Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography/Core biographies/Archive 5

Queen Elizabeth I
Am making another appeal for this lady. It just seems very weird that the ruler who gave the Elizabethan Era its name is not going to make this list, when other names like Babe Ruth are on there. Her influence definitely stretched outside of the British Isles. Plus probably the first powerful female ruler (that we know of)? plange 02:35, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) Queen Elizabeth I
 * 2) Oppose Not important enough. Leaders should be kept to those who have had a huge historical significance outside one country. Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 00:10, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 3) Support she had a huge impact on at least one other country - America! The state of Virginia (first permanent English Colony in North America) was named after her and settled because of her financing and influence. Her support of artists and philosophers during the Elizabethan era influenced many courts of Europe. plange 01:49, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 4) Oppose per Calgacus. Outside of the Commonwealth, I don't see much impact. ♠ SG →Talk 20:22, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 5) Support, surely Elizabeth had significant impact on Spain (which she was at war with for the last 20 years of her reign, and had complicated relations with before then), France (in whose civil wars she several times intervened), the Netherlands (where she aided the rebels), and Scotland (whose queen she killed and whose civil wars she intervened in and which was not, at that time, part of England), as well as England and Ireland. She's at least as important in Europe as her dad, who is listed. john k 02:32, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 6) Support Ranked #95 in Hart's top 100, and we need more women. Walkerma 16:56, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 7) Oppose per Calgacus Laserbeamcrossfire 06:28, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 8) Support. Maurreen 18:24, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 9) Support This whole process of assessment seems to me to be terribly arbitrary. I do not understand why Elizabeth would not be included as a key figure in British and European history when her father and Henry II are.  As a ruler, and a politician, she was far more successful-and significant-than either of these men.  For a small offshore kingdom to fight off the greatest European power of the day must count for something.  It might also be worth pointing out that her intervention in Scotland in 1560 was vital in ensuring the success of the Reformation. Rcpaterson 23:32, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 10) support - commonly found on top 100 lists --Rikurzhen 22:50, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Queen Elizabeth I
 * Support - perhaps the most famous Queen in history, well, besides the band. Kaldari 08:02, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * There's plenty of powerful female rulers before Elizabeth. Eleanor of Aquitaine, for instance, just to take another Queen of England.  john k 12:25, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * erm, that's like comparing Calvin Coolidge to FDR plange 16:53, 15 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Support A significant figure in British and European as well as English history. Certainly the greatest of the queens of England, and at least equal to the best of the kings. Rcpaterson 22:15, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

There has been much debate over the inclusion of Queen Elizabeth I. Although she has been opposed, several people are still arguing for her inclusion (which has been rare thus far). The arguments against her inclusion have been "not important enough" or "not influential outside of England". It seems that both of these arguments have been well rebuffed in the debate. Not only that, but several external sources have verified her importance and notoriety: Unless someone can present a convincing argument why all of these sources are wrong, I'm going to go ahead and add her to the list in the next day or two. Kaldari 00:45, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
 * She ranks #31 in the book 1,000 Years, 1,000 People
 * She ranks #88 in Life magazine's list of the Top 100 people who made the Millennium
 * She is listed in Michael Hart's "The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History"
 * In a BBC poll she ranked 7th for "The Greatest Briton of all Time", higher than any other British monarch
 * I don't feel strongly about it one way or another but at this point I think we might as well add her. We can always do a vote to remove her later on down the road. There are still a fair amount of spots left.  We could also go back to 250 people if that is an issue. VegaDark 03:26, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Acting

 * 1) Marlon Brando
 * 2) Support. Often called the greatest American actor, or the greatest film actor, ever.  Several highly iconic roles (Stanley Kowalski, Terry Malloy, Vito Corleone, Col. Kurtz). john k 20:48, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 3) Support. Maurreen
 * 4) Oppose. I don't see acting as an important enough field to merit consideration for this list. Kaldari 05:58, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 5) Bruce Lee
 * 6) Support, seems to me he is more influential than any other person in the sports category VegaDark 01:23, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 7) Comment- what kind of influence has he had outside of his discipline? The ones on the list (besides Babe Ruth, who could be a candidate for deletion) broke sociological barriers, etc... Could be the case here to, just want to hear the argument for itplange 17:19, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 8) *I would say his "discipline" was martial arts, and that carried over into film. "Lee's movies sparked the first major surge of interest in Chinese martial arts in the West."; pretty much is the premier martial artist in history and had an affect on western culture as well as his own Chinese culture. VegaDark 20:06, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 9) Support. Maurreen 18:02, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 10) Support Pascal.
 * 11) Oppose. I don't see acting (or martial arts) as an important enough field to merit consideration for this list. Kaldari 05:58, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 12) Oppose, Definitely not one of the 250 most important people who've ever lived. Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 00:05, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Politics

 * 1) Charles de Gaulle
 * 2) Support. Maurreen 15:35, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 3) Support Rcpaterson 23:32, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 4) Opposed by plange, noted by Maurreen 07:15, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 5) Oppose, Definitely not one of the 250 most important people who've ever lived. Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 00:05, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Science

 * 1) Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen
 * 2) Support. Maurreen 08:59, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 3) Support --Mais oui! 07:38, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 4) Oppose - only because Michael Faraday and Ernest Rutherford are more important in physics, but not included yet Fermi, Curie or Huygens are more famous. --Rikurzhen 05:42, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 5) Oppose, Definitely not one of the 250 most important people who've ever lived. Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 00:05, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Business?
Just throwing this out as a possibility, but Rockefeller, Carnegie, Vanderbilt, Mellon? studerby 00:13, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Well maybe not Mellon... studerby 00:13, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Rockefeller was #51 on Life magazine's list, BTW. Kaldari 00:42, 15 August 2006 (UTC)


 * 1) John D. Rockefeller
 * 2) Support - I think we should have at least one business figure in the list, and Rockefeller would be my top choice. Kaldari 08:06, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 3) Andrew Carnegie
 * 4) Cornelius Vanderbilt
 * 5) Mayer Amschel Rothschild

Yeah, I could see any of those. But are there any non-American business figures who should be included? Perhaps the Rothschild family, as a group? john k 02:54, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) I was thinking Rothschild too when I brought up business, but didn't see my way clear to a group nomination. At first I thought it was a good idea, but now I'm thinking the Rothschild family may be hard to treat as biography (not that I'm against elasticity). But there's Mayer Amschel Rothschild, number 7 on Forbes magazine list of the The Twenty Most Influential Businessmen Of All Time (which looks like a blatant copyvio to me - just found it from a link on the Mayer R.'s article - you'll need to see it in the history, unless the admins drop a speedy delete on it). studerby 03:51, 15 August 2006 (UTC)


 * 1) Bill Gates? plange 03:58, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Actual except from a conversation I had 2 days ago: "The Beatles! Who are they gonna put on there next? Bill Gates?!" Kaldari 06:02, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I had earlier nominated Ray Kroc, possibly the inventor of fast food, but he didn't get a second. More food for thought:
 * 1) John Bogle -- little name recognition, but instrumental in mutual funds
 * 2) Alan Greenspan
 * 3) Howard Hughes
 * 4) Steve Jobs
 * 5) Sam Walton
 * 6) Thomas J. Watson, Jr. IBM, computers
 * Maurreen 05:50, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

more inventors
Did I miss these proposals, or do they not make the cut? studerby 03:51, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) Werner von Braun
 * 2) Robert Goddard


 * Sorry, I don't remember either way. Maurreen 05:40, 15 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure, but I think they didn't get seconded.
 * I am surprised J. Robert Oppenheimer was not seconded. Maurreen 06:41, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Where'd they go?
I made a few mistakes trying to coordinate all this.
 * Igor Stravinsky is now back up in the "uncontested" section.
 * Anton Chekov should also be placed up there, but I guess I should maybe dig up the votes.

I interpreted Plange's doubt about Bruce Lee as opposition. If I was mistaken, please feel free to fix. Maurreen 03:44, 15 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Chekov now fixed. Maurreen 06:41, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

additions to consider
drawing from Murray (2003): --Rikurzhen 05:19, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel - western philsopher (as a replacement probably)
 * Christiaan Huygens - technology
 * Pierre-Simon Laplace - astronomy
 * Ptolemy - astronomy
 * Ernest Rutherford - chem/physics
 * Jöns Jakob Berzelius and/or John Dalton - chem/physics
 * Adi Shankara - Indian philosophy
 * Du Fu - Chinese literature
 * Kālidāsa - Indian literature
 * Charles Lyell - Earth science
 * Robert Koch - medicine
 * Ahmad ibn-al-Husayn al-Mutanabbi - Arabic literature


 * I had thought I had added Hegel, I should check that.
 * Faraday, Rutherford and Du Fu were nominated, but not seconded. Maurreen 05:42, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * If we can revist them, I'd second them at this time. --Rikurzhen 05:52, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

about murray (2003)
of particular note is the "combined science" category, which is not given in the associated WP article. i have the book, however, which I used in compiling my suggestions. as you might expect, this category combines all of nat. science, math, medicine, and technology. --Rikurzhen 05:55, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

African-American literature
This is just food for thought. We have no African-American writers. Here are some contenders:
 * 1) Maya Angelou
 * 2) Gwendolyn Brooks
 * 3) Frederick Douglass
 * 4) W.E.B. DuBois
 * 5) Alex Haley
 * 6) Langston Hughes
 * 7) Toni Morrison – Nobel Prize winner
 * 8) Walter Mosley
 * 9) Alice Walker
 * 10) Booker T. Washington
 * 11) Richard Wright
 * Maurreen 06:24, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Out of that list, I would most want to see Frederick Douglass included. He was not only a prominent writer, but a great orator and activist both for African American rights and Women's rights (and long before most of the other people in the list). Kaldari 06:36, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Plus he has 4 support votes and no opposes, so I'm going to go ahead and add him. Langston Hughes might also be worth considering. Kaldari 07:00, 15 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I would say Hughes or Wright would be the most obvious candidates, besides Douglass, who I agree with Kaldari is the best. Ralph Ellison is another possibility.  But I might prefer an actual African writer, like Chinua Achebe.  john k 11:38, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Status 07:52, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
OK, apparently my numbers were off some time ago. It looks as though we have enough slots open to add all these and then haggle over a few more. How does that sound?


 * 1) Brandon
 * 2) Burke
 * 3) Chekov
 * 4) Conrad
 * 5) Hegel (I had thought I had already added him, but haven’t found a record either way.)
 * 6) Hobbes
 * 7) Ibsen
 * 8) Bruce Lee
 * 9) Melville
 * 10) Montaigne
 * 11) Orwell
 * 12) Rutherford
 * 13) Stravinsky
 * 14) Wilde
 * 15) Welles
 * 16) Woolf
 * Maurreen 07:52, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Comments

 * That's a lot of writers. Just stating the obvious :) Kaldari 08:08, 15 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree. Another option I was thinking of is suspending judgment on the writers, adding the rest in the list immediately above, and then haggling, hashing out the last 10 or so. Maurreen 08:12, 15 August 2006 (UTC)


 * To complicate your thinking, I've updated Human_Accomplishment with the Western Lit figures, which include writers that Murray ranks above some of those listed here/already listed. --Rikurzhen 08:24, 15 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Too bad we hadn't seen that earlier. I'm hoping to wrap this up soon. It would be interesting to see the score for each of the list immediately above and their Google hits also. But I'm past my bedtime. Maurreen 08:33, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I think we should digest Murray's list before we finalize things. Could someone come up with a comparison of the top ranking people on Murray's list that aren't on ours? Kaldari 08:40, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

If anyone wants to do that, great. But we should keep in mind that his only went through 1950. Maurreen 08:45, 15 August 2006 (UTC)


 * The western literary figures on his list who aren't on ours are, in order, Molière, Byron (whom I suggested, but nobody has weighed in on), Petrarch, Schiller, Boccaccio, Euripides, and Racine. All pretty major figures, certainly.  I would guess, btw, that the list is based on reference works in other languages besides English - it's hard to see Racine, for instance, being so high if French reference works aren't being included in the comparison.  There's also a Chinese lit list.
 * The western philosophers not on are Hegel, Spinoza, Schopenhauer, Berkeley, Hobbes (currently being considered), Russell, Plotinus, and Fichte.
 * For western art - Titian, Dürer, Bernini, Cezanne, Rubens, Caravaggio, Velazquez, Donatello, Van Eyck, Goya, Masaccio, Gauguin
 * For western music - Wagner, Haydn, Handel, Stravinsky, Debussy, Liszt, Schubert, Schumann, Berlioz, Schoenberg, Brahms, Chopin, Monteverdi, Mendelssohn, Weber, Gluck
 * For mathematicians, Cantor, Pascal, Riemann, Hilbert, a bunch of others (sue me, I'm not as interested in math...)
 * For combined sciences, Huygens, Laplace, Ptolemy, Hooke, Rutherford, Berzelius
 * For physics alone, besides those already mentioned Cavendish, Bohr, Thomson, both Curies, Kirchoff, Fermi, Heisenberg, Dirac, Joule, Gilbert, and Young
 * For technology, Vitruvius, John Smeaton, Bessemer, Newcomen, Siemens, Wilkinson, Wheatstone, Papen, Stevenson, Morse.

People on our list in those categories who aren't on Murray's. I'll just do art and lit, as I'm getting tired:
 * Art: Andy Warhol, Frank Lloyd Wright (except I think that architects aren't included on Murray's list. I think both are, at any rate, defensible)
 * Lit: Aeschylus [26], Austen [9], Dickens [27], Eliot [32], Hemingway [15], Joyce [30], Milton [31], Poe [26], Pound [12], Twain [12], Whitman [23], Yeats [19], Borges [4], Cervantes [29], the Grimms [6], Kafka [20], Proust [20]. [index scores Rikurzhen]

But I don't think we should use a measure devised by Charles Murray, professional race theorist, as an exclusive basis for our list. john k 12:12, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Certainly that would be foolish. I just wanted to get an additional point of view on the whole thing, FWIW. Kaldari 14:54, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Warhol and Wright would have been missed by Murray's criteria -- pass. Lit: note that this is based on the opinions of literary critics, and so emphasizes what they emphasize (e.g., political impact). Most of those currently on the list have index scores in 20s or 10s. Rhetorical question: how many of these would be considered "top" by an Asian scholar chronicling Western lit, for example? Suggestions: --Rikurzhen 17:29, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * More of Euripides' plays survived than Aeschylus'. Swap them? Rikurzhen
 * My motivation for nominating Aeschylus, rather than Sophocles or Euripides, was for his technical innovations in essentially eventing both the tragedy and theater as we know it. As I recall, he also beats Euripides in the contest in The Frogs.  Euripides has become much more popular with more recent critics as an early advocate of psychological realism. john k 19:14, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Regarding Byron, it seems there was some support for Byron expressed in the discussions for other writers, but no one actually voted for his inclusion, strangely: Actually, I can't find a record of his nomination in the archives. Perhaps it would be worth renominating him. Kaldari 15:09, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * ...Byron has the advantage of genuinely iconic status (how many times has Byron shown up as a fictional character in somebody else's work? How many later Romantic and post-Romantic writers, especially in the non-English-speaking world, view the Romantic hero as essentially an extension of Byron's persona?), a much more interesting life than Scott, and probably greater critical respect... - john k


 * Just FYI, Byron was not seconded. Maurreen 16:02, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

FYI - people who "didn't make the list" were just ranked below the top 20 (the lists continue). so far as I've checked, everyone's on the lists somewhere. also, the people at the bottom of some of these lists are fairly obscure (e.g. the technology list). --Rikurzhen 16:36, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I nominated Byron, but nobody else voted on him. john k 19:14, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

New idea -- about two for each of us?
About eight people have made more than two edits to this page of the past 500. I'm thinking we could each add one or two more. Maybe unless there is overwhelming opposition to them, we just take them. Then we still have about four left to work out. This plan is not intended to discourage anyone new from joining in, but it's a way to move things along. How's that sound? Maurreen 16:50, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * It sounds a bit arbitrary, but probably much more efficient than dealing with the dozens of nominations that are still outstanding (which seem quite heavy on writers). So basically each person must determine who they think are the two most important people who are still absent from the list (while keeping an eye for breadth of representation). Then what do they do? Post them below and ask if anyone objects? Kaldari 19:56, 15 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, that's what I had in mind. Maurreen 03:21, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

J. Robert Oppenheimer
 * Maurreen's pick
 * Comments? Maurreen 04:33, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Looking better
We need to find closure here and move on to actually improving the articles on our list. My picks: Queen Elizabeth I and Joan of Arc plange 02:01, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

compiled list
I complied the data from
 * 1) "A list of "The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History", chosen by Michael H. Hart.
 * 2) 100 Most Influential Books Ever Written, from book by Martin Seymour-Smith
 * 3) Either of:
 * 4) *Life magazine's list of the Top 100 people who made the Millennium, ranked in order of importance.
 * 5) *Time magazine's 100 people of the century

the list below are all those with 2 or 3 hits out of 3. those in bold/linked are not currently on the list. --Rikurzhen 20:52, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

--Rikurzhen 21:37, 15 August 2006 (UTC)


 * This is a good idea. But I'm confused. You say "2 or 3 hits out of 3", but aren't you working from four lists? Maurreen 03:29, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
 * That must have taken some time to compile, thanks. But how can both these lists add up to only 80 people? Maurreen 03:31, 16 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I treated the two lists under #3 (above) as one, since they covered overlapping but distinct time periods. After I noticed the spelling-differences problem, I only updated with those that required discussion. The actual list might be closer to 90. I used software to do the hard part. --Rikurzhen 04:07, 16 August 2006 (UTC)


 * If you have an interest in seeing these comparisons done is a more rigorous fashion, we could hand curate the names on a scratch page and then I can repeat the comparisons. Let me know. --04:15, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

It seems like both added together would have to number at least 100, but likely more. Maurreen 05:31, 16 August 2006 (UTC)


 * It appears that a great number of the names are unique to each list. --Rikurzhen 05:54, 16 August 2006 (UTC)


 * OK, putting aside the "supplmental list", are you saying that "The list" are all those who are included in at least two of the source lists? Maurreen 06:19, 16 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes. There might have been even more if I had done the calculation different, but there at there are at least this many that are found in at least two of the source lists. --Rikurzhen 06:23, 16 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I think I like this direction. I appreciate the energy you put into it. Maybe we could split the alphabet and pursue this idea further together? Maurreen 06:29, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

I've compiled the necessary information at Wikipedia talk:Core biographies/Published_Lists. We could coordinate there? --Rikurzhen 07:37, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

The list

 * 1) Aquinas, Thomas
 * 2) Aristotle
 * 3) Bacon, Francis
 * 4) Beethoven, Ludwig Van
 * 5) Bell, Alexander Graham
 * 6) Bolivar, Simon
 * 7) Bonaparte, Napoleon
 * 8) Calvin, John
 * 9) Columbus, Christopher
 * 10) Confucius
 * 11) Copernicus, Nicolaus
 * 12) Curie, Marie
 * 13) Darwin, Charles
 * 14) de Beauvoir, Simone
 * 15) Descartes, Rene
 * 16) Edison, Thomas
 * 17) Einstein, Albert
 * 18) Queen Elizabeth I
 * 19) Euclid
 * 20) Fermi, Enrico
 * 21) Fleming, Alexander
 * 22) Ford, Henry
 * 23) Freud, Sigmund
 * 24) Galilei, Galileo
 * 25) Gandhi, Mohandas
 * 26) Gorbachev, Mikhail
 * 27) Hitler, Adolf
 * 28) Homer
 * 29) Jefferson, Thomas
 * 30) Kant, Immanuel
 * 31) JFK -- missed previously
 * 32) Kepler, Johannes
 * 33) Keynes, John Maynard
 * 34) Leonardo da Vinci
 * 35) Lincoln, Abraham
 * 36) Lister, Joseph
 * 37) Locke, John
 * 38) Luther, Martin
 * 39) Magellan, Ferdinand
 * 40) Marconi, Guglielmo
 * 41) Marx, Karl
 * 42) Maxwell, James Clerk
 * 43) Mendel, Gregor
 * 44) Michelangelo
 * 45) Newton, Isaac
 * 46) Pasteur, Louis
 * 47) Peter The Great
 * 48) Plato
 * 49) Rousseau, Jean-Jacques
 * 50) Shakespeare, William
 * 51) Smith, Adam
 * 52) Tolstoy, Leo
 * 53) Vasco da Gama
 * 54) William The Conqueror
 * 55) Wittgenstein, Ludwig
 * 56) Wollstonecraft, Mary
 * 57) Zedong, Mao


 * found +3 b/c of spelling differences. but two have already been seconded. JFK? --Rikurzhen 22:13, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

supplmental list
cross checked those with only 1 vote from the 3 sources above against Murray (2003) gives each of these and extra vote: --Rikurzhen 22:34, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

[bolding for those not already on list]


 * 1) Archimedes
 * 2) Augustine Of Hippo
 * 3) Babbage, Charles
 * 4) Berkeley, George
 * 5) Descartes, René
 * 6) Euler, Leonhard
 * 7) Franklin, Benjamin
 * 8) Hegel - contested above
 * 9) Heisenberg, Werner
 * 10) Hobbes, Thomas - contested above
 * 11) Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm
 * 12) Monteverdi, Claudio
 * 13) Morse, Samuel F.B.
 * 14) Pascal, Blaise
 * 15) Picasso, Pablo
 * 16) Plotinus
 * 17) Raphael
 * 18) Rutherford, Ernest - uncontested above
 * 19) Schopenhauer, Arthur
 * 20) Spinoza, Baruch De
 * 21) Stravinsky, Igor - uncontested above
 * 22) Virgil

Easy way out -- room to grow
We don't have to finish the list in the near future. We could just leave it for now. Maurreen 04:43, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Consolidation?
quick consolidation -- these names appear to have been proposed or voted for in the discussions above: --Rikurzhen 06:10, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) Adi Shankara
 * 2) Ahmad ibn-al-Husayn al-Mutanabbi
 * 3) Alexander Fleming
 * 4) Arthur Schopenhauer
 * 5) Baruch de Spinoza
 * 6) Brando - above
 * 7) Bruce Lee - above
 * 8) Burke - above
 * 9) Charles Lyell or James Hutton
 * 10) Chekov
 * 11) Christiaan Huygens
 * 12) Chu Yüan-chang
 * 13) Cicero - oppose * 2
 * 14) Claudio Monteverdi
 * 15) Joseph Conrad - Support Rcpaterson 23:57, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 16) Enrico Fermi - above
 * 17) Euripides - Aeschylus instead
 * 18) Francis of Assisi - no votes
 * 19) Geoffrey Chaucer - no votes
 * 20) Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel - above
 * 21) George Berkeley
 * 22) Hobbes - above
 * 23) Ibsen - Support. Maurreen 15:48, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 24) J. Robert Oppenheimer - above
 * 25) John Dalton
 * 26) John F. Kennedy
 * 27) Jöns Jakob Berzelius
 * 28) Joseph Lister - suggested by Maurreen 13:35, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 29) Kalidasa
 * 30) Ludwig Wittgenstein
 * 31) Melville - above
 * 32) Montaigne - above
 * 33) Orson Welles
 * 34) Orwell - above
 * 35) Petrarch
 * 36) Pierre-Simon Laplace
 * 37) Plotinus
 * 38) Ptolemy
 * 39) Robert Koch
 * 40) Rutherford - above
 * 41) Samuel Morse - Support. Maurreen 08:59, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 42) Simone de Beauvoir
 * 43) Stravinsky - above
 * 44) Toyotomi Hideyoshi
 * 45) Vasco da Gama - 2x oppose
 * 46) Werner Heisenberg
 * 47) Wilde - above
 * 48) William Harvey
 * 49) Woolf - above

I'm confused. I don't understand what this list represents. Maurreen 06:13, 16 August 2006 (UTC)


 * These names appear to have been proposed in sections above. ... You may want to second/vote for any that seem appropriate. --Rikurzhen 06:14, 16 August 2006 (UTC)


 * We have four archive pages of people who have been nominated, with various results, including many of those listed immediately above. I'm sorry, but I've been trying to work on narrowing things down. This doesn't seem like progress to me. Maurreen 06:23, 16 August 2006 (UTC)


 * okay dokey -- i suppose that depends on the desired false positve and false negative rate. --Rikurzhen 06:26, 16 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I believe the list now contains all relevant annotations from the archived discussion. I've brought back a few from the archives to the voting sections above with the addition of my vote. --Rikurzhen

Archive? More contested
These candidates are contested. Does anyone feel strongly about keeping these nominations alive? If not, we can archive them. Maurreen 08:04, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Philosophers

 * 1) Adi Shankara - Indian philosophy
 * 2) Support Rikurzhen 06:11, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 3) Oppose, Definitely not one of the 250 most important people who've ever lived. Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 00:02, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 4) John Stuart Mill
 * 5) Support – Listed in at least two related published lists. Maurreen 09:47, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 6) Oppose, Definitely not one of the 250 most important people who've ever lived. Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 00:04, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Scientists

 * 1) Jöns Jakob Berzelius - chem/physics
 * 2) Support Rikurzhen 06:11, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 3) Oppose, not one of the 250 most important people who've ever lived. Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 00:02, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 4) John Dalton - chem/physics
 * 5) Support Rikurzhen 06:11, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 6) Oppose, Definitely not one of the 250 most important people who've ever lived. Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 00:02, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 7) Edwin Hubble
 * 8) Support – Listed in at least two related published lists. Maurreen 09:47, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 9) Oppose, Definitely not one of the 250 most important people who've ever lived. Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 00:03, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 10) Christiaan Huygens - technology, polymath
 * 11) Support Rikurzhen 06:11, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 12) Oppose, Definitely not one of the 250 most important people who've ever lived. Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 00:02, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 13) comment - Murray (2003) ranks his overall scientific emminence equal to that of Einstein. --Rikurzhen 00:15, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 14) Edward Jenner
 * 15) Support – Listed in at least two related published lists. Maurreen 09:47, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 16) Oppose, Definitely not one of the 250 most important people who've ever lived. Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 00:04, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 17) Robert Koch - medicine
 * 18) Support Rikurzhen 06:11, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 19) Oppose, Definitely not one of the 250 most important people who've ever lived. Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 00:02, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 20) Pierre-Simon Laplace - astronomy, mathematics
 * 21) Support Rikurzhen 06:11, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 22) Oppose, Definitely not one of the 250 most important people who've ever lived. Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 00:02, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 23) Charles Lyell - Earth science
 * 24) Support Rikurzhen 06:11, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 25) Oppose, Definitely not one of the 250 most important people who've ever lived. Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 00:02, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 26) Comments: I realize we don't now have anyone from the earth sciences. But I wonder whether James Hutton might be better. Maurreen 06:27, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 27) Judgement call. They're the top 2. --Rikurzhen 06:30, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 28) Actually, in terms of overall notability in science, Lyell's importance to Darwin's work probably breaks the tie. --Rikurzhen 06:44, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Writers

 * 1) Ahmad ibn-al-Husayn al-Mutanabbi - Arabic literature
 * 2) Support Rikurzhen 06:11, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 3) Oppose, Definitely not one of the 250 most important people who've ever lived. Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 00:02, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 4) Simone De Beauvoir
 * 5) Support – Listed in at least two related published lists. Maurreen 09:47, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 6) Oppose, Definitely not one of the 250 most important people who've ever lived. Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 00:03, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 7) Cicero - "He is generally considered the greatest Latin orator and prose stylist."
 * 8) Support Rikurzhen 07:00, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 9) Oppose, Definitely not one of the 250 most important people who've ever lived. Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 00:02, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 10) Euripides
 * 11) Support Rikurzhen 06:24, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 12) Oppose, Definitely not one of the 250 most important people who've ever lived. Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 00:02, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 13) Kālidāsa - Indian literature
 * 14) Support Rikurzhen 06:11, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 15) Oppose, Definitely not one of the 250 most important people who've ever lived. Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 00:02, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 16) Petrarch - western lit
 * 17) Support Rikurzhen 06:32, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 18) Oppose, Definitely not one of the 250 most important people who've ever lived. Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 00:02, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Miscellaneous

 * 1) Phineas T. Barnum
 * 2) Support – Listed in at least two related published lists. Maurreen 09:47, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 3) Oppose, Definitely not one of the 250 most important people who've ever lived. Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 00:03, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 4) Helen Keller
 * 5) Support – Listed in at least two related published lists. Maurreen 09:47, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 6) Oppose, Definitely not one of the 250 most important people who've ever lived. Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 00:04, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 7) Pope Urban II
 * 8) Support – Listed in at least two related published lists. Maurreen 09:47, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 9) Oppose- In the strongest possible terms-please see 'Pope Urban II-you can not be serious!' below. Rcpaterson 10:59, 17 August 2006 (UTC)