Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Vital Articles/Archive 1

assessment criteria
I am personally not an adept in the computer language of the project templates. However, I think this project is special in several elements:

Importance: As all article are vital, all articles within this project are (in my opinion) by definition of TOP importance. Hence the importance option should be disables (as non informative) in the template

Class: As we aim for GA or higher, the current template demanding B class checks for B class articles is getting in the way of Quick-n-Dirtyt B-class tagging, and this caveat should be removed

Nesting: As I think the improvement drive for this group of articles will be essential in the improvement of Wikipedia as a whole, I would argue (but that is personal opinion) NOT TO NEST the Vital article template but leave it out in the open. Arnoutf (talk) 22:03, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree with the nesting and class points; I think that a B-Class review might be worthwhile once the project's gotten more attention, but right now it does seem kind of unnecessary. You can see my views on importance at WP:WikiProject Vital Articles/Assessment, which I just created a skeleton for. -Drilnoth (talk) 22:19, 1 February 2009 (UTC)


 * B-class should not be tagged "quick and dirty" - it's okay for one person to go through the checklist himself and bless it but there should be nothing "quick" about it. C-class is the new "default" for articles that are beyond start-class.  Marking articles "stub/start/c" should be a quick-and-dirty process.  I would recommend every article that hasn't been GA-or-higher reviewed lately be assessed in its current state.  A single editor can mark an article stub/start/c/b and for b, it can mark it "GA/A/FA-candidate."  If the article is already at GA or higher and it doesn't warrant a change, mark it as reassessed and move on.  Don't be afraid to mark FAs as "needing fixing or de-featuring" if necessary. davidwr/  (talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail)  02:09, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I think that we should use B-Class reviews once the project is more fully established... right now, I think we should focus on getting the articles tagged, and worry about B-Class reviews later. -Drilnoth (talk) 02:22, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * As long as you don't actually promote it to B-class without reviewing it, then it's okay by me. Tagging it as "b-class review candidate" or anything-higher-pre-review-candidate can definitely be done quick-and-dirty. Bear in mind that GA and higher require formal processes, which is why I said "pre-review-candidate." davidwr/  (talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail)  02:54, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Currently, I've been looking at the assessments other projects have given the article and tagging it similarly for this one; that should usually give a fairly close assessment. -Drilnoth (talk) 03:07, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Importance
I tend to disagree, you are downgrading this specific project. Personally we have 2 options.

1) Not give importance labels at all, not willing to classify between vital and vital articles (this is perfectly all right, we do this in wikiproject Netherlands; importance is optional)

2) Use levels to distinaguish between top 100, top 1000, and top 10000. That seems fair (and objective). However in that case I would argue that all top 100 and all top 1000 articles are AT LEAST top importance (many projects have many Top articles, this project span all of wikipedia). Personally I would say that top 100 are "Essential" a new class going beyond top. 101-1000 are "top" important and 1001-10000 are high important. Note that even with that we label less than 0.5%!! of about (current) 2.7 Million Wikipedia articles as high importance. The selection of importance has been evaluated already by inclusion in the lists (ie no low importance article can ever be part of vital articles).

I brief, my suggestions are twofold: 1) Drop importance altogether as all articles in this project are of high importance (by definition) 2) Use labels to distinguish between top 100, 1000 and 10000. But in that case add essential level for 1-100; keep top for 101-1000 and use high for 1001-10000. Arnoutf (talk) 22:36, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Ah; that makes sense now. I'll say just drop the importance parameter... it's also easier that way. -Drilnoth (talk) 22:44, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Would be my preference as well (I was behind the dropping in the Netherland project ;-) as importance is even more subjective as class; and here we are dealing with an external evaluation (ie inclusion into list) anyway. Also, makes maintenance of tags easier, andc that is worth (if pragmatic)something too. Arnoutf (talk) 22:49, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
 * ✅; I think I've fixed everything that needed to be changed. -Drilnoth (talk) 22:59, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

First collaboration
I'm hoping to really start a collaboration page soon, and was wondering if United States would be a good first collaboration, with a goal of making it an FA? -Drilnoth (talk) 19:55, 2 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I think that is too ambitious a goal for a first effort. USA is a highly visible, controversial article that attracts many, many editors. Getting such an article up to high quality is very difficult as many people have often opposing views on content and ways to present it. I would suggest an article that is not attracting that many editors, nor has such controversial elements. Arnoutf (talk) 21:48, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Good point; I'll look for something better. -Drilnoth (talk) 22:39, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * How about Book? It's an important article which is highly viewed, but isn't nearly as controversial. -Drilnoth (talk) 23:18, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Methodology
Hi, what is the criteria for an articles vital status? ~ R . T . G  14:57, 14 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Note: This is a suggestion to include Methodology rather than an assesment of the vital article method ~ R . T . G  15:06, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
 * There's no really specific criteria, but I'd say that that can be included in the expanded list, and if someone has a problem with it it can be discussed then. -Drilnoth (talk) 00:50, 15 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Ok, gone ahead with that. Not sure where it went so just in the general philosophy section. ~ R . T . G  02:33, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Sounds good. -Drilnoth (talk) 03:43, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Article alerts
Everyone loves this thing so far, so I don't see why you wouldn't love it too.Headbomb {{{sup|ταλκ}}κοντριβς – WP Physics} 01:36, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

AssessorTags
Hello! I thought that I'd bring to your attention a new script which I have created, AssessorTags, which helps to add WikiProject banners to talk pages. have now been included in the script, so it may be helpful when locating and tagging articles. Documentation for the script can be found here, and if you have any questions feel free to ask at my talk page. Please not that I will probably not be watching this page, so comments left here will not be responded to. –Drilnoth (T • C) 01:25, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Geology
I've been doing a lot of work on expanding geology, but I know that it is still definitely rough in places. Is there anyone here who would be willing to read/skim it, preferably a non-geologist, and make notes on the talk page (and/or the to-do list there) of what should be done for improvements? I'd like to know what is/isn't clear, and what more would be desired from the article. Thanks. Awickert (talk) 21:45, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I'll take a quick look at it, probably tomorrow. -Drilnoth (talk) 22:00, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
 * OK - thanks. Awickert (talk) 23:09, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Hey - if you don't have enough time to go through it, that's OK - but I'm thinking of doing a big expansion, and I don't like the current organization. Input (other than my own) on how the article could be better-organized would be very helpful - thanks. Awickert (talk) 05:11, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Bot request
I thought this project might want to know about a bot request I made here. If you have any comments, they'd be welcomed. All the best, – Quadell (talk) 02:02, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Tagging
I hope to soon go through and use AWB to tag most of the articles within this project's scope with Vital, so that we can start up a cleanup listing. I won't be assessing them at the same time—I feel that it is more important to tag the pages for the listing quickly than to take a long time to assess them right away—but I just thought that I'd let everyone know. –Drilnoth (T • C) 15:38, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Proposed changes
I love that we're trying to make this list, but I have some serious problems with Vital articles/Expanded as it stands. I'm hoping we can hash out an agreement on what belongs and what doesn't, and then update the list accordingly. I mean, Heidi Valkenburg is on the list, but History of Asia is not. There are eight entries regarding tennis, but only four involving Buddhism. And, of course, many are redirects, and not unfrequently two separate entries will redirect to the same article. Perhaps we should look at (say) the "top importance" articles in WikiProject Films to help determine the most important films, etc.? – Quadell (talk) 22:20, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * That seems reasonable. Over time, go through each WikiProject and properly get the list in shape. Would it make sense to start the list from scratch if we're going through everything anyway, to avoid confusion? –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 22:24, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Honestly, yes, I think it would. A good place to start for organization would be at WikiProject Council/Directory (though not every category of Vital articles will have a WikiProject... but it's a start.) – Quadell (talk) 22:31, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * And then there are the categorization schemes at Good articles and Featured articles... – Quadell (talk) 22:33, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Of all these, I think I like the GA organization best. – Quadell (talk) 22:34, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * And Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Core topics uses yet another organizational scheme! I think the first step is to come up with a list of the topics that vitals might be under, organized into a neat hierarchy. It should be brief, and I think either GA or Core Topics should be fine. Or some amalgamation. I'd do this, but I'm heading out soon and won't be available online until maybe Sunday. :( – Quadell (talk) 22:44, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I like GA's organization. Shall we start with important articles related to "The Arts" and work our way down the list from there? We can go through WikiProject top- and high-importance categories related to The Arts and start rebuilding that part of the list that way. If you'd like, I can get the lead of the expanded list reformatted with a how-to guide, blank the current page, and we can restart from the top with a nice big Underconstruction tag placed at the top. Does that sound good? (and if we're doing this anyway by hand, we might as well tag with WikiProject Vital Articles by hand, too. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 22:46, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes. I also think the WikiProject Vital Articles tag is the best way to list these, with a static list as a backup. That way if someone adds the template to their favorite 2-bit actor, we can see the discrepancy on the list and remove it. I think it should be as carefully guarded as FAs and GAs. By the way, the WikiProject Vital Articles should have some sort of "expanded=yes" or "class=expanded" or something, to let people know if it's expanded or not. This could itself be expanded to further classes, if warranted. – Quadell (talk) 22:50, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Sounds good; I'll do some reworking of the template soon, to add in a "what level of vitalness?" type of thing and also to allow categorization of the article based on topic, quality, and importance (a lot of cats, I know, but I think that it makes sense in order to keep things straight). –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 22:54, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

I think "vitalness level" is the same as "importance", right? Also, I have a crazy idea. We call it "rank" or "circle" or something, with valid values of 1, 2, 3, or 4. One is the most vital, and 4 is the least (but still vital--anything not meeting the criteria for 4 is considered "standard importance" and not included in the project). And each level accepts an order of magnitude more articles than the previous: so there are only ten level-1 vital articles (basically just the topics), 100 level-2 vitals, 1000 level-3 vitals (basically the current VA list), and 10,000 level-4 vitals (an expanded "expanded" list). Well, actually there would be 90 level-2s, so that there are 100 of level 1 and 2 together; and 990 level-3s, etc. Basically, if you have a level-3 vital article, you should know that it's one of the 10^3 most important articles on Wikipedia. And of course new ones can't be added unless old ones are removed. So if there aren't yet 10,000 vital articles, anyone could nominate an article for vitality, and we'd all get a week or so to !vote, and consensus would say if it's in. And anyone could nominate a current VA for non-vitality, to remove it. If there are already 10,000 VAs, no new nominations would be accepted unless a position opened up. See? Does this sound good? – Quadell (talk) 02:55, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Sounds great! I'll work on template coding tomorrow (I think that we might not be able to use WPBannerMeta with this complexity, so I might need to steal some code from things like WPBiography). –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 03:02, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Consider that the banner should possibly look more like GA and less like WPBiography. Or maybe something inbetween. – Quadell (talk) 12:32, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Link: Vital articles/Expanded/draft. – Quadell (talk) 03:22, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Great! I would suggest separating the level 2 and 3 lists into separate lists just to keep things clear (I also moved the page to fix capitalization). –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 10:37, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I thought it'd be easier to come up with 2s and 3s in one glom, and then split them. – Quadell (talk) 12:32, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Scratch that. Okay, Vital articles/Expanded/Draft now holds my idea for the Big Ten, along with all the entries at Vital 100 and Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Core topics, and suggestions for how many of the Big 100 should go into each category. Please feel free to reorganize as you see fit. If you're happy with this organization, then we can choose which articles make the cut. – Quadell (talk) 22:23, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
 * That selection of numbers and topics looks well-balanced. I'll take a hack at it. (it looks like we may have a little leeway, too; I only count 96 articles with your proposed counts). –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 22:39, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I've finished my first round at it... could you take a look? I'm not trying to be too harsh, but it is tough to decide what the 100 most important topics in all or knowledge are... –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 01:31, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I know, right? What a ridiculous task we put on ourselves. :) – Quadell (talk) 02:53, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree with nearly all your picks. Here are the changes I made, and if you disagree, maybe we can hash these out. Everything I took out, I moved to level-3. What do you think? (By the way, I loved your format for the level-1s, and I hope we eventually do that for the rest.) – Quadell (talk) 02:49, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
 * In Art, I chose theatre instead of drawing.
 * Geography was brutal. I added 2 slots here from Society, plus the 1 unused slot, and it was still tough to whittle down. I made some decisions differently than you did, too.
 * Life was tough. I moved fire down to technology, moved house here from society, and whittled out some others.
 * In Science, I put medicine back in, and whittled a ton.
 * In Society, I put cuisine back in, and whittled
 * In Language, History, and Technology, I just whittled
 * We agreed on Math and Philosophy.
 * Addendum, I miscounted, so I have to remove one more. Theatre? (We have Performing arts.) – Quadell (talk) 02:53, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Looks good! I'll get that list formatted and will start helping on level 3.–Drilnoth (T • C • L) 14:58, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Levels 1 and 2 look great, and I believe they are done. From this point on, ones can only be added or removed by consensus. – Quadell (talk) 14:11, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Sounds good. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 14:16, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Is the VA tag on all the level-1 and 2 articles? Should it have "topic", "level", and "class"? (Is the template ready?) – Quadell (talk) 14:21, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * The template isn't ready; I hope to put a lot of work in today and tomorrow. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 14:33, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * If you need any assistance with that, let me know. – Quadell (talk) 15:06, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

We currently have 991 proposals for level 3, the Vital Thousand. We need more, and then we need to whittle them down. What areas are most missing? Technology? Daily life? Pop culture? – Quadell (talk) 14:20, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I've started a discussion for this at Wikipedia talk:Vital articles/Level/3. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 14:33, 18 May 2009 (UTC)


 * If you want ideas on what is the most important, you may want to look at last year's run by SelectionBot, starting with this list which is ranked by an importance-quality score. If you click on the "Importance score" header, you can look at these in order of importance.  The importance in those cases are derived from a combination of (a) no. of page hits, (b) no. of interwiki links and (c) no. of links into the page.  It's not perfect, but in most subject areas it gives a very good ordering of articles, and it will help you remember the important ones you might have missed. It's also about as impartial as you can get on WP - one problem with VA-type discussions is that it often just boils down to one person's opinions vs another (is Bob Dylan more important than the Rolling Stones), etc.)  Walkerma (talk) 15:07, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Hmm... thanks for the link. That could be helpful. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 15:46, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Talk page tag "vital"
If, per this, the tag has been deprecated, why does your main WikiProject page still mandate its use? --Dweller (talk) 15:03, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Easy: Because nobody updated the project page. :) The deprecation was just done today and I don't think that anyone had gotten around to it yet. I've fixed it. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 16:03, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Hmm. I suggest that bots removing it are instructed to carry some explanation and/or a link, for the help of the editors who aren't familiar with this WikiProject's work. It would also be worth having some text to explain why the deprecated template is being removed but not replaced with the new one. spelling deprecated correctly would also help avoid the attention of copyeditor-pedants like me! --Dweller (talk) 16:13, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Ah, forget it. I see from Polbot's contribs that it's finished removing the old and has just started adding the new. --Dweller (talk) 16:15, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I probably could have done better at communicating. – Quadell (talk) 19:14, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Liaison with the 1.0 project
Hi, I'm glad to see that someone is taking an interest again in these major topics. Traditionally this work was coordinated through the 1.0 team, which organises offline releases of WP; our next release (0.7) is due out very soon. However the person running the Core Topics project left WP in 2006 and no one has volunteered to take over since then - so I have to support this venture! I think it's much better for a formal project to oversee WP:VA, rather than letting it be the free for all it has been.

I'd like to give you some comments about how the 1.0 project relates to this project:
 * 1) This new "vital 100" list looks awfully like WP:CORE!
 * 2) There is also a Core Supplement list - I added that to the above list.
 * 3) The WP1.0 template has a set of parameters that we use to indicate the status of an article within the three most important lists: core=yes, coresup=yes, VA=yes.  We have declared that all of these articles should be in all the general 1.0 releases, provided they meet a basic level of quality (most, but not all, do).  If you have a good set of criteria defining what you mean as vital, then it's likely we could do the same with the list you create.
 * 4) Regarding that last point, can I ask how you plan to judge what is vital and what is not?  Different people favour different things; from what I have seen the main dispute is between conceptual vs concrete (e.g., which is more important, "matter" or "atom"; or "theatre arts" vs "William Shakespeare".  Many people at WP:VA and its foreign sister projects have believed that all major countries (and many major cities) belong at WP:VA, but many of these were deleted a couple of years ago by someone who favoured more philosophical and conceptual topics.  Often the more concrete topic gets far more hits, but the conceptual one may be a broader topic, and it's usually a much harder article to write (and therefore usually worse in quality).  I've also had to argue with people that their favourite religious sect/pop singer/baseball player/movie etc does not belong in the top 1000, but that's very hard to quantify.  Who is more important, the Rolling Stones or Nirvana?  Madonna or Mozart?  Lavoisier or Zoroastrianism? How can you judge these things?  If you don't make it VERY clear what the criteria are, you will spend many hours arguing about such things!
 * 5) One tool that may help you judge these things is the 1.0 SelectionBot, which uses four different parameters (three of which are based on simple statistics) to judge the importance of an article.  The importance score is combined with a quality score to give an overall score, and then a list like this one is generated.  You can click on the "Importance score" to sort by that parameter.  We continue to refine this system, and future runs will be even better, though it will continue to favour concrete topics over conceptual ones.   Once this VA project is in the 1.0 system, it'll be in line to get its own list anyway; at that point you can use SelectionBot to spot any articles with low importance scores! (Note - it's a lot easier to say to someone - "Your favourite TV show only has an importance score of XXYY" rather than "I don't think your favourite TV show is very important"!)
 * 6) The Core Contest was hugely successful in improving content on important topics, though the delay in awarding the prizes spoilt things.  However, User:Proteins sorted this out beautifully and he plans to run another contest at some point (probably December 2009).  Work with him on that, and you may see some dramatic improvement in some things (like this).
 * 7) The Core Topics Collaboration of the Fortnight (which has been monthly for a couple of years) is just about dead; I stopped updating the article about four months ago because no one was voting.  I recently supported a suggestion to end this, but if you think such a collaboration would be valuable to this project you may want to consider (a) taking it over or (b) creating your own collaboration in the way YOU want, then we can direct things from the old to the new.  The Core topics COTF does at least have a "prime spot" on the Community Portal, which it's about to lose (I suggested dropping it - but I think I'd support this project taking over that spot on CP if you can get an active collaboration started.  You need one person to really drive the collaboration and keep it updated, plus a handful of others willing to lend a hand with contributing content.  I would continue to contribute a bit when I can.
 * 8) Please be in touch.  Our 1.0 project pages can often go through quiet periods, but there is in fact almost continual activity offline (where much of our work is!), and your work is of great interest to us.  So please keep us updated with new developments!

Good luck with the project! Representing the 1.0 team, Walkerma (talk) 05:11, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks! I'll respond point-by-point.
 * The Vital 100 list has actually been around since June 2008, although I see that the core list has been longer. I think that between the vital 100 and the standard (1,000 article) vital list, all of the ones in the "core" should be covered.
 * All of the articles in the supplements list are probably already in the standard list and the expanded VA list, but thanks for pointing it out! I'm kind of thinking that the core lists could be folded into the VA lists so that there's only one set, as the lists are pretty similar.
 * This is dependent on the answer to #4.
 * In my opinion, the vital 100 consists primarily of subject overviews... there's no biographies or specific details of a topic except in circumstances where the "subtopic" is basically it's own topic, as is the case with Atom. The standard list is a bit more forgiving, and can include important people and subtopics, though typically things like specific buildings and very small countries aren't included. The expanded list (still being built), can go into much more details, containing many subtopics (such as popular, individual breeds of dogs), and biographies, and it should probably have all countries. Generally, then, you shouldn't really need to argue about whether someone's favorite religious sect/pop singer/baseball player/movie etc belongs in the vital 1,000 or not; that list is already pretty well established. Since the expanded list is more forgiving, articles can be added and then discussed later if there is a dispute... for example, Dungeons & Dragons certainly doesn't belong on the vital 1000 list with things like Chess, but enough people have played or at least heard of it that it should probably get a spot in the expanded list. There can't really be concrete lines for such a subjective list, but I think that things will probably work themselves out.
 * That sounds like a great idea!
 * That looks like quite a neat idea there; I'll look into it further.
 * I hope to create a good system for collaboration within the WikiProject, and would probably be able to keep it going. A spot on the community portal would be great once it gets going!
 * I plan to! This project will really need to work with the 1.0 team and all other individual WikiProjects to accomplish its goals.
 * Thanks, -Drilnoth (talk) 15:03, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Sounds great! I also see you're looking at a collaboration, and once that's up I'll suggest switching over at the Community Portal. Cheers, Walkerma (talk) 18:11, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Okay; it may take a few days to get the collaboration going, but I'll be sure to either let you know when it's ready. -Drilnoth (talk) 18:15, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Regarding #4, yes, that's an unavoidable issue. I had imagined that after this is stable we would create a nominations page where people could nominate an article for vital status, much like GA or FA or whatever, and there'd be a week of discussion before a decision is made. The nomination would specify the level and category, and would also say which current VA would be demoted in its place (to keep the lists strictly numerically limited). That way it's up to the community. – Quadell (talk) 04:46, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Sounds like this project is dead, but how about Abraham Lincoln?
I'm getting it pretty close to GA, but I'm going to need some serious help to make FA. Anyone want to help? - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 06:24, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Proposed merger of WP:VA and VA/Level/3
There is a proposal to merge Vital articles and Vital articles/Level/3. Please comment at Wikipedia talk:Vital articles.--Father Goose (talk) 08:55, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Request for info - Robotics (and AI)
Hi

I made a request for info on the Vital articles page but thought I should perhaps have posted it here as well.

I wondered how it might be possible toinclude robotics in the technology list. Obviously Robot is an important page but there are articles vital to robotics that we would like considered. There may also be the possibility of some of the Artificial Intelligence articles being vital.

Can someone please tell me how to go about the process of identifying, or building a list of, articles for nomination from within the Robotics project memebers or indeed indiviual nominations for articles to include as a category of Robotics, or Robotics and Artificial Intelligence, to be included in the technology section of the VA.

Thanks Chaosdruid (talk) 00:04, 18 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Like the other talk page, this project isn't particularly active. (You made the first post of 1010, and it's August.) People who aren't here don't get much of a say, but the established precedent is not to put redundant articles on the same page. (sigh) If no one shows up, I might just finalize the list and call it done myself. You're welcome to join me, but you'll need to move beyond pushing a pet project for inclusion, as I assume is the case. (Don't worry, we all have tried to do that at some point or another.) HereToHelp (talk to me) 19:32, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Math no longer GA
and math is not the only article downgraded from good. However, it's the one I gave the DGA icon in place of the GA icon in the list. - 67.224.51.189 (talk) 15:29, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Improved setup
Out of 9000 vital articles, 39 are FA. I think almost everyone would like that percentage to be higher. I would like to see a project that discusses, experiments with and implements changes in Wikipedia so that work on important articles is stimulated more and made easier. Examples of topics to discuss: How is importance estimated? What incentives are most efficient as stimulus? How does the current incentive structures of Wikipedia work? To what effect? To me it seems that quality work currently has a very efficient incentive structure. Todays Featured Article on the Main page immediately highlights to any newcomer that Featured Article creation is very highly esteemed in Wikipedia. This is followed up by signs of merit that many editors proudly display on their personal pages. Can this system be re-rigged to more appropriately weigh in the value of the content? --Ettrig (talk) 08:43, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
 * This area is moribund. However, TCO and I are discussing reviving it and giving some force to it.--Wehwalt (talk) 01:07, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:HighBeam
HighBeam describes a limited opportunity for Wikipedia editors to have access to HighBeam Research. —Wavelength (talk) 16:18, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

List of vital articles
Here are some lists to draw from: davidwr/ (talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail)  04:39, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Core topics - 1,000
 * Vital articles
 * Vital articles/Expanded
 * List of articles every Wikipedia should have
 * Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Core topics
 * Version_1.0_Editorial_Team/Core_topics/Supplement
 * Thanks! I think that most of the pages in the "core topics" pages and List of articles every Wikipedia should have are already in one of the VA pages, although making sure that they're all together would be good to remember once the project really gets going. -Drilnoth (talk) 18:01, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I just added the Core Supplement. Walkerma (talk) 05:11, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

I've had this list in a sandbox for a while. Will paste below in case of any use. -- Quiddity (talk) 22:29, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
 * ~100 WP:Vital 100
 * ~150 WP:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Core topics
 * ~320 (aiming for 200) WP:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Core topics/Supplement
 * ~1,000 WP:Vital articles
 * ~1,000 WP:Core topics - 1,000
 * ~1,000 List of articles every Wikipedia should have
 * ~3,650 (aiming for 10,000-20,000) WP:Vital articles/Expanded (historical: WP:Key articles and WP:Concise)
 * Consult: WP:Version 1.0 Editorial Team
 * Categories: Wikipedia core topics, Top-importance articles
 * See also: ~1,900 WP:Version 0.5, ~2,500 WP:Featured articles


 * In 2010, I added a huge list (summarizing and refining the above lists) to the documentation of Template:Core topics. I've updated a cpl of the numbers there, just now. (I made that list, mostly because I find the contents, and Related pages, at WP:1.0 to be very confusing.) Is there any listing that is more uptodate than that? -- Quiddity (talk) 22:30, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Core Contest

 * Down where the ferro-metallic nucleus is about 5000 degrees! ;^)
 * Binksternet (talk) 04:17, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Recent changes
Welcome new members and old! After consideration of the recent and ongoing big changes and proposed changes in the Vital Articles lists, it is my hope that this will be a logical place for a centralized discussion regarding said changes. While a listing of all articles being considered for a change in status may be soon be desirable here or at a sub-page, I suggest we first focus on methods, goals and pacing of change... as well as the history of these lists, both recent and back in the founding era. I also suggest all current members be contacted as well for a wider base of editors. Thanks to all participating! Jus da  fax   04:14, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree that this location is optimal for discussing the 10–100–1000–10000 most important articles as larger concept. Binksternet (talk) 04:19, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
 * For computer-related tech. articles, there seems to be a big gap between what is listed as "important" and what Wikipedia users consider as important, as indicated by the number of pageviews... Shouldn't user demand be factored into importance? Improving an article that relatively few people read has much less effect on the perceived quality of Wikipedia than improving a high-demand article. LittleBen (talk) 01:57, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Can there first be an agreement on the main levels?
While examining Category:Wikipedia_vital_articles_by_topic, I noted that Category:All_Wikipedia_vital_articles_in_Biology_and_health_sciences has an odd name so I put it for renaming at here. However, this single category is structured in the following manners:


 * 1) Biology and health sciences at Category:Wikipedia vital articles by topic. Template:Core topics and Vital articles/Expanded/Biology and health sciences.
 * 2) Natural science at Version_1.0_Editorial_Team/Core_topics
 * 3) More specifically within Life science and medicine at Version_1.0_Editorial_Team/Core_topics
 * 4) Natural science. at Release_Version
 * 5) Science at Vital articles/Level/2

That's just one. From an outsider's perspective, if no one can even agree on the main categories, it's not productive to argue what articles to include. It's not helpful when the main template, Template:Core topics, includes 11 other user suggested core articles. I think this deserves an RFC but I would suggest going with the release version as it's intended to be the released one. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 06:00, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Comment on the WikiProject X proposal
Hello there! As you may already know, most WikiProjects here on Wikipedia struggle to stay active after they've been founded. I believe there is a lot of potential for WikiProjects to facilitate collaboration across subject areas, so I have submitted a grant proposal with the Wikimedia Foundation for the "WikiProject X" project. WikiProject X will study what makes WikiProjects succeed in retaining editors and then design a prototype WikiProject system that will recruit contributors to WikiProjects and help them run effectively. Please review the proposal here and leave feedback. If you have any questions, you can ask on the proposal page or leave a message on my talk page. Thank you for your time! (Also, sorry about the posting mistake earlier. If someone already moved my message to the talk page, feel free to remove this posting.) Harej (talk) 22:48, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

A radical idea?
Although I am quite certain that this proposal will be quickly shot-down for numerous obvious "reasons", I will risk looking like an idiot for the sake of a possible solution to our "too many articles" issue at WP:VA and WP:VA/E. Perhaps the inherent problem here lies in the arbitrary limits set for each level. There is no limit to the number of articles Wikipedia can include, so why would we limit the number of articles that can be deemed vital?

I suggest that we discuss the option of dispensing with the set-limits, and instead focus on the question of which articles are vital, and at what level are they vital, versus how many we arbitrarily allow ourselves to add. Keep in mind that when the limits were set eight years ago, Wikipedia had many less articles. I'm unsure of how to find this out exactly, but I would guess it was 1/10th the size that it is today.

For example, maybe Level 1 should have 15-20 articles, and level 2 125-150, maybe L3 should have 1,200 and L4 10,500. Since all the contention is based on "X article isn't more vital then Y article", why not consider removing this as an obstacle to consensus?

To clarify, no, I'm not suggesting that we should add everything that all editors suggest, and allow the lists to grow out-of-control, but using an arbitrary limit (set many years ago when Wikipedia was much smaller) as an argument against inclusion seems a bit silly to me. I think this would improve the logic of our arguments. E.g., I think its better to say that Brittany Spears isn't a vital article because of X, Y, and Z, then to simply reject the addition based upon the arbitrary limits imposed on us by editors no longer active with this specific area of the project. What does it matter if we have 10,000, or 10,500 VAs? Does anyone really care? If so, why? Is any harm being done when the lists are over the limit? Perhaps the designations of L1, L2, L3, and L4 are in themselves enough. Why set an arbitrary limit that invariably leads to disagreements?

Like at WP:VA/E, where an editor has decided that blues isn't old enough (101 years), or global enough to justify more than 2 or 3 entries.

In other words, perhaps our goal should be to compile an encompassing list with four levels that include all entries deemed vital to the understanding of that specific area of the project, versus intentionally excluding important topics for the sake of a number which we control anyway. Any thoughts? GabeMc (talk&#124;contribs)  00:42, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Oppose relaxing limits

 * 1) Oppose: This defeats the purpose of having the list in the first place. We have things where as many of any one category can be deemed important to be improved.  They're called top-importance ratings given by WikiProjects.  And frankly, other WikiProjects have been more successful at GAing/FAing articles than this one has.  I'd also note the comment about blues music isn't entirely accurate, and is certainly miscontextualized  p  b  p  00:27, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
 * IMO, the purpose of the list is to identify articles that are vital to the project, not to be slavish to a number arbitrarily set 8 years ago when Wikipedia was just a small little project. Why can't the Vital articles list grow with Wikipedia? If you remove the arbitrary limits, you remove 95% of the bones of contention. GabeMc  (talk&#124;contribs)  00:30, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
 * 1) Oppose - It is, as Pbp notes, a list. If it doesn't have a limit, everyone wants their favorite stuff on it. Jus  da  fax   02:15, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
 * 2) Oppose. I appreciate Gabe's creative thinking, but I second Jusdafax's sentiments.  Without a defined number limit, this becomes an exercise in adding important topics, not prioritizing important topics.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 02:28, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
 * 3) Oppose - I can and do understand the reasoning behind the proposal, but no, I can't agree to it. One thing I have been trying to do with the various WikiProjects in what might broadly, historically, be called the "religion" or "weltanschauung" field is to check what articles are included in the various shorter other reference works on the topic, and more or less saying that those articles will generally be of "Top" importance to that topic. If that were to be done more broadly, then I think that there might well be a good reason for possibly expanding the lists here, based on the overall results of other, more subject-oriented groups. But that hasn't happened yet. John Carter (talk) 20:30, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
 * 4) Oppose Per above. The limits make the whole Vital Articles project a tough task, but it is also what it makes a worthwhile task. We have to make some article a priority over the others. Gizza  ( t )( c ) 06:08, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

Support relaxing limits

 * 1) As nom.  GabeMc  (talk&#124;contribs)  00:33, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Discussion regarding relaxing the VA limits
There are several problems I see with this proposal, stemming from a misunderstanding of the history of this project (I myself have been editing this and the Meta list for about four years; the nominator’s been editing WP:VA for about four months and WP:VA/E for about four weeks). For starters, when Wikipedia was smaller, there wasn't a WP:VA/E list. And when the VA/E list was started, it wasn’t anywhere near 10,000; that happened only recently. So, yeah, there has been some growth as Wikipedia grows.

Also, the “this should grow as Wikipedia grows” is an invalid argument. If you’re not setting an arbitrary number of articles in the list, you’d be setting an arbitrary percentage of the total. What’s more important than the size of one website are two factors. One of these is the growth of notable topics, which has been much slower than the growth of Wikipedia. By and large, most of the topics with articles on Wikipedia passed GNG before Wikipedia was created.

The other is the growth of FAs and GAs. And there hasn’t been any. The theoretical goal of WP:VA and WP:VA/E is to get all 1,000 or 10,000 articles to FA or GA. WP:VA has fewer FAs or GAs now than it did when we first started tracking the stat. WP:VA/E shouldn’t get bigger until most of the articles at WP:VA are FA or GA.

I reiterate my point that the function of this list isn't to cover all the important articles in a given topic; that function has been performed for years (and more effectively than this project) by the Top ratings of various WikiProjects. Finally, we’re jumping the gun here. This proposal is supposedly stemming from an inability to get the list down to 10,000. I think we need to give the effort to get it down to 10,000 more time; a lot more p  b  p  02:40, 25 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Correction. - Per you above comment: "This proposal is supposedly stemming from an inability to get the list down to 10,000", no, that's not at all what I meant. Any idiot can trim out what he/she doesn't like and add what he/she does like. I mean that the recent disputes and contentions stem almost entirely from the arbitrary limits, not so much "this article is not "vital" for reasons X,Y, and Z". GabeMc  (talk&#124;contribs)  02:48, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
 * See, I don't consider the limits to be arbitrary, and as such I consider "We only need X articles on this topic" to be a valid argument. Sure, there are more than 10,000 vital articles, but this list should contain the 10,000 most important or most representative topics.  There are other avenues for addressing "all" "vital" topics  p  b  p  03:03, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
 * How recently have the "limits" been discussed? GabeMc  (talk&#124;contribs)  03:32, 25 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Jusdafax, if the purpose of WP:VA is to act as guidance for prioritizing the improvement of articles, then why impose limits that force editors to choose sides. Afterall, we can't include both Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett, we need to make room for the Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny, and Harry Potter, while we cut Alison Krauss, because she is too recent, having released her first album in 1985, 12 years before the boy wizard fad began, and I predict that she will continue long after the magic wand pop-frenzy has died off. GabeMc  (talk&#124;contribs)  06:40, 25 March 2013 (UTC)


 * For example. - Harry Potter is currently on this list, but Kahlil Gibran is not. Under the current system of pre-set limits, one would need to argue for the removal of another person in order to include Gilbran, when clearly, if there is room on this list for Potter, then there should be room for Gilbran, the third best-selling poet of all time, behind Shakespeare and Lao-Tzu, not? GabeMc  (talk&#124;contribs)  07:01, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
 * The Prophet has sold perhaps 9 million copies. The seven Harry Potter books (all much longer than The Prophet) have sold perhaps 450 million copies.  Rowling is the #1 best selling author in the world (based on total money made, not number of copies sold), having made more money from her books than (running down the list of #2 to #7 best selling authors): James Patterson, Stephen King, Tom Clancy, Danielle Steel, John Grisham, and Dean Koontz.  Furthermore, I don't think Gibran is the 3rd best selling poet.  Shel Silverstein, for instance, has sold over 20 million books, or over three times as many books as Gibran has sold.  Not to mention Dr. Seuss and his over 600 million copies sold.   "But they sell more kids stuff."  Ok, let's grab an article from the Huffington post which summarizes a couple different top-10 poets of all time lists and which never mentions Gibran.  You want specifically Persian poets who have been read more than Gibran?  How about Omar Khayyám?  The Prophet isn't really what you'd call a "big" book, it's only about 80 pages and most pages are either a picture or have a little poem in the middle of a bunch of blank space.  Many other poets have been both more prolific in writing and have had what they wrote more widely disseminated (sold more copies).  I'm not saying that Gibran wasn't good, he was, he did hit the 9 million copies mark, but he's not good enough to bump all those other people off a "who's more important" list. Banaticus (talk) 17:44, 19 April 2013 (UTC)