Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Core topics

message: I'm ready to recategorize and retemplatify the Core Topics now, per recent changes, if noone objects. The current categories and template placements for :Category:Core topics articles by quality is badly out-of-date. I'm assuming that these categories are only for the main, 150-article list, not for the Supplementals (hence if we do eventually categorize the Supplementals, they'll probably be in a different set of categories). So, shall I go ahead with the switchover? -Silence 03:44, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Just go ahead. We will look after your work. :) NCurse work 08:11, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, done. -Silence 08:52, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Core-topic Categories and Templates

message: I'd like to replace Nuclear power with the original Nuclear technology, which had been deliberately chosen to encompass both nuclear power and nuclear weapons. Maurreen 15:16, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, definitely.  Nuclear power would be better at the WP:VA level, I think. Walkerma 23:19, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Nuclear

message: I'd like to restore Painting. We have Visual arts, Art, Drawing and Sculpture. I don't know why "Painting" was removed. Maurreen 03:42, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sure, looks nice but for refs, a B, I can't understand it going either. Walkerma 04:13, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: "Painting" is a much more specific topic than Visual arts and Art (painting is a type of each), Sculpture (about as broad as "visual arts"), and Drawing (which encompasses not only artistic drawing, but illustration of all kind, including architectural drawings). I wouldn't mind removing Drawing from the list too, though, if people feel it's too specific for the top 150, like Painting. -Silence 04:52, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: In my view, Painting and Sculpture are generally at the same level; they should be together one place or the other. But if we have a 2-1 split on this, I will let it go for now and leave things as they are. Maurreen 05:03, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Painting

message: I think this should be added to core topics, alongside "planet", "star", "galaxy" and "universe." Serendipodous 14:53, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think astronomy is already over-represented. How about using "Solar system" to replace one or more items in the section? Maurreen 18:50, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

text: For example, the list has twice as many astronomy entries as chemistry entries. Maurreen 19:29, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Solar system

message: I am wondering whether Humor, Continent and Electronics should be redesignated as B class. Maurreen 16:01, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Humour still has a lot of lists as content, and continent has two cleanup tags on it, so I'd hold back on those, though both are close.  Electronics does now look like a B to me, though only just.  Should I change it? Walkerma 17:56, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Continent has had significant work since August. Perhaps time to reassess. Nurg 10:56, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Start class

message: Physics is the only branch with nine articles. I would like to delete at least Color. Maurreen 16:11, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think color is pretty core, I'd rather not lose it.  You could equally well place it under Visual Arts if you want to balance things - or is that just window-dressing?  The modern physics description of color tends to be seen as part of a wider meaning, relating to the wavelength of any form of electromagnetic radiation, though an understanding of color comes from physics (Newton playing with a prism, etc.) Walkerma 16:42, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Maurreen 17:05, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Color

message: Do you think W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan are core? The first is FA, the second... not. Adam Cuerden talk 21:33, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Unfortunately not!  At this level - the top 100-150 articles, you get Music and Theatre and that's it!  Even Shakespeare doesn't make it in!  I think Opera is in the supplement!  If you want to argue a case for these articles being important, you should raise the issue at WP:VA and/or Wikipedia:Core_biographies but even on the latter page there are only 6 entries for Music - Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Elvis, Beatles and Verdi.  Note that the importance of the topic doesn't relate to the quality of the article - in fact until we started this project many core articles were in very poor shape.  In fact it doesn't matter too much if G&S are on these lists even on our next CD releases we can probably include such articles (Version 0.5 is pretty much closed now, but the next version can probably include them). Congratulations on the new FA! Thanks, Walkerma 22:27, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Query

message: I ask this because I don't think Talk:Galaxy needs "Please help improve this article as we push to 1.0. If you'd like help with this article, you may nominate it for the core topics collaboration." It's a recently promoted FA! I was thinking of making its appearance contigent on whether or not blah=no, or something.--Rmky87 21:09, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Can we tweak this to make the part about improving the article go away when that isn't necessary? 

message: Greetings. I used a perl script to make a list of articles listed as "core topics" that are also tagged with cleanup messages. It's at Wikipedia:Core topics - 1,000/with problems. FYI. – Quadell (talk) (random) 15:24, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, we can use this to focus our effort.  Cheers, Walkerma 04:34, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Core articles with problems 

message: Is this the right place to point out that the clothing article is a disaster?  It's one of the Top 150, and contains minimal citations, bizarre content, lack of mainstream facts, and lots of original research.  In addition, it appears to have been written by a registered sex offender with clothing fetishes.  I am trying to improve, but need major help!! NuclearWinner 20:03, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks - yes, the article does look poor.  I think it got on the CD largely because it was a core topic.  Could you perhaps nominate it for the Core Topics collaboration?  That way you could enlist some help, though it may take a few weeks. Thanks, Walkerma 04:37, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Clothing]] article a disaster

message: I've been wanting to tackle film for a long time. However, my minimal effort - and I suspect that this is a common issue across most of the core topics - is how exactly to approach articles on such broad subjects without biting off not only more than I can chew but more than I can even comprehend biting into! While I've been able to get some ideas together by looking at the handful of core FAs, it would be nice if perhaps some of the editors behind these successful articles might be able to write a quick guide as to how to face the daunting task of writing a quality core article. Any advice is very much welcome! Thanks, Girolamo Savonarola 06:17, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Great idea!  I know I tried working on some, and it's really hard.  If you think film is hard, try Humanities!  One common feature I've seen is a lot of use of Wikipedia:Summary style.  The only problem here is locating "some of the editors behind these successful articles" - there aren't many good broad articles.  Nature comes to mind as one that was vastly improved.  One other problem I can see is that every article at this level may be unique.  Definitely worth a try. Walkerma 21:08, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Request: An MOS or guideline for writing about core topics 

message: Something I noticed in the online version of version 0.5 was that the fact that not all articles are included is not only a problem just because you can't click on them and look them up. It is compounded by the fact that articles are written assuming that other articles are available to refer to. A lot of this, such as "see also" links, has been diligently removed, but things still get problematic especially with big articles which covers subtopics which branch out into their own larger articles. This kind of writing also tends to occur in both the best written and the most important topics.
For example, the article on the September 11 attacks contains 13 sections which are started with the  template in the current revision. In the case of the shorter of these, the sections are more introductory and follow similar style guidelines to lead sections - that is, they omit details which are more appropriate in elaborative sections in the main article, and there is not always such a density of citations, because facts are explained and cited in more detail in the main article.
Is there any current strategy for dealing with this sort of issue? The possible approaches I can see are:
*Accept that WP1.0 will not be as informative or verifiable as the live version
*Wait until articles are at a good enough quality that as many referenced sub-articles are included as possible
*Actually rewrite certain sections for the 1.0 version
*Your alternative idea here
Any thoughts? BigBlueFish (talk) 20:17, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dealing with by-products of incompleteness 

message: Sense is missing from the list.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.223.5.81 (talk) 15:03, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sense 

message: Sex is listed as a core topic, but unfortunately can focus on two different classes of things --
*biological sexual reproduction, male/female differences and sex determination in all kingdoms
*human sexuality, human male/female sex differences, human sexual intercourse, gender identity
I've rewritten the entire article with the first aspect in mind, for a couple reasons: it's categorized under biology, and the hatnote for the article had said "This article is about biological sex. For alternate uses, such as sexual intercourse, see Sex (disambiguation)."   I'd like to know if (and to what extent) the current article is covering the material envisioned by the core team. Thanks... Madeleine ✉ ✍ 14:44, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: When I last reviewed the article for the Core Topics project, it was mainly about gender.  We should probably have both; I may add the sexual intercourse article into the Core Supplement. Thanks, Walkerma (talk) 17:09, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sex 

message: It looks weird to see a country article alongside continent articles, were you conscious of this? It really doesn't match the list. There's a separate article for the continent -- Australia (continent). Madeleine ✉ ✍ 05:30, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: These lists were first put together in 2004, so the article may have changed in scope since then - the intention was to have the continents. Walkerma (talk) 17:10, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Australia 

message: I think calculus and set theory and major omissions from the core topics.  Calculus and set theory are definitely "core" to mathematics.  Set theory is essentially the foundation of mathematics.  And calculus is essentially the foundation of modern mathematics - and it is essential in everything from astrophysics to electrical engineering to modern medicine. Kevin Baastalk 16:47, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, these would be important to add.  Although this list is supposed to be VERY restrictive - it only covers broad topics (no Shakespeare or Napoleon) - Mathematics doesn't have a huge number of entries.  Even in the supplement these two don't show, and I think they belong in the main core.  It is fairly academic for our project at this point (our next release will be 20,000-30,000 articles), but I would support adding these two. Walkerma (talk) 17:21, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: In that case, I would think that "Probability theory" should be included too.  Come to think about it, it might be even more important than set theory.  And I've always considered "statistics" to be a subset of probability theory (based on the normal distribution), so I would think it more important than statistics.  (The two remaining big ones, IMHO, are trigonometry and information theory, though trig is a pretty small branch.)  Kevin Baastalk 18:03, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that trig is OK for the top 1000, but not for the top 150-200 topics of all knowledge.  As for probability theory, I'd argue that probability (the concept) is more important than the theory describing it (even though I accept that without the theory you wouldn't have the concept).  In the same way we have "Atom", not "Atomic theory".  And I would suggest that it would belong in the supplement, not in the central core - but we would need to discuss that.  Statistics is core, because it is a central theme in many subjects outside mathematics, and it is the more usual term in society (see this).  Walkerma (talk) 18:37, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I went ahead and added calculus to the project page (updating the dependent counts), as there is support for it and no opposition.   Regarding set theory, what do you think of (set theory vs. set) vs. (mathematical logic vs. logic) vs. discrete mathematics vs. (not core enough) for a core topic?  (I see that Logic is already listed under philosophy.) Kevin Baastalk 14:58, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mathematics: add Calculus and Set Theory? 

message: Folks here may be interested to hear that there was finally some closure on the Core Contest, which was held one year ago.  The winners have been announced and will receive their prizes, and more contests are planned in the future. Walkerma (talk) 08:03, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Core Contest winners 

message: Shouldn't Evolution be a core topic? Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 21:42, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: It's part of the core supplement, I think that should be OK. Walkerma (talk) 22:44, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Evolution 

message: I'd like to nominate  for deletion. IMHO,  should be used instead; it includes all 's functions and a lot of other useful ones. I have recently orphaned , but I wanted to bring it up here first. So, does anyone oppose the deletion? Thanks for your input. —Ms2ger (talk) 19:23, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it should be OK to delete this.  This template dates from the time before the WP1.0 template was written. We should update the few pages that still link to it.  Thanks, Walkerma (talk) 22:42, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, I nominated it. —Ms2ger (talk) 10:15, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Template:Core topic 

message: I think we should demote "Brain" from Core - it's one organ - and put "Evolution" - a truly core subject to biology - in its place. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 12:21, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I think I would support that.  Evolution would be "promoted" from the supplement to the main core, and brain could be "demoted" to the supplement. Walkerma (talk) 16:51, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  Sounds good Gary King (talk) 17:57, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I went ahead and did it. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 00:02, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks! Walkerma (talk) 04:02, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Biology 

message: I started making a table of articles, but I'm busy right now and don't have the time to finish it. Here's what I've got so far if anyone feels inclined to work on it. Mr. Absurd (talk) 01:30, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Someone can write a script to automatically tabulate all of the information. Gary King (talk) 04:32, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, a script like that would be useful, if anyone reading this can do that.  It should use the 1.0 teams 10 top-level categories, though. Walkerma (talk) 05:21, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Table of articles 

message: I just noticed a miscount - there were five science miscellaneous articles, not six. I suppose this means there's an extra slot or two (total: 148). Looking at the old list, Australia or Trigonometry seems a good choice. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 14:56, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Miscount 

message: Might be worth adding to the list. Nergaal (talk) 02:18, 2 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Periodic table]]

message: The Elite Nine here are a bit inconsistent with those at Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/1... I will make a post on the talk page there as well. I think we should build a consensus and have the CORE pages match the VA Level 1 articles. Voyaging (talk) 20:32, 10 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Elite Nine 

message: Hello and greetings from the maintainers of the WP 1.0 Bot! As you may or may not know, we are currently involved in an overhaul of the bot, in order to make it more modern and maintainable. As part of this process, we will be rewriting the web tool that is part of the project. You might have noticed this tool if you click through the links on the project assessment summary tables.
We'd like to collect information on how the current tool is used by....you! How do you yourself and the other maintainers of your project use the web tool? Which of its features do you need? How frequently do you use these features? And what features is the tool missing that would be useful to you? We have collected all of these questions at this Google form where you can leave your response. Walkerma (talk) 04:23, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Request for information on WP1.0 web tool