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Latest comment: 2 years ago by C933103 in topic How do you define which countries are worth to be level 3?
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Add Shanghai and San Francisco

Latest comment: 2 years ago29 comments8 people in discussion
FAILED
Shanghai 3-4, San Francisco 1-5, not added. --Thi (talk) 20:30, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

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

As much as I understand the desire to be more representative and inclusive, to exclude some of the most well-developed cities and centers for finance and technological innovation from the list just because we already have one or two from the same countries feels like a huge mistake.

Support

  1. As nom Lolitart (talk) 08:12, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
  2. Support Shanghai because it is the largest city in China by urban area population and second largest city in the world by city proper population after Chongqing, but Shanghai has almost double the GDP. Oppose San Francisco, economic powerhouse but not as significant internationally or historically as Shanghai, and even LA metro area has a larger economy if that were the only factor. Bill Williams 08:19, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
  3. Support Shanghai One of the most vital cities in the world. Why San Francisco? With a population of 873,965 people, it is only the 17th most populous city in the United States. Dimadick (talk) 10:13, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

Oppose

  1. Oppose I don't think we need any more cities. Besides, I think Yellow River is a better addition than Shanghai, and SF is not the next city from the US I would add anyway. Cobblet (talk) 14:38, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
  2. Oppose The only North American cities I would consider adding – and even then, only if we were to expand the city list by 10 or 20 – would be Chicago and Los Angeles. I would, however, strongly support listing California, which has both SF and LA (a major failing of the list IMO is that we list nothing about either Silicon Valley or Hollywood, much less both as we would if we listed California), an economy larger than all but <10 countries, and a population larger than Canada and most countries not currently listed; unfortunately, as stated below, it's been rejected a couple of times already.
    As for Shanghai, we already have Beijing and Hong Kong and recently rejected Seoul, so I don't believe it is a high priority. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 15:16, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
    I'm under the impression we reject Seoul largely because of the overlap of it with Korea in general, but Shanghai and its surrounding geo-cultural-economical unit is not mentioned at all. I would say Beijing is important largely for political and historical importance, it's the Rome of China in addition to being the capital, and Hong Kong is important because of its former status as a colony more than anything, Shanghai is the economic center of China and the modern day culture center for Wu speaking population, that it remain out of the list feels a bit off for me. Lolitart (talk) 09:14, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
    "Mere seats of government" don't belong on this list, which is why we no longer list Washington, D.C.; Beijing is still the dominant city of China culturally and home of the Mandarin language, and hosted the 2008 Summer Olympics among other things. However, if Hong Kong were listed merely for its former colonial status we would also list Macau; it's important for its skyscrapers and financial prowess, and I feel Shanghai would be redundant to that, in addition to my discomfort of having a single country get three cities on here. You're welcome to propose a Shanghai/Hong Kong swap anytime, however. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 15:18, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
    To be fair, since Hong Kong and Macau overlaps in that regard, we probably list Hong Kong as Macau is just too small and much less significant. However in an alternate world if we just have Macau, I believe Macau would be listed. Lolitart (talk) 18:59, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
  3. Oppose San Francisco - impossible to add this before Los Angeles or California. And I don't think we have quota to start adding sub-national regions. User:力 (powera, π, ν) 17:06, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
  4. Oppose San Francisco is not best choice and more cities are currently not needed. --Thi (talk) 17:41, 29 November 2021 (UTC)
  5. Oppose per above. -- Maykii (talk) 22:01, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

Discuss

  1. @Cobblet and Bill Williams: What about adding California? Lolitart (talk) 14:52, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
    California has been rejected at least twice. Cobblet (talk) 15:03, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
    I would support California before any more countries for the reasons given above, but Cobblet is right that it would probably fail because it happens to not be its own country. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 15:16, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
    I would definitely support California more than San Francisco, and it also includes Los Angeles metro area and other parts of the state, making it basically one of the world's economic powerhouses. It is also extremely culturally significant globally due to Hollywood. Bill Williams 16:34, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
Extended content
  1. To be honest it could replace Myanmar, which is not nearly as significant as the other countries or California (around the same population but much less economically and culturally significant internationally). Bill Williams 16:36, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
    I don't know if we really need to trim the countries, but California would definitely be a better fit than Central Asia. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 17:03, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
    In the interest of covering well-defined regions of the world which are otherwise unrepresented, I would prioritize listing Central America and Central Asia over California, Uttar Pradesh, Shanghai, Berlin, Rio de Janeiro, Dubai, Seoul, etc. Cobblet (talk) 15:28, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
    I respectfully disagree, though I know where you're coming from. Not all regions of the world necessarily deserve representation on here. Central America is adequately (though very imperfectly, I am aware) covered by Caribbean that we're about to add, although I would not particularly oppose its addition if push came to shove. While Central Asia is a better idea to list than its individual countries, its major historical significance is already covered by Silk Road, and being as close as it is to the literal middle of nowhere I would not put it above Afghanistan or frankly any human geography outside of possibly its individual countries, other minor countries, Greenland, and New Zealand. Don't get me wrong, I have the same feeling about it as you do Colorado River; wonderful and beautiful scenery, but just rather irrelevant on the world stage. Also, California is a cut above the other regions you mentioned except possibly Rio or Berlin; let me know when people are "Uttar Pradesh Dreamin'", or when Dubai has the technological capital of the world, or when Seoul is the Mecca of pop culture, or when Shanghai is arguably the capital of space launching and exploration. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 17:43, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
    Well, Shanghai is the world's busiest port, it's just a city. I 100% get your point about California though. Lolitart (talk) 19:11, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
    "Uttar Pradesh is the springhead of the ancient civilization of the Hindus." I consider that as important as anything California represents, and who knows how much longer it'll represent those things: isn't SpaceX moving to Brownsville? I don't understand how anyone could consider the location of the Great Game, the New Eurasian Land Bridge, multiple supergiant oil and gas fields (including the world's second largest gas field), Baikonur Cosmodrome, and the 20th century's worst ecological disaster "rather irrelevant on the world stage" (the Colorado River basin just does not compare at all); although I don't mind if people prefer listing Afghanistan rather than Central Asia. Cobblet (talk) 19:40, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
@Cobblet: In that case, Uttar Pradesh would be redundant to India (i.e., Hindu civilization in general), and thus we should list Tamil Nadu instead; California is not the springhead of American culture writ large (that would be the East Coast and also arguably the Midwest), but rather by far the most important "sub-culture" of it. In any event, just because there is a Calexodus of sorts right now does not mean it's "going away" anytime soon; people fled New York in droves in the 1970s, and we would not have removed it from the list for that reason. Similarly, just because SpaceX is leaving (good on them, IMO) doesn't mean that Hollywood is also going to Texas, or overseas (Bollywood notwithstanding), or that FAANG is going to ditch Silicon Valley. Most of those things you listed about Central Asia could also apply to Afghanistan, which I would rather add as stated above. (Also, stuff like the Chinese projects you mentioned frankly seem like afterthoughts; trade routes do not themselves make a location vital.) – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 20:03, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
If the centrality of Uttar Pradesh to Hindu civilization makes it redundant with India, then the centrality of California to the US's economic and cultural dominance makes it redundant with the US. None of the things I mentioned actually apply to Afghanistan other than the Great Game, although there are other valid reasons to list Afghanistan. I don't know why you would discount trade routes that are vital components of the global economy. I think the Panama Canal is a valid reason for listing Central America, even though I also think there are more good reasons to list Central Asia than Central America. Cobblet (talk) 20:23, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
You're getting the analogy wrong. Uttar Pradesh is to India what the Northeast is to the United States; although we do list New York City, I am not saying we should list New England or the Northeast. I support California as strongly as I do in decent part because it is not central to the US, like Tamil Nadu or (if much smaller) Scotland and unlike Uttar Pradesh or England; when people think of the United States as a whole, they tend to think of (among many other things) overweight rednecks who don't know a whole lot about geography and like firearms. This is a fair (if stereotypical) depiction of life in the South and Midwest, but does not generally apply to California. In fact, California isn't even central to the US economy; of the ~5-6 countries whose economy is larger than California's, the rest of the US is one of them. Nor is it even central demographically; ~90% of Americans don't live in California, in fact half of them live east of Chicago, on the other side of the country. TL;DR Uttar Pradesh "is" India, and England "is" the United Kingdom, but California "is not" necessarily the United States.
As for trade routes, I agree they're vital, but I would rather list the routes themselves like the Silk Road (like we already do), Suez Canal, and Panama Canal, rather than the places that have them; in short, I'd like to list the nodes and graphs, but not where the graphs are located. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 20:38, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
To an outsider, Apple and Hollywood represent the US just as much as NASCAR and the NRA. The comparison to Tamil Nadu or Scotland would ring true only if Spanish was the dominant language in California or if the state had a serious seccession movement. Cobblet (talk) 20:58, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
Be all that as it may, saying that California has the same singular centrality in originating American culture as Uttar Pradesh had in originating Hindu culture is simply incorrect historically and demographically. Also, foreigners can name California as a state, which they generally cannot do with the other 49 except for maybe New York (solely because it has the same name as the City) or Texas. Regardless, in terms of "objective" importance I feel that California has enough to warrant sui generis inclusion even without any other subnational entities. You disagree, and that's fair enough, so I don't think continuing this conversation will be productive or worthwhile. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 21:12, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
I said nothing of the sort. What I said is that Uttar Pradesh is central to Hindu civilization. Obviously I cannot be suggesting that equivalent to Uttar Pradesh in this sense when "American civilization" is not a thing. These subnational regions are important in different ways. We can agree to disagree on the merits of a cradle of civilization vs. an economic and pop culture powerhouse, and on notions of peripherality vs. centrality, without mischaracterizing each other's argument. Cobblet (talk) 21:38, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
You said that If ... Uttar Pradesh ... [is] redundant with India, then ... California ... [is] redundant with the US, which I disagree with for the reasons I subsequently gave, and which to my mind seems like you don't believe in adding California above UP or any other subnational entity. If I have in some sense mischaracterized your argument I apologize, but I don't think it substantively changes the discussion. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 01:47, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Grains and tubers

Latest comment: 2 years ago30 comments6 people in discussion
FAILED/NO CONSENSUS
--Thi (talk) 19:19, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

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

Add barley

Although this cereal is not as commonly consumed as wheat, rice and maize, actually it is still vital at this level since it has been cultivated and consumed widely.

Support
  1. As nom.--RekishiEJ (talk) 15:24, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
  2. Support per nom. -- Maykii (talk) 22:04, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. We don't have a whole lot of space now. I could maybe support beer, but we already list alcoholic drink and alcoholism and I would much rather list soft drink, which I'm somewhat surprised we don't already list. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 15:54, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
  2. Not vital enough. User:力 (powera, π, ν) 19:46, 19 November 2021 (UTC)
Discuss

Add oat

This cereal, although less consumed than wheat, should still be added since prior to the introduction of automobiles it had been used widely to feed horses, and it is now frequently exploited in breakfast cereals.

Support
  1. As nom.--RekishiEJ (talk) 15:24, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Per above. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 15:54, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
  2. Not vital enough. User:力 (powera, π, ν) 19:46, 19 November 2021 (UTC)
  3. Oppose An important crop, but I don't think important enough for the list. -- Maykii (talk) 22:06, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
Discuss

Add rye

Support
  1. As nom.--RekishiEJ (talk) 15:24, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
  2. Weak support because of plants are IMHO underrepresented in comprasion to animals. If we can have cow along with meat or milk+cheese etc. then IMHO coat is not out of place even if we already have bread and cereal. Dawid2009 (talk) 20:14, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Per above. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 15:54, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
  2. Not vital enough. User:力 (powera, π, ν) 19:46, 19 November 2021 (UTC)
  3. Oppose Too similar to wheat. -- Maykii (talk) 22:06, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
Discuss
  1. Really not vital enough? Yes, it has been less consumed than wheat, yet in Russia rye bread is significantly more affordable and popular than wheat one[1][2].--RekishiEJ (talk) 07:14, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
    We don't have enough space, and if we needed more biology, historic evolutionary events such as the Cambrian explosion would be far more informative than yet another cereal species. Besides, cuisine that is specific to one culture does not vitality make. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 17:03, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ 7 kinds of Russian bread you’ll want to bite the crust off of - Russia Beyond
  2. ^ How to bake authentic Russian-style dark bread at home - Russia Beyond

Add Cassava

Support
  1. As nom.Because it is the third-largest source of food carbohydrates in the tropics, after rice and maize, it definitely should be added.--RekishiEJ (talk) 15:24, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Somewhat redundant to potato, but the most plausible of these listings IMO. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 15:54, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
  2. Oppose Too niche. -- Maykii (talk) 22:07, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
  3. Oppose Swap with some other topic would be better option. --Thi (talk) 09:42, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
Discuss

Add sweet potato

Support
  1. As nom. It definitely should be added since after the Columbian Exchange sweet potatoes have been frequently used in Chinese cuisine, feeding even more Chinese.--RekishiEJ (talk) 15:24, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Redundant to potato. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 15:54, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
  2. Not vital enough. User:力 (powera, π, ν) 19:46, 19 November 2021 (UTC)
  3. Weak Oppose Dawid2009 (talk) 20:16, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
  4. Oppose per above. -- Maykii (talk) 22:08, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
Discuss

Add taro

Support
  1. As nom. Because there are plenty of dishes (sweet or savoury) using it, it definitely should be added.--RekishiEJ (talk) 15:24, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Not above Cassava. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 15:54, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
  2. Not vital enough. User:力 (powera, π, ν) 19:46, 19 November 2021 (UTC)
  3. Oppose per above. -- Maykii (talk) 22:09, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
Discuss
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Add Baseball

Latest comment: 2 years ago36 comments8 people in discussion
FAILED
3-4, not added. --Thi (talk) 19:21, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

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

The only specific sports we list at this level are association football and sport of athletics, neither of which are very popular in the United States. Even the names – "soccer" and "track and field" – are different in 'Murica, and they're mainly associated with secondary school and university ("high school" and "college") students rather than actual professional play. While I get that North American sports aren't as prevalent in most of the world as footy, I think they should still receive some mention and inclusion due to their unique practices such as lack of promotion and relegation, as well as early and large-scale professionalization, not to mention America's high status in global culture.

Baseball is the canonical example of an American sport, being "America's pastime". Even though American football is more popular stateside these days, it is absolutely unknown outside the US; even Canada has its own version of gridiron. Baseball has a storied past, dating to the mid-19th century, and has had professional play since 1869. We don't list sports figures at this level, but if we did Babe Ruth would definitely be one of them, and baseball analogies are commonly used to describe the most intimate parts of American life. Even better for this list, it has had significant impact on the wider world with its emphasis on sports statistics and popularity outside of the US, particularly in Japan and the Caribbean.

I understand that we recently rejected chess; however, while chess is certainly very important for its theory, it's still ultimately for "nerds" and while well-known not particularly impactful in wider culture. Baseball is a key part of American and Japanese life and a multi-billion dollar industry, and has led the way for the practices and styles of the other major American sports of basketball, ice hockey, and American football. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 14:10, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

Support
  1. As nom. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 14:10, 3 December 2021 (UTC)
  2. Support Support in spirit; the level of coverage in which we cover American team sports biographies on level 4 would make it important to cover the most important one here. I can't fully prove this here as it's impossible to show in a short post; but by and large baseball players get the most results in google books and appear to be the most written about athletes by and far. There's a strong literary tradition within baseball (and strong statistical analysis with Sabermetrics); as shown by Babe Ruth [1] results versus Maradona [2] or Pele. [3] The average great player like Mickey Mantle outdoes every level 4 football player (not named Pele) [4]. Cricket's stats are pathetic outside of India and largely confined to India. Baseball has Cap Anson and even cricket has W. G. Grace; football does not come close in long term historicity. The earliest born soccer player we list on level 4 is Alfredo Di Stéfano whose career is post-war. Baseball and cricket both have a longer history; the first football world cup was 1930 FIFA World Cup. Basketball is not close to this level of long term historic value. It got massive in the 80s. Baseball is just as important as Animation and wouldn't be out of place here to represent American sports. There's clearly a disproportionate market in America for sports and level of dedication in American culture for sports; it's clear in a American context sports are very, very vital. Baseball has the oldest history of prominence; hence the "America's pastime" nickname. Considering it's dominance in literature and sports history; i think it's vital enough. I would also think one of Tennis or Golf should be added to represent individual sports too. To me; historical value always beats popularity (soccer) or tabloid fame (basketball) today and baseball has one of the longest histories. (Baseballs importance is noted by one opposer listing two baseball players on a list of 10 athletes; giving it a equal billing with football; just something worth noting) [5]. GuzzyG (talk) 07:58, 4 December 2021 (UTC)
Compare Charles W. Alcock, Harry Cursham and Charles William Miller to any of the important old cricketers like Grace or important old baseballers like Anson and you'll see who has had a longer sustained relevance in culture. Ban Johnson [6] doubles Alcock's interest [7]; which shouldn't happen if football history has more global interest. Someone like Paulino Alcántara has no strong cultural backing in historical sources compared to a old baseball player. [8]. The most important football players are post-war and the most important baseballers are pre-war; some will cite older stuff like the old FA cup tournaments; but like old stuff like 1908 NSWRFL season; older football doesn't have cultural relevance today like baseball; so for the sake of history baseball has longer sustained importance. (from Cap Anson to Derek Jeter); this makes it vital to cover in a sports history context. GuzzyG (talk) 08:16, 4 December 2021 (UTC)
  1. Support If we are listing individual musical instruments I don't see why we can't list more sports too. -- Maykii (talk) 22:19, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Oppose The point about listing association football is that it is a near universally recognized, understood, and played sport around the world. Obviously baseball has extended itself outside of the United States, e.g. to Japan and Cuba as John adroitly noted, but baseball is not nearly universal enough to be given equal billing with association football. You may say that association football is not very popular in the US, and you would be right, but it is important to remember that association football is far more understood and important in the United States than baseball is in, say, Sweden or Botswana. Zelkia1101 (talk) 15:55, 3 December 2021 (UTC)
    That is a fair point with football, but "athletics" means something quite different in the United States and the sport of athletics technically doesn't even really exist in the US since it's the two sports of "track and field" and "cross country". Given that North America is quite a "sports island", I think any sports additional to football would need to include a North American sport for diversity purposes. Lack of universality didn't preclude us from listing Chinese folk religion, for example. I could support removing athletics, though; while running is certainly universal, so is wrestling and many other sports included in the already-listed Olympics, and while marathons are cool I don't see people buying tickets to running matches like they do with football, baseball, or other sports like cricket, etc. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 16:42, 3 December 2021 (UTC)
  2. Oppose Less globally popular than cricket, for one. And I neither see why we need more sports, nor a North American sport in particular (as opposed to, say, a South Asian sport). Cobblet (talk) 18:48, 3 December 2021 (UTC)
    Mostly since South Asian sports, like other sports outside the US, are largely association football and cricket. North America is the only (major) region on Earth where football isn't prominent, and the US is a level-2.5 country of disproportionate importance, so any more sports would have to account for those facts, but as suggested here we could remove athletics instead. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 19:37, 3 December 2021 (UTC)
    Sorry, but who exactly plays soccer in South Asia? And is India not also a country of disproportionate importance? Cobblet (talk) 20:54, 3 December 2021 (UTC)
    According to Football in India, Football in India has historically been among the top 3 most popular sports in terms of player participation and TV viewership, together with long time number one cricket and re-emerging kabaddi, whereas in the United States it doesn't break the top 4. I was admittedly unaware of the popularity of kabaddi in India, which does weaken my point a bit, but it is marked "low importance" by WikiProject India and has much fewer interwikis than baseball. Notwithstanding all that, my point remains that either we don't need multiple sports, in which case athletics needs to be removed, or we do, in which case we need a North American sport to represent the famously-insular American sports market that is about 50% greater [in revenue] than those of Europe, the Middle East, and Africa combined, in addition to possibly cricket, etc.. I'm beginning to think that consensus will lean towards the former so will likely withdraw this nom soon. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 21:44, 3 December 2021 (UTC)
    More importantly, you're ignoring the huge disparity in popularity between cricket and any other team sport in South Asia, whether that's soccer, kabaddi, field hockey, etc. Athletics (which, by the way, the US is very good at) is on the list because amateur sports and individual sports are much more deserving of representation on the list than the US TV sports market. Cobblet (talk) 22:11, 3 December 2021 (UTC)
    I strongly disagree with amateur sports and individual sports are much more deserving of representation on the list than the US TV sports market; the top sportspeople in the world have been professional since the mid-20th century in spite of Avery Brundage, and athletics in particular is not at all on the same, much less higher, level as cricket, baseball, basketball, etc.. If people aren't paying to see it, it in some sense "ain't a real sport" and does not deserve to occupy the same slot as football or the Olympics themselves; if it's like swimming, we should just list running. I will not be convinced otherwise, or participate further in this argument. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 22:39, 3 December 2021 (UTC)
    Entertainment covers showbusiness. --Thi (talk) 23:13, 3 December 2021 (UTC)
    Indeed. If the only reason sport is vital is its multibillion-dollar symbiosis with mass media, then mass media should be on level 2, not sport. Cobblet (talk) 23:41, 3 December 2021 (UTC)
  3. Oppose the only sport we need at this level is association football - I would support removing athletics (track-and-field). If we were adding an "American" sport, surely basketball would be the choice before baseball. User:力 (powera, π, ν) 18:53, 3 December 2021 (UTC)
    Without prejudice to the rest of your statement (which I agree with), basketball has only been professionally played on a large scale since World War II, whereas baseball has been prominent since the late 19th century and has a deeper culture around it IMO. That said, basketball might be more popular globally. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 19:37, 3 December 2021 (UTC)
  4. Oppose Other articles cover the history of sports reasonably well. Soccer and athletics are examples of team sport and individual sports. --Thi (talk) 11:22, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
What article can i goto if i want 19th century competitive sports history? Is it "reasonably well" to miss centuries of coverage? Do you honestly believe soccer and athletics represent global sports history by themselves? Missing the three biggest countries and sports markets? Including two sports Cricket and Baseball with multiple centuries of importance; compared to soccers post-war importance? GuzzyG (talk) 16:53, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
Josef Bican and Stanley Matthews are probably most famous soccer players who were born before second World War but I agree they are rather recognisable just for "soccer geeks". Guy who is listed at List of people considered father or mother of a field as father of soccer is less famous than father of basketball (and inventor of basketball did not invent dribbling moves but is known due to fact YMCA quite popularised basketball and volleyball) Dawid2009 (talk) 17:11, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
History books mention most likely the history of Olympid games. Article Martial arts covers some other aspects of sports. I don't think that another example about team sport than Soccer is necessary from concept hierarchy perspective. When you watch a sport film, it doesn't really matter whether it is about baseball, cricket or soccer, you can understand the dynamics. The subtopics of Game are maybe not the most vital articles, but they cover different aspects of main topic. Chess may actually be more vital topic as an example of game than another ball game. Articles about teams sports are important because they are popular, but listing several of them seems to belong to level 3.5 (which I think is useful as an idea). --Thi (talk) 20:16, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
Discuss

So i've been thinking and since we don't include athletes; (because we can't list multiple people); the best thing would be to include multiple sports instead of the biographies. I realise this would never happen; as sports is kind of not seen as serious; but with five music genres and 2 works of architecture; i don't see how 5-7 sports would be bad. Association football, Sport of athletics, Martial arts, Swimming, Baseball, Cricket, Basketball, Golf and Tennis are all important enough to list. Swimming pools, tennis courts, golf courses, basketball courts etc are all fundamental parts of public spaces in most countries they're played in. That's much more effect than stuff we list like Animation. If millions of people participate in these sports daily and the sports are a fundamental part of public space, i don't see how that isn't in some ways vital; even if they're not studied in some kind of way like music theory or something. If these activities last decades; i don't see how they're not a fundamental part of most peoples life and the history of human activity - there's more depth here than music genres or art movements because each sport is like a whole new field itself. Just thinking out loud here, what does everyone else think? GuzzyG (talk) 13:20, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

All this is fine as a reason to list some sports; the question is how many, and at the expense of what other topic. Baseball is about as relevant to the average Indian as cricket is to the average American: are these the best topics to add when basic recreational spaces like park and beach aren't listed? (Park has some overlap with garden, but we don't even list coast, let alone beach.) How about much more basic infrastructure like electrical grid/electrification or the recently rejected public transport? What is the better representative of the global impact of American culture, baseball or fast food? (We don't even list meal or anything else related to eating habits.) How are specific modern sports more fundamental to human history and the daily lives of average people than, say, cosmetics (or any other aspect of personal grooming) or etiquette/social norms? When it comes to animation, at least anyone who has access to the Internet or a TV or a movie theatre or a video game is very likely to have at least some appreciation for the medium, which is a lot more than can be said for baseball or chess, and maybe even musical instruments like the piano. Cobblet (talk) 18:57, 4 December 2021 (UTC)
Beach should be listed; park is too bland. Electrical grid and Electrification have much more important parent topics listed (Electricity etc). Baseball is more important culturally as a piece of history than fast food. (more baseballers on the 2k list, no Ray Kroc or Colonel Sanders); plus we have more important food and drink topics listed. (although i would support fast food and Soft drink). Cosmetics should be listed. "When it comes to animation, at least anyone who has access to the Internet or a TV or a movie theatre or a video game is very likely to have at least some appreciation for the medium" is a reach that can be applied to anything; i mean baseball films [9] have arguably only been less important to film history than boxing sports wise. Try to find a mega important football film, the biggest would be Bend It Like Beckham, which i doubt anyone here would acknowledge as more serious than The Pride of the Yankees or Field of Dreams or Eight Men Out or Bull Durham or The Bad News Bears and on and on. FIFA as a video game IS more important than baseball games, but video games don't have as much historic vitality as film does and football is definitely lacking in comparison. Physical education is an important part of education in some countries. (yes, not all) and especially in America; so sports are inherently apart of the education system in many countries (in all areas in the US socially, as a subject and culturally); so having a few articles on specific sports fits as a education topic and that beats seeing a couple of web comics online. Some kid for PE class or for school life may need to know a sports topic and that makes it vital to cover; yes this is specifically in a country like US maybe; but the "English" encyclopedia argument is used often and if it fits for biographies it fits here. There's precedent to cover sports as biographies on the 2k list; so we should cover more sports themselves here. I just don't see a angle where sports wouldn't fit in here. They're culturally, socially and educationally relevant in some of the biggest countries. Even for minor reasons; a baseball player is forever tied to the romanticism of hollywood, forever tied to a cultural idiom in medicine; yes - American history - but the peak of American cultural history; which is arguably peak cultural soft power today and that should count overall as worthy of this list. Cricket doesn't have the equivalent long term historic ties to the predominant cultural soft power state like baseball does (althought i'd support both). The only problem is there's not alot of space to cover lots of sports; but baseball should be. It just has a much longer cultural history of importance, longer than most sports, - including association football. GuzzyG (talk) 06:49, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
Instead entiquette or social norms I would prefer interpersonal relationship. I would strongly support addition of coast or beach (sports are overrepresented in comprasion to resorts on all levels). I would oppose addition of fast food and I do not think any sport has relative chance to be pass at this level (all sports we list, for example swimming are more important by outstanding distance). IMHO Baseball is more vital than cartoon but far less vital than animation or say advertising. Instead adding more sports I would prefer to remove video game, card game, board game but on the other hand I have ambivalent thougs if to my mind come comprassion beetwen representation of other recreations on the list (eg. Armstron and Jazz, Rock and Pop, etc.). However, in the past music was overrepresentd more on the list. We had sometimes suggestion to add for this level Sydney Opera House but never FIFA World Cup, what is surprising. Dawid2009 (talk) 20:47, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

I just want to make a quick comment about the United States, its culture, and this list, since this very point has been brought to the fore of some of our past discussions. I generally agree with the idea that topics relevant or particularly important to the United States should enjoy a reasonable, limited degree of precedence when forming a list such as this one. The United States is, after all, the world's sole superpower and the primary purveyor of culture, entertainment, literature, media, etc. for the past 70 or so years. What's more, Americans form a plurality, if not majority, of traffic to Wikipedia, and vital articles is all about cataloguing the most important articles to users, and users are understandably likely to privilege topics pertaining to their own country. It is for this reason that I support the prescence of Abraham Lincoln on this list, who, while being supremely important in America, has very limited relevance outside of it (as opposed to George Washington or even Thomas Jefferson, whose technical achievements surpass Lincoln's, and who have become an icon of liberal governance the world over). In the broad view of history, Lincoln isn't really more important than, say, Pedro I of Brazil, Benjamin Disraeli, Maximilien Robespierre, or Pope Innocent III, but it makes sense to list him and not them because Lincoln is particularly relevant to one of our largest audiences. Nevertheless, while a limited degree of American favoritism, for want of a better term, is understandable, we should not go overboard. There does not need, in my view, to be an "American" or North American sport represented on this list, precisely because there is no such sport that is equal in global importance to association football. American culture is already represented by jazz, Thomas Edison, animation, and so forth. There is no need to go overboard, in other words. -- Zelkia1101 (talk)

Jazz, Baseball, Rock and roll and Hollywood are the four main things widely associated with American culture. (Jazz and Baseball are the two main ones; as shown by popular quotes like "There are only three things that America will be remembered for 2000 years from now when they study this civilization: The Constitution, Jazz music, and Baseball" [10]. Infact; baseballs contribution to culture is shown on your own 500 persons list, where you list two baseball players on a list of 10 athletes. (given equal billing with soccer and more representatives than animation; and with no Tennis, Golf or Cricket players, all sports more global - this speaks for baseballs place in cultural history itself - that you just had to list two). Baseball; is inherently tied to American culture and history on a much deeper level than animation and tied to sports history longer than something like football. (wheres a mega important to culture pre WWII football player, comparable to a pre war baseball player). GuzzyG (talk) 06:49, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
Jazz and baseball are not really alike in their place. Association football is the supreme sportive endeavour worldwide; all other sports fall into second position at least. There is no supreme form of music or musical genre. Classical music may be the most respected, but it's hardly more "popular" than pop, rock or jazz. As for my having two baseball players and two soccer plays, I will say, as I have said numerous times before, that a vital biography reflects the importance of the person and not of their field of endeavour. Having two baseball players and two soccer players does not mean that I judge baseball and soccer to be equally important as sports. Zelkia1101 (talk) 19:04, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
Actually it's jazz that is the weakest in popularity; moreso listed on here for it's cultural impact on history rather than being a dominant genre in popularity. Miles Davis [11] and Louis Armstrong [12] are in the 15-18 mil range in pageviews for instance; while Beethoven [13] and Mozart [14] are in the 63-65 mil range with tons of international views; unlike Jazz. The sports and music equivalent would be; classical music is the olympics; ancient; still well regarded but not really getting any real attention in everyday life; association football is like top 40 pop; seemingly everywhere (apparently) but no real impact on any form of arts or history or being able to produce any seemingly significant historic cultural figure pre 1950s; for something so global so small in history... baseball is like jazz, highly American with major love from Japan - can produce alot of big historic figures unlike football, high influence on the arts in like film. Basketball is like Rap; the new upcomer; the most popular growing sport and genre. Rugby union is like Opera; supposedly so important but most people have zero demonstrable interest in except from a real dedicated few (Rugby World Cup claims 850 million [15]; despite none of these people being big figures lol, or Tom Brady getting more searchs than the top two Rugby players right now in every country bar NZ and Madagascar, despite this 850 mil audience [16]). Which does not lend well for sports with big claims...
I can't find a accurate sourcing for sporting numbers; but Britannica claims 250 football million players at the start of the 21st century [17] and "1.3 billion" people "interested" in football. Which would make sense; since Europe and South America are two of the smallest continents and combined do not touch a country like India's population... Some (bad IMO) sources claim a 4 billion [18] fanbase for football, but there's no way this is right. It would be embarrassing for football to have that audience and yet bare impact on arts/history pre WWII; or have a 4 billion people audience and have American sports teams be worth much more money on average as shown here; Forbes' list of the most valuable sports teams. If 250,000,000 people are playing football and this is the number or a "1.3 billion audience"; i would bet my life more people in India (1.3 billion people), Pakistan (226 million people, half of South Americas population) and Bangladesh (161 million population); there are more players of Cricket here; (ignoring the West Indies, England, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka etc players) than the 250 mil number and would be pretty close to the 1.3 bil number. (although one would assume more Europeans and South Americans would be watching this on tv individually, while in places like India it would be a massive communal event; so how can you accurately get accurate tv numbers???) Either way; it's not as "Supreme" as you think and this is not figuring in Running, Swimming, Cycling etc. Music is easily demonstrable; it's pop and rock than everything else [19]; Classical music is listed despite it's european restriction - because it has a long history of impact on cultural for music. This is why Baseball should be listed; despite it's US, Latin American and Japanese restriction; because it has a long cultural history not comparable to other sports. If football is so global and important to history and people; why does the MLB rank number one by average attendance? [20].
If being "global" was absolutely vital than why did Beauty pageant barely get onto the level 4 list; a equally global event - with most countries participating. Professional wrestling barely got on the level 4 list aswell and yet it pulled a 355k audience in North Korea and a 70k audience in Saudi Arabia; two of the most isolated countries in history. Yet not one of those two fields have any important cultural figures even on the 2k list. Being "globally" huge is not the be all end all; you need a backing in history too. Your list may focus on individuals rather than representing something; but it speaks volumes baseball can produce two worthy figures on equal billing with something seemingly mega global with billions into it. Especially when you included two baseball players over figures like Don Bradman; major historic figures from a sport with a billion fans. Either way; if these sports truly have over hundreds of millions of fans as claimed; that's only more reason to list them. Activities to hundreds of millions ARE vital and this goes to Cricket, Basketball, Baseball or Tennis or anything with this status.... Chess should've been added too. All of these sports are infinitely more widespread than Opera both in numbers of participation and fandom. There's no harm to adding things with this level of interest from readers. GuzzyG (talk) 04:08, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
Actually let's go by numbers; the most popular sport in countries with over 100 millon in population;
China has a population of 1,411,778,724; the most popular sport is Basketball (Basketball in China)
India has a population of 1,352,642,280; the most popular sport is Cricket (Cricket in India)
United States has a population of 331,449,281; the most popular sport is American football (American football in the United States)
Indonesia has a population of 270,203,917; the most popular sport is Association football (Football in Indonesia)
Pakistan has a population of 226,992,332; the most popular sport is Cricket (Cricket in Pakistan)
Brazil has a population of 210,147,125; the most popular sport is Association football (Football in Brazil)
Nigeria has a population of 211,400,708; the most popular sport is Association football (Football in Nigeria)
Bangladesh has a population of 161,376,708; the most popular sport is Cricket (Cricket in Bangladesh)
Russia has a population of 146,171,015; the most popular sport is Association football (Football in Russia)
Mexico has a population of 126,014,024; the most popular sport is Association football (Football in Mexico)
Japan has a population of 125,360,000; the most popular sport is Baseball (Baseball in Japan)
Ethiopia has a population of 117,876,227; the most popular sport is Association football (Football in Ethiopia)
Philippines has a population of 109,035,343; the most popular sport is Basketball (Basketball in the Philippines)
Egypt has a population of 101,478,581,; the most popular sport is Association football (Football in Egypt)
So this is 7 for football; 3 for cricket; 2 for basketball and 1 for American football and baseball. Football has one in the top 5 and out numbered by total population of interested countries by Cricket and Basketball. I don't think there's a argument for this being the "supreme" sport worldwide. Even more; there's no accurate way to get numbers for such a thing; especially in some countries like some of these ones. Ignoring cultural history aswell; there's no legit claim for complete football dominance. It speaks for itself the top three countries rarely care for it and i'm not convinced if Badminton had proper international structure it would be a easy win in Indonesia and Athletics a easy win for Ethiopia and Russia was VERY close with Ice Hockey. It also speaks volumes, that none of these countries have that much presence in top rank soccer bar Brazil, the US and Mexico per FIFA World Rankings. If you don't have a clear majority in the most populated countries or dominate them; you can't be the "supreme" sport; irrespective of dominance in Spain, Brazil, France and the United Kingdom - this is not the globe and there's no clear evidence the sports section shouldn't include multiple sports like we cover the multiple genres. By this chart i would have Cricket over Opera and Basketball over Animation and Baseball by itself. Try and find equivalent participation and interest numbers for Opera and Animation around the globe. It doesn't exist. GuzzyG (talk) 04:53, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
For another claim of something; FIFA claims 1.12 billion viewers combined viewed the 2019 FIFA women's world cup [21]; yet it's biggest star gets searched less than a even lesser known mma fighter who was prominent in the same period [22]; even with "263 million" unique viewers; that's a pathetic showing in curiosity; to have so much viewers and yet noone is intrigued by the athletes! (and only 11 mil wiki views, with barely any internationally [23], which means either this website is dead or these numbers oddly don't add up!). GuzzyG (talk) 16:53, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
I would list basketball ahead of either of baseball and cricket, especially due to its popularity in China. On Weibo Bryant got +10mln followers, meanwhile Cristiano + 7mln and Lin Dan + 4mln. It is impressive especially if you realise Lin Dan is Chinese, Cristiano has 374 million followers on Instagram (more than whole population of Pakistan - people interested in sport or not), meanwhile Bryant's funpage has 20 mln followers on Instagram and 15 mln followers on Twitter. Soccer and basketball are two sports which are raising popularity. 3x3 basketball recently has been olympics sport. 2026 FIFA World Cup will include 48 native teams from all parts of the world but even FIFA 2018 World Cup with 32 teams was big event (Panama national football team and [[Iceland national football team] participated in that). There are also sport films with comparable importance to Baseball films IMHO. Karate Kid has box office 130 mln $ and Goal! (film) has 27 mln $. On the level 5 the only sport films we list are: The Hustler (film), Raging Bull and Rocky Dawid2009 (talk) 18:20, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
cricket is undeniably very close to football and the next sport to list by pure numbers; baseball is the important sport long term in culture; these are the arguments. basketball is relatively newer; without both but would also qualify on a participation aspect. The The Karate Kid (franchise) and the two main boxing films (Rocky and Raging Bull are covered on this list by martial arts, which only reinforces that sports with effect on culture should matter for this list). The level 5 list means nothing; i removed Hoosiers (film) to put on the Hustler and neither pool nor highschool basketball would qualify; this doesn't uproot the fact that baseball through arts has become the leading symbol of American sports; as shown by the films; as shown by Casey at the Bat and Take Me Out to the Ball Game; in every art theres a major Baseball work in the American sense; all of these predate footballs importance too.. Which is the main argument, baseball is fundamental to sports history pre-war. Top football songs are I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles and You'll Never Walk Alone - copied from American songs with nothing to do with football; which also proves that football doesn't have an effect itself on art; it's just there - it takes. A list of "best football songs" [24]; are all post-war; contemporary. There's no history here. Goal (and Green Street (film)) are the only other main football films and theyre not big critically and flopped at the box office; for such a global sport it never seems to translate outside of it; this only reinforces this argument. Insstagram stats are irrelevant and not what you think; Ronaldo's played in Portugal, the United Kingdom, Spain and Italy. Yes, all major European football countries. France has a 37.2% percent instagram usage rate [25]; the UK 41.8% [26]; Spain 46.4% [27], Portugal 47% [28], Italy 43.3 percent [29]. Plus let's not forget the other two big football countries; Brazil with 46% [30] and Russia with 43.9% [31] (and Brazil's online audience is renowned for being very passionate and being able to bring in big numbers, (the biggest Brazilian pop star has 57.5 mil [32]). These all benefit Ronaldo. India on the other hand has a 10.2% instagram penetration rate [33]; Pakistan 5% [34]; and Bangladesh 2% [35]; so it's only natural that cricketers don't have the same audience; BUT WAIT! even with this low level of instagram usage; the biggest modern cricketer (Virat Kohli) has 171 million followers [36]; can you honestly say if India, Pakistan and Bangladesh had the European instagram usage rates that Virat wouldnt overtake Cristiano? We can't use stats that so benefit one sport; this reflects in the sports viewership amount too. It's bias to count these. GuzzyG (talk) 05:34, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
Or even that the top football chant (Glory Glory (football chant)) is based on American Battle Hymn of the Republic? How does this not only reinforce American culture; thus indirectly their sports? We wouldn't list a biography who is "the most popular"; yet has no original impact on culture on the world; certainly not as the only example of the thing it represents. GuzzyG (talk) 06:01, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
You comfortably neglect mention that most people who follow top football stars do not come from South America or Europe but more populated Africa and quite often even Asia (just come to grographically neutral Facebook group "Oh my Goal - football experts" and check: [37]). 10% of Africa population or 10% of India population is far more than half of Brazil or half of Western Europe for that matter. Also FWIW Africa does not have high monopol on Internet or Instagram). Cristiano is the most popular athlete basicly due to fact he is the most profilic goalscorer in history of Champions League, Africa is the only continent where soccer dominated every single country and the Africa is the only continent where Champions League gets sightly better results than FIFA World Cup in google trends (at least in those countries which have hard time to quialify into World up so far, Gabon national football team is such example as Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang never played on World Cup). For globality of soccer check how high pageviews has Roberto Baggio (famous for being Buddhist) or Zico (famous for popularising soccer in Japan) on Japanese Wikipedia: [38]/[39] in comprasion to European languages. UEFA Champions League anthem is culturally more relevant than all those other songs you mention (it is often used in ringtone) but none of these much at all. I would choose soccer and basketball ahead of cricket and baseball. What I can find on Google Maps so far, the most significant Cricket stadiums from Australia have less reviews than Maracana and Sydney Opera House but more than Shaolin Temple. I do not know much about cricket so maybe I should not talk about it at all (frankly I never particularly heard about that sport before WP:VA and even if I heard then I highly doubt I did not confused Cricket with Croquet before VA) but personally I do not see how cricket is vital as recreation. Where cricket has non-proffesionall analogy to 3x3 basketball or street football?; would you list on wider list (say 5000 articles) Formula 1 due to TV marketing ahead of sports which are also vital as recreation in everyday life: moutaneering, cycling, chess, poker, or running? Either way basketball still remain as my second choice after football but I would list social media ahead of every sport and I could eventually reconsider swap Tagore or Singapore with Cricket. It is my opinion. Dawid2009 (talk) 17:11, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
To be fair to Lincoln, Tolstoy called him "[o]f all the great national heroes and statesmen of history...the only real giant...a Christ in miniature [and] a saint of humanity whose name will live thousands of years in the leg­ends of future generations" whose legacy is yet to come. While one can debate the significance of that work, it's certainly not the case that Lincoln is entirely unknown outside of the US. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 15:52, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
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Swap: Remove gasoline, add World Wide Web

Latest comment: 2 years ago12 comments7 people in discussion
PARTIAL PASS
5–2, removed; 1–3, not added. --Rreagan007 (talk) 18:15, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

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Diesel fuel recently failed, and it was brought up that gasoline isn't necessarily vital at this level either. While gasoline is indeed more vital than diesel fuel due to the dominance of the automobile and residual use of gasoline in piston airplanes, I don't think it's particularly more vital historically or currently than kerosene, and we already list petroleum and internal combustion engine.

As for World Wide Web, critics might note that we already list internet, but I think the two concepts are different enough to both warrant inclusion, especially since we list both telephone and mobile phone. If I am not mistaken in my analogy, the internet is the tracks and the WWW is the rolling stock, and it is the latter that better encompasses such concepts as a website and HTML/CSS/JavaScript/PHP/etc., especially if we do in fact tend to underrepresent computer software compared to computer hardware. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 17:55, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

Support
  1. As nom. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 17:55, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
  2. Support removal Feels derviative of other concepts we have listed. -- Maykii (talk) 22:24, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
  3. Support removal The internal combustion engine is vital, the fuel you put into it less so. I would rather list oil refinery or hydrocarbon than a specific refined hydrocarbon. I think I've opposed adding fuel in the past, but would be OK with a swap for gasoline. Cobblet (talk) 18:01, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
  4. Support removal per above though also open to a swap with fuel. Gizza (talk • voy) 23:09, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
  5. Support removal. It's a close call for me, but since we already list petroleum and Internal combustion engine at this level, there isn't a huge need for gasoline here. Rreagan007 (talk) 18:12, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Oppose both the addition and the removal. For the addition - even experts get confused between Internet and World Wide Web, there is simply too much overlap to include both at this level. For the removal - maybe in 20 years once we all have electric cars I will support removal. User:力 (powera, π, ν) 02:08, 10 December 2021 (UTC)
  2. Oppose Too central for everyday life and too much overlap. --Thi (talk) 09:17, 10 December 2021 (UTC)
  3. Oppose addition The internet covers this for the most part. -- Maykii (talk) 22:24, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
Discuss

I can support the removal. I'm less convinced that both the computer network and the most important information retrieval system using that network are necessary to list at this level. I still prefer listing something that's more orthogonal to what's already on the list, such as something related to programming. Cobblet (talk) 23:02, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

  • I can support programming language, which I was surprised wasn't already on here, and if we were more generous could even add C specifically. I could also see operating system. I do think, however, that World Wide Web is more "popular" and directly impactful of daily lives, and I would consider it the most important "piece of software" ever written; most people don't know how to code and see the difference between Mac and Windows as nothing more than an annoyance, but we're using a website right now, for example. I can understand that WWW and internet are somewhat redundant, but WWW's wide availability in the mid-90s turned the internet from a reserve of militaries and academia into a critical part of daily life. Regardless of whether this is a strength or an additional case for "redundancy", the WWW is not merely "the most important" retrieval system of the internet, it is orders of magnitude above now-obsolete competitors such as Gopher and niche applications such as FTP, to the point where people don't know the difference between the "web" and the "internet". Indeed, if we're viewing "vitality" as "usefulness to readers", many readers will probably want to know what exactly is the difference between the two. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 00:02, 10 December 2021 (UTC)
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Remove Secularism

Latest comment: 2 years ago10 comments8 people in discussion
FAILED
3-5, not removed. --Thi (talk) 19:24, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

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Atheism already covers this sufficiently. Interstellarity (talk) 18:10, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Support
  1. Interstellarity (talk) 18:10, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
  2. Not because we already list atheism (Thi rightly explains the difference), but because we don't list theocracy. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 22:12, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
  3. Support per above. -- Maykii (talk) 22:25, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Oppose It does not. Misunderstanding stems from listing: Secularism is not listed under Government and Atheism is misleadingly listed under Secularism. Secularism belongs to Society and Atheism to Philosophy. --Thi (talk) 18:30, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
  2. Oppose secularism is a different concept to atheism. A belief in separating religion from the state as opposed to a lack of belief in a deity. There should be multiple articles on this topic just as there as multiple articles on major religions. Gizza (talk • voy) 22:59, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
  3. Oppose per DaGizza. Cobblet (talk) 02:46, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
  4. Oppose Dimadick (talk) 02:17, 23 December 2021 (UTC)
  5. Oppose Separation of church and state is a core tenant of modern democracies, and isn't quite comparable to theocracy, which is no longer as relevant to the modern world to merit listing. Zelkia1101 (talk) 02:28, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
Neutral
Discussion
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Swap: Add Blues, Remove Jazz

Latest comment: 2 years ago7 comments5 people in discussion
FAILED
1-3, failed. --Thi (talk) 19:24, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

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

Jazz is blues. The influence of blues is readily apparent; bar classical music, the other genres listed are significantly influenced by it. The same can't be said for Jazz, dearly less cosmopolitan in nature. DMT Biscuit (talk) 02:10, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Support
  1. DMT Biscuit (talk) 02:11, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Sigh... I love me some Son House and Howlin' Wolf, but blues is already covered adequately by rock music and jazz. While Charley Patton and the other Delta bluesmen were struggling in Mississippi, Louis Armstrong was already making hit records with jazz, and jazz remains more internationally renowned in its own right, being arguably America's greatest contribution to "high culture". If we need more music, music theory or the instruments I proposed above would be better fits than yet more genres. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 15:28, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
  2. Oppose Jazz has had more of an international impact. Dimadick (talk) 02:19, 23 December 2021 (UTC)
  3. Oppose Jazz is important art form. --Thi (talk) 09:50, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
Discuss

While we are one the topic then I was wondering does is it worthible to list Armstrong along with Jazz ahead of so manynsports or say rythm for music but swap Armstrong for woman musican never was sucesfull at this level. Dawid2009 (talk) 20:08, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

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Add Randomness

Latest comment: 2 years ago7 comments6 people in discussion
FAILED
1-3, not added. --Thi (talk) 19:28, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

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

into Mathematics/Statistics section. It is very weird that this is not in Vital list at all. Its uses is way beyond math obviously, so I think its inclusion to level 3 is appropriate. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 14:03, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

Support
Oppose
  1. Oppose inclusion into level 3 list (which is technically what this talkpage is for), but this seems reasonable at level 4. However, stochastic process is already at level 4 as well. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 15:56, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
  2. Oppose per John M Wolfson. -- Maykii (talk) 22:31, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
  3. Oppose Statistics cover this area. --Thi (talk) 09:55, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
Discuss

Probability is included here at level 3; is that enough? and also statistics and gambling cover vaguely similar ground. Agree seems reasonable for level 4.  Carlwev  16:43, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

I'm biased towards beefing up the Math section at levels 3-5, but I'd actually lean against including Randomness under math. It's definitely closely related, and it does come up for things like random-number generators & cryptography. Along with ideas like Risk and Uncertainty though, I'd consider Randomness more of a philosophical issue most of the time. If anything, Independence is probably more central to probability, though the term Random variable is used for a single event. Zar2gar1 (talk) 20:29, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

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Add Uzbekistan

Latest comment: 2 years ago7 comments5 people in discussion
FAILED
2–3, not added. Rreagan007 (talk) 23:23, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

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It makes much sense to at least reconsider addition of at least one country from Central Asia which is another unrepresented region at this level per distribution which you can see after lick here on the level 4. Uzbekistan is the most populated Muslim country which has been estabilished after changing USSR into Russia and the most popuated country from Central Asia. Please, read also my further comment in discussion section why I think Uzbekistan is more worth addition to that levl than ey other country from Central Asia.

Support
  1. Strong support As nom Dawid2009 (talk) 18:13, 27 November 2021 (UTC)
  2. support Dimadick (talk) 21:17, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Strong oppose As said earlier, I oppose any geography additions, especially raw ones, before California both out of principle and due to space constraints. Adding Central Asia itself is already a stretch in my mind; it's the collective "backwoods" of both the former Soviet Union and China, and we already list Silk Road and don't even list Afghanistan. Adding any specific Borat-land Sporcle-meme country from that area would just be absolute bonkers IMO. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 20:24, 27 November 2021 (UTC)
  2. Oppose We don't need anymore countries right now, Uzbekistan is not too important. -- Maykii (talk) 22:10, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
  3. Oppose. The countries section is already looking bloated to me and I don't think this is the most vital country not currently listed. Rreagan007 (talk) 19:53, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
Discussce

I think it is very significant that Uzbekista has the biggest population amog countries from Central Asia. FWIW we an find UZbek language as option to setting in Telegram (software) but not Kazakh language. Telegram is especially popular in countries of former USSR. Also take look how would look poportional distribution of countries from level 4 to level 3 by purely "population and geographical diversity" mthodology":

Extended content

World has about 7.9 bln of population but India and China combinetly cover about 1/3 of world's population so without these two superior countries there are 5.2 mln of people who live on the earth. Proportional distribution of countries by purely "population measure" from the level 4 to the level 3 without India and China would be in following way (population should not be considered as the only factor but always can be helpful to analyse):

  • Africa: Should be 10, currently 7 (Algeria, Congo DRC, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa)
  • Americas: Should be 8, currently 6-7 (Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Mexico, USA and debatedly Carribean add representation to that list)
  • Whole Asia without India and China: Should be 14, currently 13 (I said "without India and China", so without Hong Kong and other Category:Chinese-speaking countries and territories we also have: Bangladesh, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, Japan, Pakista, Philipines S. Korea, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Veitnam, Turkey, United Arab Emirates)
  • Europe: Should be 6, currently 9 (France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Russia Spain, Ukraine, UK)
  • Oceania: Should be 0, currently 1 (Australia)

Peru and Uzbekistan fit perfectly to coverage of our countries. Perhaps I could swap also one country from West Africa for Mansa Muse if people want to keep Netherlands and do not add biographies like Emperor Meji for that list. Dawid2009 (talk) 18:13, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

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Swap: remove History of the Middle East, Ancient Rome, add Roman Empire

Latest comment: 2 years ago9 comments6 people in discussion
FAILED
1-4, not added; 2–5, not removed. Rreagan007 (talk) 23:27, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

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We do not have enough space for many articles. This is simple way to cut two articles and cover one more(History of Middle East can be covered in couple articles, not only Roman Empire. History of Middle East is last or one of the last watched articles on the list at this level). I spend long time by observating !voting processes on historical forums to answer question "which Empire was the most influential in history?", and historians usually were choosing Roman Empire. This one is also the only empire mentioned in article Human History or Civilisation, all other empires are not mentioned there. Not sure why we list Ancient Rome ahead of Roman Empire. It is impressive Rome was larger in ancient era than most big metropolies in 19th century but that should be just covered in article on Roman Empire. Roman Empire also has better Wikipedia's own statistics (language versions, pageviews etc.), so what actually speak in favour of Ancient Rome? Also, that would be desorientation for me if I fund here user any user who argue with me that English Empire is more important in terms of analysing hisory than more foundamental Roman Empire, especially that so many historians on forums were disagree with that point and were arguing with me but, I think listing any empire but not Roman is odd; let discuss it. Dawid2009 (talk) 22:13, 1 December 2021 (UTC)

Support
  1. [nom]
  2. Support removal of History of the Middle East. We list too many of these "history of" articles in my opinion. I also will support addition of Roman Empire. I don't think it is too derivative of Ancient Rome, the Roman Empire was such an important long lasting entity that I think it deserves to be on the list. -- Maykii (talk) 22:16, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Ancient Rome covers not only (or even primarily) the city of Rome in antiquity but the Empire, Republic, and even Kingdom of the Roman civilization over the course of a millennium. As for the middle east, I would rather remove the Middle East article before its history. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 23:34, 1 December 2021 (UTC)
    There is no article which has primarty topic in disambiguation Latin civilisation. Roman Empire gets far more pageveiws than Ancient Rome more often are looking for it, gets more interwiki because of that Roman Empire is more often used term for wieder context but according to Roman Empire (disambiguation) Roman Empire also may reffer to all other peirods in English language. If we do not have Roman Empire then we should reconsider removl of all other empires which can be debatedly covered in articles like European Colonisation of America, especially Spanish Empire (or that we would decide that constintency is not desirable). I noted we have also not consistency on lower levels beause out of some articles in disambig Chinese civilisation we have History of China on the level 4 but we do not have history of Rome where redirects Roman civilisation Dawid2009 (talk) 09:29, 4 December 2021 (UTC)
  2. Oppose Ancient Rome covers the Roman Republic. --Thi (talk) 11:31, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
  3. Oppose per above Zelkia1101 (talk) 12:57, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
  4. Oppose removal of Ancient Rome, this article covers the Kingdom and Republic, these are important. -- Maykii (talk) 22:16, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
  5. Oppose. Ancient Rome is the broader topic, and history of the middle east is pretty important. Rreagan007 (talk) 23:22, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
Discuss
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Latest comment: 2 years ago11 comments9 people in discussion
FAILED
4–4, not added. Rreagan007 (talk) 23:21, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

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Important concept in business. I don't think any business article adequately covers this. Interstellarity (talk) 00:47, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

Support
  1. Interstellarity (talk) 00:47, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
  2. Weak Support Dawid2009 (talk) 20:09, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
  3. Support Dimadick (talk) 13:42, 10 December 2021 (UTC)
  4. Support -- Maykii (talk) 22:18, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Strong oppose A subtopic of IP, and even that is far from the most important legal topic not on the list. Cobblet (talk) 03:24, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
  2. Oppose and would oppose intellectual property too. A concept more fundamental both in law and business would be contract. Gizza (talk • voy) 07:43, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
  3. Oppose Important Level 3.5 article. --Thi (talk) 11:31, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
  4. Oppose. Intellectual property would be a better article to add, but I'm not sure even that would be vital at this level. Rreagan007 (talk) 19:54, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
Neutral
Discussion

I would rather add intellectual property in general. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 00:53, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

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Add Sports club and Excercise

Latest comment: 2 years ago8 comments5 people in discussion
FAILED
2–3, not added. Rreagan007 (talk) 23:15, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

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Both were mentioned as thinkable options for representation of sport at the level 2 (in sense, someone said that painting which is listed at the level 2 is specific to the arts just as excercise is specific to sport, or sport club is specific to sport like film is specific to the arts). Dawid2009 (talk) 18:42, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Support
  1. [nom]
  2. Support sports club Honestly I'm starting to think sports is really underrepresented on this list. -- Maykii (talk) 22:30, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Oppose sports club Amateur sports is already (IMO over)represented with athletics and the Olympics. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 19:22, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
  2. Oppose. Sports club isn't top 1,000 and exercise is already listed under the Health and fitness section. Rreagan007 (talk) 21:49, 23 December 2021 (UTC)
  3. Oppose exercise We already have this basically with other articles listed. -- Maykii (talk) 22:30, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
  4. Oppose I haven't seen sports clubs among main articles in encyclopedias. Voluntary association would be more interesting. --Thi (talk) 09:54, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
Discuss

I'll still have to think about exercise; we're quite near the quota already, so I doubt there will be room for it, and I wouldn't put it above basketball, baseball, or cricket. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 19:22, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

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Add Peter the Great

Latest comment: 2 years ago11 comments9 people in discussion
FAILED
2–5, not added. Rreagan007 (talk) 23:43, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

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As the founding father of the modern Russia, Peter the Great is much more significant political figure than Catherine the Great. For Russia, he is like George Washington for the USA. --2601:1C0:CB01:2660:709C:E65C:3641:F27 (talk) 07:24, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Support
  1. [nom]
  2. Support Dimadick (talk) 21:24, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
  3. --RekishiEJ (talk) 11:15, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. We decided to keep Catherine a while back, and I don't know if we need both. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 16:11, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
  2. Oppose This failed recently I'm pretty sure. -- Maykii (talk) 17:46, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
    This is not part of the moratorium, else I would have closed it by now. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 19:06, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
  3. Oppose I would add St. Petersburg, Dostoyevsky or Louis XIV first. --Thi (talk) 17:59, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
  4. Oppose We should be removing, and not adding, biographies. I may entertain a swap with Catherine the Great, but of the two I still think Catherine is more vital. Zelkia1101 (talk) 19:39, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
  5. Oppose. I agree with the above comments. Louis XIV would be a more vital monarch to list at this level. Rreagan007 (talk) 18:09, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
Discuss

@RekishiEJ: Perhaps I could reconsider addition (or swap with someone) Peter the Great if that conimation of Wu Zeitan would be passed, if supporters would support that nomination. IMHO we more need Asian woman who was wealthiest i history than another king from Europe. Dawid2009 (talk) 11:15, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

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Add Gregor Mendel

Latest comment: 2 years ago8 comments6 people in discussion
SNOW FAILED
1–5, not added. Rreagan007 (talk) 23:46, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

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Support
  1. As nom. Because Bill Bryson wrote that "without realizing it, Darwin and Mendel laid the groundwork for all of the life sciences in the twentieth century. Darwin saw that all living things are connected, that ultimately they trace their ancestry to a single, common source; Mendel's work provided the mechanism to explain how that could happen." (taken from Science and the Catholic Church), Mendel is no doubt as vital as Darwin.--RekishiEJ (talk) 11:15, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Oppose Not as vital as Bohr who was recently removed. Atomic theory and QM are more foundational to science as a whole than Mendelian inheritance. Cobblet (talk) 14:59, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
  2. Oppose Heredity is listed at this level and several scientists have been removed. --Thi (talk) 15:43, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
  3. Per all; if we needed more scientists, which I highly doubt given our recent biography-trimming, I'd much rather have Linus Pauling or Ronald Fisher; they have much greater marginal "bang for buck" than Mendel even if the latter is more "objectively" important. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 16:36, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
    More plausibly, if we needed more biology, monumental events in the history of life such as the Cambrian explosion and Great Oxidation Event could be acceptable if we weren't one over quota already in general or with 200+ already-listed science articles. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 14:08, 15 January 2022 (UTC)
  4. Oppose per above. -- Maykii (talk) 01:18, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
  5. Oppose. Rreagan007 (talk) 23:17, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
Discuss
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Archive 15←Archive 19Archive 20Archive 21Archive 22Archive 23→Archive 25

Remove John Breckinridge Castleman

Latest comment: 2 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion
Moving from here to the proper talk page.

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I noticed that this was a vital article after participating in a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history#Military-related vital articles, and personally cannot fathom why this figure is considered to be a vital article. He was a brigadier general and a military governor, but wasn't an important example of either; I'm not sure why he was even added. Hog Farm Talk 02:47, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

Support
Oppose
Discuss
The talk page for the level-5 articles is at Wikipedia talk:Vital articles/Level/5, which would probably be the best place to discuss this. INDT (talk) 05:26, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
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Swap: Remove Secularism, add Secularity

Latest comment: 2 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion
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I think it is much more common to treat Secular as a state of society and individual rather than an principle or ideology to follow, hence I think the vital article should be on Secularity (Which Secular currently redirect to) instead of Secularism. C933103 (talk) 03:29, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

Support
  1. Nom.
Oppose
  1. Oppose Definition of ideology or principle is more important for an encyclopedia. There is not much to say about secularity as a position. --Thi (talk) 14:20, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
    Do you see being secular as an ideology instead of being a state? Society of many countries in the world are now secular, but it would be hard to say they follow some sort of ideology called "Secularism". I think only in a few countries where the current government isn't secular that the term "secularism" would be meaningful. C933103 (talk) 15:08, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
Discuss
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Swap: Remove Adult, add Human settlement

Latest comment: 2 years ago5 comments3 people in discussion
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With the process of ageing supposed to be cover by the article of ageing (Currently it do not), I think it is more important to have human settlement, where people live together and form the most fundamental unit of society, to be part of the vital article list. C933103 (talk) 13:31, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

Support
Oppose
  1. Oppose City is more vital concept. --Thi (talk) 14:00, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
    "Human settlement" would cover not just cities but also towns, villages, and such that are of different sizes. And neither cities nor villages were on the list now. C933103 (talk) 14:03, 7 February 2022 (UTC) Edit: And boundary between city and village is also hard to define C933103 (talk) 15:10, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
  2. City is sufficient to cover this at this level, regardless of size. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 14:19, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
Discuss

Modified proposal: Swap: Remove Adult, add City Basketball

Amid countersuggestions from other editors, I have changed the replacement target.C933103 (talk) 15:16, 7 February 2022 (UTC) Somehow missed the fact that "City" is already part of the list. Hence, I would suggest replacing it with Basketball, as agreed by proposals up on the discussion page. C933103 (talk) 16:02, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

Support
Oppose
Discuss

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1000 bios on level 4

Latest comment: 2 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

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Please see this discussion on the level 4 talk page. Interstellarity (talk) 00:33, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

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Swap: Remove Beijing, add Shanghai

Latest comment: 2 years ago9 comments5 people in discussion
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In term of population, modern history, economy, influence, and a number of other metrics, Shanghai is a more important city than Beijing. Hence I suggest Beijing in the list be replaced with Shanghai. C933103 (talk) 03:27, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

Support
  1. Nom.
Oppose
  1. This is the third time in a couple of months that Shanghai has been proposed for inclusion, but I believe it'll remain a perennial proposal for now. Although "mere seats of government" like Washington, D.C., and Brasilia are indeed inappropriate for inclusion at this level, Beijing is as close to the historical heart of China as any specific city can be, and its culture has served as the template for the culture of China elsewhere, including but not limited to the Mandarin language. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 14:23, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
    Disagree with that. "as close to the historical heart part" of China would be the like of Nanjing, Kaifeng, or Xi'an, and other cities between them.
    Indeed, Beijing have been China's capital for most of the period from Yuan Dynasty to Qing Dynasty, however a big contributor to such situation was Beijing's geographical location being near the frontier of China Heartland, near the Great Wall of China. Both Yuan and Qing Dynasty have their governor seated at Beijing due to its proximity to Mongolian and Manchurian heartland, and Ming Dynasty also only shifted its capital to Beijing after revolt occurred against original emperor at Nanjing and thus the new emperor moved the capital away from the historic center.
    And even nowadays, while Beijing is the central city for Northern China, the economy of Northern China which focus on resource extraction and heavy industry, have been substantially less impactful/influential on worldwide scale, compared to Shanghai's representation of modern Coastal China's economy, which focus on manufacturing of different type of goods as well as finance and information technology.C933103 (talk) 15:03, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
    The historical heart of China is the Yellow River, which we don't currently list, likely due to already listing Beijing. For similar reasons, although Southern China might be currently more important due to Shanghai and Hong Kong, Northern China has historically been its center and thus more preferred over this list. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 16:54, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
    If you are talking about the most core part of China, then the historical heart of China is Zhongyuan area in North China Plain. Beijing barely qualify as part of Zhongyuan. (And Beijing have nothing to do with Yellow River either) And, with the continuous war as well as change in climate, the Chinese civilization have historically relocated itself toward the Jiangnan area, which had historical center of Nanjing, Suzhou, Hangzhou, and nowadays the center of the area is Shanghai. Modern day equivalent to the historical center of Zhongyuan area roughly match the area of Huangfanqu, aka area affected by 1938 Yellow River flood, roughly correspond to the historical Pingyuan Province, and is still one of the poorest area in China nowadays. Modern Chinese government is attempting to create Zhongyuan Economic Zone over the area, with modern central city of the area being Zhengzhou, but it's hardly one of the most important city in China nowadays. Edit: Also Shanghai is not Southern China. C933103 (talk) 17:37, 8 February 2022 (UTC)
  2. Oppose Beijing is historically more important and the lead section of its article confirms the city's current importance --Thi (talk) 14:38, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
    During the time of Beijing serving as capital in history, only Yuan, Ming, Qing, and the current PRC can be said as the capital of a regime that govern the entire China. the current PRC alone wouldn't be enough for the same reason that Washington D.C. alone wouldn't be enough, while the course of Chinese history from Yuan Dynasty to Qing Dynasty have not seen significant changes except for the characteristic of being reigned by foreign force in Yuan and Qing dynasty, together with Ming dynasty's isolationist policy. The history of China was only starting to experience significant change from mid-19th century, when the country started coming into contact and interact with foreign power in significant way, and Shanghai being one of the largest trade port of China at the time and the frontier of China's interaction with the world, is definitely more reflectively of the country's history from this point forward. C933103 (talk) 15:03, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
  3. Oppose As I noted previously, Shanghai's legacy is somewhat redundant with Hong Kong's. Everything the nominator says regarding Shanghai's history describes Hong Kong's as well. Listing Beijing with its 700+ years of political and cultural dominance is definitely better than listing a second Chinese city that had no significance before the 19th century. Cobblet (talk) 19:10, 13 February 2022 (UTC)
  4. Oppose mostly per Cobblet. Gizza (talk • voy) 06:43, 14 February 2022 (UTC)
Discuss
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Remove Man and Woman under gender, human sexuality

Latest comment: 2 years ago10 comments8 people in discussion
FAILED
4-4, not removed. --Thi (talk) 18:15, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

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the concepts are pretty well explained by gender and human sexuality. It would be unexpected if anyone would be able to expand Man and Woman to go beyond those already in those aforementioned articles, we also already have Human as well. Lolitart (talk) 03:30, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

Support

  1. Lolitart (talk) 03:31, 10 November 2021 (UTC)
  2. Support. We list Child but not Boy or Girl, so I don't really see why we need to list Man and Woman when we also list Adult at this level. Rreagan007 (talk) 04:04, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
  3. Support per Rreagan007. -- Maykii (talk) 21:59, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
  4. Support There are currently more than half a dozen articles on sex and reproduction in this list. C933103 (talk) 13:16, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

Oppose

  1. Oppose Important topics in culture, not entirely covered by Gender. --Thi (talk) 09:49, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
  2. Oppose The two main genders should be included as well as the concept of Gender itself; manhood is quite an important concept across cultures, and womanhood is no different. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 00:01, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
  3. Oppose Not redundant articles at all, Where exactly is any explanation of feminine or masculine norms in gender or human sexuality? This is like saying we should remove all the listed languages because we list language. I also don't see what is wrong with listing half a dozen articles on sex and gender on a list of a thousand articles. Cobblet (talk) 15:45, 19 February 2022 (UTC)
  4. Oppose per John and Cobblet. Gizza (talk • voy) 05:09, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

Discuss

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Add Wu Zetian

Latest comment: 2 years ago16 comments10 people in discussion
FAILED
3-3, not added. --Thi (talk) 18:17, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

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arguably a female figure of much higher historical importance than Florence Nightingale. Cixi is comparable, but I'd say not as powerful and she was only a regent while Wu Zetian was the actual sovereign. Lolitart (talk) 06:09, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

Support
  1. As nom - Lolitart (talk) 06:10, 10 November 2021 (UTC)
  2. Support but only as swap with weak politician leader, for example Henry. Dawid2009 (talk) 05:55, 12 November 2021 (UTC)
  3. Support Dimadick (talk) 09:57, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Oppose We list enough Chinese leaders. -- Maykii (talk) 22:00, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
  2. Oppose. Not vital at this level. There are other leaders that would be listed at this level before her. Rreagan007 (talk) 19:09, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
  3. Strong Oppose. Wu Zetian is a disruption in the Chinese history but it'd be hard to say she have much lasting impact on Chinese history. Even among Chinese history there're much more person to choose from. Let along comparing her with like Nightingale.C933103 (talk) 13:43, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
Discuss
  • @Loliart:This woman is part of moratorium my omnission, I admitDawid2009 (talk) so can be added only as swap, for next six months, as her candidature (unfortunetly) recently failed. (let make nomination to remove for example Heny/Akbar/Mansa Musa or Joan of Arc/Elizabeth/Shibiku). I think she should be definietly added as she is by far wealthiest woman, maybe person ever: [40]. Except your rationale for addition also the only woman emperor in hina history, Shibiku seems has isolated impact and yet not so promient in Japan, IMHO.Dawid2009 (talk) 06:23, 10 November 2021 (UTC)
I'm not sure that Wu Zetain is actually part of the moratorium, since she's not on the list at the top of the talk page. Zelkia1101 (talk) 12:29, 10 November 2021 (UTC)
Zelkia is correct; Wu is not part of the Moratorium since she is absent from the list. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 13:05, 10 November 2021 (UTC)
  • I'm not per se opposed to Wu Zetain's addition on this list. In terms of importance to history, level of technical achievement, and relevance to modern users she outstrips Florence Nightingale far and away. She is probably the most powerful sovereign China has ever had, and likely the second most important behind Qin Shi Huang, all of which is incredibly impressive given that she's the sole woman to have ever ruled the country. However, I am against additions of any new biographies on this list until we've gotten our numbers down to 100. Ideally Wu would be a swap with someone else on this list. I'm going to remain neutral for now. Zelkia1101 (talk) 12:29, 10 November 2021 (UTC)
    The first few emperor of Han Dynasty and some of the Qing dynasty are definitely more important/influencing... C933103 (talk) 08:31, 6 March 2022 (UTC)
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Swap: remove Singapore add Peru

Latest comment: 2 years ago15 comments5 people in discussion
FAILED
Swap 1-1, removal 2-1, addition 1-2. --Thi (talk) 18:20, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

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Singapore clearly simply is not significant enough as country to be listed at this level but the Singapore as 73-th largest metropolia by population is not also significant enough as city for this list. There are on earth four more populated cities which are from countries not represented at this list as whole: Baghdad from Iraq, Khartoum from Sudan, Luanda from Angola and especially Lima from Peru which (out of these four) is the only city which has almost double larger population than Singapore. Peru is example of country which is culturally and historically very significant. It is one of the most biodiverse countries in Latin America and the biggest not listed from that region. It makes very much sense to cover Lima and Machu Pichu at this level along with Andean Civilisation and Spanish Empire if we can have overlap beetwen say: /Cair/Egypt/Ancient Egypt/Roman Empire (=Ancient Rome for thet list).

Jakarta is better example of vital city from Southeast Asia than Singapore. It does not matter Singapore was ranked as Alpha City in 2020 GaWC Ranking, 2020 GaWC ranking is only one of many subjective methodologies (we do not consider it as major criteria which why we have Rome but not Frankfurt). However, even in that subjetive measure Shanghai (anther alfa city) IMHO would be better choice than Singapore. After addition of Shanghai we would have two cities from maindland and mainland has about 2,5 more population than whole SouthEast Asia along with Indonesia. It is no surprising Shanghai is regular candidate for that level given Shanghai, New York and Tokyo are the only "at least Alpha" citis with larger population than Australia but adding Shanghai without swap with Singapore would be rather insane (we rejected overlap beetwen Morocco and Algeria even though famous people like Ibn Battuta and Augustine of Hippo were born in Maghreb). I think Singapore is simply the weakest city on this list not only due to small population but also due to small history. In terms of econoics Tiger Cub Economies in the past had comparable sinificance what four Asian tigers: [41] especially due to population. After addition of Malyasia we also somewhat can cover Malaysians who live in Singapore and constain there somewhat about 15% of that population. It gous without saying Malyasia as country which is vital just as Peru is more vital than Singapore in 2050 (proffesional raport), this will be one of the most infuential countries by PPP.

Support
  1. As nom Dawid2009 (talk) 18:13, 27 November 2021 (UTC)
  2. Weak support removal per above; Singapore is a major world city, and the world's only remaining secular city-state, a form of government that was once ubiquitous, but I think now that we have Malaysia (which I personally opposed) it's somewhat redundant. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 20:05, 27 November 2021 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Oppose addition I don't think we need any more countries, and will oppose adding any more geography before California. We also already list Andean civilizations. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 20:05, 27 November 2021 (UTC)
  2. Oppose. I think Singapore is more vital, and I really don't think we have room for any more countries on this list. Rreagan007 (talk) 19:15, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
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Swap: remove Singapore, add Shanghai

FAILED
Swap 1-1, removal 2-2, addition 0-3. --Thi (talk) 18:20, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

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My alternate proposal if swap Singapore with Peru would be fail. I wrote above why I think why Shanghai can be potentially better choice for that list than Singapore if we have already Jakarta for South-East Asia and such small space at this level but Shanghai is one of three "alt least alfa" metropolie in the world which has more population than Australia on its own. I think Bejing and Hong Kong due to longer history and bigger population are slightly better choies for that list than Singapore. Bejing is considered as "cultural capital of China" and one of first non-European cities which reeach significant milestones in population through history (1 mln population, 2 mln population etc.).

Support
  1. Support removal As nom Dawid2009 (talk) 18:13, 27 November 2021 (UTC)
  2. Weak support removal per above. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 20:05, 27 November 2021 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Oppose addition I don't think we need any more cities; if we did, I would rather add Baghdad (yes, even above Iraq), Bangkok, or Berlin than a third Chinese city. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 20:05, 27 November 2021 (UTC)
  2. Oppose Hong Kong, Shanghai and Singapore all share a similar history: colonial trading ports that became major international financial centres. We list the two whose economic development occurred earlier as part of the Four Asian Tigers, and which have the more unique political histories. Yes, it is unfortunate that we do not list big and famous cities like Berlin or Buenos Aires or Seoul or Shanghai, or powerful subnational economies like California; but our coverage of geography as a whole is better served by listing topics such as Ukraine, Colombia, Singapore, Taiwan, and the Caribbean, than by listing topics whose parent countries are already well represented on the list. Again, this is the difference between finding a good set of 1000 vital articles and trying to find the 1000 most vital articles. Having a well-balanced mix of topics is more important than covering each of the X largest cities or each of the X largest economies or each of the X most famous people. One cannot just compare the relative importance of two topics in isolation; one has to look at which fits better in the context of everything else that is on the list. Is Shanghai the single most vital China-related topic not listed? Ahead of Yellow River or Zhou dynasty? How about topics not specifically focused on China but highly relevant to what it is today, such as sustainable development, freedom of speech, social media, etc.? Cobblet (talk) 18:11, 1 December 2021 (UTC)
    We already have Bejing ahead of Shanghai by not regarding population. Regardless of that, like having all three (in alphabetical order: Bejing, Hong Kong, Singapore) ahead of Shanghai is consistent if we choose Sauo Paulo ahead of Rio de Janerio (Shanghai is alpha+ city, Sauo Paulo alpha- city)? If having the biggest metropolia in American is so important then why not bigger, and the largest country in Central Asia (Uzbekistan), which has more popualtion than Australia and is not covered by Brazil (like Sauo Paulo)? You are saying "Ukraine, Colombia, Singapore, Taiwan, and the Caribbean, than by listing topics whose parent countries are already well represented on the list... but you probably do not want list more African countries other than Ghana. FWIW Seyschelles as one of smallest countries from Africa gets more than two times more pageviews than Sauo Paulo, of course I do not mean by that that we should now be adding Seyschelles to the list, but I those few which are with huge population could be added if nomintation to removal of the Netherlands and Singapore would fail (Africa is not only second largest continent by population, but also the biggest by number of countries). The only two other than Ghana, which I would support (as long as we have cities like Singapore or Sauo Paulo) are Uganda, and Morocco. To reffer your comment: "it is unfortunate that we do not list big and famous cities like Berlin or Buenos Aires or Seoul or Shanghai", I think Berlin was worse proposal than Colorado and I would prefer list capital of European Union or capital of African Union for that matter, IMHO Berling does not meets criteria "top of representative field/uniquess" as in Germany there is not so single outstanging city but rather multiple dominant. Dawid2009 (talk) 22:54, 1 December 2021 (UTC)
  3. Oppose. With Beijing and Hong Kong, China already has enough cities on this list. Rreagan007 (talk) 19:15, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
Disuss all proposals (Singapore, Peru, Shanghai)
Extended content

World has about 7.9 bln of population but India and China combinetly cover about 1/3 of world's population so without these two superior countries there are 5.2 mln of people who live on the earth. Proportional distribution of countries by purely "population measure" from the level 4 to the level 3 without India and China would be in following way (population should not be considered as the only factor but always can be helpful to analyse):

  • Africa: Should be 10, currently 7 (Algeria, Congo DRC, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa)
  • Americas: Should be 8, currently 6-7 (Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Mexico, USA and debatedly Carribean add representation to that list)
  • Whole Asia without India and China: Should be 14, currently 13 (I said "without India and China", so without Hong Kong and other Category:Chinese-speaking countries and territories we also have: Bangladesh, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, Japan, Pakista, Philipines S. Korea, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Veitnam, Turkey, United Arab Emirates)
  • Europe: Should be 6, currently 9 (France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Russia Spain, Ukraine, UK)
  • Oceania: Should be 0, currently 1 (Australia)

Per my above comment, Peru and Uzbekistan fit perfectly to coverage of our countries. Perhaps I could swap also one country from West Africa for Mansa Muse if people want to keep Netherlands and do not add biographies like Emperor Meji for that list. Dawid2009 (talk) 18:13, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

@Interstellarity and John M Wolfson:, you are the only two users who supported earlier addition of Buenos Aires for that level. What do you think that Lima as capital of Peru has larger population than Singapore, Buenos Aires but also larger than New York City (see: Largest cities in the Americas). As I said in rationale, there are also many Malyasians who live in Singapore but even without these two countries, South-East Asia is proportionally more represented than most regions in the world. If there would be consensus to keep Singapore ahead of Shanghai, and no consensus for addition of any country, then regarding my comments around and what said Cobblet here, I think we should remove at least one city from Eruope (if population is not important then by that measure Moscow is weakest, Rome had 1 mln of population in 1'st century, second city which acheved that was Baghdad in middle ages and first "European city other than Rome" with that population was London something about 200 years ago?) and one country for Europe (probably Western country: Netherlands). Europe has smaller area than South America. Perhaps it is not necesarry to analyse representation for West and East Europe separately if we do not analyse representation of cities in South America as "East SouthAmeria vs West South America" etc. @Carlwev and Thi: You two earlier were saying that many countries are vital for that level, what do you think about my nomination of Peru? @J947: In the past you said that New Zealand can not be added ahead of Peru, what do you think about that nomination? Dawid2009 (talk) 13:22, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

  • I only supported Buenos Aires because I thought it would be improper for India to have two cities (while China arguably had only one back when Hong Kong was somewhat independent) and it once rivaled NYC in the early 20th century. Similarly, my opposition to Shanghai is in large part because it would give China three cities on this list whereas India would have only two and the US only one. I don't see the need for any more geography in any event. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 15:33, 23 December 2021 (UTC)
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Updating our FAQ

Latest comment: 2 years ago8 comments5 people in discussion

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I see that our FAQ hasn't been updated in a while. I was hoping in this discussion, we could discuss what changes we can make to the FAQ and how we can fix them as most of the changes made to the FAQ were without seeking a consensus on the talk page. Interstellarity (talk) 00:23, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

little or nothing to do with diversity - I agree,;if this list was very strongly tailored to English sprakers then we would have Georgia (state) on the same level (or Higher) what Georgia (country). I think this list should be tailored to English sprakers but we should also use WP:common sense how far we can take that usage. Not all readers are from anglophone and even not all editors are from anglophone, yet many active editors frm anglophone do not partucilarly support it as English is global Language (for example J947 as New Zealander said that New Zealand must not be ahead of Peru). Dawid2009 (talk) 07:40, 22 January 2022 (UTC)
New Zealand should not be on this list or even the Meta list; it has fewer people than New York City, has little economic, historic, cultural, or geopolitical significance to the wider world, is often left off world maps altogether, and is "famous for its irrelevance". Including it would be laughable but for bare-naked Anglocentric bias (you might as well also be listing Wales and Falkland Islands), but not including it is not necessarily actively avoiding such bias. A better example of a genuine contender for this list that is also arguably Anglo/Americentric bias is my hobby horse California; while the reason it's actually been excluded over the years despite its giant economy and cultural relevance is because it's a subnational entity, one could also make the argument that including it would be redundant to the US and subject to Americentric bias, especially in comparison with other worldwide peripheral subnational entities such as Tamil Nadu and Minas Gerais. I happen to strongly disagree with that argument (among many other arguments, if we're talking only about "redundancy", New York City is technically "more redundant" to the US as a whole as its arguable "historic birthplace" and center than the peripheral California, but I'm by no means advocating for its removal), but it is a valid good-faith one, and excluding California is probably a prime example of an otherwise-great entry being turned down due to diversity concerns. Same with Berlin and arguably Shanghai, etc. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 15:47, 22 January 2022 (UTC)
I agree that they are somewhat contradictory, but I don't know how we could make these lists not be tailored to the English Wikipedia even if we tried, since almost everyone working on these lists are primarily (or exclusively) English speakers. Nor do I think it would be good for us to even try to not make these lists not be tailored to the English Wikipedia, as these lists would then just be duplicative of the Meta lists that are supposed to be for all language Wikipedias. Rreagan007 (talk) 01:22, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
It is very demonstrably not the case that "everyone" working on these lists is primarily an English speaker. Cobblet (talk) 02:43, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
Fine, I changed it for you to "almost everyone". Regardless, every language Wikipedia can have their own lists tailored to their specific language, as some already do, and there is the universal Meta list. I see no good reason to make the English Wikipedia list to be a universal list. Rreagan007 (talk) 03:43, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
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Remove Henry Ford

Latest comment: 2 years ago6 comments6 people in discussion
FAILED
2-3, not removed. --Thi (talk) 18:25, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

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A contentious nomination, I'm sure. My reasoning is as follows: When we only have one person of a specific field of human endeavor, we are signalling that such a person is the most important of all others who have likewise worked in that field. I don't think that's the case for Ford. Don't get me wrong, his modernization of the assembly line was absolutely revolutionary, but what sets him above John D. Rockefeller, Jakob Fugger, Steve Jobs, Coco Chanel, Andrew Carnegie, or any other of history's famous businesspeople? He's not the undisputed great of business or capitalism; I think Rockefeller is more known for that. Ford standing above everyone else in his category, especially people who have an equal claim to fame as him, throws off the balance of this list. The solution, therefore, is either (1) to give Ford a companion on this list or (2) to remove Ford and level the field as far as businesspeople are concerned. We've tried the former numerous times (Rockefeller, Carnegie, and J. P. Morgan have all been nominated--and all failed), so I thought I'd give the latter a go.

Support
  1. Support as nom Zelkia1101 (talk) 01:44, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
  2. Support per nom. -- Maykii (talk) 14:04, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Oppose I disagree per previous discussions. Dawid2009 (talk) 08:02, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
  2. I prefer the former of the two proposed options, but Rockefeller and Carnegie are currently subject to the moratorium; I think having one businessperson is better than having none given the immense impact businesspeople have had on our society in the modern era (the "commie crapola" of other users who deny that influence notwithstanding) and that our paucity of covering business and companies is a prominent blind spot of this list. As Cobblet said earlier, if we really need another businessperson this bad, we can move Thomas Edison and Walt Disney from inventors/filmmakers to businesspeople (and arguably also have Mansa Musa to also display wealth), and will probably shuttle Elon Musk up here if/when he finally gets people to Mars for good.
    Notwithstanding all that, the rise of the automobile, which was almost all Henry Ford's doing (in 1914, 90 percent of all cars were Fords), is one of the several factors that essentially distinguished the 20th century from the 19th, leading to the decline of horses and the railroad and amplifying the market of petroleum, among the wide changes in American and western culture. Unless we are swapping Ford himself for something else about automotive history (not just car and internal combustion engine) like General Motors, this is a no-go in my book. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 14:43, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
  3. Oppose. I disagree with a straight up removal of Ford. If there is a businessman that is more vital than Ford, then propose a swap and make your case. Rreagan007 (talk) 22:53, 25 January 2022 (UTC)
Discuss
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Swap: remove Trade Union, add Voluntary association

Latest comment: 2 years ago7 comments5 people in discussion
FAILED
Swap 1-1, removal 2-3, addition 1-2. --Thi (talk) 18:30, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

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Proposal to swap specific concept with wider one.

Support
  1. As nom. Dawid2009 (talk) 14:22, 26 January 2022 (UTC)
  2. Support Removal -- Maykii (talk) 15:13, 26 January 2022 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Oppose Addition -- Maykii (talk) 15:13, 26 January 2022 (UTC)
  2. Oppose removal Organized labor has been a prominent force in the history of the past century and a half; in Britain, for example, it led to Labour finally toppling the Libs in the 1920s. It has resulted in better working conditions and higher wages, among other things. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 15:29, 26 January 2022 (UTC)
  3. Oppose removal per John M Wolfson. Historically important. --Thi (talk) 19:30, 27 January 2022 (UTC)
  4. Oppose. This doesn't seem like a good swap to me either way. Trade union is a more vital article to list than voluntary association. Rreagan007 (talk) 18:07, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
Discuss
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RfC re: is addiction a "biopsychosocial disorder" or a "brain disorder"?

Latest comment: 2 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

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New RfC on the talk page for the article, Addiction: RfC re: is addiction a "biopsychosocial disorder" or a "brain disorder"?

Note: This WikiProject is listed on the talk page for the article. If this notice is not appropriate for this talk page, please remove. Thank you. Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) [he/him] 22:36, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

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Irony

Latest comment: 2 years ago7 comments5 people in discussion

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I think we spent too much time finding what topics is vital, rather than improving it. The table speaks. Here's my proposal:

  1. Encourage editors improving Vital articles instead of constantly swapping them;
  2. Create resources on dealing with broad topic articles; and
  3. Make some sort of awards for those who do the work and get them to GA/FA. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 05:10, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
  • Making/swapping a list is much easier than actually working on articles, so it'll always be the main activity here. The other two ideas, however, are not that bad, though I think stuff like the Million Award (for widely-viewed articles) already exists. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 13:27, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
  • I agree, and I find myself spending most of my energy here trying to prevent the list from getting worse. Out of curiosity, how do the people who make the most proposals here actually feel about the quality of the list? If I gave it a letter grade I'd give it a B, which is better than the grade I'd give Wikipedia in general, and why I make few suggestions for further improvement these days. Cobblet (talk) 16:51, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
    • I feel like the lists have been steadily improving over time. I'd probably give the current 1,000 list a B+. Rreagan007 (talk) 02:48, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
    • I'd give it a B+/A-. I think the mass bio-trimming was a net benefit, although I'm still dubious about how many domesticated animals we added in their place. There are a few blind spots IMO, especially with business, but as in any communal setting that is to be expected. A part of my motivation in making proposals is to keep the discussion here from going stale like levels 1 and 2 (not that the former needs much discussion, but still). – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 16:15, 11 February 2022 (UTC)
    • I'm not a major participant, but to your comment about preventing things from getting worse, I think that's just the nature of the wiki. I know I've seen major edits of mine superseded by ones I didn't like, and even some I thought were objectively wrong or misleading. If it's any comfort though, even as a more migratory editor, I've never seen an article regress all the way to how I first found it. Zar2gar1 (talk) 17:21, 19 February 2022 (UTC)
  • As someone that's participated in the lists on & off the past couple years, I actually like adding resources / spin-off projects for these ideas. I wouldn't actively discourage people from participating in the sorting process though; even if it sometimes seems like needless churn, I'd look at it more as... "providing liquidity" to the encyclopedia's organization process. I think the long-term participants have their own vision for the lists too, but in my case, both the list and my participation in proposals definitely led me to major changes on more visible articles than I probably would otherwise. Zar2gar1 (talk) 17:21, 19 February 2022 (UTC)
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swap arts, add religion

Latest comment: 2 years ago2 comments1 person in discussion
ALREADY IN THE LIST
already in the list

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Religion is before the philosophy and animals such as primates worship ídols based in pre-historic and traditional animism. Evangelistão (talk) 19:06, 5 March 2022 (UTC)

Support
Oppose
Discurssion — Preceding unsigned comment added by Evangelistão (talk • contribs) 03:13, 6 March 2022 (UTC)
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Swap: Remove bronze and steel, add operating system and programming language

Latest comment: 2 years ago5 comments4 people in discussion
NOT SWAPPED
Proposal failed

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I know the removals are a stretch, but we already list the respective copper and iron, and already list alloy. Bronze and brass are quite similar to one another, and the terms are increasingly being supplanted by copper alloy; while I agree bronze's historical significance is enormous, we do list Bronze Age. As for steel, I am no stranger to skyscrapers and modern infrastructure, but steel as opposed to pure iron is a comparatively recent development.

As for the additions, we list computer hardware relatively well but not computer software. It doesn't appear that World Wide Web is getting anywhere due to its overlap with internet, but operating system and programming language are essential parts of computing. Everyone knows the difference between Mac and Windows, and some even know Linux/Unix/etc. As for programming language, one could also argue for listing computer programming, but I feel that the concept of a programming language is more "usefully specific" with examples of how programming is actually done. Programming languages have been crucial to the development of modern software, and if we had quite a bit more space I would suggest adding C alone due to its prominence in the field. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 17:25, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Support
  1. As nom. At the very least I support the additions, but we're already one over quota so they cannot be raw. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 17:25, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Oppose If bronze and steel are redundant with copper and iron then semiconductor device is redundant with silicon, and if steel is recent then semiconductors are even more recent. Bronze and steel are inventions that define technological eras; they should be at the same level of importance as semiconductor devices. I'd suggest swapping jet engine for programming language, and do not think we have room for OSs. Cobblet (talk) 17:50, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
  2. Oppose Too basic metals. --Thi (talk) 15:42, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
  3. Oppose Operating system OSes are essential to modern day computer but too far removed from modern day internet-based application which are mostly OS-independent. C933103 (talk) 16:10, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
Discuss
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Swap: Remove Singapore, add Baghdad

Latest comment: 2 years ago12 comments8 people in discussion
NOT SWAPPED
Failed

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This might be somewhat controversial, but hear me out. Since the addition of Malaysia, we more than adequately cover Southeast Asia, and as a city Singapore is redundant to Hong Kong in its Asian Tiger-ness and financial markets (not to mention redundancy with London and New York for the latter), and much of East Asia is also "Disneyland with the death penalty", so Singapore is not unique in that respect either. For cities in particular for the area, we list Jakarta and can arguably add Bangkok.

As for Baghdad, there appears to be a distinct lack of consensus to add Iraq, largely because we already list Mesopotamia and Sumer, as well as Middle East for post-classical Iraq. I do, however, think that Baghdad should be listed on its own. It was the second city in world history to reach a million people, and remains if I am not mistaken the only one of the first five such cities (alongside Rome, Beijing, London, and Paris) that we do not list. In its heyday it was a, if not the, center of the Islamic Golden Age, and to this day remains the second-largest city in the Arab world after the listed Cairo. In addition to Mesopotamia we list Sumer for the Euphrates/South, and I think it would be appropriate to balance that out with Baghdad for the Tigris/North. A somewhat reasonable objection to adding Baghdad would be a reluctance to list a city above its country, but this can be countered by the fact that we already list Singapore in the city section rather than the country section, meaning that Singapore the city is more vital than Singapore the country, not to mention that Baghdad predates the modern country of Iraq by several centuries. A better counterargument would be that we already list Cairo, Jerusalem, and Mecca for the Middle East, but the latter two are listed only for religious reasons, and it appears that the Middle East is due for a second secular city. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 00:42, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

Support
  1. As nom. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 00:42, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
  2. Having overlap "Malyasia and Singapore" but not say "Morocco and Algeria" or Peru or Iran strike me a lot.. South-east Asia historically is not quite vital as those countries from that region never had famous personality like say Battuta or Augustine of Hippo who was born where today is Algeria. Also, if Singapore was country from Africa then that would be 37-th by population not mention to fat many Malyasians also live in Singapore, meanwhiule we compromise only 8 countries from Africa. Dawid2009 (talk) 13:37, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Oppose Firstly, we already list four Middle Eastern cities – you're forgetting Istanbul. Listing a second Southeast Asian city is more reasonable than listing a fifth Middle Eastern city. Moreover, Baghdad is certainly not the only historical million-plus city we don't list. Nanjing reached a million people in the 6th century,[42] Chang'an in the 8th century,[43] Kaifeng in the 10th century, [44] and Hangzhou in the 13th century.[45] (See also List of largest cities throughout history.) Nobody would consider listing any of those cities ahead of Singapore (or Shanghai, for that matter). It's also worth noting Riyadh is probably a little larger than Baghdad nowadays.[46] In the Middle East (but not in the Arab world), present-day Tehran is also significantly larger than Baghdad. Cobblet (talk) 15:23, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
  2. Oppose per all of the above. Plus Singapore is not just a city: sovereign state, UN member, etc. UnitedStatesian (talk) 15:45, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
  3. Oppose Singapore is a state and one of the world's strongest economies. --Thi (talk) 16:00, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
  4. Oppozr I know this isn't the be all and end all, but Singapore is listed by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network as an "alpha +" global city, the second highest category, and they rank it one of the 9 most important global cities in the world. I guess Baghdad has more history behind it, but in terms of contemporary importance I think Singapore merits its place.  — Amakuru (talk) 22:40, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
  5. Oppose. What they said. Singapore is too important not to be listed here. Rreagan007 (talk) 02:49, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
Discuss

John M Wolfson, according to this stats first cities which raised 1 mln people were: 1 Rome (in 2nd century), 2Bahdad (in 10th century) and Bejing (18th century). Singapore and United Emirates 100 years ago probably had less population than Alexandria in ancient era, I assume. Dawid2009 (talk) 13:50, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

Without prejudice to the rest of the opposing arguments, I'll note that Singapore's status as a country actually strengthens the case for its removal as it is redundant in that respect to Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 22:31, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

If the purpose is for its historical importance, I think the article to be added should be Babylon instead of Baghdad. C933103 (talk) 15:29, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

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Swap: Remove Olympic Games, add Sadness Walking

Latest comment: 2 years ago4 comments3 people in discussion
WITHDRAWN
Removal proposal re-submitted

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With all the scandals and disappointment over arrangement of multiple Olympic Games over the past decade, with incidence like corruption and collaboration on human right abuse, and its choice of sports being unable to reflect a global audience demand hence facing a decline in viewership, I think the Olympic Games have lost its symbolic value as "the" sports event to attend and to watch. As thus I propose the Olympic Games be removed from the list of article, and be replaced with the emotion of sadness which is an important human emotion currently missing from the list. walking, a fundamental way of human movement, which is also a sport, and have special significance to human civilization. C933103 (talk) 13:10, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

Support
  1. Nom.
  2. Support removal per nom. [47] --Thi (talk) 14:15, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
Oppose
Discuss
  • I actually somewhat agree that the Olympics isn't what it used to be, and arguably hasn't been for decades. That said, any swap would have to be replaced by a sport and not something entirely unrelated; Baseball would be my pick, but Basketball is okay too and almost has consensus above. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 14:18, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
    How about walking? It can be said as a sport, and especially on two legs, it is also unique in the development of human civilization as it free up our front arms for the use of tool, and it is also a unique way of movement for humanity. But then, sadness as an important emotion is just as vital as other emotional articles on the list now. C933103 (talk) 15:22, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
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Proposal adding an article about Middle East to Modern History section

Latest comment: 2 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion
DISCUSSION CONCLUDED
Oil war identified as possible article of addition

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Following the end of Ottoman Empire and then the end of WWII, many of the conflicts in the Middle East area have widespread influence and changed the world forever. For example, the Arabic-Israel conflict which led to multiple large scale war, and a global disruption of logistic network and energy supply due to Arabic countries exerting influence against developed countries, that make the world become more conscious of energy supply security; Iranian revolution, Gulf War, which lead to some sort of Anti-Western sentiment that developed into terrorist attacks marked by 9-11 plane crashing, and then the subsequent revolutions among Arabic countries after the Global Financial Crisis of 2007-2008, which is then followed by a series of wars as well as the development and growth of organization like ISIS which again constitute a threat against secular countries and theocratic countries across the whole world, which also resulted in great change in politics and foreign policies across the whole time. And not to be forgotten is that in each of these conflicts there are many people who would be dislocated and have to move away, changing the world around them.

But problem is, I cannot find a single Wikipedia article that can be said as covering this entire course of history sufficiently that can be listed as a vital article, and I am also not able to locate which article should be replacement target.

Any suggestions? C933103 (talk) 01:27, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

I don't think we have such an article. The closest we have to what you're looking for is perhaps List of modern conflicts in the Middle East, but we do not include lists as vital articles. History of the Middle East is listed at this level. Cobblet (talk) 07:03, 19 February 2022 (UTC)
I now think Oil war and Ethnic conflict broadly cover these wars, but it seems hard to have two additions at this level for such scope... C933103 (talk) 08:12, 7 March 2022 (UTC)
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Swap: Remove RNA, Add Prion

Latest comment: 2 years ago4 comments4 people in discussion
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Withdrawn

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Currently, the 1000 article list contain various pathogens, with the exception of prion, which have been key to a number of diseases like Alzheimer's Disease or mad cow disease. On the other hand, while RNA play an important role as carrying genetic material of viruses, as well as performing intermediate function when translating DNA through it toward proteins, both Genetics, Gene, and Virus articles on the list already covered them. Hence I think the list can be made more comprehensive by replacing RNA with Prion. C933103 (talk) 05:52, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

Support
  1. Nom.
Oppose
  1. Strong oppose Removing a fundamental component of the central dogma of molecular biology for just one aspect of neurodegenerative disease makes no sense. Cobblet (talk) 06:48, 19 February 2022 (UTC)
  2. Oppose prions are fascinating but too niche for Level 3. Gizza (talk • voy) 07:56, 19 February 2022 (UTC)
  3. Oppose I don't think that prions are that interesting for lay persons. Alzheimer's disease would be more useful topic, but it was removed. --Thi (talk) 18:12, 19 February 2022 (UTC)
Discuss
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Proposal: Add Sunny

Latest comment: 2 years ago7 comments5 people in discussion
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Withdrawn

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Currently, the list have a number of weather event. But one of the most common weather condition, sunny, is not listed. Not just it isn't being listed, but also that the page Sunny does not contain any information about such weather condition, but rather merely a disambiguation page, which none of them mentioned this weather condition. I think it is necessary to make the page "Sunny" into an article and be listed as a vital articles (Level to be added pending further consideration)C933103 (talk) 06:15, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

Support
  1. Nom.
Oppose
  1. Oppose. As a general rule we don't list disambiguation pages, only articles. Rreagan007 (talk) 22:08, 17 February 2022 (UTC)
    The proposal is first change the disambiguation page into an article, then list the article onto the list. C933103 (talk) 05:32, 18 February 2022 (UTC)
    If you want to propose changing it into an article, this isn't really the correct venue for that proposal. Rreagan007 (talk) 16:16, 18 February 2022 (UTC)
  2. Oppose The most relevant article is Sunlight. That should probably be added to level 5. Cobblet (talk) 06:43, 19 February 2022 (UTC)
  3. Oppose Thunderstorm and Lightning would be better additions. --Thi (talk) 18:12, 19 February 2022 (UTC)
Discuss

I would wonder why no wikipedian seams to have made a surviving article on this topic in all the years Wikipedia has been up. The weather articles are specific phenomena, rain and wind and snow are physical things you can write about; sunny is simply the lack of clouds in the day time. Although it feels like it's a specific kind of weather, what could you write about, nothing is actually happening, it's about it not being cloudy. Wikipedia does have an article on sunlight which I could imagine being included level 5. It may be an unfair comparison but in my head it's like suggesting silence is as important as sound, or darkness as important as light, sunny is the absence of cloud. Perhaps an article could be made, but it may be more on the human aspect of tourism or health and social benefits of sunlight or something like that, not sure it would be vital 1000 topic though.  Carlwev  21:40, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

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Swap: remove United Arab Emirates, add Iraq

Latest comment: 2 years ago13 comments7 people in discussion
FAILED
Removal 4-3, addition 1-2. --Thi (talk) 18:53, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

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For Middle East I think Iraq is more vital than United Arab Emirates which have smaller population and shorter history. Either of Mesopotania and Iraq fits if we an have Egypt and Ancient Egypt. Iraq is vital especially due to fact that always was geopolitically interesing for readers of English Wikipedia. IF addition of Taiwan was snowball then I do not see why we now can not now swap Iraq for UAE.

Support
  1. As nom. Dawid2009 (talk) 18:13, 27 November 2021 (UTC)
  2. Support removal per nom; I opposed adding UAE in the first place as I felt (and still feel) that it's too much of a "newcomer" to be sure that it won't be just a passing fancy (to be fair, that criticism applies a lot more to Dubai in particular, but it's still a slight concern for the UAE in general). – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 20:12, 27 November 2021 (UTC)
  3. Support removal The UAE is a passing thing of fancy, a rich boy's playground, a reservoir of oil, whose history and importance to the world only began roughly 50 years ago, and whose importance today does not justify its place on this list. There is no comparison between the UAE and the Netherlands, a nation whose contributions to art, history, global finance, trade, culture, etc. outstrips the UAE by orders of magnitude. Zelkia1101 (talk) 17:51, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
  4. Support removal. Not vital at this level. Rreagan007 (talk) 19:51, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Population is important yes, but it should not be the only factor. What does Iraq have other than a larger population compared to the UAE? History? Most of the vital parts of that are already covered in the history section. The UAE is a highly influential economy and has a lot of global influence and soft power, I do not see why some people here seem to think these sorts of countries like the UAE, Taiwan, Netherlands, Israel etc are somehow unimportant and want countries like Uganda and Iraq in their place. Yes these countries have more people but a countries global standing is also important in terms of vitality I believe. -- Maykii (talk) 10:43, 29 November 2021 (UTC)
  2. Oppose addition per my comments below. Yes, we do have both Ancient Egypt and Egypt and Ancient Rome and Italy, but we actively rejected Greece a while back for already having Ancient Greece, and Egypt and Italy are more vital in their modern states than Iraq IMO. We already have Mesopotamia, and Sumer covering southern Mesopotamia/the Euphrates, so I think we would be better off adding Baghdad to cover northern Mesopotamia/the Tigris (we used to have Assyria, and I semi-regret voting for its removal, but I wouldn't bring it back before Baghdad), even though I don't necessarily support that either. Regardless of all that, I still would not support adding yet another middle eastern country unless we removed Middle East itself, which Gizza has suggested above. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 17:36, 29 November 2021 (UTC)
    FWIW, I think Athens, Baghdad, Jerusalem, Mecca, Rome, and Singapore are the only cities that are more vital than their countries. With the possible exception of Singapore (on here as a city, not as a country), however, all the countries listed except for Greece and Iraq are clearly suited for here IMO. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 17:45, 29 November 2021 (UTC)
    1) Neither nor Summer and Mesopotamia suffiently cover history of that region, since middle ages, and throught whole human history (including the time since middle ages) there were plenty cities significant in that region, not only Baghdad 2) The proposal is swap, not straight addition and comprasion with Greece is rather "false anology" because of (as I pointed in plenty my essays under green collapses) Europe is overhemingly overrepresented in terms of distribution from the]] level 4, menwhile Asia still slightly underrepresented on the list. 3) As I pointed in my rationale, we list not only Eghypt along Ancient Eghypt but also [[Cair, and we have modern coverage of Israel along with many other historical topics from that region so it swap would fit, espeially if we were remove history of Middle East or Middle Easat. 4)If not swap then at least straight removal of United Arab Emirates is warrented at this level. I should point in my rationale that Iraq escatly has about 40 mln estimated population but it is not just about population, one of many factors also can be google trends (learly and evidentally better than pageviews) and there Iraq has better than United Emirates: [48], Google is not banned for countries where United Emirates are popular and Iraq is still promient in 10's on the graph but fact that United Emirates gives big recentism to the list should be reason why this country should not be ahed of either of Iraq AND Baghdad. Dawid2009 (talk) 22:37, 1 December 2021 (UTC)
  3. Oppose removal In recent years, the UAE has propped up anti-Islamist regimes in Egypt and Tunisia; intervened militarily in Libya and Yemen; led Arab normalization with Israel and Syria; and mediated between India and Pakistan on the Kashmir issue; all while continuing to serve as the major financial hub of the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia. As I pointed out in the previous discussion, these cannot be described as actions of an up and coming nation, but an established middle power. Cobblet (talk) 21:47, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
  4. Oppose removal Economically important country. --Thi (talk) 18:23, 7 March 2022 (UTC)
Discuss

In the past I supported addition of UAE it but it was purely to reach limit and find hard ways to finally remove not vital writers from that list. Dawid2009 (talk) 18:13, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

I'll still have to think about the addition. We already list both Mesopotamia and Sumer, as well as Middle East and Iran. I would prefer adding Baghdad; it was the world's largest city for quite a while and a center of the Islamic Golden Age, and given that modern-day "Iraq" dates only to the 20th century I am unimpressed by arguments that we can't list a city without listing its country. (I would prefer adding Athens over Greece for similar reasons; I'm also unwilling to add any more geography before California, but this is the most plausible break in that rule.) – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 20:12, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

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Add Basketball and James Naismith

Latest comment: 2 years ago16 comments11 people in discussion
FAILED
Basketball 5-5, Naismith 1-9. --Thi (talk) 18:57, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

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Basketball probably fits to this level per disussion about Baseball. There are 32 countries who can participate in basketball world cup (the same number what for soccer) and yet basketball lately has been the most important sport in China. Frankly as nominator I doubt James Naismith relatively has big chances to pass especially after so many cuts which we made (there are not 200 people on the list but 100) but it is disapointing for me how founders of sports are underrated in that projet on all levels so I am curious what feedback could James Naismith get as nomination for that level. If we would ever list any sportpeople at this level (what is not likely but would be more likely in next 50 years) then James Naismith would be absoluetly number one. There were two sport personalities nominated for that level so far (Pele and Bruce Lee). Pele was rejected as we do not need living people and nomination of Bruce Lee was failed with 1-13 score, both of them have far worse ranking on list "1000 years, 1000 people" than Naismith. Naismith in that list also surpassed some people who are listed on our list of ~~110 people, and surpassed those regular candidates from other not represenrd modern fields (fashion/medicine/acting/astronauts etc.). Actually this ranking looks in following way: # 293 James Naismith, #314 for Jonas Salk (I am talking about it because of we have Hippocrathes but we do nit have modern medicine ton the list), # 322 for Louis Armstrong (we already have Jazz), # 327 for Paul McCartney, # 328 John Lennon, # 354 for Nelson Mandela, # 442 for Turing, # 446 for Louis Lumière (suggest add him to the level 5, just as we have Jacob Grimm there), # 494 for Disney, # 514 for Hokusai, #549 Ibn Khaldun # 567 for Rumi, # 795 for Chaplin, # 840 for Pele, # 897 for Tagore, # 972 for Coco Channel, # 997 for Marilyn Monroe, # N/A for Mansa Musa, N/A for Ronald Amundsen (instead Ronald Amundsen there are astronauts with worse rank than NAismith: # 449 for Gagarin, # 696 for Neil Armstrong. BTW Goddard is 178, meanwhile Korolev and Thereskova are out of the list), # "N/A" for Brue Lee, # N/A for Zheng He, #N/A for Michael Jackson, #N/A for Shen Quo, N/A for Antoine Lavoiser, N/A for Dimitri Mendeleev, N/A for Nikola Tesla, N/A for Euler, N/A for Neother, N/A for Godel, # N/A for Micheleangelo (?), N/A for Kahlo. Dawid2009 (talk) 18:42, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Support
  1. [nom]
  2. Support Basketball would rather add baseball due to history, but basketball is better than no American sport IMO. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 19:17, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
  3. Support Basketball popular sport played across the world, would rather this added than baseball but I'm fine with both. -- Maykii (talk) 22:28, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
  4. Just add basketball.--RekishiEJ (talk) 11:15, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
  5. Support basketball. Rreagan007 (talk) 23:30, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Oppose Naismith If we're adding sports figures Babe Ruth and arguably Don Bradman would have to come first. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 19:17, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
  2. Strong oppose both If we were ever going to add an America-specific sport, which I don’t believe is necessary in the first place, it would have to be baseball and definitely not basketball. Baseball is far more culturally and historically important. As for Naismith, his presence even on the level 4 list is dubious. Certainly the most dubious proposed addition since Chomsky was brought up some time ago. Zelkia1101 (talk) 19:42, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
  3. Oppose per above. --Thi (talk) 20:26, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
  4. Oppose Naismith Didn't even know who he was until I saw this, don't think he is important enough at all for this level. -- Maykii (talk)
  5. Oppose Naismith If Cai Lun can not be added (He had been nominated for addition twice, cf. /Archive 12 & /Archive 15, yet each of them failed), then why Naismith must be added? In the view of world history, the latter was no doubt much less vital than the former.--RekishiEJ (talk) 11:15, 14 January 2022 (UTC) Clarified a bit and used two piped links 09:13, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
  6. Oppose Naismith. Definitely not the most important sports figure to list. Rreagan007 (talk) 23:11, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
  7. Oppose both Cobblet (talk) 13:18, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
  8. Oppose both per above and discussion. Gizza (talk • voy) 02:53, 1 March 2022 (UTC)
  9. Oppose both Naismith probably shouldn't even be on the WP:VA4 list. Basketball ... is a plausible addition, but I object for procedural reasons. Maybe if they cancel the Olympics we can add basketball as a swap. User:力 (powera, π, ν) 18:08, 19 March 2022 (UTC)
Discuss

@C933103: Here's the basketball discussion if you'd like to weigh in on it. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 17:01, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

Basketball is indeed a very significant sport in countries like the US and China, but US and China and some other countries is still not quite global. Of all the entries in Wikipedia:Vital_articles/Level/4/Everyday_life#Sports_and_recreation_(210_articles), I think the like of party or puzzle are probably more important than basketball. C933103 (talk) 17:46, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
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Add Lata Mangeshkar

Latest comment: 2 years ago13 comments8 people in discussion
FAILED
1-3, not added. --Thi (talk) 15:11, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

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I nominated this before when she was still alive, but since she recently died, the no living person rule is not violated. I think having a non-Western musician like we do with Frida Kahlo and Hokusai for the arts would give fine representation to non-Western kinds of music. Interstellarity (talk) 00:23, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

Support
  1. Interstellarity (talk) 00:24, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Oppose straight addition or swap with biography other than Tagore. No comment on swap with Tagore but probably would support removal of Tagore. Dawid2009 (talk) 09:40, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
  2. I do have a problem with timing; although I don't know when will be appropriate since we (rightfully) list Michael Jackson, I know it when I see it and would give it at least a couple of months. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 14:16, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
  3. Oppose I think we can do without any musicians on this list (much like we do without any sportspeople). If we do add another musician, it certainly won't be someone with zero name recognition in the United States. Maybe BTS. User:力 (powera, π, ν) 18:06, 19 March 2022 (UTC)
Neutral
Discussion

Isn't this a bit too soon? -- Maykii (talk) 00:29, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

In my opinion, no. I think Mangeshkar's impact on Indian music will last a long time. The most recent individual we have listed that died is Nelson Mandela who died in 2013. We could also discuss how long after a person's death is reasonable for a person to be listed of which I have no opinion, but if others would like to weigh in, that would be great. Interstellarity (talk) 00:53, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

While I support her addition to the list, I do think it's a little too soon (after all, it has only been a day or so since she died). With that said, if others have no problem with the timing, count this as a Support. INDT (talk) 05:33, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

I do support this in principle. If space is a concern or people feel that two modern Indians in artistic fields is not warranted then I would support swapping Lata Mangeshkar in for Rabindranath Tagore as I believe she is slightly ahead of him. There's an element of overlap between them, Tagore being a composer in addition to writer. There's even some overlap between Tagore and Gandhi as they lived in the same generation and Tagore was also an independence activist, though not what he was primarily known for. Gizza (talk • voy) 08:26, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
@INDT: If you think this is too soon, how long do you think an article should be considered for addition after someone has died, in your opinion? Interstellarity (talk) 11:32, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
I think John M Wolfson said it better than I could have: it's an "I'll know it when I see it" situation. Also, checking the archives, it seems Nelson Mandela was added when he was still alive (although that was no longer the case 6 days after the discussion closed).
While not an exact answer, I think it should be long enough that the timing can't be reasonably (well, relatively reasonably) perceived as being primarily due to the person's death (even if that's not why an article is nominated), if that makes sense. INDT (talk) 14:48, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
Regarding Mandela, that was 2013, so customs and mores could have shifted during that time. Also, Mandela's global impact was orders of magnitude greater than Mangeshkar (or arguably Shakespeare, for that matter), so a reasonable IAR case could be made for a living addition, possibly like Elon Musk if/when he gets us to Mars. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 16:59, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
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Swap: Remove Social class, add Social structure

Latest comment: 2 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion
NO CONSENSUS
1-1. --Thi (talk) 15:12, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

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Social classes is just one of the many way to view the structure of a society, hence I think it make more sense for the vital article on this topic to be for social structure as an overview article instead of specifically on social classes C933103 (talk) 13:31, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

Support
  1. Nom.
Oppose
  1. Oppose Too abstract concept for this level. --Thi (talk) 13:59, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
Discuss
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Swap: Remove Old Age, add Ageing Sadness

Latest comment: 2 years ago6 comments2 people in discussion
NO CONSENSUS
1-1. --Thi (talk) 15:13, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

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I think it make more sense to cover the phenomenon, effect, and different stage in lie of ageing, by the article of ageing itself, instead of multiple different life stages? C933103 (talk) 13:31, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

I have just discovered that the article ageing is already on the vital article list, which should be more than enough to cover the life stage of Old Age. Hence, I suggest it to be replaced by an important emotion that's still missing from the vital article list, sadness. C933103 (talk) 15:50, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

Support
  1. Support [nominator]
Oppose
  1. Oppose I think that both social and biological aspect of old age are important, see Gerontology. I think sadness is considered more private emotion than happiness or fear, which are common themes in social ethics (pursuit of happiness, eudaimonia, war, xenophobia). Major depressive disorder is common problem in modern societies. --Thi (talk) 16:03, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
    I would think the article on aging should cover both aspects, although apparently it didn't do so fully. On the other hand, the article of "Old Age" simply spend a great length describing how to define old age. C933103 (talk) 16:26, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
    As for sadness, it is indeed a more inward emotion compares to anger being an outward emotion, but their impact on mental health of individuals, or even entire society, shouldn't be underestimated. C933103 (talk) 16:29, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
Discuss
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Add Chicago and Los Angeles

Latest comment: 2 years ago8 comments6 people in discussion
FAILED
1-3, not added. --Thi (talk) 15:14, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

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I think it's slightly odd that China and India have two cities apiece whereas the US only has one. I believe the main reason for that is that there isn't quite a definitive trans-Hudsonian city to place on here. Chicago and Washington, D.C., were on early versions of this list, and Los Angeles is certainly a contender, but the three of them seem to have to duke it out for a slot on here without any definitive conclusion. I think it's safe to say that D.C. is the classic example of a "mere seat of government" that doesn't belong on this list any more than Brasilia, the Hague, or, most illustrative of the point, Bonn during the West German years. As for the other two, I'll make the modest proposal that both be included on here. Both are alpha world cities with top-ten world economies and 200+ interwikis, and both are on WikiProject Cities's core list of 50 cities.

Chicago went from being a frontier outpost of 50 to the world's fourth-largest city in a human lifetime. It is also generally (albeit not quite indisputably) considered the birthplace of the skyscraper, starting an architectural legacy that continued with Sullivan, Wright, Mies van der Rohe, and even to the modern day with Skidmore, Owings & Merrill designing the Burj Khalifa. This is not to mention its economy, both historically as the "Hog Butcher of the World" and in the modern day as the headquarters of McDonald's and Boeing and the site of O'Hare International Airport.

Los Angeles has both Hollywood and much of the private space industry, including SpaceX until recently and the Jet Propulison Laboratory. For full disclosure, I would much rather add California as a whole than LA in particular; unlike NYC and Chicago, which essentially "are" New York state and Illinois for the intents and purposes of this list (sorry, Buffalo and Peoria), California has a lot more to offer than LA, including both in human geography as Silicon Valley and San Diego and in physical geography with such natural wonders as Death Valley, the Redwoods, and Mount Whitney; it should be a slam-dunk, but VA regulars are a fickle bunch and it has been rejected twice recently. As such, having LA, with its pop-culture influence and economy, is better than listing nothing on the US West Coast.

I am aware that it might be unfair giving the US three cities while China and India have only two. This is fair enough; if this passes (which I'm not particularly expecting given our being one over quota currently, notwithstanding my possible biases), I could see adding Shanghai to even out the score, as well as St. Petersburg from Russia. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 18:06, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

Support
  1. As nom. Do note that I'm supporting this as a "both-or-neither" measure; if only one of these gets consensus, count this as an active oppose of the other. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 18:06, 13 February 2022 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Oppose We did not agree to leave Shanghai, Seoul, and Dubai (all top 10 economies and/or Alpha/Alpha+ world cities) off the list so that we could add more American cities. Suggesting that we add more cities to "even out the score" (apart from the ones I just mentioned, I'd also add Rio de Janeiro and Osaka before St. Petersburg) is disingenuous when we have no room to add any more articles to begin with. What happened to your opinion that "I don't see the need for any more geography in any event"? Also this perpetual whining about California is getting tedious, and I say that as someone who used to lived there. (Calling Mount Whitney a natural wonder is particularly absurd. It's a nice day hike, nothing more.) Cobblet (talk) 18:56, 13 February 2022 (UTC)
  2. Oppose Chicago is not so important culturally, New York is more famous as skyscraper city. New York is a symbol and gateway of America and Rio de Janeiro has quite similar status, so Rio should be added first. --Thi (talk) 18:06, 19 February 2022 (UTC)
  3. I think it's slightly odd that China and India have two cities apiece whereas the US only has one China and India both have over twice the population of the United States. The next "United States geography" article to add to the list probably should be California, as others have hinted. And with the current quota math, California is the first article to miss the cut. User:力 (powera, π, ν) 18:04, 19 March 2022 (UTC)
Discuss

Why not propose adding California directly instead then? And Texas.C933103 (talk) 00:02, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

I would definietly put California ahead of Singapore but I would still put Peru ahead of California and even UAE. Dawid2009 (talk) 13:16, 15 February 2022 (UTC)
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Remove International Monetary Fund, World Health Organization, and World Trade Organization

Latest comment: 2 years ago13 comments7 people in discussion
ENTRIES REMOVED
Proposal passed

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Per discussion above, only the UN is vital at this level. Interstellarity (talk) 15:38, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

Support
  1. Interstellarity (talk) 15:38, 3 March 2022 (UTC)
  2. Support Not top entries in this concept hierarchy. --Thi (talk) 16:30, 3 March 2022 (UTC)
  3. Support As UN agencies go, I'd consider the WHO less important than the World Food Programme. The World Bank is at least as important as the IMF and WTO, and the roles of these organizations are all covered to an extent by globalization. I would rather list an article like economic inequality (despite the presence of social equality) before listing these specific agencies. Cobblet (talk) 18:03, 3 March 2022 (UTC)
  4. Conditional Support,
    1. If WTO is to be replaced by Free trade (The more general concept of global trade liberalization), and/or
    2. If IMF be replaced by Oil war (Dominant form of conflict in 20th-21st century around the world outside WWI, WWII, Cold War. Especially in Middle East and Latin America area. The Pacific theater of WWII can also be said as a form of oil war.), and
    3. Unconditional support for removal of WHO, and suggest missile as a weapon should be added to the list due to its importance in warfare in the past half century. C933103 (talk) 19:40, 3 March 2022 (UTC) C933103 (talk) 01:56, 13 March 2022 (UTC)
  5. Support removal of the WHO since it is an arm of the UN, which is already listed. Zelkia1101 (talk) 15:30, 4 March 2022 (UTC)
  6. Support. I don't think we need any of these articles listed at this level, especially the two that are under the United Nations. Rreagan007 (talk) 19:42, 4 March 2022 (UTC)
  7. Support, enough of these already. Hyperbolick (talk) 08:08, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Oppose removal of the WTO and IMF Unlike the WHO, there is no overlap with either of these. Both of these organization are of paramount importance for understanding global politics, international relations, and macroeconomics. Why would we remove these two items but keep Shen Kuo and Suleiman the Magnificent? Zelkia1101 (talk) 15:30, 4 March 2022 (UTC)
    IMF was created for the Bretton Woods system which have ceased to function now. WTO's role in international trade liberalization is now gradually replaced by freer bilateral/multilateral/regional trade agreements like EU/ASEAN/CPTPP/RECP/NAFTA. C933103 (talk) 08:47, 6 March 2022 (UTC)
Discussion
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@C933103: If you are going to be closing nominations, please remember to change the level designation on articles' talk pages, as well as changing the level designation on the level 4 and 5 lists. I went ahead and fixed it. Also, please sign your closures. Rreagan007 (talk) 17:04, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

@Rreagan007: The bot was able to fix it automatically when an article was downgraded to Level 3 and another upgraded to Level 2. Downgrade from Level 3 unable to be automatically handled by the bot seems like a bug. It probably should be reported to the bot's operator? (Wait that was not done perfectly either) C933103 (talk) 17:12, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
Bug report filed at [49]C933103 (talk) 17:22, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

Add Spring and Autumn period and Warring States period

Latest comment: 2 years ago8 comments4 people in discussion
ON HOLD
Observing discussion above

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Quoting Cobblet's description from above,

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

All of these marked progression of civilization, with the exception of Mandate of Heaven, are specifically within the Spring and Autumn period and Warring States period, when the Zhou dynasty authority sharply declined or even eliminated toward the end of the warring state periods. These progressions are also deeply tied with the nature of frequent conflicts between various states in the era, and these advancement are also deeply tied with how single governing order system over all other tribes which were the norm during Xia, Shang, and Western Zhou dynasties have been toppled. These developments cannot be attributed to the existence of Zhou dynasty and it also wouldn't make sense to describe these various independent social and political reforms and theories developed within each states under the article of Zhou dynasty. Hence I recommend adding the articles on Spring and Autumn period and Warring States period to represent the origin of ancient Chinese social, cultural, technical, and philosophical system, which continue to influence China itself and also beyond China to the rest of the whole world in modern time. I think having two articles on it would not be too much as there are also other civilizations which currently have more than one article at this level. C933103 (talk) 06:28, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

Support
  1. [nom]C933103 (talk) 06:28, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Oppose I'm still ruminating over the Zhou dynasty proposal, but it's going to be a strong no for me for either the Spring and Autumn period or the Warring States period. I don't think either commands that much importance beyond China's borders as discrete events. I do not see how they could be more relevant to an English-speaking or -reading audience than the English Civil War, for instance. Zelkia1101 (talk) 17:44, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
  2. Oppose What is the justification for listing two articles on Ancient China when we list Ancient Egypt rather than the Old, Middle and New Kingdoms; Ancient Rome rather than the Roman Republic and Roman Empire; Ancient Greece rather than Mycenean Greece, Classical Greece, etc.; and when we omit Vedic India, the Parthian Empire, the Olmec, and many great empires that emerged outside of the cradles of antiquity such as Mali, Srivijaya or the Khmer. Not to mention we also do not list the Song or Ming dynasties which would be much better choices if we ever had room to add a second article on Chinese history. Cobblet (talk)
    I would say spring and autumn period and the warring states period's significance in developing the foundation for Chinese ideology and culture and social structure have high regional influence, as that's essential the sort of things that defined the East Asian culture sphere, aka China's reach of influence. I would even go as far as saying it's worth removing Tang dynasty in the list now to opt for addition of these two articles. C933103 (talk) 03:14, 22 March 2022 (UTC)
    That would be like removing the Renaissance to add Fifth-century Athens. Cobblet (talk) 03:41, 22 March 2022 (UTC)
    That is as if saying Tang dynasty is as important to Chinese history like Renaissance. C933103 (talk) 13:55, 22 March 2022 (UTC)
    Which it obviously is. Cobblet (talk) 14:42, 22 March 2022 (UTC)
  1. Oppose per above. --Thi (talk) 19:41, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
Discuss
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Swap: Add Kuwait, remove United Arab Emirates

Latest comment: 2 years ago4 comments3 people in discussion
WITHDRAWN
Ah right I forgot Oman

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As some others have pointed out in previous swap proposal, the importance of UAE in the world now have not been shown to be more than a transient phase in a century, as the vitality it enjoy in the region's resource and trade factor now are based on its oil reserve which have been relatively new, and so is its relatively newly found status of it being the regional trade hub (and such status suffer additional problem of being duplicate with some other newly established trade hub cities in late 20th century as they decolonize that are currently in the list).

In contrast, Kuwait while its regional role is currently overshadowed by UAE, its regional role as a trade hub is long established, and in geopolitics it is also have a fairly unique position between Saudi and Iran, and even going further back into history you can also find out uniqueness of their historical role in the article.

Thus I propose swapping UAE for Kuwait. C933103 (talk) 16:42, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

Support
Oppose
  1. Strong oppose You're overstating the historical importance of Kuwait. I'd consider Oman, whose trading empire stretched from Gwadar to Kilwa, more historically important than any of the Gulf sheikhdoms. And re-nominating the removal of the UAE immediately after the last proposal failed is pointless and tiresome. Cobblet (talk) 17:01, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
Discuss
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Swap: Add Korea, Remove South Korea

Latest comment: 2 years ago4 comments3 people in discussion
WITHDRAWN
Withdrawn, considering past discussion in Wikipedia talk:Vital articles/Archive 8#Add Greece, Korea and Poland, remove Canada, Bangladesh and Democratic Republic of the Congo

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

Using arguments in recent discussion about addition/deletion of different countries, the history of South Korea is rather short, and its significance as well as development over its ~75 years of existence is also similar to other Four Asian Tigers. That is compares to the general concept of Korea as a whole which have long history and distinct culture, as well as uniquely representing the societal development of the Continential Northeast Asia area over the past millennia outside China's proper. Thus I think Korea in general is more vital than the specific modern state of South Korea. C933103 (talk) 14:11, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

support
  1. [nom]C933103 (talk) 14:12, 22 March 2022 (UTC)
oppose
  1. Oppose History of East Asia covers history of Korea. South Korea is an important economic power and it has become increasingly influential culturally. --Thi (talk) 14:26, 22 March 2022 (UTC)
  2. Oppose for the same reason we list Bangladesh, not Bengal. Cobblet (talk) 14:40, 22 March 2022 (UTC)
discuss
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Swap: Remove Skeleton, Add Bone

Latest comment: 2 years ago13 comments9 people in discussion
PART OF THE PROPOSAL PASSED
Number of people supporting addition or supporting the proposal as a whole exceeded two third of votes and also exceeded a total of five votes, while opposition to removal plus opposition to the proposal in general have exceeded three votes and also outnumbered the number of people supporting the proposed removal. C933103 (talk) 18:26, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

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We should probably list the building blocks before the ensemble piece, right? There is also much more in terms of topics branching off bone than skeleton.

Support
  1. Support as nom Zelkia1101 (talk) 04:55, 1 November 2021 (UTC)
  2. Support addition per discussion. --Thi (talk) 07:57, 1 November 2021 (UTC)
  3. Support. I think it makes more sense to list bone. Rreagan007 (talk) 04:12, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
  4. Support addition Bones are a vital part of anatomy and should be listed. -- Maykii (talk) 21:54, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
  5. Support More representative. C933103 (talk) 15:57, 28 March 2022 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Oppose removal Vital in anatomy. --Thi (talk) 07:57, 1 November 2021 (UTC)
  2. Oppose removal I would Rather remont paelontology which Seemann be arcana in comprasion to history of life which is currently not listed. Dawid2009 (talk) 09:51, 1 November 2021 (UTC)
  3. Oppose removal The concept of a skeleton is vital to anatomy. Also an important cultural symbol in death. -- Maykii (talk) 21:54, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
  4. Oppose addition We're already one above quota and quite biased towards STEM topics as it is. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 14:45, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
    Have you considered revising the position now that we are no longer 1 above quota? C933103 (talk) 15:58, 28 March 2022 (UTC)
  5. Oppose All animals have skeletons, but not all animals have bones. Cobblet (talk) 23:21, 13 February 2022 (UTC)
Discuss
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Remove Bengali language, add Persian language

Latest comment: 2 years ago24 comments12 people in discussion
FAILED
The proposal earned at least 3 opposes in both addition and removal, and failed to earn two-thirds support.C933103 (talk) 18:17, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

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

We currently have two languages from the Indian subcontinent, Hindustani and Bengali. I think Hindustani is enough to represent that particular region of the world. Bengali, though a popular language, is pretty much contained to its traditional homeland in and around the Bengal region, and in diasporic immigrant communities.

Persian is spoken today by fewer native speakers than Bengali, but historically and culturally it is the more important language, at least in my view. Its ancestor language, Old Persian, was spoken by the Achaemenid Empire of Cyrus the Great, and was the language of Zoroastrianism. Persian was later spoken by the Sassanids and the Safavids, two great powers of their own. For thousands of years the language had been used as a prestige or administrative tongue all around Central and Western Asia, and was in direct contention with Arabic as the language of the Muslim faith throughout much of the Muslim world; whereas Arabic was reserved for religious matters during much of the second millenium, Persian was the language of literature and science. Think of classic Persian authors like Rumi or classic Persian texts like the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam or the Shahnameh. Also consider the importance of Persian-speaking intellectuals like Avicenna and Al-Ghazali. Persian developed as an intellectual, bureaucratic, and literary language from Tajikistan to Ottoman Turkey to Egypt.

Among the Indo-European families we list two Indo-Iranian languages: HIndustani and Bengali. Both of these languages are part of the Indo-Aryan languages, so it would be nice to have a member of the Iranian side of the family.

Support addition
  1. Support as nom Zelkia1101 (talk) 15:12, 6 November 2021 (UTC)
    Support addition per nom. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 15:19, 6 November 2021 (UTC)
  2. Support addition I support Persian because there's major historical and cultural backing to Persian itself. We list Rumi; who should not be listed before his language and if anything, should be swapped for Persian if we don't want another addition. Pretty sure Hafez might be more important anyway. Sign language and Egyptian hieroglyphs are the only other language topics suitable for this list IMO. GuzzyG (talk) 00:16, 7 November 2021 (UTC)
  3. The addition, since a lot of literary classics were written in Persian, and it was the literary language of the Ottoman Empire (cf. languages of the Ottoman Empire).--RekishiEJ (talk) 07:09, 9 November 2021 (UTC)
  4. Support addition Thought Turkish would be better as part of global Language system, per my comments in the Archives. Dawid2009 (talk) 07:17, 9 November 2021 (UTC)
  5. Support addition Important language culturally and historically, Iran is still a vital player in the modern world. -- Maykii (talk) 21:56, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
Oppose addition
  1. Cobblet (per below) User:力 (powera, π, ν) 20:26, 10 November 2021 (UTC)
  2. John M Wolfson (per below) User:力 (powera, π, ν) 20:26, 10 November 2021 (UTC)
  3. Bengali seems to be more important for this list. --Thi (talk) 09:46, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
  4. Persian is really under-appreciated in the English-speaking world, and there's a "lingua-franca" argument for it beyond the current number of first-language speakers. But for level 3, I think we already have decent Persian cultural representation through People, Geography, and History. I do have some related thoughts below though. Zar2gar1 (talk) 17:53, 27 March 2022 (UTC)
Support removal
  1. Zelkia1101 (as nom) User:力 (powera, π, ν) 20:26, 10 November 2021 (UTC)
  2. Not vial at this level. Rreagan007 (talk) 18:00, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
  3. I think even among languages of Indian subcontinent, Tamil is probably more significant than Bengali. C933103 (talk) 15:56, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
Oppose removal
  1. Oppose Bengali has so many more speakers than Persian (3–4 times as many, I believe) that I cannot support the removal. I'd put Persian ahead of other Indo-Aryan languages with a greater number of speakers for the reasons given by the nominator, but I'm not sure I'd put it ahead of Sanskrit, Hebrew or Tamil. Among living languages the only one I would definitely support adding is Swahili, to give Niger-Congo languages (largest family by number of languages, third largest by number of speakers) a specific representative. Cobblet (talk) 16:43, 6 November 2021 (UTC)
    Among living languages the only one I would definitely support adding is Swahili. Swahili is already on this list. Zelkia1101 (talk) 17:40, 6 November 2021 (UTC)
  2. Oppose removal Top 5 language by the amount of speakers [50]; we would be odd if on a language list we didn't cover the top 5 languages spoken. Only thing a removal would do is set up a future Tagore removal and Tagore clearly shows that Bengal does have a cultural backing. GuzzyG (talk) 00:16, 7 November 2021 (UTC)
  3. The removal, since there are significantly more speakers of Bengali than French (cf. List of languages by total number of speakers), Bengali should be kept.--RekishiEJ (talk) 07:09, 9 November 2021 (UTC) added some words and altered capitalization a little 07:12, 9 November 2021 (UTC) removed a "thus" 08:39, 11 November 2021 (UTC)
  4. Oppose removal Per RekishiEj. Bengali also has more speakers than German and Japanese put together. We even do not list any German writer on this level but we have Tagore. Also, every Language which has more native speakers than number of users of [[Cyrylic Script] is more vital than Tolstoy.Dawid2009 (talk) 07:17, 9 November 2021 (UTC)
  5. Oppose removal per discussion, now also opposing addition if we don't list Sanskrit. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 18:19, 9 November 2021 (UTC)
  6. Oppose removal Bengali is one of the world's most spoken languages. Bangladesh is a vital country too. -- Maykii (talk) 21:56, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
Discuss

I'm conflicted on removal; if India needs two languages, I would rather the second language be non-Indo-European, probably Tamil, but I believe this would make Bengali the only Top-10 world language not listed. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 15:19, 6 November 2021 (UTC)

Though I wouldn't push for it, I also wouldn't be opposed to the addition of Tamil if a consensus developed around it. Tamil at least comes from a unique, non-Indo-European language family, and represents a far more distinct literary, linguistic, historical and cultural tradition than does Bengali when set against Hindustani. I'm not sure Tamil is a colleague of English or French or Arabic as a level-3 language, but again I wouldn't oppose its addition on this list. Zelkia1101 (talk) 15:30, 6 November 2021 (UTC)

While I'm slightly against adding the Persian language to the list, I'd support adding Zoroastrianism back (or the Sassanids if everyone prefers), probably for swapping out one of the Achaemenid or Cyrus articles (significant overlap there). I think both Zoroaster & Zoroastrianism have been in/out of the list several times before. But we don't really cover the wider Iranian world or language, before the Achaemenids or after them until you reach the Islamic era. Besides spanning all of those things, I think Zoroastrianism's interaction / influence with the Abrahamic religions & Platonism adds an insight factor that makes it less niche than it first seems. Zar2gar1 (talk) 17:53, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

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Proposal: Abolish the "People" category in Level 3-5 VA

Latest comment: 2 years ago13 comments6 people in discussion
WITHDRAWN
Withdrawn

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Currently, the Level 3-5 VA list have a separate section for different people. They are further broken down to different fields, but those people article does not belong to individual fields.

I think this created some strange situation. For example, In the Level 5 list, due to the People portion of the list being 30% or 15000, many categories see they can put in more people of the field than actual subjects of the field into the list. For example, Level 5 currently allow 3300 arts article, yet the current quota for Writers and journalists, Artists, musicians, and composers, Entertainers, directors, producers, and screenwriters combined together is 6400. There are a quota of 1000 for Military personnel, revolutionaries, and activists, yet the quota for articles on War and military in Society is only 200 in Society subcategory of Level 5.

In my opinion, breaking down the "People" category, and reallocating these quota to individual categories respectively, can allow for a much more efficient and dynamic redistribution of article count for individual fields whenever desired, and hopefully will better reflect what articles are actually vital in each individual fields. C933103 (talk) 13:09, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

Or split people out entirely and have a vital topics list and a wholly separate vital people one. Always seemed odd to me that we need determine whether some entertainer or general or lawgiver is more "vital" than cancer or photons or animal husbandry. Hyperbolick (talk) 08:13, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography/Core biographies/list already exists and is severely undermaintained. C933103 (talk) 09:33, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
@C933103 -- guessing it'd be better maintained if it had "Vital" in front if it. Hyperbolick (talk) 22:54, 19 March 2022 (UTC)
  • Weak Oppose - in hindsight, it was a mistake to have biographies in the WP:VA5 list -- if we have reached the point where a separate "core biographies" project is viable I will support removing them from VA5 at that time. On the other hand, it is impossible to conceive of a 1000-article English-language encyclopedia without articles on Aristotle, Jesus of Nazareth, or Abraham Lincoln. User:力 (powera, π, ν) 17:55, 19 March 2022 (UTC)
    I am not saying those articles should be removed. But rather, put them under respective categories. For example, Aristotle under Philosophy, Jesus under Religion, and Lincoln under History. This way, it would be easier to judge how each aspects should have how many people included in them versus subjects that they includes. C933103 (talk) 18:15, 19 March 2022 (UTC)
    Oh. That ... isn't a bad idea, but it is a complicated idea. User:力 (powera, π, ν) 18:22, 19 March 2022 (UTC)
    It would roughly look like this for the Level 3 list. C933103 (talk) 21:17, 19 March 2022 (UTC)
    I like it. User:力 (powera, π, ν) 23:10, 19 March 2022 (UTC)
    I don't like it at all. It is easier to assess the overall quality of the list of people when they are grouped together. I like being able to see at a glance that nearly a quarter of the people are politicians, and the current setup also makes it much easier to find things like how many Ancient Greeks or women we list. The current broader categories also avoid needlessly pigeon-holing people. For example, significant portions of Pasteur's work are particularly relevant to medicine, but he was a chemist and biologist, not a physician (and certainly not a pathologist). I'd also take issue with the choices you made in separating the "philosophers" from the "social scientists". All such categorizations are to an extent arbitrary, and the more categories we introduce, the more the arbitrariness. If such categorization does not even help us navigate the list better, I see no point in it. The imbalance on level 5 is a result of the people who first worked on that level being far more interested in the biographies than the other articles. It is not an issue of the biography section being separate. Cobblet (talk) 04:17, 20 March 2022 (UTC)
    They are segregated down to even more fine categories in level 4-5 lists regardless. C933103 (talk) 16:21, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
  • Oppose Not useful. --Thi (talk) 13:25, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
  • Sympathetic oppose - I like any proposal for reorganizing the lists, I agree about imbalance in the lower-level quotas, and I personally don't feel this would hurt anything. I suspect it's not worth all the effort getting there though. For one, I think a lot of friction in the VA organization is inevitable, simply because everything is a hierarchical list, not relational. Short of the VA project somehow changing into more of a database, there's always going to be more debate over factoring in how the articles relate and how things are allocated to categories. Zar2gar1 (talk) 18:22, 27 March 2022 (UTC)
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Add Goat

Latest comment: 2 years ago8 comments6 people in discussion
FAILED
The proposal earned at least 3 opposes, and failed to earn two-thirds support.C933103 (talk) 18:21, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

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

Almost every other domestic animal is rated as level-3 (horse, cattle, sheep, pig, chicken, etc.), but not the goat. As one of the first animals to be tamed and an important part of many cultures, I don't see why it shouldn't join them. --An anonymous username, not my real name (talk) 23:53, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

Support
  1. As nom. --An anonymous username, not my real name (talk) 23:53, 21 February 2022 (UTC)
  2. Support. More essential than sheep (or camel, for that matter). In many tropical areas – such as parts of Africa – there are no sheep, but goats aplenty. --Telepanda (talk) 21:51, 26 February 2022 (UTC)
  3. Support. The major domesticated animals are vital at this level because of the impact they have had on humanity throughout history. Rreagan007 (talk) 19:48, 4 March 2022 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Oppose I think we have more than enough farm animals as it is, and goats are less economically important than all the other ones we list. The list now has a notable bias towards mammals over other types of organisms. The recently rejected cassava is just as vital as goats are to tropical regions of the world, and so are bananas. And I'd consider cotton an even more important crop. Cobblet (talk) 03:04, 5 March 2022 (UTC)
  2. Oppose Not as important as Sheep or Camel imo. Especially as Camel have been an important transportation tool across desert in Eurasia and Africa in human history and civilization. C933103 (talk) 07:29, 13 March 2022 (UTC)
  3. Oppose we just added a few domesticated animals, and this one isn't important enough compared to the other marginal articles. If someone ever looks through the archives to make a 2000 article list, it can go there. User:力 (powera, π, ν) 17:57, 19 March 2022 (UTC)
Discuss
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Swap: remove Gunpowder from level-3 and add Sustainable energy

Latest comment: 2 years ago10 comments6 people in discussion
FAILED
The proposal earned at least 3 opposes, and failed to earn two-thirds support.C933103 (talk) 18:21, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

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Sustainable energy is a broader topic and more relevant to today but is currently only level-5 Chidgk1 (talk) 08:41, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

Support
  1. As nom. Chidgk1 (talk) 06:54, 1 March 2022 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Oppose due to how much gunpowders have shaped the course of human history and civilization. C933103 (talk) 09:16, 3 March 2022 (UTC)
  2. Oppose User:力 (powera, π, ν) 17:57, 19 March 2022 (UTC)
  3. Oppose: Not only was gunpowder one of the major, revolutionary technologies in history, but I feel sustainable energy is actually a fuzzier, policy-oriented concept, whereas renewable energy (with the exception of Biomass if you include it) is a very distinct technology class. Zar2gar1 (talk) 18:33, 27 March 2022 (UTC)
  4. Oppose. We don't need to list both sustainable energy an renewable energy at this level. Rreagan007 (talk) 19:23, 28 March 2022 (UTC)
Discuss
Sustainable energy is redundant to renewable energy, which is listed at this level. Gizza (talk • voy) 10:17, 25 February 2022 (UTC)
Many people probably think that but as explained in sustainable energy it overlaps with but is not the same as renewable energy. I think that Sustainable energy is more important than renewable energy. Chidgk1 (talk) 11:52, 25 February 2022 (UTC)
In this case it would be easier to pass if you propose replacing renewable energy for sustainable energy. C933103 (talk) 08:04, 7 March 2022 (UTC)
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Swap: add world War and Wilhelm II, remove French Revolution and Napoleon

Latest comment: 2 years ago8 comments4 people in discussion
FAILED
Per Wikipedia:Snowball clause. --Thi (talk) 12:57, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

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Without comments, one is ethernal, other is european and include the world war III. Phuphusi (talk) 16:35, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

And remove Napoleon, add wilhelm II. Phuphusi (talk) 17:59, 20 March 2022 (UTC)
Support
Oppose
  1. Oppose We already listed WWI and WWII. As type of war, there are more types that are more important, for example civil war or nuclear war or total war. Also, which world are you from that world war are eternal? C933103 (talk) 04:52, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
  2. Oppose There's no way that Wilhelm II is more vital than Napoleon. Not by any stretch of the imagination. Gizza (talk • voy) 06:29, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
  3. Oppose This kind of proposal doesn't make any sense. --Thi (talk) 13:12, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
Discuss

Luizpuodzius. Phuphusi (talk) 00:58, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

Is there such a thing as "Last World War"? That's why this umbrella term is so relevant. Phuphusi (talk) 17:51, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
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Add Parliament

Latest comment: 2 years ago5 comments4 people in discussion
WITHDRAWN
--Thi (talk) 12:54, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

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Parliaments are an indispensable part of democracy. [51]

Support
  1. Support as nom. --Thi (talk) 19:08, 20 March 2022 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Oppose I would consider the addition of legislature, but only after we've cleared out some more articles. Zelkia1101 (talk) 00:03, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
Discuss

Legislature is the more general term for the lawmaking body in government. "Parliament" usually suggests some form of parliamentarianism, which not all democracies share. Cobblet (talk) 19:40, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

When it come to form of government function, I think Federation is a more important topic. C933103 (talk) 04:26, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

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Remove a Southeast Asia country?

Latest comment: 2 years ago7 comments4 people in discussion
WITHDRAWN
Withdrawn. C933103 (talk) 16:05, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

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Currently, there are six articles of Southeast Asian countries among the 43 listed countries: Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar. I think this is an over-representation of the region. Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, and Vietnam, are probably more vital four countries out of the six. But I cannot decide between Myanmar and Malaysia as both of them have their own fairly unique history also, yet I don't think they are unique enough to say they must be keep inside the list, especially considering overlaps with other countries or cities formerly colonized by the British in the list. Hence I am going to open a discussion about whether one of the SEA country should be removed or should all of them be kept, without default position. C933103 (talk) 17:04, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

Remove Malaysia
Remove Myanmar
Remove Malaysia and Myanmar
Remove another Southeast Asian country[/ies]
Keep all
  1. If Europe (whose population, excluding Russia, is about 10% smaller than Southeast Asia) can have eight countries (again excluding Russia for the sake of this comparison), 3.5 cities, and dozens of related biographies and articles on its culture and history, then we can easily afford to list six countries and two cities (I'm only counting Singapore as a city) for Southeast Asia, especially since the only other article on the list that directly relates to Southeast Asia is Malay language. Cobblet (talk) 17:29, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
    Most Southeast Asian countries, or Southeast Asia as a whole, do not have same level of global influence as Europe (Both in modern time and throughout the history). Thus I think the comparison should be with other sub-regions, for example Central Asia, Western Africa, or Latin America. C933103 (talk) 14:18, 22 March 2022 (UTC)
    Latin America makes for a reasonable comparison, but the other two are significantly smaller in terms of population and economy. See my comments to Dawid below. Cobblet (talk) 15:04, 22 March 2022 (UTC)
  2. Only Jakarta is possible candidate for removal. --Thi (talk) 19:37, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
Discuss
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discussion in the next door

Latest comment: 2 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

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her Phuphusi (talk) 21:11, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

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Remove European Union and NATO

Latest comment: 2 years ago12 comments8 people in discussion
FAILED
Proposal earned at least 3 opposes and failed to earn two-thirds support.C933103 (talk) 12:48, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

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I think the United Nations is the only international organization vital at this level. Why do we list the EU when we don't list similar unions like the African Union, Arab League, and ASEAN. There seems to be a bias towards North America and Europe when it comes to listing these two. If you oppose this nomination, could you indicate whether you would support adding African Union to include more diversity to the list? Thanks, Interstellarity (talk) 01:12, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

Support
  1. Support removing NATO It's just a military alliance, there is many more in the world which are similar... it just feels like it makes more sense at Level 4. -- Maykii (talk) 05:02, 3 March 2022 (UTC)
  2. Support removing NATO per above. Don't think any particular military alliance cuts it at this level. Gizza (talk • voy) 12:12, 3 March 2022 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Oppose removing European Union There is other similar unions but none of them come close to the sheer influence and uniqueness of the EU. The European Union is almost a confederation of sorts and has many aspects similar to a country, I think it makes sense to keep it here. -- Maykii (talk) 05:02, 3 March 2022 (UTC)
  2. Oppose The European Union is the most successful of similar organizations and NATO is important in world politics. IMF and WHO are not necessarily vital at this level. --Thi (talk) 08:05, 3 March 2022 (UTC)
  3. Oppose The EU have much more global impact than the like of African Union. So is NATO. A random Asian or Latin American country would list EU as one of their largest trade partners, but they won't do so to African Union due to difference in their nature. NATO is also more global than just North America or Europe, as can be seen by their operation in places like Middle East, or their expanding partnership with Pacific countries.C933103 (talk) 09:15, 3 March 2022 (UTC)
  4. Oppose removing European Union per above. Gizza (talk • voy) 12:12, 3 March 2022 (UTC)
  5. Strong oppose anybody who's paying even the barest attention to the news will understand how important NATO and the EU are, not only to current events, but also to the development of world civilizaton. Zelkia1101 (talk) 15:24, 4 March 2022 (UTC)
  6. Oppose removal of the EU. It's too important not to list at this level. Rreagan007 (talk) 19:43, 4 March 2022 (UTC)
  7. Procedural Oppose it is unclear whether NATO is historiographically an artifact of the Cold War, or an ongoing concern. The EU is not merely an artifact of the Cold War, but once again is an ongoing concern. I might support adding both African Union and Arab League in the future, ASEAN isn't worth considering yet. User:力 (powera, π, ν) 18:00, 19 March 2022 (UTC)
Discussion

I may support removing some of branches of the United Nations like the International Monetary Fund and the World Health Organization (notwithstanding the greater attention it's received since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic), as well as the World Trade Organization. I don't see how any of them are more vital than say, the World Bank, UNICEF and UNESCO. Gizza (talk • voy) 12:12, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

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Remove International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement

Latest comment: 2 years ago8 comments6 people in discussion
FAILED
Proposal earned at least 3 opposes and failed to earn two-thirds support.C933103 (talk) 12:50, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

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The only international organization that is vital at this level is the UN. This is fine at level 4. Interstellarity (talk) 15:40, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

Support
  1. Interstellarity (talk) 15:40, 3 March 2022 (UTC)
  2. Support. Not vital enough for this level. It would fit better at level 4. Rreagan007 (talk) 19:46, 4 March 2022 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Oppose Vital symbol and institution to know. Important for all areas of the world. --Thi (talk) 16:28, 3 March 2022 (UTC)
  2. Oppose I don't have a problem with listing one example of a quasi-non-governmental organization (technically they serve as auxiliaries to governments rather than as a true NGO, but the distinction is not so important for our purposes), especially one that has won three Nobel Peace Prizes. I could potentially consider a swap for Aid, but that article does not appear on any of the vital article lists. Cobblet (talk) 18:15, 3 March 2022 (UTC)
  3. Strong Oppose If anything, Red Cross and such are more important than the UN. If one have to go then it should be the UN. C933103 (talk) 19:42, 3 March 2022 (UTC)
Discussion

I am vocally neutral. User:力 (powera, π, ν) 18:01, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

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Swap: remove Ancient Greek philosophy, add Greek mythology

Latest comment: 2 years ago6 comments6 people in discussion
PASSED
At least five !votes have been cast in support, and at least two-thirds of the total !votes support the proposal.C933103 (talk) 16:38, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

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Greek mythology has influenced literature, arts and everyday culture. Greek philosophy is represented at this level by Western philosophy, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.

Support
  1. Support as nom. --Thi (talk) 19:09, 20 March 2022 (UTC)
  2. Strong support a wise swap. Ancient Greek philosophy is fully represented by Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, its thoughtleaders. Greek mythology enjoys no such representation on this list, and it is a rich topic in primary school education, which, for me, is a marker of a page's vitality. Greek mythology is broadly more popular with our readership than philosophy, I may add. Zelkia1101 (talk) 23:44, 20 March 2022 (UTC)
  3. Support Cobblet (talk) 00:27, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
  4. Support When you look at the list of 1,000 holistically (both biography and non-biography articles) this makes sense. Gizza (talk • voy) 06:31, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
  5. Support. Was all set to oppose, but it strikes true that major Greek philosophers are well-enough represented. Hyperbolick (talk) 09:16, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
Oppose
Discuss

I may add that we should seriously consider adding Norse mythology as well, since it is second up in terms of popularity in the English-speaking world (next to Greek, of course). Zelkia1101 (talk)

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White phosphorus munitions

Latest comment: 2 years ago4 comments4 people in discussion
Listed at level 5, new discussion in level 4 is possible. --Thi (talk) 10:37, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

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Add White phosphorus munitions as a vital article, it has tons of views. 2001:4455:364:A800:5896:57B6:9535:5054 (talk) 11:27, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

  1. Oppose: I suspect page views for many military technologies go up or down when wars are actively ongoing and the news reports about certain weapons. However, at level 3, we don't even have the room to break out basic classes of weapons like Artillery or Tank. Zar2gar1 (talk) 18:40, 27 March 2022 (UTC)
It's already Level 5 vital. C933103 (talk) 22:55, 28 March 2022 (UTC)
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Add James Buchanan

Latest comment: 2 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion
0401
Today is April 2. C933103 (talk) 12:52, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

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Clearly the worst president in US history deserves to be on this list somehow [April Fools!]. Interstellarity (talk) 00:07, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

Support
Oppose
Neutral
Discussion
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Southeast Asia coverage

Latest comment: 2 years ago13 comments3 people in discussion

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I have split the discussion off as the focus have shifted from the initial topic of "Remove a Southeast Asia country?". C933103 (talk) 16:05, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Comment We currently have only three countries from South America and eight from Africa. It is very few in comprasion to six from South-East Asia or four cities from Europe. Is not it? Dawid2009 (talk) 14:26, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

African countries are slightly underrepresented, but we also list things like Traditional African religions, Arabic, Swahili language, History of Africa, Ancient Egypt, Scramble for Africa, Nelson Mandela, Mansa Musa, Ibn Khaldun, Sahara, Lake Victoria, and the Nile. The same is true for South America, where we have History of South America, Spanish language, Portuguese language, Spanish Empire, Andean civilizations, Inca Empire, Simón Bolívar, Andes, Amazon River, and the Amazon rainforest. If we expand from South to Latin America, then we also have Caribbean, Mesoamerica, Maya civilization, Aztecs, and Frida Kahlo. We have nothing equivalent to any of these for Southeast Asia other than Malay language. The Southeast Asian countries we list compare well with the other countries that are also listed, and fill in for our almost total lack of coverage of this region otherwise. Cobblet (talk) 15:04, 22 March 2022 (UTC)
Doesn't that mean we should list more of those other aspects of SE Asia instead of just countries? For example Java Island can probably replace Jakarta and Borneo Island also have quite a significant role in multiple aspects globally including ecology that's only second to Amazon, then the River Mekong is also central to people in Southeast Asia much like Yangtze is to people in China. But what other non-geography articles can be proposed? Angkor might also be proper to be listed in history section? C933103 (talk) 19:07, 22 March 2022 (UTC)
Fair question. In fact we used to list Angkor, until we cut down the number of architectural sites years ago, when we also removed things like Machu Picchu, Taj Mahal, and the Colosseum. But your proposals raise other questions.
First of all, pure physical geography articles like Java, Borneo and the Mekong tend to be far less popular among readers than articles about countries or cities. Compare Jakarta with Java and Borneo, for instance, and ask yourself whether you would ever consider swapping Tokyo for Honshu, or London for Great Britain. The Mekong fares badly even against smaller unlisted countries such as Laos and Cambodia, and is even slightly behind a history article like the Khmer Empire.
Second, your proposed replacement articles don't look so great when you look at other unlisted articles in their category. Jakarta and Manila are the fifth and sixth-largest urban agglomerations in the world. It is already unfortunate that the list of cities omits one of them; wouldn't omitting both be bias against Southeast Asia? Borneo's rainforest is notable for its biodiversity, but I would at least consider the Congo rainforest a better choice as it is the second-largest one in the world, and the Pantanal, the world's largest tropical wetland, is another biodiversity hotspot which is also possibly a better choice. It would be nice to list a river like the Mekong, but is the Mekong a better choice than the Yellow River, Niger, or Danube, whose watersheds I believe are all more populous than the Mekong's, and have just as rich a history of human habitation?
The articles on the Southeast Asian countries are less problematic in this respect: they hold up well against the other countries we list, at least in terms of population and/or economy. For example, while it would be nice to list more countries from Africa or Latin America, all of the countries we do not list from those regions are less populous than Myanmar and less economically powerful than Malaysia. Plus articles about countries tend to be some of Wikipedia's most frequently viewed pages. They are a natural first stop for anyone wanting to learn more about the geography, history or culture of Southeast Asia. Prioritizing them makes sense.
The challenge with building this list is if you focus on some aspect of it while ignoring the bigger picture, you will always find something that seems out of place. Many compromises have to be made to build a list that makes sense as a whole. Cobblet (talk) 20:20, 22 March 2022 (UTC)
Proportionally you should measure South America separately as one region for that matter (not whole latin with big population) and If you count "African traditional religions" as representation of Africa by non-countries and non-cities aeticles; then you should also count Buddhism for South and East Asia and some (Abrahamic) religions in other regions; but FWIHW by percentage South-East Asian countries are today are the most Buddhist, so I do not believe Malay Malay is the only article related with South-East Adian culture at this level (you counted Traditional Aftican religions despite today its happened that they cover 8% there)
Peru is country which deserve representation at this level. Historically it was second the biggest country in South America and Lima is larger city than Singapore.
You also can not relying everything based on views and stats and sometimes use commonsense. Going by pageviews niche website like Chatroulette gets more views than big platform like Bigo Live (Chatroulette is #55 000 by Alexa.com ranking, Bigo Live is #13 000, yet more often used as app). It convinced me views too often are too random (I mean here, I consider not consider Peru as less vital vountry than say New Zealand based on stats like some opposers in yhe past) Dawid2009 (talk) 06:56, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
According to the UN statistics presented at List of continents and continental subregions by population, Southeast Asia had a population of 655 million in 2018, while all of Latin America had a population of 642 million. This is why I look at stats rather than blindly trusting "common sense". I would definitely not count Buddhism as a Southeast Asian topic when its most populous country is ~86% Muslim and its second most populous country ~88% Christian, and roughly half the world's Buddhists are from China. Singapore is obviously not on the list because of its population. Cobblet (talk) 08:28, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
But without Indonesia; South-Asia has something about ~~380 000 mln population, meanwhile South-America has ~~+422 000 mln. We have only three South-American countries and except Indonesia we have five another countries from South-East Asia (I did not count Singapore now). It is a lot in comprasion to South America even if you count Poortoguese language and Spanish language as cultural representation of South America. Peru is not more populous than Birma and is not more econinically powerful than Malyasia but IMHO should be at this level due to historical significance. This is the only point which I want to prove here. You agreed "Africa is slightly undeerrepredented" but you do not believe Peru is needed. Personally I think that would be only the last next country from South America due to reasons I repeat. Dawid2009 (talk) 09:10, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
Peru's historical significance is the reason Andean civilizations and Inca Empire are listed. Its colonial history is also covered by Spanish Empire. Where is the Southeast Asian equivalent of those articles, as well as the other ones I listed above? I agree that Peru would be the next country to add from South America, but multiple proposals to do so have failed. Cobblet (talk) 14:09, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
Where is the Southeast Asian equivalent of those articles, as well as the other ones I listed above? - It is complicated but if we would decide to not remove any country from South-East Asia ex equo, I think swap Spanish Empire with Peru would be reasonable compromise per my comments in the archives. I am not going to reopen new discussion which never come anywhere but just will note that any outsider (in sense not VA participant) who is from Peru and see this list first time, would be surprised to see either of Malyasia and Singapore ahead of either of Peru and Lima. Peru is significant due to those three articles which you mentioned paragraph above but also due to historical population (Canada and other ountries rather lately have outguned Peru in terms of population). Dawid2009 (talk) 16:57, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
Anyone not involved in these discussions will be surprised by some, or even many, of the choices we made. A good compromise leaves everybody mad. Cobblet (talk) 17:09, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
I strongly disagree with using population of a place/region/etc as the single biggest factor to determine something's vitality. If we follow this metric, looking at the rank of List of largest cities by population in their urban area, it mean we should delete all European cities except Moscow and Istanbul. Yet vitality is definitely and obviously not merely decided by how many people live in these cities, hence we aren't going to remove all European cities from the list. And thus it also shouldn't be use as the sole/topmost justification to suggest addition/deletion of any articles from the list. Likewise, pageview isn't a good metric either. If we follow the metric then articles like BTS or Marvel Cinematic Universe will be among the most vital articles yet I think we are going to agree they aren't worth included in Level 2 or 3. C933103 (talk) 00:03, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
Frequent participants here understand that we aren't using any single criterion as the sole determiner of vitality. We also agree that pop culture is highly visible but may not necessarily have enduring significance. However, we do put a lot of weight on objective factors like population and GDP as measures of significance, especially in like-for-like comparisons. For example, Jakarta and Singapore are the Southeast Asian cities with the largest PPP-adjusted GDP, and so are Mexico City and São Paulo in Latin America (they are also Latin America's two largest urban agglomerations). In particular, economy and population are the main reasons why we chose São Paulo over Rio de Janeiro. (The reason why we list two cities each from Latin America and Southeast Asia is also because these regions have similar populations and levels of economic development.) We need very strong reasons to remove Myanmar, the 26th most populous country in the world, when we list 42 countries in total, and seven of the next eight most populous countries are all listed, not to mention our lack of coverage of Southeast Asia beyond its countries. We also need a stronger reason beyond historical significance to add Peru, the 43rd most populous country in the world, when more populous countries with histories that also stretch back well into antiquity (Iraq and Sudan) are also not listed. Cobblet (talk) 02:21, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
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How do you define which countries are worth to be level 3?

Latest comment: 2 years ago6 comments4 people in discussion
DISCUSSION ENDED
Discussion have been turned into a proposal underneath.C933103 (talk) 11:09, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

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What's the criteria used to define which countries are more important than the others and therefore deserve to be a level 3 article? How can Poland and Ukraine be more important than Greece or Portugal, which, undeniably, had a bigger impact on the world's history? How can countries which are not regional powers, such as Myanmar or the Democratic Republic of the Congo be on this list? Do not even make me mention Taiwan, which is not even a de jure country!

The same goes with cities.

I proposed either, only list regional powers or just put all the countries and cities as level 4 articles. SadAttorney613 (talk)

It's a holistic assessment, not limited to any single factor such as population, economy, geopolitical influence, historical legacy, cultural contributions, etc., but based on a combination of at least these factors. You can search through the archives to find discussion of the specific countries you mentioned. Cobblet (talk) 17:03, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
Well I see that this whole vital project is a slimehole. There's absolutely no guidelines, articles are added and removed based on what the people, who happened to be on Wikipedia at the time of the nomination, felt like it at the moment.
I already went to the archives to see why some of the countries were added. For example the arguments provided for Ukraine were basically: there's a underrepresentation of Eastern Europe in the project, plus the Netherlands are a level 3 and since they are less important, Ukraine must also be added, even if the Netherlands was wrongly put as a level 3 article in the first place... SadAttorney613 (talk) 17:21, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
That would be odd to have Tagore and Tolstoy ahead of Bangladesh which is more populous than Russia (regardless biographies and countries are two differ things with other criterias). Would you add New Zealand or keep Australia ahead of Bangladesh based on "regional power"? Dawid2009 (talk) 21:42, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
@SadAttorney613: How about my comment above (a ka listing Tolstoy, Tagore, and New Zealand ahead of Balngadesh)? You inspired me to make similar nomination on meta's talk page but with slightly other criteria. My proposal still include at least Bangladesh. Everyone is welcomable to comment there but what happened with MEta list is differ, than what happened with this. Meta list constain more countries than VA but still there are no at least UEA and Taiwan on that list. Dawid2009 (talk) 09:00, 27 March 2022 (UTC)
No, New Zealand is an exception. Due to it's location it's only surrounded by island-nations and since Australia foreign policy is not as Oceania-centric, it opens a window for New Zealand to exercise his power in Oceania.
Sure if you take population as the only metric Bangladesh is superior, but I think we should include more criteria other than demographical.
Okay I will check out your nomination. SadAttorney613 (talk) 09:06, 27 March 2022 (UTC)
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Swap: Remove Henry Ford, Add Effects of the car on societies

Latest comment: 2 years ago6 comments5 people in discussion
WITHDRAWN
withdrawn

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Henry Ford's vitality is mostly limited to his creation of Ford Motor Company, which is historically significance for their selling of Ford Model T cars, that popularized individual car ownership in America as well as other countries, result in the main mode of human ground transit shifted from rail and walking to motorized road vehicles. This significant process in revolutionizing mobility of humankind, and also create many of the urban problem we now facing nowadays, is being known as Motorization [Wikidata], but unfortunately it does not have a corresponding article on English Wikipedia, but only exists as an redirect. Hence,I propose the closest alternative to it on English Wikipedia, aka Effects of the car on societies, to illustrate the impact of Henry Ford's Ford Motor Company and their mass production and sales of Ford Model T, on the entire world of humankind. This should be more representative than only listing Henry Ford. C933103 (talk) 16:20, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Support
  1. Support as nomC933103 (talk) 16:20, 4 April 2022 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Oppose Again, this needs to be added to level 4 first. Cobblet (talk) 18:02, 4 April 2022 (UTC)
  2. Oppose. The effects of the car on societies should be adequately covered at this level by the article on cars, which is already listed at this level. And as Cobblet points out, that article isn't even listed at Level 4. Ford is vital as a businessman, engineer, and industrialist. He pioneered the use of the assembly line and mass production of personal transportation. He's vital at this level. Rreagan007 (talk) 18:09, 4 April 2022 (UTC)
  3. Oppose per above. Gizza (talk • voy) 07:51, 7 April 2022 (UTC)
  4. Strong oppose, per nom. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SpaceEconomist192 (talk • contribs) 17:18, 7 April 2022 (UTC)
Neutral
Discussion
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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