improve these Vital articles, which is a primary goal of making such a list in the first place. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 02:48, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

Just to be clear, you make 50 edits (semi-automated allowed), then you can propose changes to these articles. You are responsible to show the edits before voting by links to page history. Look at my contributions at Science before alleging me applying a double-standard. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 02:53, 4 September 2022 (UTC)
Sorry for the long comment. I don't often comment any more. The more time goes on I like the idea of improving articles more than the idea of choosing which articles appear in the list. They could both be argued to be noble pursuits, and we are all free to do as we wish, but I thought a long time ago, we spend too much effort on rearranging the list rather than improving articles. I imagine the general idea here is to push people toward improving the articles, rather than discussing the contents of this list, and I get it.
I have thoughts about whether it will work. If I may play devil's advocate...What if one person has made 50 edits to one vital article in a row, it will be easy to make a link to it. What if another person has made over 100 edits to different vital articles on different occasions over a long period of time, with other edits in between to other articles? would we seriously expect them to fish thorough their whole edit history, and provide 50 separate links to 50 separate edits? then expect another one of us to fish through the links after to verify it's true? Then what if one person makes 50 tiny edits like correcting spelling, but another person makes 40 truly massive edits, adding loads of content and sources, would they be disqualified for making too few edits? What if a person greatly improves a few vital articles, with over 50 edits, but the articles they improved happened to get removed from the list in the time being? would they get their right revoked?
I like the idea of encouraging people to improve articles, but I'm wondering if this is just going to be a massive headache, very long winded and difficult to enforce. I am not sure what to suggest in its place. But the spirit of the project should be moving forward and improving articles regardless, not providing links to histories, and expecting people to count through edit histories like a lawyer proving a case.
Presumably the vital 10 is seen as more important than the vital 100 and that more vital than the vital 1000. Perhaps we should look at the vital 10 first? But it's only an idea. I would never look down on someone for doing some vital 100s or 1000s first.
How about we freeze the list or something? and we can only suggest a change after one of the present articles has been improved and raised to FA or all of them? or not at all? Even this is only a loose idea. I have sometimes given thought to articles listed that are already FA. I know on the one hand this is a list of articles that should be FA, currently some are, most are not. But on the other hand it is a list of articles that we need to improve to FA. If we think of it as articles we should improve to FA, it seems silly to list ones that are already FA. But then those ones I guess need to be maintained, and relooked at if they are reassessed as lower quality later for whatever reason, so not an exact science.
I have been taking part in this for around a decade on and off, my part in discussing what should be in and out, has been interesting at times, and improved the list for the most part, but I am losing interest in discussing the list and would like to spend the little spare time I have actually improving the articles. And although we are all free, and I don't want everyone to agree with me for its own purpose, a part of me wishes others had a similar view.  Carlwev  04:33, 4 September 2022 (UTC)
Freezing the list is a great idea. In fact, that would probably be the single best thing this project has done in the last few years (excluding the 30kb drive). 4 and 5 could probably keep going, but 1, 2 and 3 need a lot of time to exist in a stable state so editors can actually work on the articles. Aza24 (talk) 06:38, 5 September 2022 (UTC)
I'd be surprised if a significant number of editors were so superficial as to change their editing behaviour in response to changes made to these lists. Anyone can understand that any article that was once listed on levels 1-3 is fairly important even if it is not currently listed. Cobblet (talk) 06:51, 5 September 2022 (UTC)
I agree, though the biography section I think is less than ideal. Still, freezing the list does wonders to the project. Those that want to swap the lists can go to meta:List of articles every Wikipedia should have instead and propose changes to all Wikipedia's vital lists. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 10:40, 5 September 2022 (UTC)
I for one will be staying right here. See Wikipedia talk:Vital articles/Archive 17#Merging List of articles every Wikipedia should have into this project for why some reasons why the Meta list is arguably a fundamentally different task. Cobblet (talk) 19:41, 5 September 2022 (UTC)
I like the basis to this idea – is it meant to apply for the 1,000 or is it for the 50,000 list? J947 † edits 07:23, 4 September 2022 (UTC)
I think it’s a good idea. While I enjoy tinkering with the list and making proposals – the other day, for example, I was reading about palm trees, and immediately found them missing – I reckon it’s fairer to let the people who are actually editing articles curate the list. Telepanda (talk) 16:54, 4 September 2022 (UTC)
Mathnerd314159 is able to make a valid point not because they worked on the article, but because they have subject-matter expertise. Encouraging people to edit vital articles is fine, but ultimately the value of their contributions to these discussions depends on their competence, not their number of edits. Cobblet (talk) 06:30, 5 September 2022 (UTC)
  • Enforcing this seems impossibly bureaucratic. pbp 17:03, 5 September 2022 (UTC)
I was lucky enough to remember that I'd edited William T. Sherman (VA5) 21 times and Donald Trump (VA5) 29 times and that those two articles total exactly 50. It took me several minutes to figure this out, and it would have taken longer if I had to look at more than two articles. I really don't think the nominator really thought out the process of checking this before proposing. pbp 17:06, 5 September 2022 (UTC)
Here's an alternative suggestion: nobody is allowed to make more than one proposal to add or remove an article, or swap a pair of articles, on the level 1-3 lists, combined, per year. That might be more easily enforced. Cobblet (talk) 19:45, 5 September 2022 (UTC)
No one here has the authority to shut down discussion or contribution on any part of Wikipedia. If someone believes that a contentious change needs to be made on any part of Wikipedia, then the correct procedure is to go to the relevant talk page and discuss the change. You can't regulate who's allowed to make suggestions on a talk page or veto the implementation of these suggestions if they gain a consensus. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 20:08, 5 September 2022 (UTC)
I somewhat agree with your argument, but then again, the VA list is practically useless if no one uses it to improve articles. I agree that my proposal is flawed as pointed by Carlwev, though I still hold that some barrier of modifying the VA lists is needed in order to incentivize VA improvement. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 02:55, 6 September 2022 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Is there a page that lists all articles that were removed from level 3 and others?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Level 4 has the page Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/4/Removed, but using that same URL on say, level 3 for instance, there aren't any other lists: Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/3/Removed and Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/5/People/Writers and journalists/Removed aren't valid links. Cadevo86 (talk) 14:44, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

None that I'm aware of. Cobblet (talk) 16:41, 7 September 2022 (UTC)
It would be nice to see pages the most oten nominated for removal/deltion. For example themost often nominated page for deletion which latly passed was Dostoyevsky. Dawid2009 (talk) 17:35, 7 September 2022 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Add Reincarnation

I propose we add Reincarnation as Vital-3. This article is the one I was working on that made me discover the "Vitals" link in the Talk page.

Reasoning: Reincarnation is a central tenet and important concept across many religions and cultures, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism (the four Indian religions), Gnosticism, Jewish Kabbalah, Druze, Scientology, Wicca, Spiritism, Ancient Celtic religion, and the Metempsychosis belief of the ancient Greeks including Plato and Pythagoras. This list includes more specific articles under the "Specific religions" section than the widely-seen idea of reincarnation. Vote below, thanks :)

Support:

  1. As nom LightProof1995 (talk) 04:22, 26 September 2022 (UTC)
  2. Yes, agree with this. Hyperbolick (talk) 18:12, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

Oppose:

  1. Oppose No subtopic of Afterlife needs to be listed at this level. Reincarnation is no more vital than concepts like heaven or hell. Cobblet (talk) 00:41, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
Thanks for voting Cobblet. I'm glad you brought this up because it highlights an important concept of reincarnation. "Heaven" and "Hell", according to reincarnationists, are simply other planes of existence that one goes to before being reincarnated. Specifically, from a reincarnationist's point of view, "Heaven" and "Hell" are actually on the same plane. It's just one's experience of that plane that creates their "Heaven" or "Hell". So, if we need an article that encompasses both the concepts of "Heaven" and "Hell", have I got the article for you.
Just because an article could be considered a subtopic of another one on the list, doesn't mean it shouldn't be included. God is under Deity, Good and Evil is under Ethics, etc. I've already made the argument there are more specific religion-related articles listed than Reincarnation, (e.g. Hinduism has two sacred texts listed, yet Reincarnation is seen across many more religions than just Hinduism), so I don't think it would be best precedent to say just because an article can be listed as a subtopic of another on the list, it shouldn't be included.
Besides, one could argue that Afterlife would be a subtopic of Reincarnation, or they'd be at equal level. "Afterlife" refers only to what happens after death -- "Reincarnation" refers both to the death, and being born again. LightProof1995 (talk) 02:31, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
  1. Oppose per Cobblet. --Thi (talk) 10:02, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
    Please don't vote "per Cobblet" after I refuted Cobblet's argument. At least reply to or acknowledge my refutation in any further "oppose" arguments. Thanks :)LightProof1995 (talk) 13:45, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
Reincarnation is more metaphysical than cultural concept. Afterlife covers it as anthropological topic. Afterlife and Soul have broader context. I count Reincarnation as weak choice for this level, similar to Free will and possibly Spirituality, which is quite nebulous term. --Thi (talk) 16:54, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
Thanks for the explanation :) LightProof1995 (talk) 21:37, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
Cobblet, it looks like you've been persistently voting "Oppose" on every proposal here since at least 2016. This causes others to bandwagon off you even if you are refuted because they don't bother to read the refutation. You've already attacked another editor Interstellarity for posting here when all they've done is help, e.g. they proposed cotton, which was the article last added. When Hyperbolick voted Support on this, I was honestly so, so thrilled, I was going to continue working on the Land article by getting it to GA by writing about everything I proposed in its Talk page. But now, that you've tried to torpedo the one reason I found the Vitals list? I don't want to make Land GA; I'm too upset about how this proposal is turning out when I know it should be receiving support for addition. I know you're just trying to help too, but if you keep thinking the list is perfect the way it is and every proposal anyone else makes here is wrong, you're going to derail the entire project. LightProof1995 (talk) 13:58, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
If your personal feelings are getting in the way of looking at things from a neutral (i.e., non-"reincarnationist") point of view, please consider taking a break from this exercise. Your utterly baseless accusations regarding my behaviour also seem like an emotional reaction and I will ignore them. I am on vacation and will consider addressing your flimsy arguments only when I return. Cobblet (talk) 19:45, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
@LightProof1995: Think you’re right, but please do not take this discussion as a reason to abandon efforts on another page! Hyperbolick (talk) 20:34, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
Thank you, you're very kind :) LightProof1995 (talk) 02:11, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
You're right Cobblet, my reaction is partly emotional, but emotional about the inclusion of Reincarnation because I really think it fits and it feels like it's not passing because all the older editors here find me annoying or pedantic, not because not being emotional about your contributions or vote personally, we all appreciate them. Just as you were suggesting to Interstellarity to take a break, I was trying to do the same for you, and to explain why, but you're always welcome to edit here, even on vacation. You're suggesting I take a break too and that's fine, I might, but I don't think any of this discourse is actually going to lead to repercussions for anyone, so don't feel like you're not allowed to share your opinion. I am just trying to highlight a pattern I've noticed from you that you may not have seen yourself, I am sorry if it upset you, especially while you are on vacation. LightProof1995 (talk) 21:46, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
I was sympathetic to the inclusion of reincarnation, but I find Cobblet's argument convincing and thus have to oppose. Being a subtopic of a current entry is not disqualifying, but it significantly weighs against it. If your intention is to win discussions, then your priorities may not be in the right place. The purpose of this page is to determine what is agreed by consensus to be the the one thousand most vital articles, not to fight for our favorites. When you post a suggestion to this page, you're not fighting for its inclusion, you're asking whether that consensus exists. To hold your contributions hostage on the contingency of your suggestions being adopted comes across as very poor form. Today you have made 32 changes to this page in a 12 hour period, and at a certain point there's a question of when that becomes disruptive. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 20:54, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
I'm not trying to "hold hostage" my edits personally. I was just explaining my feelings as I felt they are probably relevant to how many feel when their proposals are shot down, and giving an example of how it could derail the entire project, it probably won't. I'm just pointing out, no one wants to contribute to a project that isn't fun, and that's a fact. If we all just accept something someone says as complete justification without doing more research, and questioning, and thinking about whether it makes sense, and discussing, then how will we ever get this list to the point it deserves? I'm not asking anyone to change their vote, but I do expect us to talk through everything to reach consensus, instead of ignoring what others say and how they feel. For example, I think Cobblet's suggestion of me being not neutral on this topic, even though it is about my feelings, is an interesting concept regarding votes, i.e. should the vote of the nominator even count, lol LightProof1995 (talk) 21:55, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
  1. Weak oppose. Reincarnation is not the worst suggestion by any means but there are other religious topics also spanning multiple religions and cultures which in my opinion, edge it out in vitality. Concepts like worship, pilgrimage, temple, magic and funeral come to mind (although if funeral is added, we may need to add wedding too). I believe that pilgrimage in particular is a better choice than the currently listed Mecca, which is only vital as a city of pilgrimage. Gizza (talk • voy) 00:05, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
    Thank you for your vote :) Of these, I feel pilgrimage, temple, and magic are the strongest. LightProof1995 (talk) 02:32, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

Discussion:

Add American Civil War

FAILED
1-4, failed. --Thi (talk) 07:26, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I was at first considering swapping American Revolution for American Civil War, but since we are under quota, I thought it would be best for a straight addition rather than a swap. I understand that both of these events were very important in American history, but this one is more represented in art and media and it is one of the documented parts in American history. Interstellarity (talk) 22:29, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

Support
  1. Interstellarity (talk) 22:30, 4 September 2022 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Oppose. The history section should avoid individual events within specific countries. The American and French Revolutions are reasonable exceptions because they were relatively unprecedented and had immediate ramifications for other parts of the world. American history topics should be Level 4. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 22:39, 4 September 2022 (UTC)
  2. Oppose We do not need more articles on late modern history, and we certainly don't need two articles on American history. Cobblet (talk) 06:21, 5 September 2022 (UTC)
  3. Oppose The helper5667 (talk) 19:08, 5 September 2022 (UTC)
  4. Oppose covered by Lincoln and slavery at this level. Gizza (talk • voy) 00:43, 20 September 2022 (UTC)
Neutral
Discuss
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Add Lead

Because this metal has been used extensively in manufacturing, despite being neurotoxic, it is no doubt as vital as copper, which is currently listed.

Support
  1. As nom.--RekishiEJ (talk) 16:25, 9 September 2022 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Oppose Zinc is the next most important industrial metal, not lead. And I do not think chemical elements are underrepresented relative to other topics on the list. Even within chemistry, the previously suggested carbohydrate and lipid, being essential biomolecules, are more vital articles. Cobblet (talk) 03:47, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
Discuss

Add Capital and Currency

NO CONSENSUS
--Thi (talk) 10:44, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

These two articles should be enough to fill the two articles missing to make it to 1000. Interstellarity (talk) 15:36, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

Support Capital
  1. Interstellarity (talk) 15:36, 18 September 2022 (UTC)
Support Currency
  1. Interstellarity (talk) 15:36, 18 September 2022 (UTC)
Oppose Capital
  1. Oppose No rationale given. Cobblet (talk) 14:47, 19 September 2022 (UTC)
Oppose Currency
  1. Strong oppose No rationale given. Currency was removed in 2019 because money is also listed. Cobblet (talk) 14:47, 19 September 2022 (UTC)
Neutral
Discussion

@Interstellarity: Please go do something more productive than start discussions you have no intention of contributing to. This pattern of behaviour has gotten extremely tiresome. Cobblet (talk) 14:47, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

Hi Cobblet, first of all, I would like to apologize for being disruptive on this page. I never try to disrupt Wikipedia intentionally. I clearly care about upholding the integrity of the encyclopedia. I am committed to doing things better. From now on, I will be more careful regarding what edits I make to this page and only provide nominations with reasons other than filling up the quota and contribute to the discussions when possible. I recognize my mistake and will do better next time. Interstellarity (talk) 22:34, 19 September 2022 (UTC)
Interstellarity, sorry to be terse, but I think that you would help Wikipedia a ton if you improve these vital articles instead of shuffling the list. Think about it: why else do we have the vital article list in the first place? CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 15:12, 26 September 2022 (UTC)
@CactiStaccingCrane: Sure, I'd be happy to improve the vital article list. I have worked on United States a little bit and I think the article has come so far. It is the most viewed L3 vital article of 2021 which sadly got de-listed from a good article. Interstellarity (talk) 16:00, 26 September 2022 (UTC)
I disagree with the idea that "shuffling the list" is not important, for two reasons.
One: These lists give editors direction on which articles they should edit. Each level of vitality is a magnitude more important than the next-lowest level, so any swap is significant.
Two: These lists give viewers information, which is the entire purpose of Wikipedia (the online encyclopedia). While it isn't information in prose form, it is still important information, akin to Wikipedia outlines. For example, by alphabetizing the Level 5 quantum mechanics section, I learned a lot about quantum mechanics I didn't know before, like what parity is. I've also made a lot of "History of..." draft articles that I felt needed to be added to Vital-5 in History, which only occurred because of my adding to the lists, not improving the articles themselves (which I've also done as I've added them or proposed swaps, as Interstellarity has too). I wouldn't have made my edits to Overconsumption had I not realized its beginning definition originally was synonymous with the beginning sentence of overexploitation had I not thought about their "vitality". LightProof1995 (talk) 18:21, 26 September 2022 (UTC)
@LightProof1995 I think that the issue was more an implied "let's add these 2 to make the numbers" Also the fact that Money already is in, makes Currency a duplicate and looks like rework. 2404:4408:8739:B900:A54A:1EF8:CEBF:E865 (talk) 05:40, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
I agree that the list isn't very important, the articles and their quality are. It makes no sense to shuffle deck chairs when only 20% of level 3 vital articles are good, too much work to do. DFlhb (talk) 20:20, 26 September 2022 (UTC)
Aren't both important? Like this list is a presentation of information that represents the subjects most vital for the average knowledge-seeker (of English, the global language) to read/learn about/understand, along with representing which articles editors should target most. For the sake of humanity's knowledge, in my opinion, upkeeping the structure of all the vital lists is critical, as it represents the core articles of Wikipedia. To have this list not be at 1000 entries, from my perspective, is embarrassing. We are the #1 source of knowledge ever, this vitals list has been around for over a decade, we're finally getting close to reaching 50,000 vital articles, but we can't even get 1000 in the vital-3 list????? LightProof1995 (talk) 20:59, 26 September 2022 (UTC)
I'll have you know that every time someone changes the list, it completely derails the entire project. Now I know what you're thinking. "How does opening a talk page discussion prevent people from improving vital articles?" You have no idea. When cotton got added, it automatically deleted every history-related article from Wikipedia. Any open discussion on this talk page automatically applies a WP:FULLPROTECT to every vital article. Every time you suggest a change, an active Wikipedian spontaneously combusts. Changes to the vital articles list are a massive threat to Wikipedia, and I've already reported you for war crimes. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 21:37, 26 September 2022 (UTC)
Oh... I'm pretty sure that was me who accidentally deleted all of Wikipedia's history articles actually... I added them back though lol LightProof1995 (talk) 22:52, 26 September 2022 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Remove linear algebra and abstract algebra

FAILED
1-3, not removed. --Thi (talk) 10:46, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Yes, they are absolutely vital, yet no more vital than, say Euclidean geometry or non-Euclidean one, and there are still some vital articles worthy of being included here, yet currently excluded (e.g. sweet potato and goat). Removing there ensures that more of such can be added.

Support
  1. As nom.--RekishiEJ (talk) 11:04, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Oppose removal of Linear algebra. We are under quota, Math is the smallest section, and Algebra only has 5 articles compared to Geometry's 12. LightProof1995 (talk) 03:58, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
  2. Oppose removal of Linear algebra. It is listed as top-priority math article and it is among the main articles in my old encyclopedias. --Thi (talk) 10:42, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
  3. Oppose The proposed replacements are preposterous and have already been soundly rejected. There is no coherent rationale for removing these articles. Cobblet (talk) 07:28, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
Discuss

I Support replacing Abstract algebra with the already-proposed Algebraic structure, but my vote is only for such a swap -- Abstract algebra should not be removed if Algebraic structure does not take its place. LightProof1995 (talk) 03:58, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Delisted / good articles.

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I see in the index the key indicates that some of the Vital articles have the grey broken disk icon to indicate it was a Good article but it is now delisted.

Does this mean that these articles while fairly good, have had to be removed from the official 1000 due to quality reasons?

Simply put, are they in or out? 2404:4408:8739:B900:6C67:7FB2:34FA:963D (talk) 01:31, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

Everything you see on that page is a vital article. Vital articles are just articles that are really important. The "delisted" means that they used to be good articles (articles of high quality), but it was later decided they weren't good enough to hold that title. Our job here is to bring them back up to good article quality. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 01:35, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Vital_articles/Archive_22&oldid=1142662363"