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Archive 25←Archive 28Archive 29Archive 30Archive 31Archive 32→Archive 35
PASSED
Added 7-0 after 15+ days. Malerisch (talk) 09:05, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

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Add Emmy Noether

Emmy Noether was a German mathematician who made many contributions to mathematics and physics. She was called the "most important woman in the history of mathematics," and "she is consistently ranked as one of the greatest mathematicians of the twentieth century." This proposal accompanies my nomination of Noether's theorem. Malerisch (talk) 07:34, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Support
  1. Support as nom. Malerisch (talk) 07:34, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
  2. Support I've nominated her before. She's important enough that a case for her could be made for the level 3 list over somebody like Frida Kahlo. Cobblet (talk) 15:15, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
  3. Support --Melody Lavender (talk) 05:53, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
  4. Support--Rsm77 (talk) 13:32, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
  5. Support PointsofNoReturn (talk) 20:44, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
  6. Gizza (t)(c) 01:53, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
  7. Support Neljack (talk) 12:52, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
Oppose
Discussion
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FAILED
Not removed 4-5 after 30+ days. Malerisch (talk) 05:51, 25 July 2014 (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.

Remove Roger Bannister

He broke an arbitrary barrier, setting a world record that lasted for all of six weeks. Didn't do much else of note in his career, apart from one Commonwealth Games gold. Never won an Olympic medal. Neljack (talk) 13:01, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

Support
  1. Support as nom. Neljack (talk) 13:02, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
  2. Support Gizza (t)(c) 02:02, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
  3. Support Great runner but not that close to the record now. He simply broke an arbitrary barrier. PointsofNoReturn (talk) 20:46, 26 June 2014 (UTC)
  4. Support If this is the greatest British athlete of all time then poor Brits.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 23:26, 1 July 2014 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Oppose: When I said "remove some athletes", this is not the guy I meant. The fact is that he was the first to break one of sports' significant barriers. He's without question the greatest British athlete of all time. pbp 15:43, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
  2. Oppose: --Rsm77 (talk) 22:28, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
  3. Oppose: The time and distance barrier that he broke was arbitrary, based on one system of units, but it was very significant historically, and there will be much occasion by users of Wikipedia to look up Bannister. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 12:30, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
  4. Oppose --Melody Lavender (talk) 06:03, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
  5. Oppose --Lithistman (talk) 14:17, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
Discussion

pbp, I am bemused by your comment that Bannister is "without question the greatest British athlete of all time". I'm not sure whether you are just referring to track and field or whether you mean to include all sports, but even assuming the narrower definition I find this hard to accept. I have seen a number of discussions about who is the greatest British athlete (in the track and field sense), but I don't think I have ever seen Bannister mentioned. Sebastian Coe, for instance, thinks Mo Farah and Daley Thompson are the greatest British athletes.[1] Coe himself is also frequently mentioned. The absence of Bannister is not surprising - as I said, he didn't do much else apart from the 4 minute mile. In contrast, Coe won back-to-back Olympic 1500m golds (and back-to-back 800m silvers), as well as setting 13 world records including an 800m one that lasted for 16 years. Thompson is regarded as one of the greatest decathletes in history, winning back-to-back Olympic golds, three Commonwealth Games golds, and World and European titles, as well as setting four world records. Farah has won an Olympic and two World Champs titles in the 5000m, and an Olympic and World Champs gold (plus another World Champs silver) in the 10000m. He also holds the European record for the 1500m and the English record for the marathon. I fail to see how Bannister can compare to them. Indeed comparing them to him was what led me to propose his removal. Neljack (talk) 02:45, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Roger Bannister is significant because he was a transcendent figure who did something that had never been done before, just like we have explorers for taking the trip the first time, even if the trip is done by thousands daily and in fair less time. The breaking of the four-minute mile was one of the most significant accomplishments in sports history to that time. On his career stats alone, Jackie Robinson is probably not in the top 10-15 greatest baseball players ever; he makes the list as a transcendent figure. I doubt anybody would argue for Carl Lewis being a more vital athlete than Jesse Owens, despite Lewis have more hardware AND faster times. Likewise, nobody would say Adrian Dantley was a better basketball player than Larry Bird, even though Dantley scored more points in his career. People rank Dantley below George Mikan even, who only played six-and-a-half seasons in the NBA. They were just six-and-a-half transcendent seasons, because he was the NBA's first superstar. pbp 05:11, 24 June 2014 (UTC)
Robinson (and Owens) had a genuinely important social impact; Bannister broke an arbitrary barrier. I understand your point, but I just don't think they are comparable. After all, everyone who sets a world record does someone that has never been done before. Neljack (talk) 10:17, 24 June 2014 (UTC)
The barrier he broke may have been arbitrary, but it has huge symbolic meaning. VA is not based on merit (see Capone and Hitler). --Melody Lavender (talk) 06:05, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

Arguing against Bannister's inclusion because he "broke an arbitrary barrier" is akin to arguing against including Neil Armstrong because multiple men walked on the moon after he did it. The fact is, before he did it, it had never been done in sporting history. In fact, there were scientists arguing that it was, in fact, physically impossible to break that "arbitrary barrier." His doing so puts him in the pantheon of athletes whose names will always be remembered, and as such argues for the inclusion of the article about him in this list of vital articles. Lithistman (talk) 19:57, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

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FAILED
Not removed 3-4 after 30+ days. Malerisch (talk) 05:53, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

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Remove Arnold Palmer

There are too many American golfers on this list. Palmer has fewer tour wins than Hogan, Woods or Nicklaus. Really, when you think about it, we probably don’t need any golfers other than Nicklaus, Woods, and maybe Gary Player for the international angle. pbp 20:12, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Support
  1. pbp 20:12, 24 June 2014 (UTC)
  2. Support Gizza (t)(c) 02:02, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
    Support --Melody Lavender (talk) 14:47, 29 June 2014 (UTC)
  3. SupportUser:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 19:32, 2 July 2014 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Oppose PointsofNoReturn (talk) 20:57, 26 June 2014 (UTC)
  2. Oppose Not the best golfer ever (though still one of the greats), but often tops rankings of the most influential - e.g. this from World Golf.[2] He was instrumental in popularising golf, transforming it from a pastime of the elite into a sport with mass appeal ("Arnie's Army" were a whole new breed of golf fans) and greatly increasing the amount of money to be made in the sport in the process. With Nicklaus and Player, one of the "Big Three". This article from Golf Today gives a good explanation of his influence.[3] Neljack (talk) 13:33, 27 June 2014 (UTC)
  3. Oppose, per Neljack. Lithistman (talk) 14:19, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
  4. Oppose, per Neljack. --Melody Lavender (talk) 13:43, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
Discussion
  • Somebody explain to me why it's necessary to have so many golfers. We have more American golfers than we do American presidents between Lincoln and FDR! We have as many American golfers as we do Mexican political leaders. Get your priorities straight, people! pbp 06:04, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
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PASSED
Added 9-0 after 15+ days. Malerisch (talk) 05:57, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

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Add Mount Fuji

Emblematic for Japan, no other mountain has as much cultural and religious symbolic significance. It might not be as geographically significant as other mountains on the list but geographical importance should not be the only criterion. --Melody Lavender (talk) 06:40, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

Support
  1. Support --Melody Lavender (talk) 06:40, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
  2. Support even though "no other mountain" is certainly an exaggeration. I'll propose other swaps later. Cobblet (talk) 18:08, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
  3. Support Rwessel (talk) 22:21, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
  4. Support Iconic. Huge cultural significance. --Rsm77 (talk) 13:18, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
  5. Support, definitely, seems more vital than the highest peaks of Oceania, Australia, Hawaii which we have.  Carlwev  19:30, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
  6. Support Also, I agree with Carlwev, though perhaps we should leave at least one peak in Australia. PointsofNoReturn (talk) 20:52, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
  7. Support There definitely aren't any mountains in Australia that are comparable to Mount Fuji. Gizza (t)(c) 02:19, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
  8. Support Agree about removing Mount Kosciuszko. It's not a very high mountain - even just in Australasia, Aoraki / Mount Cook, the highest mountain in New Zealand, is more than two-thirds as high again - not to mention more culturally significant. Neljack (talk) 13:10, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
  9. Support Malerisch (talk) 23:38, 19 July 2014 (UTC)
Oppose
Discussion

Well there is Uluru, but that is listed as part of Uluṟu-Kata Tjuṯa National Park. Cobblet (talk) 02:23, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

Another one of my thoughts on having the highest mountain of Australia, we don't even list Australia's capital city, Canberra but it is small 380K pop, but then we also miss Adelaide a city of 1.3M pop, they're not as vital as Sydney but probably more vital than the tallest mountain there. A swap or add for Canberra failed a long while back, but the one for adding Wellington capital of NZ passed, Wellington and Canberra have vaguely similar population and history length.  Carlwev  10:44, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
As an occasional visitor to Canberra, personal experience tells me that it is not vital. Any vitality it has is due to becoming the capital as a political compromise. This fact is conveniently covered in the main Australia article (which has FA status) and I don't think it needs to be further elaborated for the purposes of VA. Wellington, I suppose is slightly older than Canberra (by 50 years) and is a bigger part of New Zealand than Canberra is of Australia. Despite that, I would be tempted to vote to remove Wellington seeing as how Auckland, the North Island and South Island are all listed. I think three geographic divisions/cities for a country of its size and influence is sufficient. Gizza (t)(c) 08:48, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
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NO CONSENSUS
No votes in 30+ days. Malerisch (talk) 06:04, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

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Add: Canterbury Cathedral

as an alternative to Wells Cathedral. Of enormous architectural variety, with every part important; and of the greatest historic important as St Augustine's church, the mother church of the Church of England, and the major pilgrimage destination in the UK.

Support

  1. Amandajm (talk) 08:36, 26 May 2014 (UTC) as an alternative to Wells

Oppose

  1. Oppose. We dont need more English churches. User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 01:18, 2 June 2014 (UTC)
  2. Oppose Gizza (t)(c) 02:19, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Discussion

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FAILED
Not added 2-4 after 30+ days. Malerisch (talk) 06:06, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

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Add Cheating

We are poised to add Doping in sports to the list, but we seem to be missing the overarching concept of gaming the system. pbp 05:25, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Support
  1. pbp 05:25, 24 June 2014 (UTC)
  2. Support Cheating is more than sportmanship. It is one of the biggest concepts worldwide and should be on the list. PointsofNoReturn (talk) 23:03, 1 July 2014 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Oppose Shouldn't cheating in sport be covered under sportsmanship? Cobblet (talk) 13:38, 24 June 2014 (UTC)
  2. oppose Cheating is just any illicit circumvention of established rules. It is not a coherent topic, because it depends on the social context in which rules are being broken whether sport, marriage, games, exams, etc. User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 14:03, 24 June 2014 (UTC)
  3. Oppose Agree that sportsmanship is the general term, having noted the discussion below. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 16:13, 24 June 2014 (UTC)
  4. Oppose per above. Gizza (t)(c) 01:05, 1 July 2014 (UTC)
Discussion

Cheating mentions other things, not just within sports but, exams and relationships, and could also mention, other games, like card, board, video games, gambling, and feasibly some other dishonest activities or crimes, anywhere where one could break written or non-written rules. Not that that means we should have it any more or less.  Carlwev  13:54, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

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PASSED
Added 9-0 after 15+ days. Malerisch (talk) 06:08, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

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Add Rhetoric

Rhetoric is the art of effective or persuasive speaking or writing. It dates back to antiquity and was especially notable in ancient Greece. Rhetoric, grammar, and logic were the original core elements of a liberal arts education and are still valuable skills today. Malerisch (talk) 02:09, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Support
  1. Support as nom. Malerisch (talk) 02:09, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
  2. Support Rwessel (talk) 02:36, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
  3. Support Gizza (t)(c) 02:39, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
  4. Support Cobblet (talk) 15:17, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
  5. Support  Carlwev  17:38, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
  6. Support PointsofNoReturn (talk) 21:00, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
  7. Support Neljack (talk) 13:24, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
  8. Support --Melody Lavender (talk) 06:07, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
  9. Support LHMask me a question 15:53, 19 July 2014 (UTC)
Oppose
Discussion
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PASSED
Added 7-0 after 15+ days. Malerisch (talk) 06:20, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

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Add National Palace Museum

Most visited museum in Asia [4] after the Palace Museum in Beijing (Forbidden City is already va-4); 4.5 million visitors in 2013.

Support
  1. Support as nominator – Editør (talk) 13:03, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
  2. Support The most important museum in the Sinosphere. Cobblet (talk) 18:30, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
  3. Support --Melody Lavender (talk) 19:31, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
  4. Support Gizza (t)(c) 08:06, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
  5. Support Malerisch (talk) 00:47, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
  6. Support There is an interesting story behind how the museum's collection got there in the first place. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 22:06, 11 July 2014 (UTC)
  7. Support PointsofNoReturn (talk) 21:02, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
Oppose
Discussion
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PASSED
Removed 7-0 after 15+ days. Malerisch (talk) 06:21, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

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Remove Philadelphia Museum of Art

Eight American art museums is a lot and some of these are not so notable. The collection of the Art Institute of Chicago is at least as outstanding (I think it's much more so) and it isn't on the list.

Support
  1. Support as nom. Cobblet (talk) 18:30, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
  2. Support --Melody Lavender (talk) 19:32, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
  3. Support – Editør (talk) 23:18, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
  4. Support Gizza (t)(c) 04:43, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
  5. Support Agree with nom. too many of the same thing, if visitors is anything to go by, only 800k pre year compared to 4.5m for the National Palace Museum, which thread just opened.  Carlwev  11:41, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
  6. Support Malerisch (talk) 00:47, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
  7. Support Fair enough. At some point we have too many American museums. Almost every major city has an art museum, but that does not not mean that every major city's art museum should be on the list. PointsofNoReturn (talk) 21:08, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
Oppose
Discussion

I'd nominate the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum for removal since we've recently added Fallingwater to represent Frank Lloyd Wright's architectural achievements – the actual collection inside the museum is similarly less than the cream of the cream. It could be argued that FLW does deserve to have two of his buildings on the list: but it's tough to make that case when the Architecture list remains as pithy as it is. That being said, multiple listings of works by authors and musicians are common. Cobblet (talk) 00:59, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

That would be an okay addition. The question is whether we put this article in the art section or in the architectual section. PointsofNoReturn (talk) 21:08, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
From the article, I get the impression that the most notable aspect of the Guggengeim is the architectural design, so I agree that this building should be moved from Museums to Architecture or removed entirely. – Editør (talk) 14:42, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
The list at Wikipedia talk:Vital articles/Expanded#Most visited art museums shows that the Guggenheim is just one of several well-visited museums in major U.S. cities. – Editør (talk) 22:31, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
I've added the nomination for the Guggenheim. – Editør (talk) 16:14, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
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PASSED
Added 8-0 after 15+ days. Malerisch (talk) 06:22, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

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The National Gallery is the 4th most visited museum in the world, behind only The Louvre, the British Museum, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. If needed, this could be swapped with the Tate Modern, which was established almost 200 years later, is also in the UK, and had 1.5 million less visitors. We're not exactly lacking in modern art museums, either. Malerisch (talk) 00:47, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Support
  1. Support as nom. Malerisch (talk) 00:47, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
  2. Support Cobblet (talk) 17:59, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
  3. Support --Rsm77 (talk) 13:39, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
  4. Support PointsofNoReturn (talk) 21:08, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
  5. Support – Editør (talk) 10:31, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
  6. Support --Melody Lavender (talk) 13:40, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
  7. Support Neljack (talk) 13:46, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
  8. Support Lithistman (talk) 00:22, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
Oppose
Discussion
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No discussion in 30+ days. No action taken. Malerisch (talk) 06:33, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

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Targets

The target for "Biology and health sciences" is 1500 article and as at 02:33, 17 April 2014 (UTC) we are 14 articles under the target. The current target for "Health, medicine and disease" is 250 and we are at 216 (36 under) at the moment. The de facto target for "Organisms" seems to be 1000 and we at 998 right now so 2 under. This leaves "Other Biology" where the target is 250 but we're currently at 267 and therefore 17 over.

I went through the other biology list and think that it will be very difficult to find 17 articles that aren't vital bearing in mind that some of the less vital articles could be swapped for articles not even included yet. It may also be a challenge to find 36 more vital articles related to health. I propose that the health target number be reduced to 225 (still means we're 11 under), formally state the organism target as 1000 and therefore increase the other biology target to 275. Gizza (t)(c) 02:33, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Support
  1. Support as nom. Gizza (t)(c) 02:33, 17 April 2014 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Oppose Organisms could most likely be cut by another 100 articles – look at the fish, birds, butterflies and animal breeds. Many vital medical signs are missing, as I pointed out in an old thread. There are entire fields of medicine like epidemiology/public health or physical therapy not present. We have no medicinal drugs besides penicillin and morphine which I originally put in as an alkaloid under Biochem, but on second thought fits better in the Medicine section. I'm sure a medical professional could think of more things to add. Cobblet (talk) 03:38, 17 April 2014 (UTC)
  2. Oppose per Cobblet PointsofNoReturn (talk) 21:02, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
Discussion

Tangential to the changes in the target itself, but what do people think about moving the articles listed underWikipedia:Vital_articles/Expanded/Physical_sciences#Biomes, 27 to the ecology section of the Biology sub-list? There is some in maintaining the status quo; I can see people wanting to find mountain, lake, forest and desert listed close together (but I also wonder whether topics like moutain and lake are more appropriate for the Geography sublist). If biomes were moved, there are a few other articles in other sections of the Physical Sciences that maybe should go with them (e.g. coral reef and oasis seem more relevant as biomes than as landforms). Plantdrew (talk) 16:56, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Like you said, biomes and other geographical features could be organized in a number of different ways, but I don't mind the current setup. Cobblet (talk) 18:20, 17 April 2014 (UTC)
I think it will be helpful to reduce the number of psychology articles (I will be providing suggestions about that over the next few days) and I would support increasing the number of biology articles correspondingly. Right now, I think the psychology target number is too high, and the biology target number is evidently a bit too low. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 16:55, 20 June 2014 (UTC)
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PASSED
Added 6-0 after 15+ days. Malerisch (talk) 06:37, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

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Add Neuroscience

A significant interdisciplinary field of study currently missing. It expands on Brain and Nervous system, both of which are listed at Level 3. Gizza (t)(c) 02:51, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Support
  1. Support as nom. Gizza (t)(c) 02:51, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
  2. Support Cobblet (talk) 16:20, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
  3. Support --Melody Lavender (talk) 18:01, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
  4. Support PointsofNoReturn (talk) 21:11, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
  5. Support  Carlwev  11:58, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
  6. Support Neljack (talk) 14:13, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
Oppose
Discussion
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PASSED
Removed 5-0 after 15+ days. Malerisch (talk) 09:12, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

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Remove Plum pudding model

Not particularly vital, and only one in a long series of incorrect hypotheses. The only outdated atom model I'd consider vital is the Bohr model, which is still relevant to today's curriculum. Malerisch (talk) 07:22, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Support
  1. Support as nom. Malerisch (talk) 07:22, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
  2. Support No more important than many unlisted historic atomic models. Gizza (t)(c) 11:49, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
  3. Support Let alone other historical scientific/pseudoscientific theories (geocentrism, vitalism/spontaneous generation, phlogiston). Cobblet (talk) 21:52, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
  4. Support I took a college chemistry course recently. This model was only briefly mentioned in class and had only one multiple choice question on the atom unit test. It did not appear on the final exam. PointsofNoReturn (talk) 22:02, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
  5. Support  Carlwev  12:15, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
Oppose
Discussion
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PASSED
Swapped 6-0 after 15+ days. Malerisch (talk) 09:13, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

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Swap: Add Laws of thermodynamics, Remove Second law of thermodynamics

There are 4 laws of thermodynamics. Why do we only list the second one? Malerisch (talk) 07:22, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Support
  1. Support as nom. Malerisch (talk) 07:22, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
  2. Support Gizza (t)(c) 11:50, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
  3. Support Cobblet (talk) 21:53, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
  4. Support --Melody Lavender (talk) 07:46, 11 July 2014 (UTC)
  5. Support Rwessel (talk) 17:21, 11 July 2014 (UTC)
  6. Support PointsofNoReturn (talk) 22:03, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
Oppose
Discussion
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PASSED
Removed 5-0 after 15+ days. Malerisch (talk) 09:14, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

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Remove Antihydrogen, Antiproton, and Antineutron

These are less important than all the types of quarks that were removed a few months ago. Antimatter, antiparticle, and positron are enough. Malerisch (talk) 07:22, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Support
  1. Support as nom. Malerisch (talk) 07:22, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
  2. Support Gizza (t)(c) 12:11, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
  3. Support per nom. Cobblet (talk) 15:55, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
  4. Support PointsofNoReturn (talk) 22:07, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
  5. Support agree with nom, less vital than types of quarks  Carlwev  12:24, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
Oppose
Discussion
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PASSED
Removed 6-0 after 15+ days. Malerisch (talk) 09:15, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

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Remove Hydrogen-like atom

This concept isn't particularly vital. It doesn't appear in standard textbooks, and the article is classified as low-priority for WikiProject Physics. Malerisch (talk) 07:22, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Support
  1. Support as nom. Malerisch (talk) 07:22, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
  2. Support IIRC (don't really want to, these are dark memories), this is one of the problems you solve in an introductory class on quantum chemistry. Doesn't make it vital though. Cobblet (talk) 21:57, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
  3. Support Gizza (t)(c) 01:13, 11 July 2014 (UTC)
  4. Support PointsofNoReturn (talk) 22:08, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
  5. Support Rwessel (talk) 04:55, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
  6. Support  Carlwev  11:34, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
Oppose
Discussion

I should note that hydrogen atom isn't on the list, so I don't think hydrogen-like atom should be. Malerisch (talk) 21:58, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

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PASSED
Added 5-0 after 15+ days. Malerisch (talk) 09:16, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

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Add Quantum gravity

We list string theory, but we don't list the problem it's trying to solve. Malerisch (talk) 07:22, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Support
  1. Support as nom. Malerisch (talk) 07:22, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
  2. Support indeed the coupling of quantum and relativity is vital. Gizza (t)(c) 12:01, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
  3. Support Cobblet (talk) 02:22, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
  4. Support PointsofNoReturn (talk) 22:09, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
  5. Support  Carlwev  12:29, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
Oppose
Discussion
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PASSED
Added 6-0 after 15+ days. Malerisch (talk) 09:16, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

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Add Quantum entanglement

Quantum entanglement is one of the main areas of research of quantum mechanics. It was first proposed as a paradox by Einstein and others in 1935 and has been widely discussed ever since. Malerisch (talk) 07:22, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Support
  1. Support as nom. Malerisch (talk) 07:22, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
  2. Support entanglement is vital. One of its exciting applications is quantum teleportation. Gizza (t)(c) 12:06, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
  3. Support --Melody Lavender (talk) 17:42, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
  4. Support Our coverage of QM is hardly stingy but such a profound consequence of it probably deserves special mention. Cobblet (talk) 08:35, 11 July 2014 (UTC)
  5. Support  Carlwev  12:33, 11 July 2014 (UTC)
  6. Support PointsofNoReturn (talk) 22:10, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
Oppose
Discussion
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PASSED
Removed 5-0 after 15+ days. Malerisch (talk) 09:17, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

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Remove Hyperfine structure

We don't even list fine structure, which is surely at least as vital. A better article would be the Zeeman effect. Malerisch (talk) 07:22, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Support
  1. Support as nom. Malerisch (talk) 07:22, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
  2. Support Even better IMO would be articles like spectral line or emission spectrum. Cobblet (talk) 02:51, 11 July 2014 (UTC)
  3. Support PointsofNoReturn (talk) 22:12, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
  4. Support Not vital. Gizza (t)(c) 03:17, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
  5. Support  Carlwev  11:44, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
Oppose
Discussion
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PASSED
Added 6-0 after 15+ days. Malerisch (talk) 09:18, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

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Add Spin (physics)

Spin is one of the most basic concepts in particle physics. Malerisch (talk) 07:22, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Support
  1. Support as nom. Malerisch (talk) 07:22, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
  2. Support Electron magnetic dipole moment should be removed as it's just one application of the concept of spin. Cobblet (talk) 15:49, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
  3. Support --Melody Lavender (talk) 08:54, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
  4. Support PointsofNoReturn (talk) 22:18, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
  5. Support Gizza (t)(c) 03:27, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
  6. troppuS  Carlwev  11:46, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
Oppose
Discussion
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PASSED
Added 5-0 after 15+ days. Malerisch (talk) 06:47, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

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Add Flood control in the Netherlands

Alternative to Delta Works and Zuiderzee Works. – Editør (talk) 12:54, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

Support
  1. Support as nominator – Editør (talk) 12:54, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
  2. Support Cobblet (talk) 18:37, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
  3. Support two birds with one stone works well here. Gizza (t)(c) 01:45, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
  4. Support PointsofNoReturn (talk) 22:35, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
  5. Support Per the earlier discussion, this is a landmark project in civil engineering for people all over the world, even people like me who have never been to any part of Europe. And it has historical as well as technological significance, and will be rich with wikilinks to other articles. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 15:13, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
Oppose
Discussion

Not sure if the general Flood control article is vital but I would say that the even more general emergency management (disaster management) article is vital. Gizza (t)(c) 05:45, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

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PASSED
Added 5-0 after 15+ days. Malerisch (talk) 07:00, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

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Add Laplace transform

The Laplace transform and the Fourier transform (which is already on the list) are the two most widely used integral transforms with many applications. Malerisch (talk) 02:45, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Support
  1. Support as nom. Malerisch (talk) 02:42, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
  2. Support --Melody Lavender (talk) 17:35, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
  3. Support Cobblet (talk) 22:24, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
  4. Support Gizza (t)(c) 00:39, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
  5. Support PointsofNoReturn (talk) 23:01, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
Oppose
Discussion

I know very little about this area of mathematics but would the generic transform article Transformation (function) be vital? Gizza (t)(c) 00:39, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

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PASSED
Removed 7-1 after 15+ days. Malerisch (talk) 00:33, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

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Remove Carl Reiner

Comedians seem way over-represented to me, and I fail to see the importance of this particular entry. One of too many Americans here. Not at all well known outside the States (if known inside?). --Rsm77 (talk) 14:15, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

Support
  1. Support as nom. --Rsm77 (talk) 14:15, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
  2. Support Cobblet (talk) 18:37, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
  3. Carl who?User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 18:58, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
  4. Support I have never heard of him. PointsofNoReturn (talk) 20:34, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
  5. Support Gizza (t)(c) 03:43, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
  6. Support I had noted the massive over-representation of American comedians and had thought about proposing some removals, but my lack of familiarity with them meant I found it difficult to work out who to propose. I think this is an area that is still ripe for pruning. Neljack (talk) 09:12, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
  7. Support --Melody Lavender (talk) 13:47, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Strong Oppose almost wholly based upon the fact that the nomination and those who have "explained" their support for this removal cite only that (A) he's an American, (B) he's a comedian, or (C) "I've never heard of him" as their reasoning. I would listen to valid arguments against the inclusion of this article. Those are simply not valid. If "Carl who" and "I have never heard of him", and "One of too many Americans here" are accepted as valid arguments against an article's inclusion, then what is this process for, really? There are MANY vital articles that I have never heard of before; in such cases, I recuse myself, as should all above who cited that and similar reasons for their support of this removal proposal. There is certainly discussion to be had here, but it will not be found jumping from an anti-American or an argument from ignorance. Lithistman (talk) 19:48, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
Discussion

@Lithistman: Then give us an reason why he should stay. We have to cover the entire history of the earth on this list. So why Carl Reiner instead of Insulin or the Human hand? The reason why we cut Americans is because years ago, in the beginning of this list everybody just added their favorite celebrity without discussion. So many of the quotes you read here are not Anti-American at all, they can be explained by the history of this project. And, I might add, I think, maybe you're right, maybe we are going to far and deleting too many Americans. --Melody Lavender (talk) 20:01, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

When Sid Caesar is deemed not significant enough to include (look at what Reiner himself had to say about him), I don't see grounds for keeping Reiner. Cobblet (talk) 20:55, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
Do not wantonly accuse others of anti-Americanism when you have not seen the care that has been taken to allow Americans who deserve to make the list make the list while removing those who do not. The ratio of American athletes vs. those of other countries was quantified and commented on here, and I strongly suspect a similar survey of the entertainers will yield similar results. Cobblet (talk) 21:37, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
I did nothing "wantonly." I enumerated my concerns, with only 1/3 of my concerns being that some support for this is of the "he's an American" variety. In actuality, it concerns me FAR more that people would use "I haven't heard of him" as justification for removing the article. My concern is with the form this nomination took, and the lack of real discussion about the merits (or lack thereof) of either keeping or removing the Reiner article. For the record, I could probably support a nomination to remove the CR article that explained itself much better than this one did. But this nomination was in really poor form, citing only his nationality, as well as the fact that the nominator hadn't heard of him in support. If those are legitimate criteria for removal, then what are we here for really? Lithistman (talk) 23:42, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
Fair enough, and I apologize for mischaracterizing you. There was some discussion of whether comedians were overrepresented a year ago. I think it's reasonable to suggest that an important component in the vitality of a pop culture icon is the public's familiarity with them, and that familiarity has to be more than just fleeting; I think what !voters (some of whom are American) might be indicating here is that Reiner's star has faded with time. But that's just my interpretation and I don't mean to put words in people's mouths. Cobblet (talk) 00:09, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
Notability is a way to measure vitality. Not knowing who someone is is one strike against vitality. Of course, it is not the only way to determine vitality as it is just myself. That was just an additional comment. With respect to anti-Americanism, you make a good point there. Many people being removed are American. Still, I do not mind it as long as it does not get excessive. PointsofNoReturn (talk) 00:46, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
Reiner is most notable for his work behind the camera, not in front of it. As such, it doesn't surprise me that people who don't follow American popular culture much at all haven't heard of him. But not having heard of a person like Reiner is NOT, in fact, "one strike against vitality", given that his primary contributions do not involve his being in front of the camera. Otherwise, many scientists, researchers, etc. may have a "strike" against their article's inclusion, because many people "haven't heard of them." Lithistman (talk) 01:18, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
  • I can be convinced that Reiner should be removed. It's just that none of the arguments put forward against the article have been in any way persuasive to me, and in fact have counterpersuaded me. Lithistman (talk) 01:21, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
To address the unnecessary raising of the rhetoric of "anti-Americanism," the reason I stated there are too many Americans is that there are more than four times as many US comedians as those of other nationalities. I believe that is an imbalance, and the general representation should be obvious from just looking at the list without counting. The reason I say that he is not well-known (not simply that I haven't heard of him) is that having read through his article that appears to be true. There is no good evidence in the article that he is well-known. If he is notable for his work behind the camera, is it fair to say he is most famous as a director of Steve Martin comedies and US TV shows? Is that a good reason to include him? Would be interesting to hear a good argument for his inclusion. And as for the idea that there are too many comedians, that was clearly given as my opinion and there for people to either agree or disagree with. If people didn't agree that comedians could lose one member (at least temporarily) they would not vote in support. This is how the list always works. --Rsm77 (talk) 11:09, 15 July 2014 (UTC) I would also say that people on this list are not generally swept along on a tide of enthusiasm to blindly back any proposal going. If they have doubts they freely express them. And I suppose that has happened here too. --Rsm77 (talk) 11:12, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
You proposed the removal--it is on you to make an actual argument to remove, which you have yet to do.Lithistman (talk) 13:03, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
  • A comedian who was popular in the 1970s but whom noone born since then has heard of is not vital. The only reason Reiner ever made it onto the list is because he is American and there is a serious American bias on the list and in wikipedia in general. Even among American comedians from the same period he is small potatoes, Mel Brooks with whom he workd is several times more notable yet is also not sufficiently notable to be included in a worldwide list of the ten to fifteen most notable comedians - same goes for Steve Martin, John Candy, Dan Aykroyd, Bud Spencer and a bunch of others. I looked at Carl Reiners article looking through his work and there was literally not a single movie, play or book that he had made that I had ever heard of (I knew some of the recent television shows in which he had appeared). Yes that is an argument from ignorance, and if he were a mathematician or a physicist it wouldnt be a good argument for removing him, but comedians are by the nature of their work publicly visible and their degree of notability is reflected in their degree of visibility. So it is a valid argument in this case. Reiner is not among the top 20 American comedians. And this list should probably contain around ten comedians overall.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 14:40, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
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PASSED
Removed 6-0 after 15+ days. Malerisch (talk) 00:37, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

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Remove Alexander Grin

There are so many obscure Russians and it's not like we need them. A few alternatives would include notably Fernando Pessoa and maybe others if I think some more. Colette? Derek Walcott? Anyway, must be better choices. --Rsm77 (talk) 14:38, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

Support
  1. Support as nom. --Rsm77 (talk) 14:38, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
  2. Support Cobblet (talk) 18:26, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
  3. Support PointsofNoReturn (talk) 20:35, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
  4. Support Gizza (t)(c) 03:50, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
  5. Support Yeah, I'd been struck by the number of Russian writers too. Neljack (talk) 09:13, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
  6. Support --Melody Lavender (talk) 13:35, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
Oppose
Discussion
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PASSED
Removed 6-0 after 15+ days. Malerisch (talk) 00:37, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

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Remove Korney Chukovsky

See above. --Rsm77 (talk) 14:38, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

Support
  1. Support as nom. --Rsm77 (talk) 14:38, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
  2. Support Figures more relevant to Russia's literary history we could include are Nestor the Chronicler, Symeon of Polotsk, Ivan Krylov, Vasily Zhukovsky and Mikhail Bakhtin. Cobblet (talk) 18:26, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
  3. Support PointsofNoReturn (talk) 20:36, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
  4. Support Gizza (t)(c) 03:50, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
  5. Support Neljack (talk) 09:14, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
  6. Support --Melody Lavender (talk) 13:36, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
Oppose
Discussion
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PASSED
Added 5-0 after 15+ days. Malerisch (talk) 00:37, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

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Add François Villon

Major mediaeval French poet who has become influential on English literature. --Rsm77 (talk) 00:25, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

Support
  1. Support as nom. --Rsm77 (talk) 00:25, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
  2. Support Our coverage of French literature is lacking: Rabelais and The Song of Roland are also missing. Cobblet (talk) 00:51, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
  3. Support Gizza (t)(c) 03:50, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
  4. Support Has had a remarkable influence over the centuries. Neljack (talk) 09:22, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
  5. Support --Melody Lavender (talk) 13:38, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
Oppose
Discussion
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PASSED
Added 5-0 after 15+ days. Malerisch (talk) 00:37, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

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Add Fernando Pessoa

One of the most significant literary figures of the 20th century, known for his poetry and the prose work The Book of Disquiet. Considerably more important than many on the list. --Rsm77 (talk) 00:25, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

Support
  1. Support as nom. --Rsm77 (talk) 00:25, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
  2. Support Cobblet (talk) 00:52, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
  3. Support Gizza (t)(c) 03:50, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
  4. Support An excellent suggestion! Neljack (talk) 09:17, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
  5. Support --Melody Lavender (talk) 13:38, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
Oppose
Discussion
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NO CONSENSUS
No votes in 30+ days. Malerisch (talk) 10:01, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

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Add Bjørn Dæhlie

The man Bjørndalen overtook at the top of the Winter Olympics medal table, Bjørn Dæhlie won 12 Olympic medals, including 8 golds. Also won 17 World Championship medals and 46 World Cup races, making him the most successful male cross-country skier of all time. He would undoubtedly have won more but for a career-ending injury while at the peak of his powers. He is a cultural icon in Norway. Neljack (talk) 11:37, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

Support
  1. Support as nom. Neljack (talk) 11:38, 22 June 2014 (UTC)
  2. Support PointsofNoReturn (talk) 20:51, 26 June 2014 (UTC)
Oppose
Discussion
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NO CONSENSUS
No votes in 30+ days. Malerisch (talk) 10:02, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

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Add Marit Bjørgen

The most decorated female Winter Olympian, Marit Bjørgen has won 10 medals, including 6 gold. She has also won 12 World Championship titles (plus seven other medals) and 66 World Cup races, both records. Neljack (talk) 11:48, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

Support
  1. Support as nom. Neljack (talk) 11:49, 22 June 2014 (UTC)
  2. Support PointsofNoReturn (talk) 18:28, 26 June 2014 (UTC)
  3. Support Gizza (t)(c) 08:17, 28 June 2014 (UTC)
Oppose
Discussion
  • User:Neljack, I'd feel more comfortable supporting your proposals if you proposed some removals (preferably of American athletes). I know some people think athletes is right-sized or maybe even too small, but I'm not one of them. I think it's bad that we have ~150 athletes (and 5 more if your proposals succeed) against only ~450 politicians and leaders. We have more athletes than generals, or than artists! pbp 15:39, 22 June 2014 (UTC)
    pbp, I do intend to propose removals too, since I would ideally like my proposals to be at least neutral in terms of numbers. I tend to think that we need to try to restrict things to a handful of people for each sport (we currently have 17 for soccer, 14 for tennis, and 11 for baseball, for instance). I agree about American sports, but frankly I lack familiarity with them (except, to a certain extent, basketball). So if you or others have any ideas about, say, who is the least vital of the baseballers we list, that would be very helpful! Neljack (talk) 22:47, 22 June 2014 (UTC)
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Comment: I am taking the liberty of putting up a number of proposals simultaneously. They have all been on the "Vital articles" talk page for months. I would anticipate that the vast majority of these buildings are so obviously of vital importance that their names alone are sufficient. Amandajm (talk) 07:03, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

First of all, I believe the architecture section can definitely be expanded to 50 at the very least. It is underrepresented compared to other forms of art as the list currently stands. However, I can support only a few of the proposed additions below if any. With the exception of Fallingwater, the scope of the suggestions is extremely narrow. They are limited in terms of geography (Western Europe), time (Middle Ages - Renaissance) and purpose (not only religious but all Christian). Churches and cathedrals are already very well represented on VA. Chartres Cathedral, Notre Dame de Paris, St. Peter's Basilica, The Kremlin (parts of which are cathedrals]] as well as church and cathedral themselves are all currently listed. Other civilisations with great architectural traditions are represented by one article or none at all. There is one Hindu-Buddhist temple, no mosques, nothing from Mesoamerica, one Chinese palace (nothing else from East Asia), one mausoleum from South Asia, nothing from Sub-Saharan Africa, and one article for South America.
I was thinking about proposing a different set of articles when I looked at this list and saw the gaping holes within it. The articles I had in mind included Tikal Temple I/Chitzen Itza, Kiyomizu-dera, Great Zimbabwe, Persepolis, Potala Palace, Alhambra, Petra, Moai and Christ the Redeemer among others (the latter two probably fit better under Sculpture). Even with regards to Western Europe, adding a castle instead of another cathedral would improve the architectural diversity of the list. Gizza (t)(c) 10:54, 24 May 2014 (UTC)
I would prefer more broader topics on this list, rather than individual buildings. That being said, I like the Alhambra proposal, as a very distinct and notable mix, as well as WHS. --ELEKHHT 12:59, 24 May 2014 (UTC)
Agree with Gizza's and Elekhh's points. However, Petra is listed under History and Moai is subsumed by Easter Island. I proposed Chichen Itza once. I'll have to read up more before I !vote on the proposals below. Cobblet (talk) 21:09, 24 May 2014 (UTC)
If we are going to expand the architecture section, we need to contract some articles from the list. I would support removing some biological species from the list to make room for more articles in the arts section. There are way too many biological species on the list. PointsofNoReturn (talk) 21:30, 24 May 2014 (UTC)
I am trying to take a broad view here. As Cobblet, has pointed out, the selections, including my proposed additions, are weighted towards Western Europe and Christianity. On one hand, many of these great buildings are still present, fully functional, very well documented and beyond doubt among the greatest buildings. However, I suspect to many, the great cathedrals all look pretty much the same. I think what we need to do is define some categories and weight them.
It might be appealing to try to balance things regionally, but this simply doesn't work. Australia is a geographic region the size of Europe where the architecture of world significance starts and ends with the Sydney Opera House. Italy, on the other hand, is a small country in which there is a single city that contains 1. the two most significant Ancient Roman buildings, 2. the best extant examples of Early Christian buildings. 3. Romanesque buildings which we are not even going to think about. 4. The supreme masterpiece of the Renaissance, 5. several incredibly innovative Baroque buildings 6. Important Modern buildings which are not going to make the list. In other words, a least three buildings on the list: Colisseum, Pantheon, St Peter's Basilica, are within a mile of each other, yet they are not a "precinct". This imbalance is unavoidable. Like Rome, Florence, London and the region around Paris, for historical reasons, are weighty in terms of architecture.
I don't know how you go about balancing the cathedrals and other great churches of Europe against the buildings of other regions. In the case of the great churches, we have huge buildings, many of the World Heritage Listed, form a cohesive, changing architectural sequence where the styles have been the subject of much study. On the other hand, many of the marvellous temples of South East Asia, and much of the architecture of ancient south America was simply eaten up by the jungle. Among the temples of South East Asia, how many are innovative architecturally?
Looking at this a different way: the Parthenon requires listing. Experts on Greek architecture define three separate styles, dependent on the details. But overall, an Ancient Greek temple looks just like an Ancient Greek temple, regardless of whether it has Doric, Ionic or Corinthian capitals. Is this more or less difference than the difference between a Byzantine church (centrally planned, with five domes), a Romanesque abbey (long, cross-shaped, with round arches, barrel vault and flat buttresses) and a Gothic Cathedral (with huge traceried windows, ribbed vault, flying buttresses)? Some are going to say "All three are Christian churches." However, they represent types where architectural innovation was highly valued. Geographically, the balance of these innovative buildings is weighted. France just happens to have a really significant number of Medieval churches of the highest order. England is not far behind. Germany specialises in Romanesque, but then there is Cologne Cathedral (Gothic).
Mosques. There are two main types, domed and hypostyle, and some of the larger mosques have both characteristics. The buildings (traditionally) generally have similar forms in terms of the shapes of the arches, the type of dome, the nature of the decoration. Some are based on the great Christian building Hagia Sophia. In general, innovation was not of as great importance as in European Medieval, but there are some notable exceptions such as the hypostyle hall of the Mosque–Cathedral of Córdoba.
Looking at the Baroque period, London has St Paul's Cathedral, Vienna has Karlskirche, Venice has Santa Maria della Salute, and Rome has Sant'Agnese in Agone. They are all important. St Paul's dominates and is the symbol of its city (and the nation) in a way that the other three are not.
Then we have domestic architecture. And Government architecture. Do we need one of the great Town Halls of Belgium? What houses what palaces? what state buildings?
In the Orient, what are the stylistic differences to be seen in countries where maintaining the design formulas was closely linked to religion and often more important than design innovation?
I suggest we add more buildings to the list below, and then try to reconcile them, in terms of date, style, innovative qualities and region. Amandajm (talk) 10:25, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

I think you've identified the important questions we need to address. I have two things to add:

  1. Obviously Italy's played a vastly greater role in the history of architecture than Australia. If people are wondering what a geographically "balanced" list might actually look like, perhaps a good first point of reference is the Table of World Heritage Sites by country: specifically, it's the cultural heritage sites we're interested in. But consistent with their mandate to encourage preservation efforts, UNESCO prefers to list sites where such efforts are being taken, and this naturally favours developed countries. We have no such mandate and this criterion shouldn't apply to our list.
  2. I gather that Western art historians tend to emphasize the significance of innovation in design. Other cultures may stress other factors more strongly, e.g. perfection in craftsmanship, the ability to realize a preconceived ideal, or in the specific case of architecture, the harmonization of a building with its surroundings. Western values shouldn't be used to assess the work of other cultures. Cobblet (talk) 03:04, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
NO CONSENSUS
Not added 3-2 after 60+ days. Malerisch (talk) 04:38, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

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Add: Wells Cathedral

Wells Cathedral, unlike the early Gothic cathedrals of France, and its English contemporary at Canterbury, (late 12th-century) has completely broken away from any hint of the Romanesque architectural origins. It is the earliest building to truly embody the Gothic style, and in achieving this, a succession of architects have been extremely innovative in the development of architectural form. The west front is regarded as the greatest demonstration of synthesis of the plastic arts (i.e. architecture, architectural carving and figurative sculpture) in England.

Amandajm (talk) 07:03, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

Support

  1. Amandajm (talk) 07:07, 24 May 2014 (UTC)
  2. PointsofNoReturn (talk) 18:59, 24 May 2014 (UTC)
  3. Support. I agree with Amandajms rationale. Especially the facade is unique (as described in the nomination's rationale: combination of sculpture and architecture) and makes it more important for the architecture section than Canterbury. Melody Lavender (talk) 09:14, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

Oppose

  1. Oppose Cobblet (talk) 05:57, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
  2. Oppose Gizza (t)(c) 12:00, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Discussion

On the other hand, either Canterbury Cathedral or Lincoln Cathedral would be a suitable alternative. Both are exceedingly fine buildings, and Canterbury, of course, has the greatest historical significance, for at least three reasons.
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NO CONSENSUS
Not added 3-1 after 60+ days. Malerisch (talk) 04:39, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

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Add: El Escorial

Support

  1. Amandajm (talk) 06:12, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
  2. PointsofNoReturn (talk) 01:14, 2 June 2014 (UTC)
  3. Support --Melody Lavender (talk) 07:16, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

Oppose

  1. Oppose I don't believe El Escorial is comparable to the palaces already listed. There are many other palaces that have an equally strong case for inclusion including Pena National Palace, Mysore Palace and Potala Palace. Gizza (t)(c) 12:51, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Discussion

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NO CONSENSUS
Not added 3-2 after 60+ days. Malerisch (talk) 10:04, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

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Add: Karnak

Support
  1. Amandajm (talk) 08:51, 27 May 2014 (UTC)
  2. Support --V3n0M93 (talk) 21:24, 4 June 2014 (UTC)
  3. Support Melody Lavender (talk) 08:59, 22 June 2014 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. The World Heritage site is called Thebes, which is already listed. Karnak is a part of it.--Redtigerxyz Talk 13:00, 7 July 2014 (UTC)
  2. Oppose Per Redtigerxyz and Cobblet. I can support a swap with either Luxor and Thebes. Gizza (t)(c) 02:58, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
Discuss

Obviously this is a very important site, but in view of Gizza's comments regarding Ur I guess it's important to point out we already list Luxor, Thebes, Egypt and Valley of the Kings. Cobblet (talk) 03:04, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

I would support a swap with Thebes, Egypt. I don't think there is a good case for having Thebes on the list - it's mostly about the modern city (or at least it's conceivable that it will be some day, as of today the article is not well developed). Karnak is the most important part of Thebes for architecture and history of art. --Melody Lavender (talk) 06:10, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

A correction—Thebes isn't a modern city. It's an ancient city, whose center (the land between Karnak Temple and Luxor Temple) is covered over by modern Luxor. Luxor is the biggest city in Egypt south of Asyut nowadays (thanks mainly to tourism), so I suppose that's why it's listed under geography. Ancient Thebes was, for most of its history, the most influential city in Egypt other than Memphis, and the Theban Necropolis, of which the Valley of the Kings is a part, is probably even more historically significant than Karnak. If Thebes is dropped, then it might make sense to replace Valley of the Kings with Theban Necropolis, which includes the valley along with other famous tombs (Nefertari, Nakht, Sennedjem), and temples like those of Hatshepsut and Ramesses III. A. Parrot (talk) 00:23, 26 July 2014 (UTC)
If Thebes is kept it should be moved to history. Memphis, which as you say was more significant and is also uninhabited today, is listed in history, both are on level 4. A. Parrot I take it you see things from a historical perspective. But from an architectural perspective, Karnak still seems more important to me. Tomb-wise we have the Great pyramid of Giza as one of the seven world wonders. We do not have Giza Necropolis - shouldn't that be considered for addition before we talk about Theban Necropolis? --Melody Lavender (talk) 11:29, 26 July 2014 (UTC)
I'm not suggesting adding Theban necropolis, merely putting it in place of Valley of the Kings, because the Theban Necropolis encompasses the valley along with many other historically and artistically important sites. I don't want to increase ancient Egypt's share of topics, as it seems fairly well represented already. I just tend to favor broader topics over specific ones. In some cases a focus on specifics is understandable—the iconic nature of the Great Pyramid, for example, justifies its inclusion rather than Giza Necropolis or, even broader, Memphite Necropolis. But I think the name recognition for the Valley of the Kings may get in the way of recognizing its broader context. The Thebes article would give some of that context, as would Theban Necropolis, if they were written properly. I'm just uneasy with leaving out both of those two. A. Parrot (talk) 06:34, 27 July 2014 (UTC)
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PASSED
Swapped 5-0 after 15+ days. Malerisch (talk) 10:06, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

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Swap: Remove Stardust (song), Add Singer-songwriter

Stardust is not really up there with other songs on the list. Singer-songwriter is hugely important. I think of it as a genre myself, though the article is not particularly written that way. --Rsm77 (talk) 01:07, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

Support
  1. Support as nom. --Rsm77 (talk) 01:07, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
  2. Support Gizza (t)(c) 02:29, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
  3. Support Neljack (talk) 13:17, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
  4. Support PointsofNoReturn (talk) 23:07, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
  5. Support --Melody Lavender (talk) 06:09, 27 July 2014 (UTC)
Oppose
Discussion
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PASSED
Swapped 6-0 after 15+ days. Malerisch (talk) 10:18, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

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Swap: Remove Monologue, Add Peking opera

A monologue is just a dramatic device. It seems a weak article and we don't include more fundamental literary devices like metaphor (I don't think we should either). Peking opera is a rich theatrical tradition, with considerable visibility in the English-speaking world. Whether it belongs in performing arts with musical theatre or in music with opera may be a question. --Rsm77 (talk) 08:34, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

Support
  1. Support as nom. --Rsm77 (talk) 08:34, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
  2. Support Neljack (talk) 13:18, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
  3. Support PointsofNoReturn (talk) 23:07, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
  4. Support Probably better placed in the performing arts. For consistency, we could also move the stuff on ballet, musicals and opera from music to the performing arts. Cobblet (talk) 07:13, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
  5. Support Malerisch (talk) 12:31, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
  6. Support per nom. Also agree with Cobblet. Gizza (t)(c) 09:01, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
Oppose
Discussion
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PASSED
Moved 6-0 after 15+ days. Malerisch (talk) 07:50, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

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Move Race (classification of humans) from Anthropology to Sociology, Social status

Race is not today considered to be primarily a biological category, there is discussion of its status as a possible biological category but everyone agrees that it has a significant social significance. I think rather than having it as the odd extra article in the anthropology section it makes sense to move it to the other categories describing social groupings. User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 22:49, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Support
  1. Support User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 22:49, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
  2. Support but I think you're referring to the subsection under Society. Cobblet (talk) 22:59, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
  3. Support Gizza (t)(c) 01:08, 11 July 2014 (UTC)
  4. Support Maunus knows this topic well and does much responsible article editing on related articles. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 22:04, 11 July 2014 (UTC)
  5. Support the move. Other than that I don't think the concept is vital. It should be removed. --Melody Lavender (talk) 14:05, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
  6. Support Extremely vital concept socially. Race has been a deciding factor on how humans treat each other. It is less important biologically because all humans are the same species. PointsofNoReturn (talk) 20:57, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
Oppose
Discuss
@Purplebackpack89:, the important article in that respect is Racism, not race. Race is a concept that is vital to racism, not to VA/E.--Melody Lavender (talk) 16:17, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
@Melody Lavender:, how can you have the concept of racism without the concept of race? pbp 17:11, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
@Purplebackpack89:What I'm trying to say is that racists base their discrimination on the perceived existence of races. Most serious scientists don't think human races can be defined. That's why we are moving it out of anthropology, of course. We all agree that Racism, for the purposes of this list, is vital, it's on level 3. So we have covered the issue. There is no need to give this obscure theory more room. --Melody Lavender (talk) 17:32, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
I think race is a very vital concept both for social science and for peoples lives. Whether it is objectively real or not is less of an issue. Ethnic groups also are not objectively real but they have a significant impact on how we live our lives. More importantly an encyclopedia that does not have articles on both race and racism would be seriously amiss.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 18:04, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
I believe at this level the topic is covered by racsim and ethnic group. I'm not saying I'd delete it from Wikipedia, but I'd remove it from the list of 10,000 most vital articles. 100,000? Maybe. There are other topics that are competing for this space. I'd rather have Quantum superposition on this list than Race. --Melody Lavender (talk) 18:57, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
I'm with php and Maunus on this one. Race is vital IMO at this level. Not as vital as racism but racism is listed on the more exclusive 1000 list. Removing race but keeping articles like ethnic group, caste, gender and social class will create a huge anomaly. Gizza (t)(c) 04:13, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
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PASSED
Moved 5/6-0 (assuming Maunus supports his own nomination) after 15+ days. Malerisch (talk) 07:51, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

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Move Ethnic group to Sociology, Social status

Basically the same reason as above.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 22:49, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Support
  1. Support A bit odd (but not at all unusual for the list) to put ethnic group in a different category than the list of ethnic groups, but I see why you'd want to keep race and ethnicity together. Cobblet (talk) 22:59, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
  2. Support Gizza (t)(c) 01:08, 11 July 2014 (UTC)
  3. Support per Maunus rationale.
  4. Support per nom. PointsofNoReturn (talk) 20:59, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
  5. Support Malerisch (talk) 07:51, 26 July 2014 (UTC)
Oppose
Discuss

Yeah, there is some slightly weird divisions of topic. I think that probably instead of having separate entries for society, anthropology and ethnology they should be merged and then there could be subsections. Right now the anthropology section has only 5 entries and all the disciplines bread and butter is in the Culture and Society sections. Perhaps a single social sciences section could work with the main disciplines at the root and then subsections for the groupings of different concepts.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 23:15, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

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PASSED
Added 5-0 after 15+ days. Malerisch (talk) 20:38, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

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Add Perfect competition

The topic came up several times during the past weeks. An obvious omission. It's an important conceptin capitalism and in politics. --Melody Lavender (talk) 19:50, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

Support
  1. Support as nom. --Melody Lavender (talk) 19:50, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
  2. Support As a complement to monopoly. I wouldn't support any further articles related to competition however. Gizza (t)(c) 01:40, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
  3. Support PointsofNoReturn (talk) 21:46, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
  4. Support Neljack (talk) 06:50, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
  5. Support Malerisch (talk) 04:47, 27 July 2014 (UTC)
Oppose
Discussion
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Nomination of organisms for removal

As before, as we discuss the level 4 list of 10,000 vital articles among the 6,909,169 articles on Wikipedia, we can keep in mind the vital articles project goals of serving "as a centralized watchlist to track the status of Wikipedia's most essential articles." The list of organisms articles currently includes articles on topics down to specific breeds or varieties and up to very broad classification categories, including classification categories that are not generally known (or looked up) by the general public or accepted by scientists. I've thought for a few days about a procedure for trimming the list. If an organism article is a vital article, someone must have occasion to look it up, so I'd expect the term that forms the article title to be in the index of a major biology textbook or in a "college" dictionary of the English language for general use. I'd also expect an article that belongs in the level 4 list of 10,000 vital articles to have article traffic statistics that at least put it in the top 40,000 or so (in round figures) of Wikipedia articles by number of visits. And I'd wonder who will work on updating it, or if there are even reliable sources for improving the article, if the article has been at stub status for a long time. I'm checking the American Heritage Dictionary new college edition 1980, Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary 1988, Biology by Brooker, Widmaier, et al. second edition 2008, and Campbell Biology ninth edition 2011 (other members of my household passionately study biology) and the article page view statistics and identifying articles for removal to trim the list. Of course your comments and suggestions are very welcome as we proceed. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 14:37, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

PASSED
Added 8-0 after 15+ days. Malerisch (talk) 10:25, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

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Add Invasive species

We currently list many examples of pests and weeds but have none of pest, weed, introduced species or invasive species. I think we should improve our coverage on this significant ecological issue. Gizza (t)(c) 03:10, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

Support
  1. Support as nom. Gizza (t)(c) 03:10, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
  2. Support This should go under ecology. Cobblet (talk) 03:34, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
  3. Support Rwessel (talk) 04:54, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
  4. Support Agree with Cobblet. Neljack (talk) 13:58, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
  5. Support  Carlwev  14:38, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
  6. Support --Melody Lavender (talk) 05:43, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
  7. Support, but include at Wikipedia:Vital articles/Expanded/Biology and health sciences#Ecology.2C_10 not Basics. Plantdrew (talk) 05:43, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
  8. Support and we should include it in ecology. PointsofNoReturn (talk) 19:27, 27 July 2014 (UTC)
Oppose
Discussion

Yeah ecology is a better section to put this than basics. The ecology section doesn't seemed to be linked to on the Vital articles talk page. There are a few biology subsections missing here. Gizza (t)(c) 06:00, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

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Taxus baccata

Had my mind on the European Yew today, can't think of a swap right now, straight add??, seems equal or higher than some other plants we have, what are others opinions, especially Plantdrew's.  Carlwev  05:25, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

I do not that much knowledge in the field of biology, but I agree that the European Yew should be added. I would support a swap seeing that there are so many different species on the list. I personally would not mind removing some of them to be honest. PointsofNoReturn (talk) 19:45, 19 May 2014 (UTC)
I'm not super excited about adding it. Certainly it's equal or higher than some of the other plants already listed, but I'd look towards removing those, not adding yew. I'm not sure I'd consider it one of the 200-250 most vital plants, although it does have some cultural/symbolic importance in Europe, as well as being a source of timber for some specialized applications (e.g. bows), and it is a common ornamental plant in landscaping. In recent times, I think the ornamental use might be the most vital aspect of this species. The ornamental plants on the vital list right now aren't really very well chosen; I haven't been doing much with VA/E the last couple of weeks, but I might start think about swaps for ornamentals (it's kind of hard though; there is hard data on how widely grown various food plants are, but nothing like that for ornamentals). Plantdrew (talk) 22:18, 19 May 2014 (UTC)
Other notable tree species not currently listed include oil palm, willow, nutmeg, olive. I recognize the historical importance of yew, but I think I'd take these first. Cobblet (talk) 10:59, 21 May 2014 (UTC)
Some of them you mention willow, nutmeg, olive seem relevant and possibilities with swaps, I was also thinking about Henna.  Carlwev  18:13, 22 June 2014 (UTC)
ADDED
passed, 5-0,--Melody Lavender (talk) 08:34, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

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Add Human heart

I think the lack of a human anatomy section is an obvious giant gaping hole in this project. The anatomical articles we do list in the biology section are on animal anatomy and I am not convinced that we need such a lot of veterinary information. We do list heart in that section. Human heart I think is at least as vital or even more vital. I would even consider placing it on level 3. Human anatomy articles are typical encyclopedia articles and readers need to have good information on these topics. Currently medicine articles on Wikipedia leave a lot to be desired, recently a study was done on this. VA should identify articles that need to be watched over and improved and I think this article fits that description. --Melody Lavender (talk) 10:06, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

Support
  1. Support as nom. --Melody Lavender (talk) 10:06, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
  2. Support Seems reasonable to have a section devoted specifically to human anatomy and physiology. I can support the addition of any such articles, although in two cases we actually have the human equivalent (human tooth, human GI tract) and it's the animal equivalent (tooth, digestion) that needs to be added. Cobblet (talk) 19:56, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
  3. Support There should be a human anatomy section too. PointsofNoReturn (talk) 21:35, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
  4. Support Malerisch (talk) 23:14, 19 July 2014 (UTC)
  5. Support Gizza (t)(c) 01:46, 25 July 2014 (UTC)
Oppose
Discussion
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@Melody Lavender: Are you sure that human heart should go in the health, medicine and disease section instead of the anatomy and morphology section? I ask because there was no section for anatomy on the talk page until recently. I'd also like to point out that human body, human gastrointestinal tract, and human tooth are all in the anatomy section. Malerisch (talk) 08:52, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I think it should. I have added it just now. I see no reason for mixing it with animal biology.--Melody Lavender (talk) 09:02, 27 July 2014 (UTC)
But don't you think it's strange that a section called "human anatomy" isn't placed under "anatomy and morphology"? I'm not asking for human anatomy to be mixed with animal anatomy, just for all anatomy articles to be placed under one heading. Malerisch (talk) 21:29, 27 July 2014 (UTC)
I think it'd be weird if there were a human anatomy section in the animal section. The outline IMO should follow the standard outline of academic studies, with human anatomy studied as part of medicine. The outline is not really very refined yet in many places, we still need to move things around and maybe change the outline in some places, for example there is a section society (huh?) and sociology. I have no clear vision of what a society section should include: currently it's a mixture of politics, every day life, and some sociology articles. The sociology section has only 10 articles. With sociology being a real science and society being an ill-defined term that has accumulated lots of articles, I think there is a lot of work to be done on the VA-outline. --Melody Lavender (talk) 19:14, 28 July 2014 (UTC)
Okay then. Should be human body, human gastrointestinal tract, and human tooth be moved into that section then? Malerisch (talk) 19:30, 28 July 2014 (UTC)
I think so, yes.--Melody Lavender (talk) 14:32, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
PASSED
Added 5-0 after 15+ days. Malerisch (talk) 10:29, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

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Add Human skeleton

Human anatomy articles are vital and we have almost no articles on the human body. Skeleton, an article on animal skeletons, was considered vital enough for level three. So Human skeleton should at least be on level 4. --Melody Lavender (talk) 14:39, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

Support
  1. Support as nom. --Melody Lavender (talk) 14:40, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
  2. Support Cobblet (talk) 21:42, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
  3. Support PointsofNoReturn (talk) 22:32, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
  4. Support Malerisch (talk) 23:15, 19 July 2014 (UTC)
  5. Support Gizza (t)(c) 01:27, 25 July 2014 (UTC)
Oppose
Discussion
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PASSED
5-0 after 15+ days Gizza (t)(c) 04:19, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

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Add Dipole

Dipoles are an essential concept in physics and chemistry. Malerisch (talk) 07:22, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Support
  1. Support as nom. Malerisch (talk) 07:22, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
  2. Support per nom. Gizza (t)(c) 11:44, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
  3. Support Magnets, how do they work? Cobblet (talk) 01:50, 11 July 2014 (UTC)
  4. Support A dipole creates magnets and greatly reflects intermolecular bonds. PointsofNoReturn (talk) 20:39, 27 July 2014 (UTC)
  5. Support  Carlwev  03:53, 28 July 2014 (UTC)
Oppose
Discussion

Just a side note, the dipole article isn't well written. It starts off almost like a disambiguation page. Gizza (t)(c) 11:44, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

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PASSED
Moved 5-0 after 15+ days. Malerisch (talk) 00:50, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

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Move Luminosity to Astronomy

Why is luminosity categorized in optics? The article is clearly in the scope of astronomy, and I can't even find the word "optics" anywhere on the page. It's also categorized in astrophysics. Luminosity is closely related to Magnitude (astronomy), which is in Astronomy as well, so I don't see a reason why they should be separated. Malerisch (talk) 06:36, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

Support
  1. Support as nom. Malerisch (talk) 06:36, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
  2. Support Cobblet (talk) 07:01, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
  3. Support --Melody Lavender (talk) 08:48, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
  4. Support PointsofNoReturn (talk) 22:04, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
  5. Support  Carlwev  12:17, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
Oppose
Discussion
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PASSED
Added 5-0 after 15+ days. Malerisch (talk) 07:57, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

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Add Wavelength

Seems like a fundamental concept that is missing. Malerisch (talk) 23:07, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Support
  1. Support as nom. Malerisch (talk) 23:07, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
  2. Support --Melody Lavender (talk) 07:56, 11 July 2014 (UTC)
  3. Support Cobblet (talk) 09:04, 11 July 2014 (UTC)
  4. Support PointsofNoReturn (talk) 22:21, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
  5. Support Once again a surprising omission. Gizza (t)(c) 03:27, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
Oppose
Discussion
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PASSED
Removed 5-0 after 15+ days. Malerisch (talk) 20:37, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

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Remove Floppy disk

Floppy disks were popularly used during the 1980's and 1990's so for about 20 years. There are many storage and recording media that were as popular for a similar length of time and are not listed, including VCR/Videotape, Compact cassette, USB Flash Drive, DVD, Gramophone record and Phonograph cylinder. There is nothing distinguishing about floppy disks that warrants their inclusion. The main data storage device article is sufficient.

Support
  1. Support as nom. Gizza (t)(c) 14:05, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
  2. Support Rwessel (talk) 14:59, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
  3. Support per nom. Cobblet (talk) 18:14, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
  4. Support --Rsm77 (talk) 13:42, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
  5. Support PointsofNoReturn (talk) 22:33, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
Oppose
Discussion
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Renaming Category:Wikipedia Start-Class vital articles in People?

User:Dougweller on the Level 3 talk page (see here) has suggested a renaming of Category:Wikipedia Start-Class vital articles in People. Gizza (t)(c) 10:49, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

PASSED
Added 5-0 after 15+ days. Malerisch (talk) 23:02, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

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Add Johannes Diderik van der Waals

I was surprised to see that Johannes Diderik van der Waals was not among the vital articles. He won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1910 for his Van der Waals equation and many of us know his name from the Van der Waals force. – Editør (talk) 22:49, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

Support
  1. Support as nominator – Editør (talk) 22:49, 19 July 2014 (UTC)
  2. Support per nom. Malerisch (talk) 16:42, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
  3. Support Gizza (t)(c) 05:03, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
  4. Support Made several important contributions. Neljack (talk) 02:22, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
  5. Support --V3n0M93 (talk) 18:20, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
Oppose
Discussion

The number of scientists can do with a moderate increase. The natural sciences section is the most underrepresented area. I was thinking of Claude Bernard as a possible addition. I've also had my eye on Aryabhata which will provide greater coverage of scientists/mathematicians of antiquity. Gizza (t)(c) 05:03, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

At first glance I don't think we're doing too badly in terms of 20th-century physicists. Just looking at pre-WWII Nobel Physics prizewinners, I could point to Zeeman, Onnes, von Laue, de Broglie and Raman as people not on the list who seem to me like they have a case comparable to vdW, Chadwick or a number of figures already on the list; going back just a little earlier, how about Heinrich Hertz? Is anyone checking how balanced the physicists are by field? (e.g. EM, QM, thermo, atomic physics, etc.; I don't really have the expertise.) I find it easier to point to earlier figures in history whose omission is more obviously egregious to me (Paracelsus, Robert Hooke, Andreas Vesalius, William Harvey). Cobblet (talk) 11:20, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
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FAILED
Not added 2-3 after 30+ days. Malerisch (talk) 22:00, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

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Add Richie McCaw

Plenty of people, including leading international coaches from other nations,[5][6] regard Richie McCaw as the greatest rugby player of all time. He's won the IRB International Player of the Year award a record three times and been nominated eight times in total - twice as many as anyone else. His 90 tests as captain is a record for any nationality. He led New Zealand to victory in the 2011 World Cup despite playing with a broken foot! Neljack (talk) 11:05, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

Support
  1. Support as nom. Neljack (talk) 11:07, 22 June 2014 (UTC)
  2. Support We do have other current athletes on the list. Rafael Nadal is an example of that. PointsofNoReturn (talk) 01:10, 28 June 2014 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Oppose Perhaps in a few years, when he's retired and it's easier to judge his actual place in history Lithistman (talk) 14:26, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
  2. Oppose Per Lithistman and my earlier comment. Gizza (t)(c) 08:15, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
  3. Oppose, doesn't appear to be that important. --V3n0M93 (talk) 16:05, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
Discussion

It is difficult to assess Richie McCaw's place among the greats as he is still playing. I'm personally a bit reluctant to support adding current players of any game. Gizza (t)(c) 12:05, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

There is a divergence of views on VA about two related issues. First, how many sports figures we should have in total and second, the relative weighting of each sport (this is also tied in with nationality since different sports are popular in different parts of the world). If the size of the sports figures section stays about the same, then I think three rugby players is reasonable. But if it shrinks, having two players is probably sufficient although it depends on by how much it shrinks. Keep in mind that there are still major sports not represented in form of biographies on the list.
Speaking of current players, tennis should probably be reduced as well. Of the 2.5 listed, I would vote to keep Federer, remove Nadal and possibly swap the Williams sister article with just Serena (it seems a little disrespectful to more the successful sister to lump them together). Gizza (t)(c) 08:15, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
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PASSED
Removed 6-1 after 15+ days. Malerisch (talk) 22:03, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

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Remove Mickey Mantle

He is one of my favorite baseball players because I am a Yankee fan. However, that does not make him vital. He only had 536 homeruns, enough to get into the hall of fame, but not to be on a list of vital articles. Mickie Mantle is only number 37 on the list of the top 100 North American athletes.

Support
  1. Support as nom. PointsofNoReturn (talk) 21:38, 19 July 2014 (UTC)
  2. Support Cobblet (talk) 21:55, 19 July 2014 (UTC)
  3. Support Gizza (t)(c) 04:33, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
  4. Support: He's not Ruth, Mays, Cobb or Young. pbp 20:17, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
  5. Support I've had a look for some lists of greatest baseball players of all-time from reliable sources. Mantle ranks highly, but not right at the top. The Society for American Baseball Research has him 12th,[7] Sporting News (often known as "the Bible of Baseball") has him 17th,[8] ESPN has him 9th,[9], the AP doesn't have him in their top 10,[10] and Bill James (the eminent sabermetrics expert) has him 6th[11] (while acknowledging that this is "higher than anyone else does").[12] Neljack (talk) 01:42, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
  6. Support Malerisch (talk) 22:04, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Strong oppose. LHMask me a question 17:37, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
Discussion

See my notes on the Young and Clemente removal nominations. This is just out of control. LHMask me a question 17:36, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

@Lithistman:, What's out of control is having 150 athletes when you really only need about 50. Or 50-60 American athletes when you only need about 20. pbp 06:07, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
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PASSED
Added 5-0 after 15+ days. Malerisch (talk) 20:16, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

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Add Arab–Israeli conflict

The first of 15 articles that are on the Level 3 list but not the Expanded list. I won't vote on these right now since I'm just starting a general discussion, but the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, part of the Arab–Israeli conflict, is included. Malerisch (talk) 01:36, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

FYI this article was previously nominated to this list here and didn't pass. Malerisch (talk) 23:37, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Support
  1. Support PointsofNoReturn (talk) 18:27, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
  2. Support Might as well !vote on this, considering that all the others are being decided this way. Malerisch (talk) 22:06, 19 July 2014 (UTC)
  3. Support -- Ypnypn (talk) 16:47, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
  4. Support vital at this level. Gizza (t)(c) 10:52, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
  5. Support  Carlwev  11:31, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
Oppose
Discussion

User:Melody Lavender has just added this to level 4. Do we still need to !vote on this? Personally I think it's quite an obvious omission. Cobblet (talk) 19:59, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

I am not entirely sold on it at Level 3 but is clearly vital on the expanded list even when you consider the overlap with Israel-Palestine. Gizza (t)(c) 00:42, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
I don't think it necessarily belongs on Level 3 either. When Israel itself isn't on the list, why would this article be? Malerisch (talk) 22:06, 19 July 2014 (UTC)
I would have Israel on the list. PointsofNoReturn (talk) 22:37, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
Israel was explicitly removed from the Level 3 list here. Malerisch (talk) 23:37, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
I agreed with and voted in that swap but Israel could return if there is a consensus to increase the number of countries at Level 3 (possibly at the expense of cities or something else). But OTOH, arguably the conflict is more notable and vital than the country. Israel on its own is a small country by population, area and economy. The main reason why Israel is a well known nation is unfortunately because of the conflict. The conflict also goes beyond Israel and covers much of recent Middle Eastern history (obviously the other Arab side to the story) and that makes the article broader. But then maybe the Middle East shouldn't be listed at Level 3. Choices, choices. Gizza (t)(c) 02:45, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
It's definitely debatable whether the country or the conflict is more vital. I suppose a possible counter could be that any discussion of Israel must include its history. But either way, I still don't believe that the conflict is vital enough on the Level 3 list (I described why and a few other issues on the talk page there). I think Carlwev and Cobblet made some good points about countries in the Lakes discussion—that the number of countries should be increased at the expense of the number of people. I agree with their assertion that most countries are simply more vital than most people. Malerisch (talk) 22:09, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
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PASSED
Swapped 5-0 after 15+ days. Malerisch (talk) 08:30, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

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Swap: Remove Mount Kosciuszko, Add Mount Tai

We already list Oceania's tallest peak as well as its most notable volcano. Kosciuszko is Australia's tallest mountain but is neither particularly tall nor prominent in an absolute sense. In its place I suggest adding the most culturally significant mountain to the Chinese people, foremost among the Sacred Mountains of China and a World Heritage Site.

Support
  1. Support as nom. Cobblet (talk) 01:09, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
  2. Support Gizza (t)(c) 06:48, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
  3. Support PointsofNoReturn (talk) 23:00, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
  4. Support Malerisch (talk) 12:30, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
  5. Support good swap. --Melody Lavender (talk) 08:22, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
Oppose
Discussion
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PASSED
Swapped 5-0 after 15+ days. Malerisch (talk) 01:54, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

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Swap: Remove Mount Parnassus, Add Mount Kailash

The most significant mountain in Greek mythology is already listed. I can't believe somebody chose Mt. Parnassus as a second example of a culturally significant mountain from the Eastern Mediterranean when they could've chosen Mount Sinai (although the Sinai Peninsula is listed), Mount Ararat or even Mount Athos which is also in Greece. When four of 18 mountains listed are in Europe I think it's time to look for examples from elsewhere, so I suggest we add the most sacred mountain in Buddhism, Hinduism and Jainism.

Support
  1. Support as nom. Cobblet (talk) 01:09, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
  2. Support Gizza (t)(c) 06:48, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
  3. Support PointsofNoReturn (talk) 23:01, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
  4. Support --Redtigerxyz Talk 13:43, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
  5. Support Malerisch (talk) 01:54, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
Oppose
Discussion

I'd prefer this as a straight add. --Melody Lavender (talk) 06:14, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

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FAILED
Not removed 4-3 after 30+ days. Malerisch (talk) 07:53, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

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Remove Devanagari

Complementary to the add proposal above.

Support
  1. Support as nom. Cobblet (talk) 01:01, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
  2. Support Gizza (t)(c) 11:46, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
  3. Support Neljack (talk) 13:23, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
  4. Support Malerisch (talk) 12:32, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Oppose --Melody Lavender (talk) 13:39, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
  2. Oppose --Redtigerxyz Talk 06:38, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
  3. Oppose, I would prefer to keep this I think, not as similar as the other script comparisons, There seems to be much more info at Devanagari, and in many more languages. In the other script/alphabet swaps the article we kept had more info and languages. It seems to be a very widely used alphabet, there is some overlap, maybe someone can change my mind?  Carlwev  19:42, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
Discussion

@Redtigerxyz: Cobblet was referring to this discussion as justification for removing Devanagari. I archived it earlier, so I'm just checking to see if you saw that discussion before opposing. Malerisch (talk) 13:35, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Devanagari is an important contemporary script; it is the third most used script in the world with 420 million people using it. That is over-grouping IMO into the family of 50 odd scripts. --Redtigerxyz Talk 13:39, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
Over-grouping is a very good description of what I had in mind. Brahmi can't replace Devanagari. 800 people look up Devanagari every day, 100 look up Brahmic scripts. Those numbers are no surprise and they are not a kind of pop-star-effect (in which case we could ignore page view statistics). --Melody Lavender (talk) 19:21, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
Latin alphabet gets nearly three times as many views as Latin script and that has not deterred us from listing the latter but not the former on both levels 3 and 4. I think listing both Brahmic scripts and Devanagari is redundant and while I appreciate the point you're making, there is also a matter of consistency. Cobblet (talk) 20:53, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
Devanagari is definitely the most important of all modern Brahmic scripts. There are other Brahmic scripts widely used such as Bengali script. I agree on the point of consistency but it's borderline. There are strong arguments either way. It probably depends on how many total scripts we want listed. Gizza (t)(c) 01:33, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
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FAILED
Not added 4-3 after 30+ days. Malerisch (talk) 22:03, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

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Add Family law

One of the oldest and most important areas of law. Since time immemorial the law has been regulating marriage, divorce, children, etc. Laws in this area have major social consequences. Historically they have played an important role in upholding and maintaining patriarchal structures. The article is terrible, but that is neither uncommon with vital articles (unfortunately) nor a disqualification. Neljack (talk) 07:27, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Support
  1. Support as nom. Neljack (talk) 07:28, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
  2. Support I'm not sure how one of the most ancient areas of law, which is examined in most legal traditions (including religious law) and has dedicated courts in many parts of the world, could be considered "non-core". Cobblet (talk) 19:52, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
  3. Support PointsofNoReturn (talk) 18:02, 20 June 2014 (UTC)
  4. Support --Melody Lavender (talk) 06:05, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Oppose Gizza (t)(c) 14:19, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
  2. Oppose for reasons outlined well by Gizza below. LHMask me a question 16:49, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
  3. Oppose per Gizza. --V3n0M93 (talk) 17:00, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
Discussion

Family law is a non-core area of law. Core subjects such as procedural law and conflicts of laws are currently missing. Family law is on par with commercial law/companies law, environmental law, labour law, immigration law and tax law at the very least.

The concept of family and articles relating to it such as marriage and divorce are obviously vital and are all listed. The legal aspect is only one part of familial relations along with the social and psychological aspects. These articles when written well will cover everything including the legal aspects. Gizza (t)(c) 14:19, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

I think there are aspects of marriage that might be better covered by an article on family law than an article on marriage: how different cultures look at domestic violence, for example. We have a number of topics related to family law that we could consider removing, like civil marriage. We list civil union and domestic partnership but not same-sex marriage – wouldn't the broadest treatment of the subject be same-sex union legislation? Cobblet (talk) 19:52, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
In terms of the study of law today (in common law jurisdictions at least), family law is indeed generally not a core subject like contract, property, criminal law, etc. But this is not a reflection on its lack of importance - rather it is a reflection on its specialist nature. The legal regulation of family relationships and personal status has been regarded as immensely important for hundreds, even thousands, of years. Think of the enormous impact it has always had on countless people at a person level. Think of the immense social, political and religious significance that has been attached to issues in family law regarding marriage, divorce, children, etc. Neljack (talk) 22:36, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
Yes, I was referring to the study of law and to a lesser extent the practice of it in common law jurisdictions. I understand that the practical impact of family law on the day-to-day lives of ordinary people is more important than some of the areas that I mentioned above. I still think general articles on procedure and commercial law and distinct articles on public and private international law/conflicts (they are currently bundled together in international law) should be in before family. But I will change positions if there is consensus to significantly increase the number of articles in the law section, which I think can be reasonably argued. Gizza (t)(c) 13:00, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

I agree this is not a core topic, but it's vital enough for the top 10,000. So are all the other areas Gizza mentioned and should also be in: commercial law/companies law, environmental law, labour law, immigration law and tax law + of course more importantly procedural law and conflicts of laws. I would support those. --Melody Lavender (talk) 06:05, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

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PASSED
Added 5-1 after 15+ days. Malerisch (talk) 09:52, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

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Add Rijksmuseum

Large collection of Dutch Golden Age painting (already va-4) and largest collection of works by Rembrandt (already va-3/4); 2.2 million visitors in 2013.

Support
  1. Support as nominator – Editør (talk) 13:03, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
  2. Support Gizza (t)(c) 08:06, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
  3. Support PointsofNoReturn (talk) 21:05, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
  4. Support CRwikiCA talk 13:16, 25 July 2014 (UTC)
  5. Weak support Its collection is a bit narrow in scope, and Melody Lavender's right that Dutch Golden Age painting is already present, but I think that the artists and works represented are vital enough to compensate. The Rijksmuseum also appears on the only reliable compilation of top art museums I could find that isn't purely based on visitor rankings: National Geographic. My support is weak because we already have quite a few European museums and the museum just manages to get on the list at #10. Malerisch (talk) 09:52, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Oppose because Dutch Golden Age painting is already on the list. --Melody Lavender (talk) 05:46, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
Discussion

Frankly I don't think we need any more museums from Europe and the US: we should be looking to diversify this list from a global perspective. The Egyptian Museum and the Museo Nacional de Antropología are the kinds of museums I'm thinking of. Cobblet (talk) 18:30, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

Some global spreading is preferred, but in the end, the museums that are most important should be on the list, despite their locations. – Editør (talk) 23:24, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
Naturally. But a list of "the most important" museums in the world in which every museum except for the American Museum of Natural History displays Western art is making a radical statement about what's important. Of course some museums listed do more than just that, but the Rijksmuseum and Van Gogh Museum are not such museums. Cobblet (talk) 00:52, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
The concept of a museum is probably a Western thing. However, the Rijksmuseum has many historical objects on display and their Asian pavilion is dedicated to Asian art, so it is definitely not only Western or only art. – Editør (talk) 07:19, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
Fair enough, but that pavilion seems to be small and only a recent addition. The National Museum of Korea or Tokyo National Museum have to be better choices to represent Asian art. Cobblet (talk) 17:58, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
We could add those museums. PointsofNoReturn (talk) 21:05, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
The only thing that prevents me from nominating them is that I don't know how many museums we should have and I don't know whether to propose swaps or straight-up additions. Cobblet (talk) 01:58, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
Agree with Cobblet. "Important" does not just mean most visited. If anything I think we have enough or too many already, but Cairo at least should be added - it has way the best collection of Egyptian art. Generally museum articles are of most interest if you are going to visit them, or are wondering whether to do so. If you are never likely to be able to visit, they are not really the best approach to the subjects of whatever it is they contain. The Getty looks the weakest of the current list to me, both in terms of visitors and collection. But is is the only West Coast one. Johnbod (talk) 10:51, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
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PASSED
Added 5-0 after 15+ days. Malerisch (talk) 08:40, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

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Add Natural History Museum, London

Science museums are woefully underrepresented compared to art museums: we list only the Smithsonian (which is both) and the American Museum of Natural History. London's Natural History Museum received five million visitors in 2012, putting it ahead of all but five art museums in the world.

Support
  1. Support as nom. Cobblet (talk) 22:29, 19 July 2014 (UTC)
  2. Support – Editør (talk) 22:59, 19 July 2014 (UTC)
  3. Support Malerisch (talk) 23:35, 19 July 2014 (UTC)
  4. Support PointsofNoReturn (talk) 14:59, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
  5. Support --Melody Lavender (talk) 08:31, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
Oppose
Discussion
If we believe that individual museums can be vital and we're looking for the most important examples, I see no reason to hide the fact that London and New York outclass any other city in the world in this regard. Credit where credit is due. Cobblet (talk) 23:19, 19 July 2014 (UTC)
I agree, if that is the case the museums should be listed. – Editør (talk) 12:47, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
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There is a general consensus to remove organisms (currently ongoing). Malerisch (talk) 22:08, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

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Removal of organisms

The list of organisms is massive. Surely we can reduce it. I'm not sure that every variety of insect is needed since I doubt many people know them. This list needs a large amount of removal. We currently have 994 organisms, which I think is way too much. I am creating this section to see how many people share my sentiments. If you support it, you support mass removal of organisms from the list. I would also decrease the quota for organisms. How low is the subject of this discussion.

Support
  1. Support as nom. PointsofNoReturn (talk) 21:13, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
  2. Tentative Support see comments below. Gizza (t)(c) 02:21, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
  3. Tentative Support After all, no one is advocating that any of the articles be removed from Wikipedia. The issue here is whether there are really almost 1,000 distinct classification categories, organisms, and breeds that are among the 10,000 most vital topics on Wikipedia. That seems rather unlikely to me, even though I have looked up articles about animals and plants during the last year on Wikipedia. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 16:55, 20 June 2014 (UTC)
  4. Support. We need room for subjects like health: we have no, and I mean no, human anatomy section and we virtually ignore that pharmaceutical science exists). Compared to other sections, the organism section is way too big. --Melody Lavender (talk) 12:22, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
  5. Support. There are to many articles about organisms. --V3n0M93 (talk) 17:36, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
Oppose
Discussion

The number of organisms can drop to 900 but not lower than that IMO. Whatever the agreed outcome is, it shouldn't be rushed like the mass removal of regions from the Geography section. And there shouldn't be any inverted voting rules as there were then. Removals require 5 supports and a two-thirds majority. They don't require 5 supports to be "kept".

As to where to cut, the sections on fishes, birds, some parts of mammals and animal breeds contain the largest bloat. Possibly a few plants as well. The insect section isn't that big when you consider that there are millions of species of them, they represent more than 90% of all animal life and occupy incredibly important ecological niches. The fact that many people don't know much about insects is irrelevant. Vital articles are about what people should know, not actually know. Various lists of WP:Popular pages already exist. It is important to ensure that the most visited pages are well written, adequately references, free of vandalism and the like for reasons other than vitality. Vital articles serve a different purpose and there would no points making it a replica of those other lists.

I'm still not certain that the insect section needs to be so large, regardless that they are 90% of animal life. I honestly think the species section could be cut by a few hundred, but I am not sure exactly how to do it. I also do not want to do a mass deletion without thought, so we will see where this leads us. The actual species to remove could be discussed later. PointsofNoReturn (talk) 01:17, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

The health section and other biology sections can have their quotas increased once the removals take place. It will depend on how much is cut but their quotas probably won't need to increase to the extent that organisms is decreased. The remaining space may be allocated to history, art, society or maybe somewhere else. The society section currently has a lot of space for further additions. In the history and art sections, I can see plenty of articles that are far too specific to be vital. Then again in respect of history, moving the "history of" topics has pushed the number up and there are significant holes in its current coverage. We don't need to decide now I guess. Gizza (t)(c) 02:21, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

I think there's a lot of not very vital stuff presently in the organisms section, but there are vital things missing. In balance, there's probably more unimportant organisms listed as vital than important organisms not listed. The organism section could be reduced, this should be an incremental process, not a hack and slash of the current list. It would be nice if editors more familiar with other groups of organisms got involved in the process here. Plantdrew (talk) 18:38, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
That is true. All I know is that we do not need that many insects on the list. Just because insects are the most common type of animal doesn't mean they are the most vital. In fact, its the opposite. I would want to take insects off the list first, then from other lists. PointsofNoReturn (talk) 21:40, 2 June 2014 (UTC)
It would be good to invite a few people with all-rounded expertise and knowledge in zoology to the discussion. Insects and other arthropods play many critical and niche roles in the food web. If many other animals were to disappear off the face of the earth tomorrow, it will be sad but life will move on from a anthropocentric view. If any of the insects were to disappear, the consequences would be catastrophic. Ignorance does not mean something is non-vital. Neither are animals that are large in size or aesthetically pleasing automatically vital. In any case, a hasty mass deletion of articles when every section except for chemistry and earth science is under target is pointless. We'll end up having to do 20 swaps to bring back the articles that shouldn't have been removed in the first place just like with regions and geography.
The best approaching in removing articles for all organisms is to remove the overlap. If we have a family or some other higher rank along with for example 5 species in that family, we can remove either the family or some of the species. I would definitely not remove both. And I would be hesitant in removing something that doesn't have overlap.Gizza (t)(c) 03:21, 6 June 2014 (UTC)
Let's not overinclude at level 4. Per the thoughful discussion by several editors above, it is duplicative to list multiple taxonomic levels for the same organism, so that we have an article for an obscure organism, and then five articles above that for the genus, family, order, etc. that includes that obscure organism. I think it will be easy to achieve trimming the current organisms list by 100 entries if we keep in mind that all the organism articles have infoboxes that show their place in current systems of taxonomy, so that readers can always trace up the hierarchy from an organism article to find a genus, family, etc., and for the most part can also rely on hypertext to trace from any family to any included genus, and from any genus to all the species that have articles on Wikipedia, and so on. So for the 10,000 articles of vital articles project level 4, we can afford to be a little more selective, focusing on articles on "a list of subjects for which Wikipedia should have corresponding high-quality articles," serving "as a centralized watchlist to track the status of Wikipedia's most essential articles." I'll nominate some organism subsection articles for removal after checking biology reference sources. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 17:07, 21 June 2014 (UTC)
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PASSED
Weevil added 5-2 after 15+ days; ground beetle and rove beetle not added 4-3 after 30+ days. Malerisch (talk) 23:56, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

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Add Ground beetle, Rove beetle, Weevil

Beetles, which comprise almost 25% of all animal species and 40% of all insect species, are now glaringly underrepresented on the list after we took a hatchet to it some time ago. The three largest families of beetles (>40 000 species) deserve to be on the list (technically that should include Curculionidae (the true weevils), but since that taxon is disputed I've nominated the superfamily of weevils in general).

Support
  1. Support as nom. Cobblet (talk) 01:24, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
  2. Support Gizza (t)(c) 02:10, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
  3. Support PointsofNoReturn (talk) 21:14, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
  4. Support Malerisch (talk) 22:14, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Oppose Is Coleoptera on the list? That should be enough, as is for biology textbooks. The first two terms proposed here are not attested in reference books and not familiar to most people who will ever use Wikipedia. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 23:42, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
  2. Oppose per WBB, thought I might be able to support adding Weevil, since it is more familiar and likely to be searched for in an encyclopedia. LHMask me a question 14:59, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
  3. Oppose per WeijiBaikeBianji. --V3n0M93 (talk) 17:45, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
Discussion

To quote what User:Plantdrew once said here, "there are 3 general ways an article on an organism might be vital: evolutionary significance, ecological significance and human significance". Even if you ignore human significance completely, beetles are underrepresented due to their ecological and evolutionary roles. Gizza (t)(c) 02:10, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Regarding human significance, weevils are notorious pests (e.g. the boll weevil), and ground beetles can be both pests and beneficial insects. Cobblet (talk) 04:42, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
Is Britannica a reference work? It's got both ground beetle and rove beetle. If you google either term you will find plenty of websites that use these terms, even educational websites intended for a young audience. Coleoptera redirects to Beetle. Cobblet (talk) 00:57, 5 July 2014 (UTC)
Weevil seems best, but I may support all, we shouldn't have more butterflies and moths than beetles. I would also bring back Lady bird.  Carlwev  18:04, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
@Carlwev: Ground beetle and rove beetle will be failed as-is (it's been 30+ days), so you should probably vote very soon! Never mind, I missed LHM's support. Malerisch (talk) 23:01, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
Looking at the oppose rationales individually, it seems that weevil has just passed at 5-2.
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PASSED
Removed 5-0 after 15+ days. Malerisch (talk) 22:10, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

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Remove Barbus, Common bream, Tench and Burbot

Fish that have some notability as food fishes and are popular among anglers, but the list already includes Esox and catfish (and the wels catfish is also listed separately) and species like brown trout, rainbow trout, grayling, walleye or Micropterus seem like better choices not currently on the list.

Support
  1. Support as nom. Cobblet (talk) 04:42, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
  2. Support PointsofNoReturn (talk) 21:21, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
  3. Support LHMask me a question 15:47, 19 July 2014 (UTC)
  4. Support Malerisch (talk) 23:05, 19 July 2014 (UTC)
  5. Support --V3n0M93 (talk) 17:45, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
Oppose
Discussion

For this kind of suggestion, I think it is helpful to check the Wikipedia:WikiProject Fishes/Popular pages list to see where reader interest lies, as the actual pageviews of thousands of Wikipedia users may give us a better reality check than the personal experience of a dozen or so active editors on this page. Does anyone have any reference books about this particular topic (ichthyology) at hand? -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 19:17, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Page views can be helpful, but I try not to rely too much on them as there's so much fluctuation over time. For example, menhaden (an article I seriously considered nominating as a swap somewhere) languished at 284th in popularity among Wikiproject Fishes articles a year ago, spiked to 2nd around the end of last year, and is currently sitting at 11th. Why the sudden intense interest, I have no idea. And then there's the question of just how seriously page views should be taken as an indication of vitality. Blobfish has been consistently ranked in the top 50 for the last four years: do you consider the world's ugliest animal (as determined by online polling) to be vital? Cobblet (talk) 20:48, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

I should also note that these and the other species I alluded to in the nomination are fishes mainly familiar to a Western audience. We're very selective when it comes to including notable food fishes from other parts of the world (Nile perch, pomfret, Pacific saury or either of the major Larimichthys species aren't listed; really the only examples we have are milkfish, ilish and grass carp) and we should be similarly selective when it comes to these. Cobblet (talk) 18:50, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

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PASSED
Removed 5-0 after 15+ days. Malerisch (talk) 22:11, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

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Remove Bonefishes, Bowfin and Tarpon

Again, these have some notability in sport fishing but we have better examples like marlin and swordfish.

Support
  1. Support as nom. Cobblet (talk) 04:42, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
  2. Support PointsofNoReturn (talk) 21:21, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
  3. Support Gizza (t)(c) 02:08, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
  4. Support Malerisch (talk) 23:06, 19 July 2014 (UTC)
  5. Support --V3n0M93 (talk) 17:45, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
Oppose
Discussion
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PASSED
Removed 5-2 after 15+ days. Malerisch (talk) 22:12, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

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Remove Muraena

The Romans considered it a delicacy, but they also considered Otala lactea a delicacy; that doesn't mean we have to list either one of them.

Support
  1. Support as nom. Cobblet (talk) 04:42, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
  2. Support I don't think it's vital, and not for biting, we don't have articles like Insect bites and stings, snake bite, shark attack, Dog attack etc  Carlwev  12:48, 7 July 2014 (UTC)
  3. Support Piranhas (already listed) are what most people would associate with biting fish, not this. Malerisch (talk) 10:46, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
  4. Support per above. Gizza (t)(c) 08:37, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
  5. Support --V3n0M93 (talk) 17:45, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Oppose. With all the species I've never heard of on the vitals list I'd hate to remove a famous fish that is in the news sometimes (for biting people). --Melody Lavender (talk) 12:07, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
  2. Oppose PointsofNoReturn (talk) 21:21, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
Discussion

I'd be open to swap this out in exchange for moray eel. --Melody Lavender (talk) 17:46, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

I did consider that possibility, but if we're cutting katydids and daddy long-legs I don't see how moray eels are any more notable. Cobblet (talk) 18:03, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
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PASSED
Added 5-0 after 15+ days. Malerisch (talk) 22:25, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

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Add Mole (animal)

I think moles are significant enough to be included, known, and sometimes hated for great digging ability, good senses despite near blind, and notorious pest to some, we have the family Talpidae but the mole itself may be more appropriate. My only first negative thought was Talpaidae interlinks to more languages but the ones I've checked translate to mole anyway, maybe many other languages don't have separate articles for the two.  Carlwev  11:56, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

Support
  1. Support as nom.  Carlwev  11:56, 7 July 2014 (UTC)
  2. Support' PointsofNoReturn (talk) 21:21, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
  3. Support The article should probably be merged with Talpidae. I see no reason why they have seperate articles. All the links to other languages you're missing are in the Talpidae article, but I think we should list the common name article on VA.--Melody Lavender (talk) 10:19, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
  4. Support Malerisch (talk) 23:08, 19 July 2014 (UTC)
  5. Support --V3n0M93 (talk) 17:45, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
Oppose
Discussion

Prefer a swap for Talpidae since that family's other members don't look vital. If English has common names for animals that other languages don't have, we shouldn't switch to an unfamiliar taxonomic rank just to maintain some sort of artificial "consistency" between Wikipedias. It's natural and expected that different languages work differently. Cobblet (talk) 08:31, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

A swap seems like a good idea. – Editør (talk) 19:26, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
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PASSED
Added 5-0 after 15+ days. Malerisch (talk) 20:18, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

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Add Weed

Another major classification of plants. It is not a biological classification, but it is important as a common language classification. These annoying plants are dealt with by gardeners around the world.

Support
  1. Support PointsofNoReturn (talk) 22:28, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
  2. Support --Melody Lavender (talk) 09:15, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
  3. Support Gizza (t)(c) 06:15, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
  4. Support Malerisch (talk) 22:15, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
  5. Support  Carlwev  11:26, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
Oppose
Discussion
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FAILED
Not added 3-3 after 30+ days. Malerisch (talk) 22:31, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

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Add Imperial and US customary measurement systems

11th of 15 articles that are on the Level 3 list but not the Expanded list. Note that both Imperial units and United States customary units are already included. Malerisch (talk) 02:09, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Support
  1. Support This article was originally created as a result of one user's initiative to combine the two topics into one. I'm not terribly enthusiastic with the idea, but it does at least provide a useful historical overview of the evolution of these systems. Cobblet (talk) 20:37, 3 July 2014 (UTC)
  2. pbp 23:43, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

#Support I'm not too sure about it at Level 3. The article is too focused on comparing the two measurements with each other. Maybe the more general system of measurement is a better choice higher up (and here of course). Gizza (t)(c) 00:59, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

  1. Support PointsofNoReturn (talk) 21:41, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Oppose While the two measurement systems are important, the comparison of the two is rather less so. An expanded History of measurement would probably be a good idea, though, for the historical perspective. System of measurement (although it's not as good an article), would be a better place to have a comparison of different systems (not just these two). Rwessel (talk) 17:08, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
  2. Oppose per Rwessel. I would support System of measurement as a replacement article. And obviously oppose it at Level 3 too. Gizza (t)(c) 01:58, 19 July 2014 (UTC)
  3. Oppose per Rwesse --V3n0M93 (talk) 17:47, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
Discussion
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FAILED
Not added 1-3 after 30+ days. Malerisch (talk) 01:57, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

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Add Semiconductor device

13th of 15 articles that are on the Level 3 list but not the Expanded list. Note that Semiconductor is already included. Malerisch (talk) 02:14, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Support
  1. Support PointsofNoReturn (talk) 22:34, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Oppose I think the better choice for this level is the more general electronic component. On level 3, we already list integrated circuit and transistor, so I don't think we need the overview article. Cobblet (talk) 01:43, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
  2. Oppose per Cobblet. There's too much overlap. Malerisch (talk) 22:18, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
  3. Oppose Should Semiconductor be swapped in at Level 3? Gizza (t)(c) 02:23, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
Discussion
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NO CONSENSUS
No votes in 30+ days. Malerisch (talk) 22:18, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

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From the list Wonders of the World#American Society of Civil Engineers, the following four articles have already been listed among the vital articles: Channel Tunnel (in Technology/Infrastructure), Empire State Building (in Arts), Golden Gate Bridge (in Technology/Infrastructure), and Panama Canal (in Geography). The articles CN Tower, Itaipu Dam, Delta Works, and Zuiderzee Works are not included, and should possibly be added. I would like to nominate the last two articles. – Editør (talk) 11:19, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Add Delta Works and Zuiderzee Works

These two so-called civil engineering 'wonders' in the Netherlands protects many people from flooding (North Sea flood of 1953) and created one of largest artificial islands in the world (Flevopolder). They do not quite fit into the list yet, but this seemed to be the best category to nominate them in. – Editør (talk) 11:19, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Support
  1. Support as nominator – Editør (talk) 11:19, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Please tell me more Perhaps one article but not both, but first I have to wrap my mind around what other articles about major civil engineering projects are coming on to the vital articles list. Something about what has kept the Netherlands from being overwhelmed by the sea would indeed be a good article for the 10,000 vital articles list at level 4, as many coastal countries will want to know about preventing encroachment by the oceans. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 17:47, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
Discussion

There is a similar project in Lagos, Nigeria: Eko Atlantic City. If we include Delta Works, we'll have to consider that, too. --Melody Lavender (talk) 06:09, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

That's not a comparison I can take seriously. Cobblet (talk) 08:10, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

This topic just came up very recently. I still think adding Flood control in the Netherlands is the best way to cover the Dutch struggle to tame the North Sea. The title does opens it to accusations of geographic bias, but on the off-chance the Aswan Dam gets renamed Flood control, hydroelectricity and water management in Egypt, would we have to remove it from the list because of Egyptian bias? Cobblet (talk) 08:10, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for informing us about this recent nomination. I also support the suggestion of Flood control in the Netherlands, since that article includes a summary of both Delta Works and Zuiderzee Works and gives it some extra context. – Editør (talk) 09:20, 7 July 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for the mention of the other article, which I will support (as does the original nominator) as an article about a historically very significant civil engineering project. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 22:01, 11 July 2014 (UTC)
You can add your support at the nomination below. – Editør (talk) 08:14, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
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PASSED
Added 5-1 after 15+ days. Malerisch (talk) 22:33, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

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Add Flood control

An article specific to the Dutch flood control will give the list more Western bias. Flooding is a problem in many areas of the world, for example in the up-coming economy Nigeria (is predicted to become one of the biggest economies in the world within 20 or so years). Its capital Lagos has that problem, too. The proposed article lacks a good coverage of the Dutch project as of yet, but it should of course be expanded to cover it.--Melody Lavender (talk) 06:13, 9 July 2014 (UTC)


Support
  1. Support as nom. --Melody Lavender (talk) 06:13, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
  2. Support Gizza (t)(c) 06:31, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
  3. Support PointsofNoReturn (talk) 22:36, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
  4. Support Good idea. Neljack (talk) 14:21, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
  5. Support --V3n0M93 (talk) 18:00, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Oppose Cobblet (talk) 04:06, 11 July 2014 (UTC)
Discussion

At Level 3, for some reason drought is not listed when flood, tornado and tropical cyclone, earthquake and volcano are. A lack of water is just as dangerous and deadly as too much water. Desertification could fit in on the expanded list if drought goes up one level. Drought relief itself currently redirects to a section in drought. There should be enough reliable sources and coverage to full a complete article on the topic. Ideally it would also be added as the drought equivalent to this article. There are also options like hurricane preparedness (currently earthquake preparedness redirects to emergency management). Gizza (t)(c) 06:31, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

First, our coverage of natural disasters isn't comprehensive: landslide, heat wave, ice storm and wildfire are missing. Second, at least we list levee and dam as aspects of flood control; where are wildfire suppression/prescribed burning, prediction of volcanic activity, earthquake prediction/earthquake engineering, landslide mitigation, etc.? I think flood ought to cover aspects of flood control in general; we could add more specific concepts on this topic like floodgate and seawall if we really need to. Cobblet (talk) 04:06, 11 July 2014 (UTC)
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Whilst looking at the transport and tech lists several more articles came to mind, mostly vessels and techs that I think many of them are more significant than some topics already present. Steam locomotive, Electric locomotive, Electric car, diesel engine, diesel fuel, Rudder, Propeller, wing, Cruise ship, Catamaran, Toll road, Interchange (road). All of these ideas came to me, I haven't thought about all of them in depth, I wanted to post them in case I forgot them and to ask if others like them, some I really like the idea of and think they are very good candidates, like the steam and electric locomotive, and others not as much, but I listed them anyway, perhaps not toll road or rudder for example.

I was thinking, if we have sail, wheel, and tire should we have wing, propeller and rudder? Are trains by power more relevant than several underground train networks? are car shapes, and car or aircraft manufacturers more deserving than most of these?...I also think we don't have much to represent rowing, which I think is fairly significant, we have canoe (not the only type of rowing boat) and in sport we have rowing (sport) (significant but only about the "sport" not war, travel, historic, merchant), Rowing and oar are kind of weak, and some, but not myself hate having a sport-transport duplication, like sailing plus sailing (sport), and human swimming plus swimming (sport). I may drop these in gradually in time. Do people like or dislike any of these in particular, or have any other thoughts?  Carlwev  10:53, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Of your suggestions I like diesel engine and cruise ship – I think these might be the topics with the least overlap with the rest of the list. I would suggest not wing (rather close in scope to flight in that it has to cover both human technology and animal anatomy) but airfoil in technology, along with things like bird flight and insect wing in zoology (but that's a separate discussion in itself). Things like propellers and rudders are arguably of secondary importance – to make a parallel with aviation, would you consider flight control surfaces worth adding?
I don't know how many types of watercraft we should have. On the one hand, I feel catamaran and kayak might be worthwhile additions. On the other hand, when it comes to land transport I feel that we don't need any of the subtypes listed under automobile and truck. In any case, we list galley as an example of a rowing ship, so I'm not sure we also need an overall article on rowing. Of human activities that aren't currently double-listed as sports I'd prioritize adding cycle sport and shooting sport. Cobblet (talk) 12:31, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
FAILED
Not removed 4-4 after 30+ days. Malerisch (talk) 22:38, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

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Remove Tokyo subway, Moscow Metro, New York City Subway, Paris Métro

We don't need to list five rapid transit networks when no road network and only one railway is listed. Surely high-speed rail projects like the TGV and Shinkansen are more notable than the Paris and Tokyo subways; and surely the First Transcontinental Railroad matters more to the history and economy of the US than the New York subway. The Moscow Metro has some architectural significance but St. Basil's Cathedral is much more important and that's not on the list either. I think the London Underground is the only subway system that might be worth keeping since it was the first example of one.

Support
  1. Support as nom. Cobblet (talk) 22:03, 5 July 2014 (UTC)
  2. Support --Rsm77 (talk) 22:47, 7 July 2014 (UTC)
  3. Support per nom. Malerisch (talk) 02:23, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
  4. Support removing Tokyo, Moscow and Paris. Weak support for New York. Rapid transit/Metro is clearly vital. Whether 5 examples of rapid transit are vital is another matter. As mentioned, we don't list any airports or seaports. Agree with Cobblet, Rsm and Malerisch's comments. Gizza (t)(c) 02:48, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Oppose - While it may not seem significant, each subway has played very important parts in the development of their respective cities. They are also very important to many people, who use these systems daily—these four systems have the highest ridership of all metro systems in the world; by contrast, something like Cleveland's RTA isn't vital, as it isn't well-known like the four metro systems described above. (Mostly the NYC Subway, and less so for the other subway systems, but still, TGV and Shinkansen could be added, as well, without removing the metro systems.) Epicgenius (talk) 12:13, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
  2. Oppose pbp 15:04, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
  3. Oppose bulk removal, I might be inclined to support individual removals or swaps though. --Melody Lavender (talk) 06:25, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
  4. Oppose all the removals. The New York City Subway is the most used in the Americas and it pretty old. The other three are also important because they are in major cities and are highly used. PointsofNoReturn (talk) 22:57, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
Discussion

I suggest we stick to the practice of having articles on the list about things that are important to the Average Joe (is he on the list?). Subways, like highways, are infrastructures most of us use every day (or would like to use every day). The argument that much of the world doesn't have subways, or highways, is not valid in my opinion because they will have them, some of them will have them in the very near future. The subways proposed for removal here, just like the US highway system that has just been proposed, are going to be the examples (good or bad) that countries like Nigeria are going to model their infrastructure on. I don't think architectural sigificance is so important. (Paris Métro, I believe, is architecturally significant, by the way.) --Melody Lavender (talk) 11:45, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

I agree on that point; they should not be removed just because they are infrastructure. Epicgenius (talk) 12:13, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
In that case, feel free to nominate every highway and railway network of every large developed or newly industrializing country, since I'm sure many people also use those on a daily basis. Ports and airports too, for that matter. What's vital to one city or country is not necessarily vital to the rest of the world. Cobblet (talk) 12:55, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
I'd just like to note that Tokyo subway may not be the best choice to represent Japan as it does not include Tokyo's most famous line the Yamanote Line, which serves several of the world's busiest stations and is used by 3.68 million passengers per day. Perhaps the world's busiest station, Shinjuku Station, used by 3.64 million passengers a day, might also be an option. Japan certainly should be represented, but not sure the best way to do so. --Rsm77 (talk) 22:57, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
Technology-wise, we've got three Japanese car makers and the Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge. General culture-wise, Mount Fuji isn't on the list. Are we defending these subways because we like subways, or because we think they're the most important aspect of a city or country's culture? Cobblet (talk) 00:02, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

Quick comment: Epicgenius, your comment on riderships isn't entirely true. According to this, the Beijing Subway, the Seoul Metropolitan Subway, and the Shanghai Metro are the rapid transit systems with the highest riderships. The Guangzhou Metro also beats the New York City Subway, and the Mexico City Metro and the MTR beat the Paris Métro. The London Underground is actually the rapid transit system with the lowest ridership out of all these, although Cobblet is choosing to keep it based on other reasons. Malerisch (talk) 01:22, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

I think Cobblet makes a good argument, so have voted in support. Still, if this proposal is not successful, Tokyo subway remains perhaps not the best choice to represent Japanese rail. --Rsm77 (talk) 22:47, 7 July 2014 (UTC)
I voted against the bulk removal now, but I would support partial removal (maybe Tokio or London) or swaps for Beijing Subway. Yamanote Line might be worth discussing, but it might open the road for adding a train line per country or something. Include Airports and Train Stations? Not sure. The actual transportation lines seem more important to me. Car makers and companies in general should all go, unless they're historic, I still hold that opinion. I wonder how they got on the list initially. --Melody Lavender (talk) 06:25, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
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PASSED
Added 5-0 after 15+ days. Malerisch (talk) 22:39, 4 August 2014 (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 Vector operator Del

The gradient, divergence, and curl are the primary operators of vector calculus. Aside from mathematics, they are commonly used in physics (e.g. Maxwell's equations or the Navier–Stokes equations). These are represented by the del operator. The article also includes in its scope the Laplace operator, another key operator in mathematics and physics with many applications. Malerisch (talk) 03:12, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Support
  1. Support as nom. Malerisch (talk) 03:12, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
  2. Support Cobblet (talk) 22:28, 11 July 2014 (UTC)
  3. Support PointsofNoReturn (talk) 22:57, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
  4. Support Gizza (t)(c) 08:33, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
  5. Support --V3n0M93 (talk) 17:48, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
Oppose
Discussion

I never learned any vector calculus so this is just an innocent question: what if we list del instead? Cobblet (talk) 22:23, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

You're right; I think that's the better choice. Malerisch (talk) 22:50, 10 July 2014 (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.

Resources for editors

As I've followed various WikiProjects, I've noticed that an editor is running a tool to show article pageviews by project, with results summarized in Popular pages reports for most WikiProjects. For example, you can see the popular pages report for WikiProject India at Wikipedia:WikiProject India/Popular pages and in general you can go to most WikiProject main pages and just append the subpage link "/Popular_pages" to the main page URL to see the popular pages report (there are some exceptions, that is projects for which there is no Popular pages summary). The popular pages are shown in strict rank order of pageviews from all sources, including redirects, and thus show a different count of pageviews from that shown by the link to the grok.se tool from the article's history page.

Of course pageviews are far from the only consideration when deciding what to list as a vital article on Wikipedia, but to do our work on trimming the vital article list in disregard of actual pageview behavior by Wikipedia readers seems to miss out on a valuable source of guidance on what to prioritize. Cobblet has already brought up some interesting ideas about reader interest in articles about fish by noting those statistics. Insofar as the vital articles list serves as a checklist of articles to bring up to featured article status, I think considering pageviews (among several other rationales for regarding an article as vital, including treatment by standard reference books and textbooks) will be a good reality check and stimulus to discussion as we continue work on this project. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 23:57, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Pageviews definitely provide a different perspective when evaluating if an article is vital. A previous discussion on this here seems to show that the community is divided on how much impact hit count should have, though. Malerisch (talk) 00:10, 5 July 2014 (UTC)
You have lurked in here for a long time, haven't you... Cobblet (talk) 01:05, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

Organizational matters

Updating article assessments on the list

There are countless articles that do not have up to date assessment classes. I have been working on doing some of them, but I cannot do 10,000 articles by myself. If some people could help me update the article assessment classes, that would be great. PointsofNoReturn (talk) 21:34, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Update: Assessment classes updated for mathematics articles. PointsofNoReturn (talk) 19:03, 3 May 2014 (UTC)
Sorry for replying so late but thanks for updating the assessment classes PointsofNoReturn. The behind-the-scenes work that you, Malerisch and Cobblet do (as well as everyone else) is much appreciated. Gizza (t)(c) 11:35, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

Duplicate entries

The articles listed below are duplicated in the Expanded list:

  1. Colonialism in History and Society and social sciences
  2. Artillery in Society and social sciences and Technology
  3. Pāli Canon in Arts and Philosophy and religion
  4. Great Plains in Geography (2x)
  5. Publishing in Society and social sciences and Technology
  6. Conscience in Philosophy and religion (2x)
  7. Gamma ray in Physical sciences (2x)
  8. Prussia in History (2x)

Does anyone want to make the calls on which entry to delete? Malerisch (talk) 05:43, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Done. Where things were listed on two different pages I followed the classification on Level 3. Cobblet (talk) 07:07, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
NO CONSENSUS
No votes in 30+ days. Malerisch (talk) 03:44, 5 August 2014 (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.

Piano: a percussion instrument or a string instrument?

String instrument
  1. I always thought it was a string instrument According to the article on the piano, it is classified as a chordophone, so I would leave it in string instruments. PointsofNoReturn (talk) 21:15, 28 June 2014 (UTC)
Percussion instrument
  1. The strings on a piano are struck, not plucked, therefore it is a percussion instrument. pbp 01:30, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
  2. It is generally considered a percussion instrument, and that is all that should matter for us. While you can construct a perfectly reasonable argument for classifying it as a string instrument, we should go for how it is usually classified, not our own personal opinions. Neljack (talk) 12:45, 5 July 2014 (UTC)
Discussion
  1. Tapping his guitar doesnt make Joe Satriani a percussionist. The article state that the piano can be considered either, which means that it is arbitrary and thus insignificant in which category we place it. I have no opinion.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 01:56, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

Oversimplification is a leading cause of Wikidrama. If we really want to solve the problem instead of engaging in pointless argument, I suggest we do what musicologists do and use the Hornbostel–Sachs system to classify instruments. Cobblet (talk) 02:19, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

I agree with Maunus and Cobblet. It is a waste of time to dwell on this. The most important question is what is vital. The only time when the question where a vital article should be listed is relevant IMO is when "like" articles are not together, making it difficult to compare like with like. For example, there are companies in the business section and technology section. These dispersed articles should ideally be compared against each other. In this case, regardless of whether piano is listed as a percussion or strings instrument, it is easy to compare it with the other instruments. Its position within the list hardly changes. Gizza (t)(c) 13:29, 26 June 2014 (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.
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