Wikipedia talk:Vital articles/Archive 2

message: I agree that some lists are biased- see "Entrepreneurs" for example - and this should include a better variety.  However, I think that an English language release should show some bias towards English language countries.  For example WP:VA on a Pashtun Wikipedia might include more cities in Afghanistan than we would expect to find in this list.  I would expect to see more French politicians in the French WP:VA than in this list.  That is quite appropriate.  Nevertheless, the list is a bit too one-sided at the moment, at least in some areas. Walkerma 07:28, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Worldwide view" 

message: Listed by interwiki ranking (partly as an experiment to test interwiki links' reliability):
:101: Argentina
:92: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Frankfurt
:89: New Zealand
:88: Thailand
:86: Venezuela
:80: Madrid
:78: Singapore
:65: J. R. R. Tolkien, Brussels
:64: Seoul
:62: Linus Torvalds
:61: Los Angeles, California
:60: Milan
:58: San Francisco, California, Lake
:57: Chicago
:56: Suez Canal
:55: Richard Stallman
:54: Charlie Chaplin, Ireland, Zürich
:53: Sarajevo
:52: Edmund Hillary
:50: Mexico City
:49: Marilyn Monroe
:47: São Paulo
:43: Woody Allen, Josip Broz Tito
:42: Marlon Brando, Muhammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī, Oort cloud
:41: Snake
:37: Joseph Fourier, Michel Foucault, Francis of Assisi
:36: Donald Knuth, Pierre de Fermat
:35: Humphrey Bogart, Pierre-Simon Laplace, Neutron star
:34: Aral Sea, HIV
:33: Marlene Dietrich
:32: Srinivasa Ramanujan, Mutation
:31: John Wayne
:30: Clint Eastwood, Frank Sinatra, Bernhard Riemann, Ivan Pavlov, Rabies
:29: Headlands and bays
:28: Beach, Valley
:27: Thomas Samuel Kuhn
:25: Benedict of Nursia
:24: Poliomyelitis
:23: Fred Astaire, Howard Hughes, Hans Morgenthau, John Rawls, Historiography, Plateau
:20: Diophantus, Canyon
:18: Donald Trump
:16: Ted Turner, G. H. Hardy, Isaiah Berlin
:14: Sexual reproduction
:12: Sam Walton, Asexual reproduction
:9: Hans Morgenthau
:7: George Westinghouse, Vladimir Arnold
:2: Seymour Martin Lipset
:0: Fossil record
Keep in mind that while interwiki ranking might be a valuable method for countering cultural bias, it does nothing for Wikipedia's other biases (e.g., our bias towards popular entertainers vs. more historically important figures, and towards computer-related figures vs. figures in other sciences, neither of which are restricted to the English-speaking world, but which are nevertheless biases to be avoided). It should also be noted that some figures, like J. R. R. Tolkien, are so well-represented on interwiki partly because of converted efforts by English-language Wikipedians who included Tolkien in the early draft of the SimpleWiki list of "articles all Wikis should have", which was copied to almost all of the foreign-language wikis as a "guideline" of the most important articles, even though that list had received much less review than the current WP:VA one. Consequently, many of the ratings need to be taken with a grain of salt, although they're valuable information nonetheless.
Also, for the sake of comparison to entries on the VA list: Mao Zedong gets 51, Otto von Bismarck gets 54, Abraham Lincoln gets 58, Bill Gates gets 64, Plato gets 73, Leonardo da Vinci gets 77, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart gets 85, Paris gets 103, Japan gets 123, United States gets 140.
And, for further comparison, here's a sample of the rating of entries that aren't on the VA list: Ignacy Łukasiewicz gets 6, Casimir Funk gets 12, Langston Hughes gets 13, Empress Dowager Cixi gets 22, Aretha Franklin gets 26, Vitruvius gets 27, Dennis Ritchie gets 29, Abel Tasman gets 33, Aristophanes gets 37, Ludwig Wittgenstein gets 38, Pol Pot gets 40, George Lucas gets 43, Leif Ericson gets 45, Walt Disney gets 49, Thomas Jefferson gets 60, Barcelona gets 63, Marie Curie gets 65, Cairo gets 66, Arthur Conan Doyle gets 70, Istanbul gets 70, Warsaw gets 80, Monaco gets 90, Netherlands gets 107, Kazakhstan gets 115, and Ukraine gets 123. -Silence 10:35, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This list is amazing!  How did you manage to get these interwiki numbers so quickly - can you use AWB to do this somehow?  I spent much of my coffee breaks today browsing the numbers - they make interesting reading. Walkerma 05:18, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed entries for discussion 

message: Suggestion:
* W. S. Gilbert, Arthur Sullivan and/or Gilbert and Sullivan
Why?
* Hugely influential. W.S. Gilbert was a major contributor to the reform of the English theatre, and his works with Sullivan basically set the foundations for the modern musical. As well, The Mikado is one of the most performed theatrical pieces in the world. Adam Cuerden talk
:Wouldn't an article about English theatre be more "vital" than an article about a major contributor to the reform of English theatre? -Silence 02:13, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: While I agree with all the comments you give, and I am definitely a fan of G&S, I don't think they're in the same league as Shakespeare.  Also, using our interwiki count to look at entries in other languages, none of these articles has more than 15 represented; contrast that with some of the articles listed above.  I don't necessarily agree with Silence - we have Shakespeare (obviously!) but don't have English theatre, we have Hitler but not History of Germany, because clearly one has to have some biographies - but possibly Musical theatre would be a more suitable choice here.  Musicals are certainly an important part of modern culture.  Meanwhile, I'd like to see G&S represented at WP:V0.7 and WP:CONCISE, where they deserve a place IMHO. Walkerma 02:44, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: But Shakespeare is widely considered one of the greatest (and certainly one of the most influential) authors in the world, not just in the English language. That's why we include him but not Hemingway, and why we include the greatest Italian writer (Dante) but not the greatest Danish writer. That's why his notability transcends English theatre. Likewise, Hitler's importance is not limited to German history, but has enormous global relevance and significance. Adam's description of Gilbert, on the other hand, doesn't establish his broad essentialness as thoroughly; he might be essential if we were listing important English playwrights, but we're listing important topics in general. However, if he reaches the noteworthiness level of, say, F. Scott Fitzgerald or W. B. Yeats, then I don't see any reason not to add him (or Gilbert and Sullivan) to our expanded list at Wikipedia:Vital articles/Expanded. -Silence 03:34, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: They certainly reach at least that minimum - perhaps they're not quite at the level for this list, but they were pretty much the fathers of a musical genre, as well as immensely popular for the last century and a half. (W. S. Gilbert, by the way, is V0.7) Adam Cuerden talk 09:30, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggested addition 

message: Talk about American bias! The Sears Tower on the architecture list? You must be joking. The only mildly remarkable thing about the building is that it is currently the tallest building in the US. Now that's what I call important! What about the Chrysler Building, the White House, the United_States_Capitol? What about the Palace of Westminster, or the Great_Stupa_of_Sanchi, what about Angkor_Vat, the Great_Mosque_of_Djenne, the Forbidden_city, Saint_Basil%27s_Cathedral, the Seven_Sisters_%28Moscow%29, the Moscow_Kremlin, or the Harimandir Sahib, to name but a few? I would consider every one of these buildings to be of greater cultural importance than the Sears Tower. Burschik 07:23, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well it's not just the tallest building in the US, by one standard it's the tallest building in the entire world. Nonetheless you have a point. We should probably remove it and add Taipei 101 which has a better claim to being the world's tallest building. —dv82matt 08:08, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I strongly recommend including neither building on the list. If there is no absolute agreement on what building is the tallest in the world, then all the candidates for this are borderline enough to not merit inclusion. The only architectural structures that should be included on WP:VA are ones that meet the level of noteworthiness of, say, the Great Wall of China. Neither the Sears Tower nor Taipei 101 qualify. -Silence 08:39, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I totally agree with Silence on this point. I wished to point out that the Sears Tower is not notable, and that there are many more notable buildings in the world. Being the tallest building in the world at some arbitrary point in time is pretty much irrelevant. Lincoln Cathedral may have been the tallest building in the world for nearly 250 years, but who cares about that? But what about the Empire State Building? Is it as notable as the Great Wall of China? I think not. In my opinion, the only structures in the US that might approach that level of notability (or at least instant recognizability) are The_Pentagon, the Golden_Gate_Bridge and the Statue_of_Liberty. Burschik 11:44, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Architecture 

message: Is titanium important enough to list here? It is an especially vital metal to aerospace applications and for that reason I was surprised it was not already listed. --mav 13:28, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I recommend adding it to Wikipedia:Vital_articles/Expanded#Chemistry. We should reserve the WP:VA list for only the most absolutely essential elements, like Oxygen and Gold and Carbon. If anything, the current list is already too long on the concise list, and too short on the expanded list. -Silence 14:10, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Being a chemist myself, I was going to suggest a couple of changes to the chemistry list.  I would propose removing graphite and helium - both of which I'd rank below titanium - and replace them with sodium and chlorine, both of which are of enormous importance in history, industry and chemistry. I don't think titanium quite qualifies, though it is important, it's not in the top list. Walkerma 15:26, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I would also replace magnesium and neon with something more "vital". Although we could add other interesting elements such as potassium and calcium, the chemical compounds section is too small. Instead of adding more elements we could add substances such as methane, alcohol, sugar, carbohydrate, protein, fat, polymer, ammonia, sulfuric acid, etc. (not necessarily all of them, but they deserve consideration). In particular, I wouldn't consider hydrochloric acid to be as "vital" as implied by the current list (it's the only specific compound other than water and carbon dioxide). Itub 09:15, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Titanium]] 

message: Shouldn't this article be listed?-BiancaOfHell 16:11, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, it probably should. -Silence 16:14, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: but where?-BiancaOfHell 16:29, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Probably either "Mathematics" or "Information technology". It's listed under "Computers and the Internet" on the expanded list. -Silence 16:35, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Computer Science]] 

message: There appear to be a number of entries that are out of date: no longer stubs, new good articles, no-longer good articles, etc.  What would people think about me writing a bot to update this page once a day?  --Selket Talk 21:15, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That would be a great idea.  Anything to make the list more accurate, and give more focus to it.-BiancaOfHell 21:37, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, I've been thinking today about entirely revamping this current page in an effort to make it more useful to editors: turning it into a table format, with fewer articles listed (say, 600-800, with the removed entries moved to the more simple "Expanded" list) and more up-to-date and specific info on each (e.g., one bar for "Title", a second for "Status" with FA and B-class and so on noted, and a third for "Notes" with specific info on ways the article needs to be improved, like "NPOV", "REFS", etc.). I'm not sure how much such a reformat would lend itself to bot maintenance, however, unlike the current list. -Silence 21:47, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I was thinking it would be a good idea to have a way of including a link to an 'extended' list for each heading that is accessible by clicking on [show/hide].-BiancaOfHell 21:59, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

text: I must say that I like the format now (neither would be easier or harder from a bot's perspective).  Tables tend to get hard to read when they get large.  That said, I agree with BiancaOfHell on having the linked extended sections. --Selket Talk 23:34, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, BiancaOfHell's description is exactly what I was planning on, and have been working on. My current idea is to have (1) a list of around 600-1,000 vital articles in table format, with columns for title, status, notes, and "date when last checked", under sections in the same [show/hide] fashion as pages like WP:GA use; (2) the exact same list, but in more or less the current format, for people who don't want all the details but mostly just want to browse through the names; and (3) the "expanded" list (1,500-2,000 articles), which will be even more basic and will be the one where most of the discussion about adding or removing entries will go on (whereas the first two lists will be more concerned with improving and maintaining the entries on the list, thus ensuring that more of the time we spend is on productive editing, rather than trivial squabbling over whether or not to include borderline entries). I imagine that the second list (and perhaps parts of the first) could indeed be well-served by a bot of some sort. A bot could also be valuable for helping determine what entries to add and remove, if we could set one up to gather information like "how many pages link to this one?" and "how many interwiki links does this page have?" en masse. -Silence 23:41, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Excellent idea.  I had never seen WP:GA before, but it's a good template to start from.  I agree that having an extended list will prevent needless squabbles.  As long as people can see which articles are Vital, and which could do with some improving then the list will be a good service.-BiancaOfHell 00:11, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Just to update everyone, I'm almost done writing the bot.  It's taking a long time because I decided to make it a little more sophisticated. It will not be restricted to just this page but can update any list based on a set of rules in the page comments.  --Selket Talk 05:52, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Out of date info 

message: Okay, the Solar system article is now an FA.  Should we wait till the bot is written to make the update?  A first test.-BiancaOfHell 20:36, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Update now.  I can't write a bot until a decision is made on whether we are changing the format of the page.  Then, I will need to wait for task approval, which can take a few days.  If the page is going to maintain it's format for the time being, I can go ahead and start coding.  Is that what the consensus is? --Selket Talk 18:31, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Update Solar System status as FA by bot? 

message: I'd edit the list directly, but I'm not sure what the score is around here and what criteria you are using.  This list of British people I feel need inclusion is not exhaustive, but just a stab.  I doin't know how you are weighting it, but this is the English language Wikipedia, so I'll throw the big British names out.  Under artists I can't see Turner, Hogarth or John Constable.  Under authors George Orwell, HG Wells, Charles Dickens, Chaucer, Robert Louis Stevenson, Jane Austen, D.H. Lawrence and Virginia Woolf. Composers, at the least Arthur Sullivan and Andrew Lloyd Webber. Entrepreneurs needs Richard Branson, Henry Tate and John Cadbury.  Explorers needs Ranulph Fiennes, Ernest Shackleton and Robert Falcon Scott. Inventors and scientists needs, blimey, James Watt, John Logie Baird, Alexander Graham Bell, Stephen Hawkings. Mathematicians, at the least George Boole. Politicians and leaders, Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, Oliver Cromwell, Henry VIII of England, Elizabeth I of England, Lloyd George, maybe Robert Walpole and Charles I of England, possibly Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, although I am unsure of the criteria.  Revolutionaries is missing Irish Republican Army.  And where's the sport? Roger Bannister, Steve Redgrave, Liverpool FC, Manchester United FC, David Beckham, Alf Ramsey, Celtic FC, The Ashes, Torvill and Dean and Nick Faldo etc. I'll let other countrys bang the drum for their sporting stars.  And actors?  Alec Guiness, Laurence Olivier, Michael Caine, Judi Dench, Helen Mirren.  Would David Lean be an artist?  The BBC would fit where?  Food for thought, at any rate.  I'm not hot on great Irish people, Australians or Canadians, I will say, not to speak of the other countries where English is the first language. Hiding Talk webcomic warrior 14:14, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Note that we're trying to reduce, not increase, the number of English-language-centric articles on the list, including British ones. However, your suggestions are very appreciated, and a few would probably make good additions here (Stephen Hawkings looks promising, for example), and many more would probably be useful additions to the Expanded list. You are also welcome to propose any suggestions for entries to remove from the current list, as we're mostly trying to shorten, not lengthen, the current list. -Silence 21:02, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Why are you trying to shrink it? Hiding Talk webcomic warrior 21:34, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Our plan is to make two lists: one short (say, 600-1000 articles), regularly updated one for the practical purpose of monitoring Wikipedia's most critical articles and both improving and maintaining them; the other second (say 1500-2000 articles) and more comprehensive, but not used as much for the specific purpose of article maintenance because of the difficulty of regularly checking on so many articles. Wikipedia:Vital articles will be the short list, and thus needs trimming; Wikipedia:Vital articles/Expanded will be the long list, and thus needs expansino. -Silence 21:41, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah, okay.  Well, if you are shrinking English-language-centric articles then you could lose Andy Warhol, William Blake, George Bernard Shaw, Mark Twain, Madonna, Tim Berners-Lee, the Wright Brothers, Thatcher, FDR, Bush, Blair, Truman, Victoria of the United Kingdom and you need to cull half of the philosophers and social scientists, not just English Language ones.  Leave Aristotle, René Descartes, Sigmund Freud, John Locke, Immanuel Kant, Søren Kierkegaard, Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, Plato,  Socrates, and Sun Tzu. Just my thoughts. Sorry, I hadn't seen the extended lists. Hiding Talk webcomic warrior 21:47, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Britain? 

message: I copy this from talk page of meta-wiki, since no talk happens there. I suggest Kalevala would be added to list. As the Finnish national epos it is the flagship of one of the richest oral traditions in the world - the Finnic mythology. About hundred thousand folk poems have been collected from Finnic peoples to the folk poem archive of Finland. Kalevala, even while it haves only a small portion of those poems, represents all that. It is written in a unique European language and unique metre. In Kalevala there are layers of mythology from all time perioids since stone age. It is translated in many languages. There is nothing else about Finland in this list of articles even though Finland is one of the leading countries in welfare, health care, fight against corruption, education, womens rights, democracy, technological achievements, journalist freedom, economic competitiveness and so on (look statistics at the Finland article). There is nothing about any Fenno-Ugric people in this list even though most scientist agree that Fenno-Ugric languages were spoken at Northern Europe before Indo-European languages and so Fenno-Ugrics are native European languages and an important part of what Europeans are composed of just like Christianity or Hellenic culture. If we don't have anything else about Fenno-Ugric world here lets have Kalevala to represent all that. Tuohirulla puhu 16:05, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggestion: Kalevala 

message: Hi, I'd love to see this knowledge tree be simplified as in "Science"/"Science" goes to "Science", and the hyperlink is simply placed in that single "Science". bsod 23:25, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggestion: tree simplification 

message: I suggest to add this section under notable people section. At present the name of Gautama Buddha, Jesus and Muhammad are written under Specific religions while the name of some others like  Moses and Zoroaster aren't mentioned.--Sa.vakilian(t-c) 04:49, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, I've thought of doing this myself. —dv82matt 05:18, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I propose to add these people:Abraham, Moses and Zoroaster.--Sa.vakilian(t-c) 04:24, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I added Prophets and founders of religions and moved the name of religious leaders to there. I removed 2 persons:Bab and Guru Gobind Singh because I want to write one person for each religion. However we can write more than one person for each religion. If so, I propose Ali and Fatima for Islam, Peter and Mary for Christianity.--Sa.vakilian(t-c) 04:51, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  How about "Religious figures"? I think two for each religion would be good - but surely Christianity needs Saint Paul. StAnselm 01:49, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

text: I think that is the fear expressed above, that too many entries will be vital. One person per religion seems like a good guideline, though you probably shouldn't list them as "prophets", since the secular world doesn't acknowledge that they all existed. More than that and we won't be 'vital' any longer. TewfikTalk 05:21, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I think most of the people known some of them like Abraham as the prophet, however I don't insist on using prophet'.--Sa.vakilian(t-c) 05:37, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Religious scholars and leaders 

message: I suggest to establish a team of wikipedians with different cultures. They can judge which article is notable enough to be mentioned in this list. They can set criteria and answer to the requests.--Sa.vakilian(t-c) 05:35, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vital articles' department 

message: Im seriously in agree with sa_vakilian..I think here in this sellection V can whatch a clear  eurocentralism...& he offered good  topics 2 B add on this list...& his critique is acceptable. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Bluesky lost (talk • contribs) 08:55, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  about eurocentralism 

message: I'm going to add an athletes section for people. Any complaints? I'll use the core list from WP:BIO for now. I'll wait a day or to see if there are. Quadzilla99 23:45, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd object. Atheletes aren't really notable enough for inclusion. Also it sets a bad precedent, if atheletes are included why not actors, entertainers, and entrepreneurs the people section should be kept to under 100 entries if at all possible. —dv82matt 09:11, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Athletes 

message: Are these persons notable enough:
*Alan Turing: He hasn't achieved Top grade in Mathematics wikiproject:Talk:Alan Turing
*Francis Drake:Other explorers like Vasco da Gama more notable than him.
--Sa.vakilian(t-c) 19:02, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Francis Drake sould be removed but I think Alan Turing should stay. —dv82matt 11:36, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lack of Notability 

message: Did a quick count, seems to be 1033 articles at the present, with 73 FAs and 115 GAs. That's about 7% FAs and 11% GAs, all together 188 articles ≈ 18%. Lampman 16:49, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Quick count 

message: I think we can remove these articles:
* American football
* Cricket
* Baseball
--Sa.vakilian(t-c) 02:36, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think "American football" and "baseball" should stay but "Cricket" should go. —dv82matt 07:13, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That's crazy. Millions more people play and billions more watch Cricket than American football or baseball. --Dweller 09:02, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Keep Cricket then. —dv82matt 09:52, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

text: Agree with this. David D. (Talk) 04:57, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Sport

message: We can remove some of units like:
* Hertz
* Ton
* Gallon
* Kilometre
What's your idea?--Sa.vakilian(t-c) 02:57, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree. While they are very important they are not crucial as encyclopedia articles. —dv82matt 07:13, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Measurement

message: I suggest to remove these articles:
* Diamond and Graphite:These are not element.
* Silicon
--Sa.vakilian(t-c) 03:02, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: All are forms of elements - diamond & graphite are forms of carbon, but I think I could agree that graphite and diamond are of limited importance (though diamond is clearly important in jewellery).  Silicon is very important - it is the second commonest element in the Earth's crust, making about 26% of the mass, and (along with oxygen) it's the basic building block of nearly all soil and rock.  Silicon is also the main material for integrated circuits and semiconductors.  If you want a chemist's view, get rid of neon and if you want to remove a second, take helium.  I really don't know why neon is on there, I would rank it about 60th in importance out the 117 elements - it doesn't do any chemistry at all, it's only claim to fame is a minor use in a few lights, it's "full octet" structure, and the fact that it's a minor component of air.  Helium is more important to physicists - the alpha particle is a helium nucleus, and helium is fairly common in the universe and in fusion reactions.  It is also known through its use in balloons.  It has very little interest for chemists, though, except as a fluid in gas chromatography and HPLC.  Walkerma 04:27, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

text: I think "helium", "diamond", and "silicon" should stay. "Graphite" and "neon" can be deleted. Incidentally Walkerma, I added "neon" when expanding the section some time ago. But in my defence those flashy neon lights are pretty darn cool. ;-) —dv82matt 07:13, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Diamond and Graphite are some morphologies like ozone(O3) and C60. Neon and helium are Noble gas. I think we can remove Neon and leave Helium.--Sa.vakilian(t-c) 07:38, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Chemical elements

message: Can we put Pre-Columbian instead of Aztec, Inca Empire and Maya civilization?--Sa.vakilian(t-c) 07:56, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Middle Ages

message: Why list Bible under "Christianity"? --Dweller 19:48, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Bible]] 

message: Not sure it's even the most important/notable building in London, Tower of London, Tower Bridge, Westminster Abbey, St Paul's would all probably come first.  Suggest it's deleted. Paulbrock 13:07, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I support it's removal from this list. --Amandajm 03:29, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Buckingham Palace? 

message: This has probably been covered before, but is there a reason to have a separate Wikipedia:Core topics - 1,000 and Wikipedia:Vital articles? Both seem to be subjective lists by Wikipedians of the 1000-or-so most important topics for articles on Wikipedia. Is there a significant difference? Should they be merged?Quadell (talk) (random) 16:41, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The core topics list is administered by the Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team so it is purposed specifically to article selection in a release version of Wikipedia. This list is more general in purpose and allows for a more informal editing process IMO. —dv82matt 00:49, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Core topics - 1,000 

message: Leonardo was primarily a painter! Not a scientist. That's right! He was enormously influential as a painter. And, on the side, he was a scientist and engineer. He advertised himself as having engineering skills, but in fact, he projects either flopped or were not even begun. His flying machine didn't fly. His tank, had it been made, would have rotated on the spot (with enormous effort). His enormous crossbow, when constructed, launched a missile about ten metres. His bobbin winder worked. 
His major contributions to science were made through his paintings. His knowledge of anatomy had little impact, except on Art. His study of light had little impact except on Art. 
Please, somebody, remove Leonardo from the list of influential scientists and put his name where it belongs - He is, with Michelangelo, the most famous painter who ever lived. See Mona Lisa. (Yeah, as an art historian, this really bugs me!) 
I've contributed an article about Leonardo's science at Leonardo da Vinci - scientist and inventor. if you want him in the list of scientists, please link that article, and put the main Leonardo da Vinci in the list of artists.
--Amandajm 04:47, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Leonardo da Vinci]] 

message: Where are Plays?
Where's Shakespeare's plays? Are they listed somewhere other than Literature?
--Amandajm 04:47, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Literature 

message: Why on earth are Norway and Bangladesh "vital articles", but other country articles are not? Who decided this mess? Is Bangladesh somehow more "vital" to a good encyclopedia than  Cameroon or Chad? Every country in the world should be a "vital article". This whole page is offensive and should be deleted. — Brian (talk) 02:10, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Original versions actually had something like "everything in List of countries" and added listings of FAs and GAs. I suspect that section grew unwatched until someone changed the wordings. Overall, I completely fail to see how the page is "offensive and should be deleted." Feel free to nominate it. Circeus 03:23, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, I may have overreacted. :) I think this project could do with quite a bit of de-Eurocentrization, though. Every country in the world should be listed as "vital", at the very least. — Brian (talk) 05:52, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I wouldn't mind expanding the list of countries somewhat, but we already have a list of every country in the world elsewhere so why duplicate that long list here? Also, where do you see European bias? Could you give some examples? —dv82matt 09:35, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

text: It's not just countries, I think this whole concept is a NPOV nightmare. I suppose many people will try to add their pet topic. -- Functor salad 13:30, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Who decided this? 

message: Should Nelson not be included amongst this list or at least the expanded list? He is a central figure in the history if the British Isles, in European politics over the last two centuries and in naval warfare ever since the battle of Trafalgar. Is there a reason why he is omitted? Thankyou Woodym555 16:19, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Put him on the expanded VA list if you want but he's really not pivotal enough for the main VA list. Cheers —dv82matt 19:43, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson]] 

message: How come this page doesn't have a section on economics? How about articles on Capitalism, Communism, Trade, Banking..etc.? Also should include core business topics: Finance, Marketing, Accounting etc.
:It does. It's here. Also Armanaziz, please don't forget to sign your posts on talk pages. Cheers —dv82matt 08:06, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Economics....? 

message: Shouldn't hypertension and diabetes be vital articles? They're probably more important than Transmissible spongiform encephalopathy for example.FelixFelix talk 18:21, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds reasonable to me. Parmesan 16:42, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Medicine additions 

message: The list of vital languages leans more than a trifle towards Europe and Asia. May I suggest the addition of Swahili and Quechua, as two widely spoken native languages (S: 80 million; Q: 10 million speakers) of Africa and South America respectively, both of which are spoken in more than one country? Parmesan 16:42, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I can't speak for Quechua, but Swahili absolutely should be there. --mav 04:06, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Other languages 

message: I allowed myself to insert a discreet little box to show future progress in the improvement of vital articles. Hope nobody minds. Lampman 15:27, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Just updated the box, and it now includes the recently added categories, an initiative I personally quite appreciated. We now see that, while about one in five articles are currently considered among Wikipedia’s best work, that proportion increases to almost one in three if we include articles that once held that position, and may perhaps be brought back to it without too much work. That gives you hope. (PS: the numbers don’t add up because some articles belong to more than one category.) Lampman 01:15, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

text: Note that I haven't finished updating the list, I think I have one or two more categories to go through. —Disavian (talk/contribs) 01:39, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok, let me know when you're done. Good job, by the way! Lampman 01:43, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Also note that I marked all of the A-class articles as either GA or not GA, as in my mind FA > A > GA and all A-class articles should be GAs. —Disavian (talk/contribs) 01:44, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That does seem logical, though reality does not always confirm it. To add to the confusion, some articles (such as Berlin) have different ratings according to different projects. I'll leave it to your judgement though. Lampman 19:25, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: From the work I've done so far, I think that most A-class articles should really be ranked B-class, given the stronger requirements of WP:V as of late. —Disavian (talk/contribs) 21:05, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

text: Okay, I finished the list. —Disavian (talk/contribs) 02:02, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Cool, I made an update to the box. It shows a few more former FAs and GAs, but this seems to be due to an increase in the total article count? Lampman 18:14, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Progressbox 

message: I'm in favor of noting which articles have been demoted from FA and GA status so we can see where we could improve on first. Any thoughts? --Hemlock Martinis 21:37, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It adds clutter. I'd prefer we not do that unless at least a couple more people think they would find it useful. —dv82matt 07:00, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Good idea… I think I will do the same on the French version. Alexander Doria 10:22, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

text: Done. Everything that was DGA, DFA, A, GA, and FA are noted as such on the list now. —Disavian (talk/contribs) 20:17, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Include de-featured and de-GA symbols? 

message: How do we signify A-class articles like Economics? --Hemlock Martinis 23:39, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Currently we don't but maybe we should.  would work pretty well and is used for that purpose elsewhere. —dv82matt 01:48, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Works for me. Thanks! --Hemlock Martinis 06:48, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Great Idea, If i get some free time I will mark the Articles that are A-class !! Hope that is ok with most people. Max ╦╩ 18:46, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: As far as I know, they're already marked, I made sure to do so when I went through and updated the list. However, most (supposedly) A-class articles are actually closer to B-class. —Disavian (talk/contribs) 20:16, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  A-class articles? 

message: I believe there are 1017 articles in this list right now (excluding List of countries and List of countries by population). I could be wrong, if anybody wants do double-check, please do, but I'm pretty sure that's the number. There is of course no compelling reason why there should be 1000 articles rather than 1017 or 983, but 1000 is a nice, round number, and keeping it there helps us preventing the list from filling up with cruft. For overflow there is always Wikipedia:Vital articles/Expanded. So I suggest we cut out some of the articles, any suggestions? I'd like to start by suggesting Jean Racine; I see no reason to include him, and certainly not ahead of Molière. Lampman 19:23, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No objections here to pruning a bit. —Disavian (talk/contribs) 20:16, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

text: Note that some articles are both DFA, DGA, and A, so you might be counting a few articles more than once. —Disavian (talk/contribs) 20:18, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Nah, I took that into account. Lampman 07:09, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

text: I've no objection to judicious pruning but there's no particular reason to restrict the list to precisely 1000 entries. —dv82matt 10:57, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Time to prune 

message: For example, George W. Bush. There are others, but I can't recall what they are right now.--h i s   s p a c e   r e s e a r c h 21:09, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: They are almost always articles that used to be listed here but were removed. Any vital article tags on the talk pages of those articles should be removed. —dv82matt 22:07, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I'm not removing them. As it stands, this page seems both subjective and impossible to maintain.--h i s   s p a c e   r e s e a r c h 22:34, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  There are some articles that on their talk page are listed as vital, but are not listed here 

message: I nominate Shanghai to be added. S♦s♦e♦b♦a♦l♦l♦o♦s (Talk to Me) 02:12, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm lukewarm about adding Shanghai to the list. Having three Chinese cities listed could be unbalancing. That said, if it were added I wouldn't remove it. Cheers —dv82matt 23:31, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cities 

message: It is contrary to Wikipedia's official NPOV policy. This list shows inherent systematic bias (Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland and Austria are vital articles, yet Portugal, Romania, Czech Republic, Hungary and Ukraine are not? How so? Economic bias perhaps? Elvis Presley and The Beatles are vital articles yet Bob Dylan and The Rolling Stones are not? How so? Individual preferences perhaps?) and is impossible to maintain in an objective manner, because as this stands it is subjective, and at worst is without any logical foundation at all. Thoughts?--h i s   s p a c e   r e s e a r c h 00:17, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: An Afd would fail miserably. If it's biased, then fix it, don't delete it. The fact is, some articles are more vital than others. Wikipedia makes a disc so that people without the internet can access the information we can, and they can't put everything on, so they pick and choose. This is where the choices are posted. This isn't just some random list, it serves a useful purpose. Again, the answer is fixing the POV, not deleting the entire page. You seem to be saying that it is impossible to make it objective because it is subjective. That just doesn't make any sense. Wrad (talk) 00:43, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Is Berlin more vital than Portugal? According to the current page it is. I'd have to disagree with that assertion.--h i s   s p a c e   r e s e a r c h 02:28, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That seems like an odd comparison to me. One is a city and one is a country. The ones you made in you first post were better in my mind. Wrad (talk) 02:30, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

text: Economics and population are the two main criteria that I used when I last updated the list of countries. Do you think that the size of a country's economy shouldn't bear as heavily on the countries included on this list? If so could you suggest an alternate metric or guidance of some sort. Perhaps the list of countries should focus more on historical or political significance? —dv82matt 07:18, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

text: This list isn't official and it isn't hurting anybody. There are far more productive uses of your time than trying (and likely failing) at getting this thing deleted. --Hemlock Martinis (talk) 09:21, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  I would almost consider nominating this page for deletion 

message: More than with other articles, the length and complexity of many of these articles lend themselves to a collaborative effort to get to Featured Status rather than by a single editor. Maybe it's time to have a Vital Article collaboration of the month? cheers,  Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:40, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Well there's already Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Core topics/Core topics COTF which selects from a similar list. That's just FYI though. It may still be a good idea to start a collaboration that selects from this list specifically. —dv82matt 05:05, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Wow, been here for almost 2 years and never seen that page before...I'll scrutinise it a bit more closely...but does it get much activity now? cheers,  Casliber (talk · contribs) 06:38, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think it's particularily active right now but I don't really know firsthand. Walkerma is probably the foremost active participant ATM. —dv82matt 09:51, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

text: Along these lines, if Language and Philosophy of Science were made the focus of an article improvement campaign, this would make all Vital Articles "Start" quality or better. Not only should we work on adding to our foremost, but also also working on our hindmost. -- llywrch (talk) 20:51, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Well 'Language' is B class and no longer has a cleanup tag on it so it should be debolded; 'Philosophy of science' is start class but has a cleanup tag. Since none of the articles on the list are stubs anymore, I'd suggest we bold all start class articles as needing attention regardless of whether they have a cleanup tag. —dv82matt 21:46, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Time for a Vital Article Collaboration of the Month maybe 

message: Why has this been removed? There are now only 9 artists left. So much for Jimbo's hopes that WP coverage of the visual arts would improve!  Raphael is certainly a more "vital" figure than Monet or Dali, and the article has recently been entirely rewritten and improved. If you want a rather poor article on the visual arts to remove I'd recommend the very iffy Painting and History of Art - in fact History of painting is much better than either.  Johnbod (talk) 15:21, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: My view is that Renaissance painters are already fairly well represented with Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo listed. One thing to keep in mind is that the quality of an article plays little or no role in whether it gets listed here. So although History of painting may be of better quality than either Painting or History of Art its narrower scope diminishes its vitalness for the purpose of this list. —dv82matt 21:44, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, the idea is to fix what's here, not replace it with higher-quality but less-vital things. Wrad (talk) 22:07, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: In practice all 3 articles cover pretty much the same ground; little other than painting gets into History of Art and painting is a little history plus lists of links. Johnbod (talk) 22:38, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Raphael]] 

message: Propose re-adding Francis Drake (who was removed after a very short debate involving 2 editors in April 2007). Rationale: Colonial claims on the west coast of North America were significant in providing legalistic justification for westward expansion of the United States; Singeing the King of Apain's beard; Defeat of the Spanish Armada. DuncanHill (talk) 09:48, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: To my mind he is in the same league as many other European explorers, for example Samuel de Champlain, Walter Raleigh, Hernando Cortes, Vasco de Gama and John Cabot, who are also not listed. I don't see what recommends Francis Drake in particular over these other explorers and including them all whould introduce a clear cut western bias as well as bloating this section of the list. —dv82matt 10:54, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Francis Drake 

message: Would others agree with adding Heidegger to the list of philosophers?  He's probably the best-known known 20th-century continental philosopher, and influenced a fair number of others such as Sartre and Derrida.  I also wonder whether we might be able to include Phidias and Pollock as representatives of ancient and post-World War II art. Arsene 23:11, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Knowing little about ancient art, I have no opinion about Phidias; but I think Pollock would have to be on any list of essential artists.  As for Heidegger, however, we do have Nietzsche to represent continental philosophy (though yes, 19th-century continental philosophy) and it seems to me that the article on Sartre would be more vital than that on Heidegger.  But insofar as we are trying to keep the list under control, I like it where it is.  I am, however, open to convincing. Postmodern Beatnik (talk) 16:58, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It would help, I think, if you would suggest three articles to take off the list in exchange for Heidegger, Phidias and Pollock.  We're trying to keep this list at 1000 articles, and it's much easier to compare "vitalness" than judge it absolutely.--jwandersTalk 17:12, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The three I'd suggest would be Spanish flu, since a description of it exists already in the World War I and influenza articles, printing press, since it's covered in the printing article, and aneurysm, because a small description exists in the bleeding article (and the list of physical traumas is also quite long even without it).  Would it be reasonable to make these substitutions, then? Arsene 17:43, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: That doesn't seem to be the way the substitutions work (taking something off of one list to add to another), though I suppose it is an option.  However, the brief inclusion of a subject on a related page does not seem to be sufficient to take that page off of this list.  For example, World War I is independently vital, and the description of Spanish flu is both brief and reliant upon a wikilink to the main page.  The question for this page is whether or not Spanish flu is independently vital.  If it is not, it should go.  If it is, it should stay. Postmodern Beatnik (talk) 18:00, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

text: Yes, I meant to imply suggesting candidates to remove from the same section of the list.  If necessary, we can of course change the number of articles alloted to each section, but I think that ought to be a separate discussion. --jwandersTalk 19:51, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  We might as well leave it the way it is, then--I think the three would be valuable additions but I'd be reluctant to consider taking off any of the other artists or philosophers. Arsene 04:06, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Heidegger, Phidias, Pollock 

message: The target section counts I added are simply the current number of articles in each section scaled down such that the target total will be 1000.--jwandersTalk 20:54, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: But it only adds up to 992? 131.111.129.126 (talk) 00:29, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Target section counts 

message: So, now that we've gone though and hashed out which articles we think are most vital, perhaps we should agree on what vital means?  I fight between two definitions when comparing articles:
# (which usually wins) I imagine someone who loses all their memories and only has the vital articles to learn from.  She'd be best served with a general whistle-stop tour of all the hilights, with a skewed focus towards more basic concepts
# (which is probably more pragmatic) I imagine someone who doesn't have net access but has all of the vital articles.  In this case, we'd want to include the articles she's most likely to search for.
At present the list seems to cater heavily towards the first definition, largely because we've tried to avoid systematic bias and cover different regions and times as evenly as we can.  Unfortunately, I think this may be one of the few times where systematic basis works in our favour: someone using a CD of vital articles would be more likely to search for contemporary, western information (e.g. September 11 attacks, George W. Bush, Hurricane Katrina) than articles we've added for better diversity (e.g. Nasīr al-Dīn al-Tūsī). Thoughts? --jwandersTalk 07:42, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The list is intended to be stable and long-lasting in coverage; that is, these are articles that will be just as important 100, 200 or 500 years from now as they are today. I won't deny, for example, that Hurricane Katrina was an unprecedented catastrophe - but the same could be said for the Great Fire of London, the 1755 Lisbon earthquake or Pompeii. --Hemlock Martinis (talk) 08:43, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vital Definition 

message: May I propose  the removal of Information Technology. It's an extremely vague term and the article isn't exactly informative either. -Substitution (talk) 22:21, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggested change - Remove [[Information Technology]] 

message: So I just did a bit of math and it seems the old target numbers added up to 992, not 1000—which is great news, because that means everything adds up when the corrections are made!  Also, the previous miscount probably helped us make some tough decisions that need making, so no harm no foul.  From this point on, then, all additions will need to be accompanied by subtractions (and should probably be hashed out here first—given the work we did getting here, we don't want it all to become a mess again).  Congratulations all around! Postmodern Beatnik (talk) 21:05, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Woohoo! Alas, this is but the first battle of the war. We've identified the articles we need to improve - now let's get to improving them. --Hemlock Martinis (talk) 18:49, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Duh, see comment made on "Target section counts", made on 12 March... Lampman Talk to me! 02:06, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I saw that.  But since it was an anonymous comment, I did the math myself to make sure.  But thanks for being needlessly rude—it's always appreciated. Postmodern Beatnik (talk) 19:02, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  We're On Target! 

message: Might I ask what the criteria is for 'vital' country articles? Bogdan що? 02:03, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: There's none set in stone. Did you have a specific country you'd like to replace? --Hemlock Martinis (talk) 21:39, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Countries 

message: Any reason for the inconsistent handling of this?  Leonardo da Vinci is both Vital and Top, while other Vitals such as Alzheimer's disease have Importance=???  Are people waiting for an option to assign Importance=Vital?LeadSongDog (talk) 22:12, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Importance is decided by projects, not by anything else, and in that case a vital article will be top importance only for those subject areas for which the person or thing is most famous/relevant.  For example, it is conceivable that WikiProject London might tag the William Shakespeare article (his plays were performed there, and he lived in London for a while). However, Shakespeare is rather less important to WP:London than he would be to WP:Theatre, and the article might only be tagged as Mid importance for London yet Top importance for WP:Theatre. Walkerma (talk) 01:54, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I knew I was missing something.  Thanks.  So it would be Top for whichever project is primary on the article, perhaps not for other projects. LeadSongDog (talk) 02:04, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Pretty much, though I'd say "for whichever projects are primary..." Walkerma (talk) 04:01, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Are Vital Articles automatically Top importance? 

message: How on earth is information about elevators considered a vital article but something that's shaped the world as much as boats have aren't even on the list? 209.103.225.131 (talk) 20:02, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, but a list like this tends to be rather arbitrary at times.  Both ship and boat are classed as WP:CORE and WP:CORESUP respectively, though, and those lists are much more restrictive than this list, so someone agrees with you!  Go ahead and make the edit yourself - I can't see anyone really disagreeing with you. Walkerma (talk) 01:48, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Boats? 

message: WP:ITN/C is a forum for proposing and developing a consensus on which news items should be included on the ITN template. Because of repeated disputes about objectively assessing the importance of a recently deceased person (specifically the non-inclusion of Edmund Hillary, Pavarotti, Arthur C. Clarke, Bobby Fischer) in light of the limits imposed by existing criteria, we are attempting to compile a reasonably authoritative list of important living people in connection with revising the criteria. The proposal is that if someone on the list died, that would warrant an automatic nomination at the very least. The list does not have a hard ceiling on size, but it is anticipated that, unlike recent deaths, there would be no more than on the order of 1 name per week (yes, it's morbid); thus importance might be calibrated to the 50 most important people who died in 2007. Given your experience with making evaluations on importance, your contributions and feedback to this list and its criteria would be much appreciated. Madcoverboy (talk) 02:18, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Importance of living people 

message: I removed Sao Paulo, Moscow, and Seoul, and substituted Delhi, Cairo, and Jakarta. Postmodern Beatnik reverted me because I didn't discuss my changes beforehand and he was in turn reverted by Jedravent.
The impetus for my change was that India and Africa had been completely excluded, which seems quite wrong. There were 3 Latin American Cities: Mexico City, Sao Paulo, and Rio de Janiero. I think that either Rio or Sao Paulo should be removed, but have no idea which.
I included Delhi to represent South Asia. It is a very historically interesting city (on a par with Rome), having been the capital of multiple empires. And it is the capital of India. I might be ok with including Mumbai or Calcutta instead of Delhi, if arguments were given. 
I included Cairo as the only African city. What bothers me about this choice is that we alerady have several Near or Middle Eastern cities (Mecca, Jerusalem, Istanbul), and Cairo is really more Mediterraean rather than Sub-Saharan Africa, which historically speaking, is the "real" Africa. But Cairo is a much more major city than Timbuktu or Johannesburg or Addis Ababa.
I feel quite justified in removing Moscow. It is clearly less important than London/Paris/Berlin/Rome/Athens. And 6-7 European cities (depending on whether you include Istanbul) is over-representation.
Then I wanted to include a city in South East Asia. My first instinct was Bangkok, but the Jakarta metro area is larger according to Southeast Asia. But I could go either way on that one. Singapore is another possibility.  
Finally, I feel that having Seoul and Tokyo is over-representing that part of the world. So I removed Seoul and inserted Jakarta.
I think that's it. — goethean ॐ 21:56, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: More thoughts: removing Moscow means that north Asia is not represented, but that maybe ok considering North Asia's historical and contemporary lack of importance. There's nothing between LA and NYC represented either (except Mexico City), which is arguably more of a travesty. — goethean ॐ 22:20, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

text: Having Cairo and Mecca and Jerusalem is bothering me now. — goethean ॐ 22:20, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I have reverted Jedravent, also for not discussing the changes on the talk page first; but I would like to state that I support your effort.  However, it should be noted that the purpose of this page is most emphatically not to be representative in a politically correct way.  That is, if it were the case that there were no important cities in South East Asia (or at least no cities more important than those already on the list) then they don't get any cities on the list.  Tough.  That said, I don't think that South East Asia is unimportant, and I agree that Jakarta is a very good city to put on the list.  I also agree that Cairo, Mecca, and Jerusalem is too much.  I suggest leaving out Cairo.  I think it is important to keep Moscow, however, and I believe it is a bit short-sighted to lump Russia in with the rest of Europe.  I agree that Seoul might be a good candidate for replacement, and we could put Jakarta in its place.  I also like the idea of adding Delhi, but I am torn on what to remove.  Perhaps Rio de Janeiro? Postmodern Beatnik (talk) 23:04, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I think Rio is the best candidate for removal. — goethean ॐ 03:06, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I've removed Rio and added Jakarta (which seemed the most important to put on the list). Postmodern Beatnik (talk) 02:45, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Goethean has removed Jakarta and replaced it with Delhi, which makes sense to me. Postmodern Beatnik (talk) 15:34, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

text: I think Moscow is a definite for inclusion as the largest city in Europe. Perhaps Berlin would be one to "drop off" first? - fchd (talk) 06:23, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Of the European cities, I agree that Berlin may be the weakest.  Then again, Berlin has a very rich history—including its time as a divided capital. Postmodern Beatnik (talk) 02:45, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cities 

message: It would be really nice to get Ganges and/or the Great Lakes in the bodies of water section, but I cant see anything that can be replaced. — goethean ॐ 22:14, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: You are beginning to see the difficulty we face in making this list. =)  Luckily, there is an expanded version that holds 2000 articles.  Postmodern Beatnik (talk) 22:31, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bodies of water 

message: Good and evil should go under general religion instead of yoga or goddess or under philosophy instead of dialectic.  — goethean ॐ 17:17, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I would put it under general religion, as they are moral concept. Dialectic is a logical concept that does not imply the idea of Good/Evil but the idea of Right/False Alexander Doria (talk) 18:28, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I know what dialectic is. I was not saying that they were equivalent, comparable, or even similar, merely that 'good and evil' is a more basic, widespread, important concept than dialectic. — goethean ॐ 18:54, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm sorry, I misunderstood your writing. Nevertheless, the concept of Good/Evil is obviously a religious concept which is included in most religions, while a lot of philosopher ignored it and prefered the concept of fairness (Kant, Plato…) Alexander Doria (talk) 20:51, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Since we have deity, we might be justified in removing both God and Goddess. Postmodern Beatnik (talk) 22:12, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Good and evil 

message: Death is not listed. I'm not sure what should be removed to make room for it, however. — goethean ॐ 15:43, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Health and Medicine or Everyday life 

message: The first sentence in the article says "This is a list of basic subjects for which Wikipedia should have a corresponding high-quality article, and ideally a featured article". If that is the main goal, wouldn't it be best to delete all the featured articles (and maybe the good articles) from the list? That way there would be room for more topics, and the goal of guiding people to "subjects that need high-quality articles" could be fulfilled better. I think there is no way we'll ever agree about which are the 1000 "most important" topics in a general sense, as seems to be the problem in some of the discussions above. But we can perhaps agree on 1000 topics that are "pretty important" and deserving good/featured articles, and which would be removed from the list as soon as they achieve that status. (Note: the articles that are removed due to being featured/good could be moved to a separate list, in case someone needs them to "track progress".) --Itub 06:05, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *Great idea! StAnselm 06:50, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You know that GA and FA aren't permanent and some articles will miss this position.--Sa.vakilian(t-c) 12:31, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *True, but at the moment we're just going in circles. There's a constant cycle of articles being added and deleted from this list. StAnselm 12:38, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

text: No, Wikipedia isn't paper, if we need more room for articles we can just use the expanded list or even increase the article limit on this list and wrangling over articles to include isn't going to go away just because we remove all of the decent articles. The primary purpose of this page is to list the most important encyclopedia topics. Feel free though to make a seperate list of "Vital articles needing improvement" or the like, if you think it would be useful. Cheers —dv82matt 16:20, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: In that case the purpose of the list, as described on the project page, is not clear. And also in that case I would agree with the poster below who says it doesn't have any useful purpose. --Itub 06:24, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Purpose of this list 

message: It seems to me that this page is an exercise in POV and that it should be deleted.  What is the point of it, especially given the existing of its big sister at Wikipedia:Vital articles/Expanded?
It came to my attention when a point of order was raised by WikiProject Cricket in this discussion and it does not surprise me at all to find that there is an American bias at work here, as per several of the sports-related selections and discussions.
Unless there is some useful purpose for having this list and unless it is going to be done by a working group which is able to take a completely objective view of what is vital and what is not, then the whole thing should be scrapped.  --BlackJack | talk page 06:04, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that it is a good question, what the point of this list is. However, I don't agree that the POV policies necessarily apply to lists in Wikipedia space, as opposed to article space. Pages in this namespace are for internal purposes, and many of them have non-neutral points of view (just look at all the essays!). --Itub 06:28, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

text: The PoV is not a problem because this is a priority list for those who choose to view it as such. You're perfectly free to create your own, or to encourage the improvement of this list. I completely disagree with the notion of having it deleted. — RJH (talk) 18:46, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If this is just a WikiProject, it should list its participants, rather than pretending to be some kind of official endeavour of the foundation. It should be clearly stated that the list is a POV by a negligible minority of WP editors, or where, if at all, it has been sourced from. Otherwise, I would probably find myself disagreeing with RJH on the deletion question. Samsara (talk • contribs) 21:13, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I don't get the impression when I read the project page that this is an official endeavor of the foundation.  I disagree that it should be made into a WikiProject; I think that it is fine as it is.  --Iamunknown 21:21, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

text:  Yes, it seems fair that a list of participants should be published. I wasn't around when it was first created, but for the most part this seems like a reasonable approach. It does seem to undergo edits from time to time, however, so perhaps it's open to revision? Maybe there should be a review committee? — RJH (talk) 19:14, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  What is the point of this page? 

message: While looking through the philosophy and religion lists for pruning candidates, I noticed a few things that might be good to change.  For one, the entries under moral philosophy don't actually point to the intended articles.  Nihilism, for instance, is not the same as moral nihilism and relativism is not the same thing as moral relativism.  We could just alter these to point to the correct articles, but this is also an opportunity to reconsider the choices.  Utilitarianism seems like a proper member of the list.  It is a consistently proper position in ethics and has been vastly influential.  Moral nihilism and relativism have not been as popular or influential on their own, but moral skepticism more generally (or moral anti-realism, really, but we don't have a separate article on that yet) has been.  We would even be justified in changing moral nihilism over to non-cognitivism.  If we made this switch in one fashion or another, we would have a spot for ethical naturalism, another major contender in the history of ethics.
I would also suggest replacing determinism with free will.  That determinism is more important than its alternative libertarianism (metaphysics) seems rather POV, whereas the article free will covers the debate as a whole—including links to determinism and libertarianism (metaphysics). Postmodern Beatnik (talk) 17:32, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Are there any objections to these changes?  Can I at least change Nihilism to moral nihilism and relativism to moral relativism, as seems to be the original intention? Postmodern Beatnik (talk) 13:31, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: If the links don't point to the correct articles, you should definitely redirect them.  I also agree with your suggestion regarding the free will article.  No opinion on what specific ethics articles should be included. Intellectual Soup (talk) 18:18, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Philosophy Replacement Suggestions 

message: Hopelessly and irretrievably POV.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.134.46.152 (talk) 03:10, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I do not quite undestand your point. Could you develop your argument ? Alexander Doria (talk) 11:30, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Says who? 

message: # Philosophy
# Philosophical branches
## Ethics
## Epistemology
### Belief
### Knowledge
### Truth
## Logic
## Metaphysics
### Existence
### Ontology
### Free will
# Philosophy by region and period
## Western philosophy
### Greek philosophy
### Medieval philosophy
### Contemporary philosophy
## Eastern philosophy
### Chinese philosophy
### Indian philosophy
### Islamic philosophy
# Philosophical movements
## Confucianism
## Existentialism
## Idealism
## Hedonism
## Humanism
## Marxism
## Nihilism
## Rationalism
## Realism
## Skepticism
This gives us 29 articles for the philosophy section. I would like to note that the number of philosophical movements listed should be fixed at ten articles. In addition, I propose we move the Atheism and Agnosticism article to the Religion subsection. Thus, we have pared a 37-article subsection down to 31 articles. Our net gain of slots here is 6.
Next, let's tackle philosophers. We want the big guns here, the titans in the field. That's why we have first and foremost Aristotle, Plato and Socrates, or the Big Three as I like to call them. We also should not eschew a more worldly approach, which is why we also should keep a Big Three from the East - namely Confucius, Nagarjuna and Avicenna. This adequately covers the ancients. Thomas Aquinas represents a critical juncture in Christian philosophy, so his inclusion is advisable. Ibn Khaldun can provide an Eastern counterbalance for the medieval era. It is, therefore, in the modern era where we are too top-heavy. Let's slice out David Hume, Emile Durkheim, William James, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Jean-Paul Sartre. Let's also move Freud to the science section, since his Wikipedia intro identifies him as a "neurologist and a psychiatrist", not a philosopher. Thus we have a net gain of five slots, which when factored with Freud's move to science brings us to a much more comfortable 14 philosophers.
This Philosophy overall grants us a net gain of eleven slots, which we can use as we wish. Since some editors also brought up the Color section, I also propose we remove Red, Green, Blue and Yellow. Now we have fifteen open slots to do with what we wish!
Let's summarize the changes and principles I am proposing in the Second Great Revision:
# A complete overhaul of the Philosophy section
## The fixing by consensus of the "Philosophical movements" subsection to 10 slots.
## The movement of atheism and agnosticism to the Religion section.
# The pruning of Philosopher-cruft in the Biography section
## The movement of Freud from philosopher to scientist
# The renaming of the Arts section to "Arts and culture"
## The movement of humanism, modernism and postmodernism to a new "Cultural movements" subsection of the "Arts and culture" section
# Also, just so we have this written down somewhere, does anyone oppose the de facto fixing of the "Politicians and leaders" subsection to 25 slots?
|-
| style="text-align:center;" | The above is an extended discussion that has been collapsed for improved usability.</span>
|}
To preserve the orderly fashion, I urge the community to weigh my proposal as a whole and not on individual parts. If you disagree with the manner in which I'm proposing this, oppose it. But I'm only creating an omnibus because if we labored and dwelled on every little choice we'd never get anything done. Once we have a firm structure from which we can work, commonly agreed upon and backed by consensus, we can sort out the details and tweak the tidbits. --Hemlock Martinis (talk) 22:36, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Philosophy

message: * Support as proposer. --Hemlock Martinis (talk) 22:36, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Support 

message: I suppose moving Atheism and Agnosticism to religion is fine, but why not move Theism, Pantheism, and Deism, as well?  Or if we want to keep some under philosophy, why not keep them all there?  Without a principled reason for separating the two, it seems a rather superficial change to move a set of articles from one category to another just to make the numbers look more even.  If we think the articles really fit better under religion than philosophy, great—maybe there is a principled reason for the move and it just hasn't been stated yet.  But if not, we should categorize them where they belong regardless of whether or not it puffs up the numbers of some category.  Some things may just be more vital than others from an encyclopedic standpoint, and it seems to me a bad idea to make changes for solely political reasons (particularly since politically motivated changes typically lead to politically motivated disputes and thus more politically motivated changes).  Postmodern Beatnik (talk) 18:30, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I see that someone tried moving Atheism and Agnosticism out from under Theistic Philosophies on the basis of neither being "theistic."  Of course, in this context "theistic" means "about God"—something that atheism and agnosticism certainly are.  Still, can anyone think of a better name?  "Religious Philosophies" doesn't really seem appropriate to me, as that would be a much wider category than just theories about the existence and nature of God.  Philosophy of religion is not my area, however, so I am not aware of any specialized terminology that might be a better fit. Postmodern Beatnik (talk) 23:56, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, we should move all five. But they are primarily known as systems of belief rather than philosophical positions, so it makes more sense to include them under Religion instead of Philosophy. --Hemlock Martinis (talk) 19:35, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: No objections. Postmodern Beatnik (talk) 22:18, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Comment 

message: I do not mean to take an advantage here but this whole discussion is moot. Michael Jackson is level 3 vital article as well as Madonna somebody just forgot to list them. Thank you for your time. JTBX (talk)
As one of the worlds most famous living persons im supprised hes not here. Realist2 (Come Speak To Me) 23:19, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: We discussed the matter higher. The main problem with Jackson is that, although he is currently most popular, posterity is unlikely to consider him as one of the greatest musician ever (on the contrary of the Beatles or Schönberg). Alexander Doria (talk) 08:53, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: But lets be honest, in 100 years time Thriller will still be remembered as the worlds best selling album. Hes not a musician as such your right, however hes certainly more of a musician than Elvis Presley so your argument doesnt really hold water. — Realist2 (Come Speak To Me) 13:45, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Furthermore Jackson has raised hundreds of millions for charity, seriously hes one of the most generous people of our time, also worked hard to promote AIDS awarness when it was still controversial. He has 8 guiness world records, redefined the music video, ended racism on MTV, has the most famous music videos and the most expensive music video. He has 13 grammys (a hell of a lot more than Elvis at 0 i believe). His effect on the art of Dance is unmatched. His influence on popular music is more obvious now than ever. He had the worlds most famous trial too. Apparantly last year his article was in the top 200 most viewed despite not releasing any material since 2001. There are no black musicians on the list which seems odd. On top of that his article is in a much better shape that that of Elvis or the Beatles. It only failed its last FA because it needed a copy edit. It smells like US bias, everyone knows MJ has a bad rep in the US at the moment, MJ is an international figure however. With Elvis 65% of his market came from America, with MJ its only 25-33%. Elvis needed America to shift records, MJ doesnt. Seems like a load of MJ haters dont want him on the list lol. — Realist2 (Come Speak To Me) 15:42, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

text: I notice from your userpage that Michael Jackson is one of your favorite artists. One of mine is U2. They've sold 170 million albums and have won more Grammys than any other band ever. They've been a powerful force for social justice and human rights causes around the world, and Bono's even been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. We can all make cases for our favorite artists to be included. At just a glance, they sound "vital". But they're not. --Hemlock Martinis (talk) 17:25, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: At least your not suggesting he shouldnt be on it because of child abuse accusations, cheers. Ill drop it as i dont care for the list that much, ive just noticed the Elvis article isnt even a GA while the MJ article is close to FA, clearly article quality doesnt have a part in the selection process. In the mean time I suggest that BLP violation is removed. — Realist2 (Come Speak To Me) 17:33, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It should be noted exactly why articles aren't judged based on their status. It's important to clarify that this is a list of 1000 vital topics to the encyclopedia. The list is intended as a centralized watchlist for the progress in improving and enhancing these articles towards FAs, both individually and as a whole. It helps us monitor the quality of the encyclopedia. Adding articles because of their quality status skews this analysis. You know, we really should have an FAQ at the top of this page explaining these things...--Hemlock Martinis (talk) 20:15, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Michael Jackson 

message: Now that the Second Great Revision has been implemented, there are currently only 983 articles in the list. This gives us seventeen slots with which we can play with. There was discussion prior to the revision about expanding the Arts and culture section, which I wholeheartedly support. Here are my suggested additions:
Collapsed for easy discussion
The following is a discussion that has been placed in a collapse box for improved usability.</span>
=== Arts and culture (56 articles) ===
#  Art
# History of art
#  Aesthetics
====Artistic movements====
# Gothic
# Baroque
# Romanticism
# Modernism
# Postmodernism
# Pop culture
====Literature====
# Literature
# History of literature
# Prose
## Book
## Fiction
### Novel
### Short story
#  Poetry
## Rhyme
## Forms
### Epic poetry
### Haiku
### Sonnet
====Music====
#  Music
#  History of music
# Musical instrument
# Singing
# Genres
##  Classical music
##  Folk music
##  Hip hop music
##  Jazz
##  Pop music
##  Rock music
====Performing arts====
# Performing arts
# Dance
## Ballet
#  Film
## Documentary
# Opera
## Orchestra
# Theatre
## Comedy
## Tragedy
====Visual arts====
# Visual arts
# Architecture
## Seven Wonders of the Ancient World
## Great Wall of China
#  Comics
#  Drawing
# Painting
## Illustration
## Portrait
# Photography
#  Sculpture
## Pottery
## Statue
The above is an extended discussion that has been collapsed for improved usability.</span>
In addition to the expansion, this would also move Photography from the Technology section to the more appropriate Arts and Culture section. Thoughts? This is a rough thing I threw together in a few minutes, so more input is definitely needed. --Hemlock Martinis (talk) 19:54, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: And, what about the selection of writing works we discussed above ? Alexander Doria (talk) 21:14, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Which ones would you add and which articles listed would you remove?--Hemlock Martinis (talk) 18:57, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I would remove Baroque, Folk Music, documentary, singing and great wall of China, and add Shakespeare's Hamlet, Goethe's Faust, Dante's Inferno, Homer's Odyssey and One thousand and one night. Alexander Doria (talk) 11:58, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Any rationale for those choices?  Losing entire fields of art in favour of specific works seems a bit tough to justify.  Should we trade Theatre for Hamlet?  Storytelling for One thousand and one nights LeadSongDog (talk) 16:16, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

text: I have to concur with LeadSongDog here. While I was originally in favor of specific works, I don't think it's feasible without sacrificing important cultural mediums. --Hemlock Martinis (talk) 19:14, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't truly think my deletions were quite significant. I didn't actually advocate to replace theatre with Hamlet. Maybe should we keepsinging,  and baroque, but I don't believe documentary, great wall of China and Folk music to be really vital. Alexander Doria (talk) 21:00, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: So we replace Documentary, Great Wall of China and folk music with...how about Odyssey, Hamlet and 1001 Nights? --Hemlock Martinis (talk) 00:45, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, I forget to specify. My idea would be Hamlet, Faust and Inferno. Yet, including writing works was, at first, Postmodern's idea, and I would be pleased to have his opinion before deciding anything. Alexander Doria (talk) 10:32, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm glad we can all agree on Hamlet, at least. The main reason I'm uncomfortable with including Faust and Inferno is that it give us a very narrow slice of human literature - all three are Renaissance-era publications, and all three are from Europe. Including Odyssey would give us a great chronological range, and including 1001 Nights would give us a great cultural and geographic range. --Hemlock Martinis (talk) 17:00, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe should we therefore delete Inferno. Actually, with Goethe's Faust we've got a work of modern times, with Hamlet a work of Renaissance, and with the Odyssey a work of Antiquity. It would be fine also to add 1001 Nights. Perhaps a good idea would be to put the Maharabata instead of the Odyssey : we would have both a non-occidental and an antic work. Alexander Doria (talk) 21:06, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: If we're going to include specific works, and if we limit the selections to three, then it seems fitting to include one each from three periods and three genres.  I could agree with selecting the Maharabata as the work from Antiquity and poem, especially since (as noted) it provides an occidental work in the mix.  I also agree with Hamlet as the work from the western Renaissance and example of drama (I could agree with a number of other Shakespeare plays, but Hamlet is likely to be the most widely agreed upon choice).  For the third work, a modern novel would complete the trio.  While there are many great British novels, I would hesitate to include two works from the same nation in a list of three.  Perhaps an American novel (e.g. Moby Dick), or else a French or Russian novel (there are many)? --EncycloPetey (talk) 21:58, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: From my viewpoint, I prefer Goethe's Faust, as long as it is focused on most modern times concerns (capitalism in the end of the second part, the rise of science with the creation of an andreid — Homonculus — the infernal pact the modern man accept in order to dominate the Nature), and had a truly wide influence on the ninentieth and twentieth centuries' literature (see Lenau's Faust, Wilde's Dorian Gray, Mann's Doctor Faustus, Bougliakov's the master and Margarita) and on Music (Berlioz, Gounod, Liszt, Boito, Henri Pousseur, Busoni). Anyway, in you still prefer a Novel, I would back Balzac's Comedie Humaine. War and peace would be a good choice too. Alexander Doria (talk) 09:38, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Seventeen free slots! 

message: #  Art
# History of art
#  Aesthetics
====Artistic movements====
# Gothic
# Baroque
# Romanticism
# Modernism
# Postmodernism
# Pop culture
====Literature====
# Literature
# History of literature
# Prose
## Book
## Fiction
### Novel
### Short story
#  Poetry
## Rhyme
## Forms
### Epic poetry
### Haiku
### Sonnet
====Music====
#  Music
#  History of music
# Musical instrument
# Singing
# Genres
##  Classical music
##  Folk music
##  Hip hop music
##  Jazz
##  Pop music
##  Rock music
====Performing arts====
# Performing arts
# Dance
## Ballet
#  Film
## Documentary
# Opera
## Orchestra
# Theatre
## Comedy
## Tragedy
====Visual arts====
# Visual arts
# Architecture
## Seven Wonders of the Ancient World
## Great Wall of China
#  Comics
#  Drawing
# Painting
## Illustration
## Portrait
# Photography
#  Sculpture
## Pottery
## Statue
|-
| style="text-align:center;" | The above is an extended discussion that has been collapsed for improved usability.</span>
|}
In addition to the expansion, this would also move Photography from the Technology section to the more appropriate Arts and Culture section. Thoughts? This is a rough thing I threw together in a few minutes, so more input is definitely needed. --Hemlock Martinis (talk) 19:54, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: And, what about the selection of writing works we discussed above ? Alexander Doria (talk) 21:14, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Which ones would you add and which articles listed would you remove?--Hemlock Martinis (talk) 18:57, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I would remove Baroque, Folk Music, documentary, singing and great wall of China, and add Shakespeare's Hamlet, Goethe's Faust, Dante's Inferno, Homer's Odyssey and One thousand and one night. Alexander Doria (talk) 11:58, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Any rationale for those choices?  Losing entire fields of art in favour of specific works seems a bit tough to justify.  Should we trade Theatre for Hamlet?  Storytelling for One thousand and one nights LeadSongDog (talk) 16:16, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

text: I have to concur with LeadSongDog here. While I was originally in favor of specific works, I don't think it's feasible without sacrificing important cultural mediums. --Hemlock Martinis (talk) 19:14, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't truly think my deletions were quite significant. I didn't actually advocate to replace theatre with Hamlet. Maybe should we keepsinging,  and baroque, but I don't believe documentary, great wall of China and Folk music to be really vital. Alexander Doria (talk) 21:00, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: So we replace Documentary, Great Wall of China and folk music with...how about Odyssey, Hamlet and 1001 Nights? --Hemlock Martinis (talk) 00:45, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, I forget to specify. My idea would be Hamlet, Faust and Inferno. Yet, including writing works was, at first, Postmodern's idea, and I would be pleased to have his opinion before deciding anything. Alexander Doria (talk) 10:32, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm glad we can all agree on Hamlet, at least. The main reason I'm uncomfortable with including Faust and Inferno is that it give us a very narrow slice of human literature - all three are Renaissance-era publications, and all three are from Europe. Including Odyssey would give us a great chronological range, and including 1001 Nights would give us a great cultural and geographic range. --Hemlock Martinis (talk) 17:00, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe should we therefore delete Inferno. Actually, with Goethe's Faust we've got a work of modern times, with Hamlet a work of Renaissance, and with the Odyssey a work of Antiquity. It would be fine also to add 1001 Nights. Perhaps a good idea would be to put the Maharabata instead of the Odyssey : we would have both a non-occidental and an antic work. Alexander Doria (talk) 21:06, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: If we're going to include specific works, and if we limit the selections to three, then it seems fitting to include one each from three periods and three genres.  I could agree with selecting the Maharabata as the work from Antiquity and poem, especially since (as noted) it provides an occidental work in the mix.  I also agree with Hamlet as the work from the western Renaissance and example of drama (I could agree with a number of other Shakespeare plays, but Hamlet is likely to be the most widely agreed upon choice).  For the third work, a modern novel would complete the trio.  While there are many great British novels, I would hesitate to include two works from the same nation in a list of three.  Perhaps an American novel (e.g. Moby Dick), or else a French or Russian novel (there are many)? --EncycloPetey (talk) 21:58, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: From my viewpoint, I prefer Goethe's Faust, as long as it is focused on most modern times concerns (capitalism in the end of the second part, the rise of science with the creation of an andreid — Homonculus — the infernal pact the modern man accept in order to dominate the Nature), and had a truly wide influence on the ninentieth and twentieth centuries' literature (see Lenau's Faust, Wilde's Dorian Gray, Mann's Doctor Faustus, Bougliakov's the master and Margarita) and on Music (Berlioz, Gounod, Liszt, Boito, Henri Pousseur, Busoni). Anyway, in you still prefer a Novel, I would back Balzac's Comedie Humaine. War and peace would be a good choice too. Alexander Doria (talk) 09:38, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Arts and culture (56 articles) 

message: # Visual arts
# Architecture
## Seven Wonders of the Ancient World
## Great Wall of China
#  Comics
#  Drawing
# Painting
## Illustration
## Portrait
# Photography
#  Sculpture
## Pottery
## Statue
|-
| style="text-align:center;" | The above is an extended discussion that has been collapsed for improved usability.</span>
|}
In addition to the expansion, this would also move Photography from the Technology section to the more appropriate Arts and Culture section. Thoughts? This is a rough thing I threw together in a few minutes, so more input is definitely needed. --Hemlock Martinis (talk) 19:54, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: And, what about the selection of writing works we discussed above ? Alexander Doria (talk) 21:14, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Which ones would you add and which articles listed would you remove?--Hemlock Martinis (talk) 18:57, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I would remove Baroque, Folk Music, documentary, singing and great wall of China, and add Shakespeare's Hamlet, Goethe's Faust, Dante's Inferno, Homer's Odyssey and One thousand and one night. Alexander Doria (talk) 11:58, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Any rationale for those choices?  Losing entire fields of art in favour of specific works seems a bit tough to justify.  Should we trade Theatre for Hamlet?  Storytelling for One thousand and one nights LeadSongDog (talk) 16:16, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

text: I have to concur with LeadSongDog here. While I was originally in favor of specific works, I don't think it's feasible without sacrificing important cultural mediums. --Hemlock Martinis (talk) 19:14, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't truly think my deletions were quite significant. I didn't actually advocate to replace theatre with Hamlet. Maybe should we keepsinging,  and baroque, but I don't believe documentary, great wall of China and Folk music to be really vital. Alexander Doria (talk) 21:00, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: So we replace Documentary, Great Wall of China and folk music with...how about Odyssey, Hamlet and 1001 Nights? --Hemlock Martinis (talk) 00:45, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, I forget to specify. My idea would be Hamlet, Faust and Inferno. Yet, including writing works was, at first, Postmodern's idea, and I would be pleased to have his opinion before deciding anything. Alexander Doria (talk) 10:32, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm glad we can all agree on Hamlet, at least. The main reason I'm uncomfortable with including Faust and Inferno is that it give us a very narrow slice of human literature - all three are Renaissance-era publications, and all three are from Europe. Including Odyssey would give us a great chronological range, and including 1001 Nights would give us a great cultural and geographic range. --Hemlock Martinis (talk) 17:00, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe should we therefore delete Inferno. Actually, with Goethe's Faust we've got a work of modern times, with Hamlet a work of Renaissance, and with the Odyssey a work of Antiquity. It would be fine also to add 1001 Nights. Perhaps a good idea would be to put the Maharabata instead of the Odyssey : we would have both a non-occidental and an antic work. Alexander Doria (talk) 21:06, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: If we're going to include specific works, and if we limit the selections to three, then it seems fitting to include one each from three periods and three genres.  I could agree with selecting the Maharabata as the work from Antiquity and poem, especially since (as noted) it provides an occidental work in the mix.  I also agree with Hamlet as the work from the western Renaissance and example of drama (I could agree with a number of other Shakespeare plays, but Hamlet is likely to be the most widely agreed upon choice).  For the third work, a modern novel would complete the trio.  While there are many great British novels, I would hesitate to include two works from the same nation in a list of three.  Perhaps an American novel (e.g. Moby Dick), or else a French or Russian novel (there are many)? --EncycloPetey (talk) 21:58, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: From my viewpoint, I prefer Goethe's Faust, as long as it is focused on most modern times concerns (capitalism in the end of the second part, the rise of science with the creation of an andreid — Homonculus — the infernal pact the modern man accept in order to dominate the Nature), and had a truly wide influence on the ninentieth and twentieth centuries' literature (see Lenau's Faust, Wilde's Dorian Gray, Mann's Doctor Faustus, Bougliakov's the master and Margarita) and on Music (Berlioz, Gounod, Liszt, Boito, Henri Pousseur, Busoni). Anyway, in you still prefer a Novel, I would back Balzac's Comedie Humaine. War and peace would be a good choice too. Alexander Doria (talk) 09:38, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Visual arts

message: Does anyone else find it odd that we have a history of Japan and history of the Middle East, but no history of Asia or something similar? I appreciate the need for history of China and history of India given their size but it seems to me we're missing out SEA, which afterall is significantly larger then Japan. Also while I presume Pakistan and Bangladesh are covered in India, what about Afghanistan, Nepal, etc? And then there's also Korea, Tibet etc which may get some coverage in China I guess. Nil Einne (talk) 17:47, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't truly think we can put an History of Asia, given the very notion of Asia is conventional : it designed the part of the Eurasian continent that is not in Europe. Alexander Doria (talk) 10:28, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Conventional?  No, it's plate tectonics.  They're divided by the Ural Mountains.LeadSongDog (talk) 13:51, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: And, what about Turkey ? Besides Italy in on the same plate that north America and, geographically speaking Europe is merely a collection of connected peninsulas. Anyway, I don't think we can group such different civilizations (Middle-east, India, China) into the same article, merely because they are not European.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Alexander Doria (talk • contribs) 17:50, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

text: History of Asia is not as well-defined, at least not nearly as much as the other continents. Ignoring the geography and focusing on the sociocultural aspects, the three primary cultural influences of Asia come from India, the Middle East/Islam, and China/Japan. Thus it is much more concise to list those articles rather than History of Asia. --Hemlock Martinis (talk) 19:04, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  History of 

message: Since there is no procedure indicated for suggesting additions, I am posting here.  
(1) I am surprised that the Health and Medicine section has so many articles on disease, and almost nothing on treatments.  In particular, why is Surgery not listed?  I think it qualifies as a vital article and should be added. --EncycloPetey (talk) 23:16, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Additions 

message: I noticed someone's started adding B-class icons, and I tried to contribute a bit. It soon became clear to me, however, that almost all articles that are not FAs or GAs are B-class. If we're bolding start-class articles now (which seems reasonable, considering there are probably no stubs left) wouldn't it be easier to say that all articles that are not FAs, GAs or in bold, are B-class? This seems preferable to adding hundreds of icons, cluttering the page and making it slower to load. As for bolding articles with cleanup tags, I'm not sure that's such a good idea, as it will be almost impossible to monitor. For instance, Homer, Virgil and Leo Tolstoy are all tagged for various reasons, but they're still B-class. I didn't put these in bold, as I think that should be reserved for start-class and lower. Lampman Talk to me! 16:40, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The page explicitly says that B-icons should be used.  Also, there is an impending move to create a new C-class, so a default will not necessarily be meaningful.  More at issue: this page (and whatever project it is/was attached to) seems inactive. --EncycloPetey (talk) 17:17, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Don't believe everything you read: the page says so because a user unilaterally added it about a week ago, without any discussion on the talk page. As for the C-class, that's still in the future. Let's not crystal ball, let's cross that bridge when we get to it. Apparently C-class has already passed. It will be quite a while before it's implemented to any meaningful degree, however. I doubt any of these articles have been rated C-class yet, I still think B-class icons are premature, and that a default position is preferable. Lampman Talk to me! 01:35, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  B-class icons 

message: I'd like to have the old color articles, Red, Blue, Yellow, and Green restored, even if they are to be restored in place of black and white. Here's why. Red, Yellow and Blue are subtractive primary colors, and Red, Green, and Blue are the additive primary colors. These are the colors from which all other colors spring. Without green, for example, white would not exist to our eyes. Wrad (talk) 21:23, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm hesitant at restoring all of them, especially given that we've already allotted the seventeen slots to the Arts and Culture section, as seen in the discussion above us ("Seventeen free slots!" is the name). I'd be more supportive of removing something else in that section to add Primary color, which could summarize all of them. --Hemlock Martinis (talk) 16:57, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Only 983 articles, so... 

message: Could someone please create a template for the top of this page that shows us articles on the list that are in: 1) WP:FAC, 2) WP:FAR, 3) WP:GAC, 4) WP:GAR and 5) WP:PR? --Hemlock Martinis (talk) 17:09, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Template up top tracking FA/GA noms? 

message: I find it hard to believe that over ten percent of the 115 most important people in the history of the world are mathematicians and feel seven percent for explorers may be high.  I make the following one-for-one swap proposals with each article nominated to be replaced being an article that is not included as one of the 200 :Category:Top-priority biography articles.
===replace Roald Amundsen with Michael Jordan===
Support as nominitor.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM)  05:01, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I support the removal of Los Angeles, but I think Cairo is a better replacement than Damascus. While Damascus is one of the oldest cities on Earth, I think its decrease in importance and influence should account for something. Cairo was also the center of a caliphate or two, and it is hands-down the most important city in the Arab world (and has been that way for several centuries). Granted, I should note that I might be a little biased, as I'm working on the Cairo article right now (although that's because of the importance I noted here). -- tariqabjotu 05:57, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: This truly is a tough one. I'm planning to work on Damascus in the next five or six weeks once another article I'm currently working on is finished up. Also, since we're talking about important Arab cities, wouldn't Baghdad being up for inclusion? I think I'm gonna need some time to think about this... all three have similar histories as capitals of caliphates, cultural/economic/political centers of the Arab/Muslim world, population size, etc. --Al Ameer son (talk) 07:13, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Noting my own bias (being Syrian), I feel that on a historic scale Cairo, and Baghdad are fairly recent cities. Baghdad's importance was only a short while under the Abassids. Damascus however spans a history of more than 10,000 years. over half of it, in which she was the central part of the middle east. Whether under the Aramaeans, The Romans, or later the Arabs. And even when it was not the center of an empire, it was a most important power-broker. Saladin could not consolidate his power over the Crusaders without Damascus, and this example could be said about many others. Yazan (talk) 07:26, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Replacement proposal 

message: Support as nominitor.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM)  05:01, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: replace [[Roald Amundsen]] with [[Michael Jordan]]

message: Support as nominitor.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM)  05:01, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: replace [[Kurt Gödel]] with [[Pelé]]

message: Support as nominitor.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM)  05:01, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: replace [[David Hilbert]] with [[Muhammad Ali]]

message: Support as nominitor.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM)  05:01, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: replace [[Henri Poincaré]] with [[Jackie Robinson]]

message: Support as nominitor.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM)  05:01, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: replace [[Alan Turing]] with [[Jesse Owens]]

message: Support as nominator. Martin Hogbin (talk) 14:06, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: replace [[Nicola Tesla]] with [[James Clark Maxwell]]

message: Support as nominitor. Damascus being one of oldest cities on earth (if not the oldest), the center of the first Islamic caliphate, and a major capital.--Yazan (talk) 13:28, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I support the removal of Los Angeles, but I think Cairo is a better replacement than Damascus. While Damascus is one of the oldest cities on Earth, I think its decrease in importance and influence should account for something. Cairo was also the center of a caliphate or two, and it is hands-down the most important city in the Arab world (and has been that way for several centuries). Granted, I should note that I might be a little biased, as I'm working on the Cairo article right now (although that's because of the importance I noted here). -- tariqabjotu 05:57, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: This truly is a tough one. I'm planning to work on Damascus in the next five or six weeks once another article I'm currently working on is finished up. Also, since we're talking about important Arab cities, wouldn't Baghdad being up for inclusion? I think I'm gonna need some time to think about this... all three have similar histories as capitals of caliphates, cultural/economic/political centers of the Arab/Muslim world, population size, etc. --Al Ameer son (talk) 07:13, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Noting my own bias (being Syrian), I feel that on a historic scale Cairo, and Baghdad are fairly recent cities. Baghdad's importance was only a short while under the Abassids. Damascus however spans a history of more than 10,000 years. over half of it, in which she was the central part of the middle east. Whether under the Aramaeans, The Romans, or later the Arabs. And even when it was not the center of an empire, it was a most important power-broker. Saladin could not consolidate his power over the Crusaders without Damascus, and this example could be said about many others. Yazan (talk) 07:26, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: replace [[Los Angeles]] with [[Damascus]]

message: Shock is now a disambiguation page.  There are three medical conditions listed there.  I suspect that you want Shock (circulatory).  WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:57, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Shock 

message: Hi all, I only recently discovered this list and I think it is a good idea in the quality drive.
However many wikipedians do not know it exists; which will make any improvements focussed on this list unsure at best.
How do you think about creating a talk page template, (which automatically adds the page to the vital article category) which states something like
:This article is identified as 1 of the 1000 core topics (wikilink to this article) of the Wikipedia project. Each core topic should achieve Featured Article status. Any help is welcome
We could then make a bot removing or adding these templates to fit this list. Arnoutf (talk) 18:02, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  talk page template 

message: Could we not include this table at the top of "Wikipedia:Vital articles" as a progress summary?—RJH (talk) 21:56, 4 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Summary table? 

message: how is burma a vital article? Nergaal (talk) 06:19, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  burma 

message: Church is a disambiguation page. Since Church (building) is considered of mid importance to one WikiProject, while Christian Church is considered of top importance to one and high importance to three, I assume that Christian Church is the article intended to be considered Vital. —Angr 15:02, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Church 

message: I propose to replace Turkish language with Greek language. Although Turkish is currently spoken by more people than Greek is, Greek has played a much more important role in the history of Western civilization than Turkish has. Our "Authors" section includes two authors who wrote in Greek (Homer and Sophocles), the "Mathematicians" section has three (Archimedes, Euclid, and Pythagoras), the "Philosophers" section three (Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle), the "Religious figures" section one (Paul of Tarsus), the "Politicians and leaders" section one (Alexander the Great). By contrast, the only Turks I find in the People section are Suleiman and Atatürk. Any objections to the replacement? —Angr 13:24, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: None. I find it only strange that nobody thought about that before you. Alexander Doria (talk) 17:47, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Replacing Turkish with Greek 

message: Having just returned from an extended wikibreak, I would like to note that I will be clearing my watchlist and starting over again.  Still, as it is my personal policy to explicitly state any changes of mind—the ambiguity of silence containing too much potential to mislead—I would like to note that I no longer think David Hume is a glaring omission from this page.  If we were writing the Wikipedia of Western Philosophy, the six philosophers we simply could not do without would be Plato, Descartes, Hume, Kant, Nietzsche, and Wittgenstein.  None of these were specialists, and each one left a body of work that inspired his advocates to declare all significant philosophical problems solved.  But this is a general interest encyclopedia.  And given this fact alone, I have come to the conclusion that the decision to include John Locke in place of David Hume is the correct one.
My new approach to Wikipedia does not include continuing to work on projects like this one, so this will probably be my last edit here.  It's been a pleasure to work with such dedicated people, even if only for a short time. Postmodern Beatnik (talk) 02:28, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I have also been pleased to cooperate with you : even if our debates stood sometimes sharp, they always were done in a constructive and efficient way (that's how all debates in Wikipedia should be). I wholly agree on your list of the six essential philosophers of western culture. I, all the same, wish you bon voyage even if I nevertheless hope we meet once more. Alexander Doria (talk) 16:16, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Final Thoughts on Hume and Vital Articles 

message: ... should be on the list of countries. I'd propose removing the Democratic Republic of the Congo. England gets about three times as many page views. Jolly Ω Janner 01:52, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: How many of these page views of England are intended for United Kingdom (which is on the list)? Arnoutf (talk) 15:14, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  England 

message: The way the list was before I went in to update articles (for status changes and page moves) had Kinetics as a Vital Article. However, as it stands now, Kinetics is a disambiguation page. I assumed this was due to a page move, and so I changed the link to Kinetics (physics). However, it turns out that Kinetics is considered an antiquated term anyway, and is rated of "Low" importance to WP:WikiProject Physics. After a bit of browsing, I have come to the conclusion that the most logical replacement should be Newton's laws of motion, as these are probably the most essential equations to mechanics (and the article is rated "Top" importance by the Physics WikiProject).-RunningOnBrains 16:47, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds like a reasonable proposal to me. Skomorokh 19:16, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

text: Well, as the person who set Kinetics (physics) to low importance for WP Physics, I'd tend to agree with you.  A direct replacement would be Analytical dynamics (with the third pillar of classical mechanics being statics), but Newton's laws would be a better choice as they underlie the whole of mechanics.  Djr32 (talk) 22:00, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposal to replace [[Kinetics (physics)]] (or [[Kinetics]]) with [[Newton's laws of motion]] 

message: ===Remove===
History
*Macedon
*Pre-Columbian
*Spanish Inquisition
*Taiping Rebellion
*History of the European Union
Geography
*Danube
*Niagara Falls
*Mexico City
*Austria
*Belgium
*Switzerland
Everyday life
*Punjabi language
*Swahili language
*Mancala
Society and social sciences
*Social movement
*Environmentalism
*Supply and demand
*Marketing
*Renminbi
*Civics
*OPEC
*World Health Organization
Health and medicine
*Physical fitness
*Physical exercise
*Coma
*Physical trauma
*Aneurysm
*Cardiac arrest
*Respiratory failure
*Shock
Measurement
*Imperial units
*Foot
*Kilometre
*Mile
*Pound
*Fahrenheit
===Add===
People
*Shitao
*Giuseppe Verdi
*Antonie van Leeuwenhoek
*John Dalton
Arts and culture
*Library
*Museum
*Art museum
*Drama
*Musical theatre
*Arts and crafts
Philosophy and religion
*Empiricism
*Materialism
Everyday life
*Latin alphabet
*Greek alphabet
*Cyrillic alphabet
*Arabic alphabet
*Chinese character
*Hangul
Science
*Male
*Female
Technology
*Anesthesia
Mathematics
*Cone
Section                    	Current Number	Target Number
People                     	116           	120
History                    	65            	60
Geography                  	106           	100
Arts and culture           	54            	60
Philosophy and religion    	78            	80
Everyday life              	77            	80
Society and social sciences	88            	80
Health and medicine        	48            	40
Science                    	178           	180
Technology                 	119           	120
Mathematics                	59            	60
Measurement                	26            	20
Total                      	1014          	1000
Euhm, what do you mean with this list? Is this is suggestion? Arnoutf (talk) 20:18, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Only noticing now that this is not the official add/remove suggestions, where is the add/remove suggestion area? For comment, I wouldn't remove Elvis, Krishna, any of the "Geography", Great Wall of China (are you kidding etc.) but some "Add"s like Portugal, Chile, Maya etc. The adds are good. ~ R.T.G 00:49, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Problem is that we limit this list at 1,000; so for every added article, one has to go as well. Arnoutf (talk) 09:47, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh. Maybe I knew that before but it sounds much smaller now. I'll revert my edit as the opinion is less sure now, sorry about that. ~ R.T.G 03:03, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Remove/Add 

message: People
*Shitao
*Giuseppe Verdi
*Antonie van Leeuwenhoek
*John Dalton
Arts and culture
*Library
*Museum
*Art museum
*Drama
*Musical theatre
*Arts and crafts
Philosophy and religion
*Empiricism
*Materialism
Everyday life
*Latin alphabet
*Greek alphabet
*Cyrillic alphabet
*Arabic alphabet
*Chinese character
*Hangul
Science
*Male
*Female
Technology
*Anesthesia
Mathematics
*Cone
Section                    	Current Number	Target Number
People                     	116           	120
History                    	65            	60
Geography                  	106           	100
Arts and culture           	54            	60
Philosophy and religion    	78            	80
Everyday life              	77            	80
Society and social sciences	88            	80
Health and medicine        	48            	40
Science                    	178           	180
Technology                 	119           	120
Mathematics                	59            	60
Measurement                	26            	20
Total                      	1014          	1000
Euhm, what do you mean with this list? Is this is suggestion? Arnoutf (talk) 20:18, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Only noticing now that this is not the official add/remove suggestions, where is the add/remove suggestion area? For comment, I wouldn't remove Elvis, Krishna, any of the "Geography", Great Wall of China (are you kidding etc.) but some "Add"s like Portugal, Chile, Maya etc. The adds are good. ~ R.T.G 00:49, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Problem is that we limit this list at 1,000; so for every added article, one has to go as well. Arnoutf (talk) 09:47, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh. Maybe I knew that before but it sounds much smaller now. I'll revert my edit as the opinion is less sure now, sorry about that. ~ R.T.G 03:03, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Add

message: Really? Out of all the people this world has ever seen, I doubt you'll find many with as well-documented and well-noted importance and relevance to our current-day lives as Martin Luther. I personally cannot believe that the man behind the Protestant Reformation (which was arguably the single most important societal revolution in the past millenium behind the Renaissance/Enlightenment, and certainly the most important spiritual one) doesn't merit a spot in the Vital 1000. I don't want to step on anyone's favorite article but it seems to be the norm to nominate articles to be replaced by others... as an obvious one from People, I'll take Nelson Mandela as a great candidate for removal vis-a-vis Luther. Look at the societal change that Mandela brought about... now compare it to the Protestant Reformation and try to justify Mandela's inclusion over Luther. That's just from a societal perspective. Other than Jesus, Abraham, Moses, Paul, and Mohammad, there is no other person with as great of a spiritual impact on our current world. By numbers alone, there are more Protestants than any other denomination (or similar division) besides Shi'as and Catholics. And that's not even mentioning the enormous impact he had on the Catholic Church after the schism between Protestants and Catholics. Honestly, I would love to see any justification for not putting him in the list. Matt Yeager ♫ (Talk?) 03:47, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, chill out, and add it as a suggestion ? You will likely get more support by suggesting someone other than Nelson Mandela as the removal candidate, though. Wizzy…☎ 09:13, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Utterly stunned over Martin Luther's exclusion 

message: Hi, What is the Methodology for vital article status? How about Methodology? ~ R.T.G 15:07, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Methodology]] 

message: This list is Eurocentric (particularly in the selection of people, arts and culture), which is fine and understandable for English and other European languages.  This should be noted in the introduction.  We at Tamil Wiki used the old list which had about 30-40% persons, which consumed some of our prolific contributors.  Which is sad because we don’t have articles for many important concepts in science and technology.  The focus on science, technology, mathematics, and everyday life is refreshing.  As noted before, the list was bias towards arts and social sciences.  --Natkeeran (talk) 13:55, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know why we regard artists, authors, composers and musicians as "vital". Jolly Ω Janner 14:10, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: To be honest I think this list is Science and Technology centric; with relatively little attention to culture, arts, law and society. (it is western centric too). Science, Technology and Maths have over 250 articles (not counting 48 medicine and 25+ natural scientists i the people section). In other words science and technology related topics cover more 25% of the vital topics. Of course a science and technology centric approach is again to be expected in a computer encyclopedia; but I think the proportion should not grow. Arnoutf (talk) 18:07, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

text: This list is vital because it contains fundamental articles that most anyone would expect in a paper encyclopedia.  Naturally, Wikipedia extends far beyond these bounds, but many times we focus on whats new and leave what we consider to be finished to rot.  Wikipedia is never finished, and many of the most basic articles are of a subpar quality because they aren't in the spotlight.  Of course we should consider artists and composers to be vital.  The notion that they are not is just absurd.  Artists and composers are some of the most written-about figures in history.  Certainly more has been said about Dante than Britney Spears, for example.  As for being Euro-centric... much more has been written about European figures than other figures.  The threshold for inclusion here is verifiablity, not truth.  The systemic bias of Wikipedia's policies coupled with the way the world works naturally mean that more information is available for articles about European topics than other topics.  That doesn't mean that other figures shouldn't be included, just that they haven't had as much written about them. Themfromspace (talk) 21:30, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

text: Note that the English vital article list isn't the same as the Meta vital article list -- it's what's most important to English speakers.  Perhaps at the Tamil Wikipedia, you could create a list of what the Tamil wikipedia community considers to be the 1000 most important articles, and then we could compare notes?  Almafeta (talk) 20:46, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

text: I'm glad someone noticed how Eurocentric it was. I suggest Ghana Empire and Second Congo War be added. The Congo Wars have been (are) a major conflict in the world and I was upset they were not on the list; although I expected it. If they were to replace something, I would pick Alzheimer's Disease and Parkinson's Disease. Farkas János (talk) 01:03, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Should be noted as Eurocentric in the introduction 

message: What should I do with this redlinked category? Assess the articles? There are fifty of them, but I can do a few. What should be its parent category? Physchim62 (talk) 17:12, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: It has the articles that  looks like it ought to have. The parent cat is . No shortcuts around assessments, I'm afraid. Skomorokh 17:19, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: This category is populated because Template:WP1.0/assessments is not updated for C-class compatability. I have requested the change, since it is a fully protected template, but the problem should be fixed soon.-RunningOnBrains 17:21, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Of course, a few of these actually are unassessed, so I'd wait for the template changes to be made, then go through and assess the articles.-RunningOnBrains 17:32, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Seems like the problem's in good hands, so I shaln't touch it! Just thought that I ought to point it out ;) Physchim62 (talk) 17:35, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for letting us know! I'm sure that could've gone years without being noticed.-RunningOnBrains 17:45, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[:Category:Unassessed Vital articles]] 

message: The articles on the measurement units waste a lot of list space. There are many scientific unlisted concepts more interesting than these. Keep measurement, international system of units and ditch the rest. /Yvwv (talk) 15:18, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cut out the measurement units 

message: Not mention of smoking ( the number one cause of death worldwide ) in  the health section.  Maybe replace small pox which is only of historical and military significance unless the US or Russia decide to do something.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:04, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Smoking 

message: Mustafa Kemal Ataturk gets only 1463 monthly hits  according to stats.grok.se, which by far the fewest of anyone on the list.  This number is almost an order of magnitude lower than the next, which is Simon Bolivar with around 9000.  By contrast, Pericles gets over 30,000 monthly hits , which is the same order of magnitude as many other statesmen and women of the list.  I appreciate that Ataturk was of colossal importance to the history of Turkey and to a lesser extent that of its neighboring countries, but his global impact is rather limited.  By contrast, the era of Athenian democracy that Pericles ushered has had a profound impact on Western civilization, and therefore the world.  --Athenean (talk) 05:02, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with you. Another good suggestion of replacement would have been Cleopatra : she is assurely quite well-known, yet her concrete political impact seems rather limited. Alexander Doria (talk) 16:28, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I thought of that too at first, but then I looked on stats.grok.se and saw that she gets a ridiculous number of page views/month, well over 100,000 and so I changed my mind.  --Athenean (talk) 20:01, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Propose replacement of [[Mustafa Kemal Ataturk]] with [[Pericles]] 

message: The vital article bar has been added to the Talk:Solar System page.  It says that the article is a level-3 vital article in science.  I came to this page looking for an explanation of the different levels.  Doesn't seem to be here.  Shouldn't it be?  Talk:Jupiter also recently received this distinction for the planet's article.  And it is also "level-3".  What's that mean?   .`^) Paine Ellsworthdiss`cuss (^`.  14:35, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Level - 3? 

message: Just stumbled across this effort & have to say, I applaud the work you're doing & it seems like a really good idea.  Might give a hand if I can occasionally.  Feel free to display this on your userpage if you wish.
		The Original Barnstar
		To anyone who contributes often to Vital Articles, keep it up! Dotty••|☎ 18:38, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Praise 

message: English Wikipedia is approaching 3 million articles and we still have 43 vital articles marked as Stubs. The meta list of vital articlesis out of sync with this list which is probably the reason for the oversight but we should still flag every article less than 10000 characters which is the meta definition of a stub. --MarsRover (talk) 17:59, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stubs 

message: Should be vital. One of the widest know maintain ranges. The border between Europe and Asia. SkyBonTalk\Contributions 10:20, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, but, one of the most important 1000 topics in all of humanity? If you can make a case for it being more important than some other topic, I'd be glad to entertain it, but in my opinion it's really hard to make a good case to change this list. -RunningOnBrains(talk page) 22:21, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Ural Mountains]] 

message: Shouldn't they occupy positions here under philosophers, scientists and/or mathematicians? --Sherif9282 (talk) 16:35, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Alhazen]] and [[Avicenna]]