User:Purplebackpack89/Vitality

I am a frequent participant in discussions at Wikipedia talk:Vital articles/Expanded and Wikipedia talk:Vital articles. On September 30, 2014, I began laying out my grand philosophy on my votes at VA and VA/E.

My primary criterion for voting on biographies and events is historical significance. I believe that the history section should contain the most historically significant events and concepts. Since the biography section is much larger than the history section, there is room to include people associated with most of the historically significant events and concepts; multiple people for some of the most significant. I am OK with including both the event (or invention or organization) and the person associated with the event.
 * On Historical Importance

Generally speaking, I do not consider actors, directors, comedians, athletes, or popular musicians to be particularly vital. Though there are fewer of them then there once were, I think there should be fewer still.

I acknowledge that the United States, the United Kingdom, and, to a certain extent Western Europe will be overrepresented on the list, and that Africa and portions of Asia will be underrepresented. However, I find it unreasonable for the United States to be more than 15-20% of the biographies or events on the list, or more than a quarter of any
 * On globalization and systemic bias

Hit count is not, and never will be, a governing factor in my VA and VA/E votes. There are a number of reasons why I believe this. One is that hit count is by nature unstable; something can get a million hits one month and 10,000 the next. Another is that articles that are hit a lot don't need the help of the VA wikiproject to get to GA or FA: if you looked at articles that are frequently hit for a sustained period of time, you'll find a disproportionate number of B-Class and better articles. But perhaps the main reason is I prefer historical vitality as a criterion to hit count. You may ask, "but isn't ignoring hit count elitist?" Probably, but I don't care.
 * On Hit count

I generally am not a strict believer or enforcer of quotas. In particular, I do not believe the distribution of VA and VA/E need to reflect the distribution of Wikipedia as a whole. One thing tying in with quotas is having X people who represent Y on the list. I do believe in that. For example, I believe the founders of most world religions should have slots in biographies, as well as the most important representatives of political ideologies (Concrete examples of this would be my edition of Methodism founder John Wesley to VA/E early in my time there, and the support of Clement Atlee as a representative of the British Labour Party).
 * On Quotas

In the spectrum of quotidian to technical, I would generally place myself closer on the quotidian side than the technical side. I believe that it is OK to designate VA/E space to everyday household items, and at least 100 articles to food.
 * Too quotidian? Too technical?

I consciously do not participate in every VA or VA/E discussion. Lack of a vote from me indicates one or more of the following:
 * On Voting on Everything

In a few rare cases, it means I think I can get what I want on better by
 * I know nothing of the subject
 * I have no interest the subject
 * I am divided as to whether the topic should be on the list or not