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Add Propaganda in China

PASSED
Added 4-1. feminist🇭🇰🇺🇦 (talk) 15:58, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

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Similar to the above, something that has significantly affected the education and knowledge and behavior of billion+ people for several decades. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 05:54, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

Support
  1. As nom. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 05:54, 26 November 2023 (UTC)
  2. Support--LaukkuTheGreit (Talk•Contribs) 14:21, 26 November 2023 (UTC)
  3. Vital topic. J947 ‡ edits 08:07, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
  4. Support per nom. Respublik (talk) 06:09, 11 January 2024 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Oppose adding in isolation, I normally stay away from political topics, but AFAICT we don't list articles for propaganda specific to other countries. Propaganda's a pretty universal thing so is it weird to have a China-specific article but no others? Zar2gar1 (talk) 01:05, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
    This is something we're seeing a fair bit of here – adding articles of a specific type in isolation – but I view this more in the sense of "we'll get around to adding the other propaganda articles eventually". Nevertheless, I've proposed some extra propaganda articles here (Politics and economics being where Censorship in China  5 was added). J947 ‡ edits 23:08, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
    Noted and sounds good. It looks like the proposal will pass so no need to move my vote, but I don't oppose as long as there's some balance.
    Like I said, I try to stay away from political topics on Wikipedia, but there's definitely a quiet slant on foreign affairs in particular. Not so much in this project really though; I just wanted to check we had an eye on balance. Zar2gar1 (talk) 18:46, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
    Yeah in terms of amount of coverage there's definitely lots of politics on en.wp. But I guess that's only expected for what we are – an online encyclopaedia that also functions as a fairly reliable news outlet. J947 ‡ edits 20:30, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
    @Zar2gar1 Just a note that recently several other propaganda proposals have been suggeted on one of the subpages, with Soviet one likely passing Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 01:39, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
Neutral
Discussion
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Making vital articles accessible in mobile view

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I think it is way past time for the vital articles to be accessible in mobile view. I find that scrolling to the articles on mobile is very difficult. I think we need to have a better system at organizing vital articles in mobile view. What do you think? Interstellarity (talk) 01:22, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

@Interstellarity: I'm going to bump this discussion. I really only look things up on my phone, never edit, so I don't have much input myself. It's an interesting comment though so maybe someone else has something to add? Zar2gar1 (talk) 20:25, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
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Call for closures of pre-rule change discussions

Since the list is only partial, the proposals will need to be audited again regardless, unless we just decide to make the new rules retroactive. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 17:57, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

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We have had multiple rule changes recently, so I am calling for closures to old discussions that still have old rules in effect, so that the remaining discussions will be consistently under the new rules. These are discussions I participated in, or I would have closed them myself. starship.paint (RUN) 06:56, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Feel free to add and remove as things are closed / become eligible for closure. starship.paint (RUN) 09:51, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

I didn't actually remove anything from the list for posterity, just struck the closed proposals and moved any still open to the top (with horizontal rules to separate categories). Zar2gar1 (talk) 20:25, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
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Making the vitality estimator tool a reality?

Ideas have been noted, and I've personally started taking steps to realize this. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 17:57, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

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Previous discussions for context: 1 2 3

Enough daydreaming about this, anybody know where to begin with bringing this about? Should we make a post on WP:Village pump (technical)? I found this which also may provide some direction.

Summary of possible initial version
For the record, for an initial implementation / first draft I think taking the median of an article's rankings (i.e. if an article ranks 1st, 22nd, 333th, 4444th and 5555th by the metrics, the median would be 333) as the estimated vitality score (lower being better) is probably a solid start. The metrics can be pageviews (from the last several years), amount of page watchers, amount of Wikilinks to article (if possible ignoring links from templates since navboxes and such inflate link counts), amount of interwikis and Wikiproject importances. Wikiproject importances can be converted into numbers (such as top=5, high=4 and so on) and added together to get some value to rank by. The stats could be refreshed monthly or weekly. The algorithm/tool needn't bee too sophisticated, at least at first, just something that can be used to quickly get ideas for additions/removals via query options suitable for this project.
--LaukkuTheGreit (Talk•Contribs) 20:15, 10 January 2024 (UTC)
  1. How do page moves/redirects affect those 5 metrics?-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 16:19, 15 January 2024 (UTC)
I'm not a data-analyst in any official capacity, but I have a few thoughts for now. I don't want to volunteer myself for implementing anything yet (though it does sound like a fun problem).
More than anything, I'd suggest working on this in iterations. And for version 1, I wouldn't even worry about an overall rank or combined score / estimate. That can be hashed out in a v2 after we can collate the inputs.
Probably the simplest way to do that is have a bot/tool register a new table on WP:Database reports. For example, cewbot already records VA debug data nightly at this report. Not saying we should add this feature to cewbot; I'd lean towards creating a fresh, distinct tool.
With the source metrics in a table though, anyone can just sort them to rank by different criteria. People can immediately start citing those reports in proposals too, even before version 2.0. We could even put a link to it at the top of the talk pages.
As for the source metrics, they all sound good to me. But I'd be most interested in a separate count of in- and out-linked articles, not to other namespaces like templates, just as you said. Those could turn into something really powerful in later versions.
I also agree that it can run sparingly; monthly or even quarterly seems reasonable to me. Zar2gar1 (talk) 01:59, 16 January 2024 (UTC)
@LaukkuTheGreit: Actually, you know what? I've been free from staring at code for a bit now, and this actually sounds kind of fun. I'll take my time, but if nobody else wants to volunteer, I can look into setting up a bot. Feel free to discuss details on my user-talk page too. Zar2gar1 (talk) 18:18, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
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out of a quota of XXX - deision to remove subquotas added/drafted without discussion

DONE
Header subquotas removed, only positive feedback so far. Zar2gar1 (talk) 17:22, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

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@Starship.paint, The Blue Rider, Purplebackpack89, J947, Piotrus, and Sdkb: There was never very well estabilished usance for all quotas (see at least The Rambling Man's comment in the past) so some/many of them (for example those many by GuzzyG in biographies and mine in fictional charaters or in games) should be removed to simple information about "current number but without quota" to we do not go crazy in far future about these entry by entry swaps/additions and be more elastic. ~Given quotas were temporary draft (not procedural forever), we can jut procedurally remove them by bot if we could reach wp:new consensus here.. Eventually I ould do it fastly manually if more users would agree and I finally got time but I would like to operator of bot(needed ping) be aware of that Dawid2009 (talk) 18:14, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

If I understand you right, you want to do away with any in-page, subsection quotas? The ones at the top of each subheading in some of the lists?
I would support that completely. I've honestly been treating them as deprecated since there's no formal rule or guidance about them too.
Like you say, they could make sense in the future if the list and the overall section quotas have become very stable. But Lv5 is nowhere near that yet. Zar2gar1 (talk) 18:52, 14 January 2024 (UTC)
  • The problem is reasonable to be addressed, but I think the solution is to formally vote on all quotas. In the far future? We could and should do that now. pbp 22:18, 14 January 2024 (UTC)
We could and should do that now. -Yes, I agree, otherwise it does not make any sense Dawid2009 (talk) 13:46, 15 January 2024 (UTC)
Comment  Done cleaned and fixated. Dawid2009 (talk) 21:21, 17 January 2024 (UTC)
This should bring an end to our fixation on quotas.--LaukkuTheGreit (Talk•Contribs) 21:32, 17 January 2024 (UTC)
Oh my, this facilitates the job of a closer so much. The Blue Rider 00:29, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
This was quite unexpected, but I agree that this is good for the project. We can tell which sections need to be trimmed without arbitrary quota numbers. QuicoleJR (talk) 01:23, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
This definitely simplifies things a lot. Now to pin down the consensus on the overall quotas (or at least guidelines for setting them). Zar2gar1 (talk) 18:18, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
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General People discussion

Discrepancies between VA4 and VA5 ratios noted, especially for Popular Musicians and Actors. However, no formal proposals emerged and some quotas are now moot. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 00:21, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

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While this could be discussed on the People subpage, I think general quota discussion should take place on the main landing page.

I think there are major discrepancies in how people are allocated at VA5 compared to VA4, and some fly in the face of reason. As VA4 is a much more stable and generally more accurate list, major quota changes are required here in order for the list to be remotely consistent and successful as a holistic ranking system. In the sections below I've highlighted some select oddities; discuss them in their sections. J947 ‡ edits 00:57, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Politicians and leaders

These comprise 25.2% of the VA4 people list, but just 16% of the VA5 list. Further, contemporary politicians seem overrepresented relatively on the VA5 list, being 37.5% of the politicians at VA5 and I believe less than half that at VA4. J947 ‡ edits 00:57, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

I think the politicians quota needs to be increased by at least 100 pbp 05:07, 9 January 2024 (UTC)
I'd personally go the opposite direction and cut the Politicians quota. I get why a lot of current politicians get grandfathered in; people do probably look for their articles a lot. But at the same time, because most of them come and go, I'm not sure they're very vital to an encyclopedia.
@J947: To your original point, it actually makes sense to me that politicians are a much smaller percentage of VA5. It's probably from the difference in scale. The total size of VA4 probably accommodates most of the big historical figures people can think of. Adding a few more and even all recent leaders from every country wouldn't get you to 5x. Zar2gar1 (talk) 20:34, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Painters

How on earth do painters only warrant 26.7% of the visual arts quota? By rights, they absolutely dwarf sculptors, architects, designers, and photographers in importance. The relevant percentage at VA4 is 50.8%. J947 ‡ edits 00:57, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

I like the arts. All 7 of the WP:VA for which I am the primary author are in the arts. I don't think WP:VA4 and WP:VA5 bios need to be in proportion, and I honestly think that VA4 has overdone it a bit on painters. There is no other field for which every time I check the VA status of a biographical subject that I feel is vital and I find it is VA4. How does Aesop get demoted to 5 when so many painters of similar vitality in my mind are VA4.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 07:23, 29 December 2023 (UTC)
For the record, Aesop was removed for his fables. J947 ‡ edits 08:03, 29 December 2023 (UTC)
@TonyTheTiger: on the general point, I dunno. The fact that there are 900 military figures listed but only 200 painters reeks of "a male made this list" to me – it's my strong anecdotal impression that women tend to be interested in art significantly more, whereas military in interest is almost confined to men. That on the much more considered VA4 list it's 64 v 52 in favour of the painters strengthens this idea. I won't push this if there's no support for it, but the sheer size of the difference between the VA4 and VA5 lists, even if one doesn't view consistency as important, shows that we've likely got it wrong here. J947 ‡ edits 10:20, 31 December 2023 (UTC)
It might be the case that for every one person who changed the world with artistic actions 4.5 have changed the world with military actions. Maybe the level 4 numbers are off.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 18:15, 31 December 2023 (UTC)
And VA3, where there are a 4 painters and 1 military figure (at that, Joan of Arc – a woman; the only female military figure on the level 4 list let alone 3). J947 ‡ edits 19:25, 31 December 2023 (UTC)
User:J947, I was thinking about this today as I enjoyed two exhibitions at Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, especially the second one that is on loan from the Hammer Museum. Here are some artist that were exhibited that you might think about nominating: Édouard Vuillard, Henri Fantin-Latour, Alfred Stevens (painter) and Todd Webb (not a painter, but maybe a VA5 artist).-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 06:28, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
Just want to note that this may be partly a moot point now. For the foreseeable future, we've removed quotas for the subsections on a single page. That also applies to Popular Music. Zar2gar1 (talk) 20:37, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Popular musicians are 5.9% of the VA5 people quota, but just 3% at VA4. Reduction is quota is needed. J947 ‡ edits 00:57, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Sport figures

These are 8% of the people list at VA5, as opposed to 4.8% at VA4. Reduction is quota is needed. J947 ‡ edits 00:57, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

  • I would support this and the popular musicians. Sports and to a lesser extent, music, while important for society are not particularly defining of the same; they mainly serve as distractions for the population so the quota should be low. Philosophers, social scientists, politicians, on the other hand, are behind practically all major events in history. The Blue Rider 01:37, 30 December 2023 (UTC)
  • I personally disagree that Sports figures are overrepresented. I think the problem is that other types of celebrities are overrepresented. Singers can have one or two significant albums and be listed. Since they have large interwikis and distorted social media presence, I think we accord them disproportionate vitality. Players can be the greatest at their sport for years and not yet be listed. People like Patrick Mahomes, Iga Świątek, Nikola Jokić have already dominated their sports for years and singers with the extent of excellence of someone new on the scene like tennis pro Carlos Alcaraz get listed as soon as they have a great album or two. Singers with modest success after their first album like say Billie Eilish (discography) or even Lorde (discography) get way too much vitality support on WP.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 15:16, 1 January 2024 (UTC)
I'm not a big sports person at all, but I actually agree their quota may be just right or even a little low. I think it's another scaling effect, but like the opposite of Politicians. VA4 probably (and justifiably) downplays Sports overall to free up slots for other topics. With VA5, the total size finally gives a Sports Figures section space to breathe. Zar2gar1 (talk) 20:40, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
I agree with all the proposals here. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 01:37, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
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Proposal: 3-oppose closure rule in light of new level 5 rules

FAILED
Failed 3-3, still 2 pass votes from >60% margin. Little disagreement with rule itself, but less appetite for more procedures. Consider revisiting once the current process has stabilized. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 00:21, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

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Level 5 now requires 4 support votes to pass. Discussions must remain open at least 14 days and at least 7 days after the most recent comment. The old rule that a discussion need only have 4 participants to be closed does not seem to go well with the new rules. Discussions sitting at 3-1, 3-2 and even 2-2 might develop into a 4-support consensus. Since 4-2 passes, but 4 supports would not pass against 3 opposes, I suggest that going forward discussions that have been open 14 days and 7 days since the last comment remain open until they have 3-oppose and majority-opposenon-majority-support status. The bot is currently set to wait 45 days after last dated comment on the main level 5 page and 60 days on the subpages.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 21:14, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Apologies, I did not mean for 3-3 votes to be held open in a world where 4-3 votes fail.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 00:33, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
Support
  1. As nom. TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 21:14, 5 January 2024 (UTC)
  2. This is getting complicated, but I agree. We can't be failing 3-1. starship.paint (RUN) 15:41, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
  3. I presume means discussions need three opposes to be closed as failed (or perhaps as failed or no consensus) pbp 05:07, 9 January 2024 (UTC)
    Unless they have majority support.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 05:55, 9 January 2024 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Hm? 3-1 and 3-2 should be closed as failed. The Blue Rider 21:59, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
    I think you're discovering that this is not the consensus opinion. Talk page size considerations should not mean a slower rate of changes to the list (which most would agree is in need of an awful amount of changes). J947 ‡ edits 22:59, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
    User:J947, This is another comment that seems more tending toward support but you have abstained officially.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 04:55, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
  2. Oppose, I normally don't worry about voting procedures, but we currently have 2 different rule-sets in effect. I've also been thinking a bit about the procedures, and like User:J947 said, we may be forgetting that the formal votes are meant to facilitate consensus, not be an end in themselves. Since the talk-page split, I've been pleasantly surprised at the level of participation (even on STEM proposals), but I still feel like this level needs a little slack in the procedures to evolve at a good pace. Zar2gar1 (talk) 22:36, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
  3. Per below. Respublik (talk) 18:05, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
Discussion
  1. User:J947, you were the proponent of the 4 support rule that recently passed. Please contribute some thought to this discussion.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 19:39, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
    I don't think we actually need any other rules than "close it when discussion has wound down and decent participation has been achieved" but if we do, this proposal is pretty straightforward and makes sense. J947 ‡ edits 20:13, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
    User:J947, It is not like this is some arbitrary rule. It is essentially the same rule that all the other levels feel is necessary, but adapted to our differences from them. You seem to be an active discussant somewhere between neutral and support, but not choosing to register an official opinion above.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 04:53, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
  2. @QuicoleJR, The Blue Rider, and Piotrus:, you also voted in the discussion above that led to the rule change to 4 supports. Your comments would be welcome here.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 19:41, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
    I do not understand what this is proposing. QuicoleJR (talk) 21:57, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
    Right, I struggle as well. I think this proposal is probably good but can this be rewritten to be clear? Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 02:17, 9 January 2024 (UTC)
    QuicoleJR, Piotrus, it's the equivalent to rule #2 at other VA levels (except 14 days rather than 30 days). J947 ‡ edits 03:20, 9 January 2024 (UTC)
    @J947 Any reason you don't support the change? I read your comment above, you think it does not matter if it passes or not? Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 03:24, 9 January 2024 (UTC)
    I'm unsure about it. It's a struggle to reconcile and come to an opinion when there's so many contradictory factors and motivations at play – (a) wanting to reduce bureaucracy in these rules which are rapidly becoming very complicated, (b) a desire to retain consistency with other VA levels so that the rules can be easily understood and transferrable, (c) a desire to retain consistency with general en.wp consensus-gathering processes, (d) trying to ensure that each nomination remains open for a Goldilocks period of time, and (e) what I would prefer the rules to look like in my dream world, which I'm hardly sure of myself at the moment. I could well come to an opinion later, but at the moment it's just in a ehhhhh mode. J947 ‡ edits 03:35, 9 January 2024 (UTC)
  3. QuicoleJR, Piotrus, Yes it is like rule number 2 except in our case 5-3 passes and if it is 4-3 we want it to remain open for one more opinion.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 05:59, 9 January 2024 (UTC)
    It seems to make sense to me that 4-3 discussion scan remain open rather then being closed (as failed?). Is this what you are proposing (to keep them open)? Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 06:42, 9 January 2024 (UTC)
    This proposal is to keep them open and close all 3 opposes with less than 4 supports. But we could also do like the other levels and if something has 3 opposes you can close it out unless it has enough support to pass. If people want to make it more like the other levels, 4-3 could be failed 7 days after last comment. I hadn't honestly looked that closely at the other levels when I made this proposal.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 20:43, 9 January 2024 (UTC)
  4. How would this suggestion work with the suggestions that are clogging up space and not receiving any further support or opposition (having 4+ people already engaged per level 5 activity levels is a lot) afterwards? This seems to maintain keeping any suggestion until a YES/NO decision is reached. And there are already talk pages where the middle proposals, later added suggestions in the whicever 3rd/subsequent (sub)sections are being skipped with even the current rules... Respublik (talk) 01:03, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
    People will get use to knowing a discussion will be around until either 4 supports or 3 objects are rendered. People who want to clear out the backlog will have to vote on things they might not have. We are getting a lot more activity at Level 5 than in the past. So although we can not quite use the same rules as the higher levels, we can require more input before closure now.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 04:42, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
    I really dislike the idea of turning discussions into a WP:Vote to close them, that feels very anti-Wikipedia to me. Personally, I believe voting is reserved for the suggestions where the consensus convinces me of the level of importance, at least relative, rather than being a mean to close the discussion. Respublik (talk) 18:05, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
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Would anyone actually mind if ...

NO CHANGE
Discussion technically seeking full consensus, not a formal vote. Some opposition so allow old proposals to continue winding down under old rules. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 00:21, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

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... we removed the cutoff dates? I'm aware that applying new rules retrospectively can be a bad idea, but in reducing this increasingly labyrinthine ruleset this is low-hanging fruit. So to facilitate the task of closer, an open question: does anyone disagree with the cut-off dates being removed? J947 ‡ edits 22:48, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

What is a cutoff date?-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 08:01, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
Sorry, the three Note that discussions opened before 9:28 am, 6 January 2024, Saturday (14 days ago) (UTC+13) may pass with only 3 support votes. thingies. J947 ‡ edits 08:04, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
So you want to make all the changes immediate?-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 08:12, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
not a fan, if so.TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 08:27, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
I wouldn't mind, but most old discussions have already been closed and archived, so it won't take long until everything gets uniform. The Blue Rider 13:17, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
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Latin section removed, with entries distributed to Spanish language, Portugese language and Popular music: General on a case-by-case basis.

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As it stands, the term "Latin" is not being used to refer to any specific genre of music. The article for Latin music says that it is "a term used by the music industry as a catch-all category for various styles of music from Ibero-America". While it could be used to refer to specific genres and styles of Latin American music, that isn't the case here, as for example we have Soda Stereo, an alternative rock band that happens to be Argentine. We also have artists who are Iberian rather than Latin American in this section, such as Enrique Iglesias and Manu Chao. As it stands I don't really see a meaningful distinction between this and popular music in Spanish and Portugese (which incidentally also have small sections of their own in the "non-English popular music" section), other than the separation is based solely on US music industry classifications, which categorizes "Latin" separately due to the large Hispanic population in the US constituting a sub-market of their own.

Support
  1. Nom Totalibe (talk) 16:35, 16 November 2023 (UTC)
  2. per nom. starship.paint (RUN) 05:06, 6 December 2023 (UTC)
  3. --Thi (talk) 17:59, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Oppose merge, support break-out by region, I think this may be one of those times the solution is more granularity. Instead of merging, I'd suggest breaking out popular music by several regions, and not necessarily language (like with Francophone Africa). Zar2gar1 (talk) 01:05, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
Discuss

@Totalibe: I closed this discussion but then I stumbled upon Marc Anthony, he was born in America but he sings in Spanish. Where would he go? The Blue Rider 23:29, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

If we have a separate Latin American music section (not simply "Latin"), I think you could put him under there. The cultural border between Latino and Anglo can be very fuzzy in the US, and even if not politically, I think you can consider Latin America and the US overlapping culturally. Zar2gar1 (talk) 01:05, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
@The Blue Rider Well, the section says non-English language, which doesn't necessarily correspond to nationality. Although that said, I have noticed another problem - the section also includes musicians who perform Latin-influenced music primarily in English such as Jennifer Lopez  5 - along with as mentioned earlier, Latin American musicians who don't sound typically "Latin", but happen to sing in Spanish. It seems we will also need to take those into account and not move them to the "non-English" section. Totalibe (talk) 11:00, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

Reopening this after Zar2gar1 closed it. Although nobody responded to my comment on language, I don't think this is exactly hard to overcome if we just move artists that predominantly sing in English (like Jennifer Lopez) to "Popular music: General" or whatever the most appropriate section for them is. I think creating new region-based sections would take far more effort, especially now sectional quota are gone. Iostn (talk) 21:02, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

Sounds good, and by the (pre-January) rules, your proposal does pass 3-1, plus even my oppose is a weaker one. I'm pretty ambivalent, just thought the geographic alternative may have some advantages.
I think you can totally give it a go if you want to reorganize by language, and maybe tweak the section names too. When nobody else implemented it or replied for a while, I figured it had stalled out for similar reasons to the first time. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 22:06, 4 February 2024 (UTC)
Alright, I've done the moves, although sorting by region might actually work better given that even though Jennifer Lopez  5 and some others are fairly unambiguous cases for not moving to Spanish language, there are others that are trickier, such as Manu Chao  5 (moved to Spanish) who performs in several different languages although Spanish is most common, or Shakira (moved to general) who didn't break through internationally until she started performing in English. Most entries were easier than the few debateable ones, though. Iostn (talk) 20:05, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
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Let's actually do something!

Bonus points for VA articles proposed at WP:CUP and edit-a-thon through primary WP:VA floated, among other suggestions. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 23:44, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

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This has been all fun and games arguing over who or what gets added or removed but the two main purpose of this project are listing the most vital topics of our society and improving the articles. What do people say about doing an edit-a-thon either just VA editors or a more general one to actually bring the articles' quality up? The Blue Rider 01:38, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

I think an edit-a-thon would be a good idea, although maybe this should be proposed on the main talk page? Outside of an edit-a-thon, I think figuring out how to channel more of the project's attention towards improving articles and not just listing/delisting them is an important discussion to be had. (Personally I have already improved three vital articles to GA, one of which I have also gotten to FA, while right now I have two vital articles waiting for a good article review and another waiting for peer review.) --Grnrchst (talk) 12:28, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
Ahhhhhh, snap! Here we go! I've mentioned before that I don't think Lv5 motivates individual articles much, but it's great for spotting improvements across articles.
So while participating here, I've been keeping a task-list of reorganization ideas (coverage gaps, mergers, splits, etc.) I just never thought of sharing it until now as a checklist on my user page:
User:Zar2gar1#Big list o' reorg ideas
If anyone here is interested, feel free to grab one. You can optionally change the checkbox to "checked" so everyone knows it's taken / for bragging rights. I'm a very intermittent editor so I wouldn't be getting to most of these anytime soon. Zar2gar1 (talk) 18:23, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
User:Zar2gar1, I would imagine if you actually formally proposed some of your merger ideas, they would be ratified.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 15:56, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
Oh, my list is for ideas in article space so I don't know if any formalities are needed (beyond asking on the talk-pages first). I just got the ideas largely from working on the VA lists. Zar2gar1 (talk) 17:22, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
If we do an edit-a-thon challenge, there should be a scoring system like WP:CUP uses. Scoring should be based on VA level, age of the article, prior class-rating (improving from stub or start should get the most points), interwikis, increasing links from other articles, etc.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 13:43, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
Maybe something easier: ask CUP judges to award +10% score for Vital improvements per level (+10% for V5, +20% for V4...)? Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 01:36, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
I believe scoring changes would only be possible for the 2025 competition. However, sign ups are open until January 31 for this years WP:CUP. I am disappointed to see that User:Piotrus and User:The Blue Rider have zero point submissions as we approach the half way point of the first round. Based on past discussions, it seems unlikely that WP:VA will be included in the CUP, see Wikipedia_talk:WikiCup/Archive/2023/2#Ughhhhh....-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 15:59, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
Why are you so strongly condemning that we have zero points? I'm busy right now but I will eventually do content creation in the following weeks... The Blue Rider 16:25, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
User:The Blue Rider, just trying to encourage you guys to get going.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 23:04, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
User:Piotrus, I do agree with your small VA multiplier. I think past proponents have wanted too much of a VA premium.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 16:01, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
I have made this proposal at Wikipedia_talk:WikiCup/Scoring#WP:VA_ommission_from_scoring.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 16:06, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
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We need more closers!!

Closing seems to be picking up; closing user-script also noted. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 22:32, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

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The subpages are starting to have the same problem that we had before, the Society subpage already has over 600,000 bytes. We practically stop closing discussions after the split, we need to get back to it. I'm going to start closing some stuff already, please help :) The Blue Rider 01:46, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

Changing to queue system will help. Make a gadget for closes and I'll try to use it. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 01:36, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
There's already User:DannyS712/DiscussionCloser. The Blue Rider 01:47, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
We definitely need more folk closing discussions. It's exhausting trying to do so much of it individually. --Grnrchst (talk) 20:05, 2 February 2024 (UTC)
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Convert subpages to a queue system from a topical system

CONSENSUS ACHIEVED
Discussion opened 24 days ago. Last vote (switch from qualified to full support) was 8 days ago. Last comment (unrelated to the issue at hand) 7 days ago. 4-1 in favor.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 16:36, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

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Based on early feedback at Wikipedia_talk:Vital_articles/Level/5#Proposal:_3-oppose_closure_rule_in_light_of_new_level_5_rules, there is a good chance that VA5 will be revamping to a do not close until after either 4 supports or 3 oppose system.I read subpages from top to bottom as either a discussant or a closer. I often do not get all the way down to the bottom of a subpage when I am working on it. When I return with another effort later, usually I again start at the top. I have noticed several topic closes that I would have discussed had they ever queue to the top. I believe that the lower a topic is on a subpage the less attention it will get. We will need a system that will make the articles most in need of discussants or closers get more attention. Let's make the subpages queue based on nomination order/date rather than be arranged topically as they have been since the recent split.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 20:53, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

Support
  1. As nominator.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 20:53, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
  2. I thought the topical system would be useful to allow people to easily vote on topics they want but to be honest I barely use it, the negatives that TonyTheTiger described outweigh the benefits. The Blue Rider 21:09, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
    Though users like OhnoitsvileplumeXD probably prefer this topical system since they pratically only vote/make proposals in one area. The Blue Rider 13:15, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
  3. Assuming this means we will have new nominations on the bottom, not in the middle, support. I am concerned that many nominations in the middle (at the end of subsections) are easy to miss, and I personally find it mildly annoying having to to jump to various places. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 01:33, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
  4. Support with qualification, I don't know if this will solve the large talk-page problem, but I don't think it would hurt either especially if we make it standard procedure to specify the exact list and section of the articles. No need to make it a formal rule, just a habit should be fine, but as long as it's reasonably standardized, people can just Ctrl+F for topics. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 21:50, 3 February 2024 (UTC)
    User:Zar2gar1, you are bargaining like a U.S. Congressman. You have to make a separate proposal for that. You can't hold this proposal hostage over a completely separate issue. The issues about why that is a good idea is unrelated to this proposal.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 05:15, 4 February 2024 (UTC)
    User:Zar2gar1,Is this nomination (Wikipedia_talk:Vital_articles/Level/4#Proposal:_Add_a_vital_section_link_to_each_nomination) almost exactly what you are talking about? If so, no reason to hold this vote hostage with a conditional vote.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 05:37, 4 February 2024 (UTC)
    Something like that would be more than sufficient; it doesn't even need to be a full link. Even stating the list will let editors that do focus on certain topics use Ctrl+F in their browser. And I wouldn't interpret my qualification as holding up the vote; you can consider it a support.
    Like I said, I'm not even asking for a formal rule, just suggesting that we start doing it, mostly out of politeness. It's an easy win-win: people that like the queue get their queue, and people that like topics can still search for their topics. It's not the end of the world if proposers don't do it or forget sometimes though. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 14:16, 4 February 2024 (UTC)
    Well maybe you should get involved in the discussion there.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 05:45, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Make sub-subpages for each subsection we currently have on each subpage, and transclude these sub-subpages onto each subpage. That way all nominations are added top to bottom on each sub-subpage (e.g. History, Cities, Animals, Technology, etc.) without disrupting the current structure of each subpage. feminist🇭🇰🇺🇦 (talk) 16:05, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
Discuss
Three subpages still have some old discussions to close out before we have cleared all pre-December 5 discussions.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 21:11, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
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Level 5 guidelines beyond voting

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Hi everyone, with the talk-pages split and the voting procedure updated, I just wanted to double-check we have a clear idea of other procedures.

First thing, while we can vote if everyone really wants to or we get a hung jury, I was hoping these could be more general consensus-building threads. So if anyone thinks of a mutually acceptable compromise, feel free to mention it in the thread.

To get things started, let's address something very basic: what formal rules do we still need to write down and where? Zar2gar1 (talk) 23:43, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

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All Lv5 rules at top? Alternatives?

No significant consensus in any direction, but no opposition to a supplemental non-binding FAQ. Noted that other levels give process details and best-practices in normal text. Suggest incorporating feedback in any future work on an FAQ. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 22:49, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

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So for now, at the top of the page, we list procedures for:

  • Pass / fail criterion
  • When a proposal / thread can be closed

Do we really want a multi-item list at the top? Especially if we add formal procedures for things like quotas or archiving? After all, none of these rules really apply to someone just proposing or voting, only closing.

Or do we want to pack it somewhere else like a collapsible FAQ template? And there is already a general FAQ page for VA, just not specifically Lv5. Zar2gar1 (talk) 23:43, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

Thought about this some more, and if nobody objects, I can add a LV5 FAQ (banner collapsed by default). It won't conflict with or replace the rule list above, won't be binding in any way, but will let us write down some of our softer "suggested practices." -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 23:44, 6 February 2024 (UTC)
The other levels have a lot of prose for softer guidelines uncollapsed at the top.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 00:09, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
True, but my thinking is that most of our rules (written and unwritten) don't apply to most participation on the talk-pages. Proposers and voters really just need to know that we explicitly vote on specific list changes and to put their proposals in the right place.
I've added FAQ banners to other talk pages and I think they're really good for situations like this. It unclutters the page for most people most of the time. Anyone that wants to close, archive, etc. though, or that wants the consensus on a recurring issue, has it right there without having to trawl through the archives.
Now, I wouldn't put our formal closing rules into the FAQ, at least not anytime soon. If people decide they really like the FAQ after a while, maybe we could, but I'd want this to be incremental. Zar2gar1 (talk) 18:54, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
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Participants closing discussions?

CONFIRMED
Already discussed recently, participants can close in good faith. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 00:21, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

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Going to toss out another one: how picky do we want to be about a proposal participant also closing it?

I personally have no issues with participants (or even proposers) closing discussions as long as it's done in good faith, by procedure, and doesn't cut off a live conversation. A controversial close can always be reverted. Wasn't there also sort of an unwritten rule in effect here that we didn't worry about it much?

I know the overall Wikipedia guidance asks for neutral editors to do it though. I'm still a bit leery of doing it sometimes, and other editors have mentioned not doing it even when they'd like to help move proposals along. Zar2gar1 (talk) 15:40, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

User:Zar2gar1, This was recently brought up at Wikipedia_talk:Vital_articles/Level/5/Archive_19#Closing_nominations_one_was_involved_in.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 16:12, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
Ah, thank you! I totally must have missed that conversation, but it seems like consensus is that as long as we have some other guardrails (like the voting procedures), participants can close proposals in good faith. Zar2gar1 (talk) 17:22, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
Per WP:CLOSE, In uncontentious circumstances, even an involved editor may close a discussion. feminist🇭🇰🇺🇦 (talk) 04:17, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
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Archiving batch proposals: all at once?

No significant consensus, but participants agreed archival can be flexible but batches should mostly be kept together. Archiving individual sub-proposals would mix up the archive chronology with little benefit, but encouraging limited batch sizes and splitting large batches into smaller ones are options. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 22:49, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

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Just one more procedure clarification, this one about archival. It seems like we've settled on keeping subproposals together and waiting for the whole batch to close before archiving. It makes sense to me, but it does create a bottleneck in trimming the talk pages.

I wanted to confirm that's the consensus and that there's not some alternate procedure we'd consider. For example, I could see an option where we change individual subproposals to a standard header when archiving, then mention the parent proposal in the archive note.

I'm not endorsing that, only checking there isn't any appetite for something like it. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 21:50, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

I could see an option where we change individual subproposals to a standard header when archiving, then mention the parent proposal in the archive note. I'm not opposed to that if anyone wants to do so, though personally I would find that to be more trouble than it's worth. feminist🇭🇰🇺🇦 (talk) 03:39, 6 February 2024 (UTC)
Yeah, I personally wouldn't do it either unless we were desperate to recover some space. I'm leaning more towards only suggesting people try to limit sub-proposals to a handful. That would be in the potential FAQ I mention above too, not a hard rule. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 23:44, 6 February 2024 (UTC)
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MOVED
Primary Braid  5 article moved 4-0 to Arts; rush closures allowed for proposals from Dec 2023. Braid (hairstyle) can be nominated separately for Everyday Life. Also noted that generic Brush is currently listed with Artist's Tools in Tech, but could be better differentiated. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 22:15, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

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At Wikipedia:Vital_articles/Level/5/Everyday_life#Hairstyle, the general article Braid is listed rather than Braid (hairstyle). Is this correct?-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 16:10, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

I guess I will call this to a vote since no one has stepped up to state what is supposed to be linked.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 04:24, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

Support both Braid and Braid (hairstyle) as vital subjects
Support Braid as a vital subject
Comment I believe if only Braid remains as vital we need to discuss where it is listed.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 04:24, 28 December 2023 (UTC)
@The Blue Rider and Zar2gar1: I have not voted. This was just a comment to request clarification.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 23:21, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
No problem. It does look like our numbered list is indented, but I checked the markup and we both just voted for this option.
I agree with User:The Blue Rider though. The general concept subsumes the hairstyle and makes sense in Art, as both a craft technique and a motif. If people think the hairstyle is vital enough in its own right, they can always propose adding it separately. Zar2gar1 (talk) 04:20, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
  1. Support per nominator. It should go to art. The Blue Rider 23:42, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
  2. Support, sure, it's a very basic motif. Art makes sense to me too. Zar2gar1 (talk) 20:25, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
  3. Support I do support the currently listed article being moved to art.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 12:44, 12 February 2024 (UTC)
  4. Support moving Braid to Art. Hanif Al Husaini (talk) 04:48, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
Support Braid (hairstyle) as a vital subject
Neither should be vital at this time
Discussion
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Proposal to wait 72 hours before archiving a closed discussion

NO CONSENSUS
Vote at 2-1 after 14+ days, 7+ since last comment, with 4+ participants. Despite no consensus for a formal rule, opinion was mostly positive about this as an informal best-practice. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 22:29, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

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There are occasional controversies surrounding closing decisions. Reviewing counts during this period of rule transition is especially important right now. I just noticed Wikipedia_talk:Vital_articles/Level/5/People/Archive_2#Remove_more_modestly_notable_rock_bands, which seems to miscount Elvis Costello. By my count it is 4-2. Furthermore, the summary is unclear which were passed and which were failed. It seems that Costello was failed 3-2, when 3-2 was a passing count for that nomination date.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 22:21, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

n.b. This examples was chosen because it was closed 20:41, January 18, 2024 and archived 2 minutes later by User:The Blue Rider.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 22:40, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

Support
  1. As nominator. -TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 22:21, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
  2. Support, after thinking on it more, I like making this official. 3 days isn't long at all, and the archival step definitely isn't our bottleneck, especially with OneClickArchiver. Shouldn't be hard to configure when we re-enable auto-archiving either. Zar2gar1 (talk) 17:22, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. People can check the archives if they really want. The Blue Rider 22:52, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
Discuss

Note:I've restored the blanking of this discussion by the involved editor, but moved it to the discussion section. Respublik (talk) 17:52, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

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Article count history

REQUEST NOTED
Task request noted, will be included on my public task-list for a 2nd VA bot. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 22:49, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

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Do we keep a history of our article count somewhere? If not is it possible to create one going back historically? If not can/should we start keeping track of it?-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 14:14, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

I don't think we have that info directly recorded anywhere, but it could be recovered. The landing-page table is updated manually and sporadically so that wouldn't be very accurate.
Cewbot includes a calculated total in its nightly edit description for each list though. That would probably be the easiest way to get accurate per-list values, then you could sum them up for a given sample date. Zar2gar1 (talk) 15:18, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
Level 4 and 5 would probably both benefit from documenting history of article counts by subject area. We should try to get this done.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 16:09, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
I can't give a timeline but I am looking into whipping up 2nd bot to complement Cewbot. I'll go ahead and add this to the possible task list. Zar2gar1 (talk) 17:22, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
Great. Thanks.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 20:32, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
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E-commerce moves

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I moved Akamai Technologies  5, Airbnb  5, Baidu  5, Cloudflare  5, EBay  5, Netflix  5, PayPal  5, Spotify  5, Uber  5 and Yandex  5 from Technology to Politics and economics, and I moved Taobao  5 from Politics and economics to Technology. The former ten are all publicly-traded companies in their own right, so they fit better under Companies; whereas Taobao is an e-commerce platform wholly owned and operated by Alibaba Group  4 and therefore fits better under Specific websites and other computing services. This results in a net increase of nine articles under Politics and economics and a net decrease of nine articles under Technology. Noting this here for the record because my moves have quota implications. feminist🇭🇰🇺🇦 (talk) 03:41, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, that's a really good clean-up. The STEM categories aren't just the ones that are still incomplete. There are lots of organizational things like this we need to work on there. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 17:57, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
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Note: Quotas are shown inconsistently

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There are discrepancies between the quotas for topics on the main Level 5 page and the subpages. Would need someone to address and equalize these with the current factual allocations. Respublik (talk) 00:44, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, looks like some of the changes to the main page weren't carried over to the lists (or vice-versa). My guess would be the front-page quotas are the up-to-date ones, but it could be either. Ideally the entire table would be automatic, but of course that requires someone taking the time to implement. No guarantees or timeline, but if nobody else gets to that, maybe I can do it at some point this year. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 00:21, 3 February 2024 (UTC)
The quotas should be consistent now between the topic pages and the main page. I counted the updated the article counts, and while doing that I noticed that the quotas add up to 50,075. 75 should be subtracted from some topic quota, but I can't say which one. --Makkool (talk) 09:35, 10 February 2024 (UTC)
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Unanimous closes

All specific instances discussed and resolved; consensus seems to be on following the spirit of the rules as much as possible, but allowing some personal judgment when closing. Controversial closures can always be reverted, or proposals even re-opened if archived. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 01:42, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

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This weekend, I have seen several closes that are in conflict with the WP:VA5 rules. These have all been well-intended unanimous closes. Basically, we have made several recent rule changes that require VA5 voters to come to a stronger consensus than before (although not as strong as other levels) which will increase the stability of the project by making it a tad more difficult to change the lists. That being said I have noticed 2 types of closes in conflict with the rules that we have set up.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 00:22, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

  1. Yesterday, I think I saw User:Zar2gar1 make a half dozen WP:AVALANCHE closes at Wikipedia talk:Vital articles/Level/5/STEM for things 5-0, 6-0 and 8-0 without waiting the 7 days that we have now agreed to wait.. I definitely agree with using AVALANCHE and WP:SNOW for unanimous agreement with or against the nominator for 6-0 and up. I am neutral on 5-0. I would oppose it for 4-0 and reopen discussions for the waiting period if I noticed such a close.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 00:22, 4 February 2024 (UTC)
    Even 5-0 can go south: Wikipedia_talk:Vital_articles/Level/4#Add_Everyday_life. Still not totally against 5-0 AVALANCHE, but would even prefer to let those sit the full 7 days. Will not revert 5-0.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 05:44, 4 February 2024 (UTC)
    Yes, I was even unsure at first, but while it's not as bad as on Society, STEM is starting to back up (we're hovering back around 200kB). Following the 7-day rule religiously can especially clog things up since even another unanimous vote without comment resets the clock.
    So invoking WP:AVALANCHE for 5 or more unanimous votes seemed pretty non-controversial to me. Even a 5-0 vote would suddenly require 4 votes in opposition to drop below the 60% margin for passing. That said, I try not to close things that can be swung by 1 or 2 votes, even if the rules technically allow.
    The special rules here at VA definitely make sense and help maintain consensus, but as I understand, WP:BURO still applies. If the consensus is already pretty clear, I'm not sure we need to let things pile up, and of course, proposals can always be reopened. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 14:47, 4 February 2024 (UTC)
    As I show above, even 5 can go south, but I will not oppose 5s.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 17:55, 4 February 2024 (UTC)
  2. Today, I saw several 3-0 closes by User:Makkool at Wikipedia talk:Vital articles/Level/5/Society. 3-0 is a user and a nominator and 2 go-along votes. We recently decided that VA5 is moving away from passing nominations with only 3 supports. I think I could name about 5 closes in the last two months that started 3-0 that turned around. You can look below at the Catwoman vote. Last month's Sam Smith vote also are the two that are most significant to me. I have never seen anything get to 5-0 and get turned around. I think we should reopen all 3-0 votes.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 00:22, 4 February 2024 (UTC)
    I've went along with the rules that are established in the Introduction section, that say that discussions opened before 20:28, 5 January 2024 (UTC) may pass with only 3 support votes. If somewhere a new consensus has been made, this sentence would need to go. I've been following the rules as they are on hand on the top of page. I haven't had the possibility to follow latest discussions about rule changes, and honestly I wasn't even aware they were ongoing. --Makkool (talk) 07:19, 4 February 2024 (UTC)
    I interpret the rule that a discussion should have at least 4 participants, to mean for vocal votes. I am not sure about silent or neutral votes. Here are the discussions at issue:
    1. User:Makkool, Neither Wikipedia_talk:Vital_articles/Level/5/Society#Remove_Ligature_(writing) nor Wikipedia_talk:Vital_articles/Level/5/Society#Add_Pattern_(sewing)_5 satisfies the has 4 discussants rule. Those should be reopened to await a fourth vote. You are eligible to vote in the latter of course since you have not yet. The former needs to be reopened for a fourth discussant.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 09:39, 4 February 2024 (UTC)
I didn't consider the requirement for four discussants, so this is my bad. I have undone this change, and the discussions are back open on the talk page. I placed a supporting vote on Pattern (sewing), so it now follows the need for four participants. We can let it wait for the required 7 days before re-implenting it. --Makkool (talk) 20:46, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
    1. I need further clarification of your decision at Wikipedia_talk:Vital_articles/Level/5/Society#Quota_enforcement_for_musical_works. I see one of the four participants supported 2, was vocally neutral on 1, and was silent on one. I do not feel that the silent one had 4 participants. I also do not think the neutral one passes and am not clear on whether the 4 participant rule is satisfied with 3 supports and a neutral.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 09:39, 4 February 2024 (UTC)
I feel that a participant would include silent discussants. At least in the rules it doesn't say that a participant should be someone who votes either Support or Oppose. I'm not sure what the consensus is. But I feel that I was in the right, if we follow literally the rules on top of the talk page. --Makkool (talk) 20:46, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
    1. Similarly at Wikipedia_talk:Vital_articles/Level/5/Society#Quota_enforcement_for_performing_arts (which has some sort of typo), I am not sure that 3 support, 1 neutral and 1 silent counts as four discussants.-

TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 09:39, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

People are advocating a position, not placing a vote. A Neutral position also constitutes participation. Respublik (talk) 10:49, 4 February 2024 (UTC)
How do we know if the silent position that they are advocating by discussing but not voting is or is not "I would like to circle back to this one soon to voice my vote."?-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 10:59, 4 February 2024 (UTC)
Furthermore, in the case of a multiple subject discussion. Total silence on any particular subject does not seem to me to be a position.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 11:02, 4 February 2024 (UTC)
How should I proceed with reopening the discussion in question? Would I copy the previous discussion that was closed back to the talk page? Or should I start a completely new discussion? --Makkool (talk) 18:14, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
User:Makkool, If an improperly closed discussion has been archived, move it back, then reverse whatever needs to be reversed (uncap discussion for it to continue, unadd and unremove premature list changes). If you just need to alter an explanation, you can do that in the archive with an explanatory edit summary. Also drop a note here clarifying what you are doing to each of the 4 discussions at issue.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 18:44, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
User:TonyTheTiger, I have replied you with explanations on how I progressed on each of the discussions. --Makkool (talk) 20:46, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
Commenting on Wikipedia_talk:Vital_articles/Level/5/Society#Quota_enforcement_for_performing_arts: I'd like to repeat the same, what I wrote above on Wikipedia_talk:Vital_articles/Level/5/Society#Quota_enforcement_for_musical_works. I feel that the discussion had the required four participants (actually five in total). And the rules don't say that a participant has to be someone who votes either Support or Oppose. --Makkool (talk) 20:46, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Makkool's closures were correct, there was a flaw in the previous rules. If 3-1 and 3-2 passed why would 3-0 not pass. The Blue Rider 11:50, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

There were also some closures that were made 10–13 days after the proposal was started. As with The Blue Rider's closures a week or so ago, people performing mass closures especially just need to exercise caution and doublecheck everything against the rules rather than cramming everything. Respublik (talk) 10:49, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

I think I may have done that with some of my recent AVALANCHE closures in STEM. I forgot to check the first comment date, which is totally a slip-up. The 14-day rule really doesn't seem to be causing any gridlock anyways.
So while the vote direction seemed pretty clear, obviously any proposal can be reopened if someone wanted to challenge it. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 14:59, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

The remedy for people getting confused by there being too many rules is not to create more rules. It's to remove the counterproductive rules. J947 ‡ edits 03:01, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

For a few more weeks there will be multiple sets of rules, which is confusing regardless of whether the rules are clear. All new rules have been added by consensus, so I assume it would take a consensus to reverse them. I don't think it makes much sense to assess how the rules work until we get back to a situation where there is a single consistent set of rules.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 05:34, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
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Medical devices moves

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Similar to my #E-commerce moves above, I just moved 12 articles from Health to Technology: see [1] and [2]. This is per the suggestion of DaGizza at WT:VA4#Add various health science subjects. Both Health and Technology are under quota, but Health significantly more so. We may consider reducing the Health quota and increasing it in other sections, especially since more articles may be moved from Treatments under Health to Medical technology under Technology. feminist🇭🇰🇺🇦 (talk) 15:37, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

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Suggestion: a minor change to the policy against rush closes

Reaffirmed consensus that editors should use judgment and flexibility to handle proposals with overwhelming support / opposition. Discussed related changes to talk-pages that could help proposals move more quickly. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 03:31, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

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If a change is proposed and has received 4 votes in support, with the last vote being 7 days or more ago, the fact that another user votes to support the change within the past 7 days should not prevent the discussion from being closed. Yet our current votes require discussions to remain open until 7 days after the most recent comment. feminist🇭🇰🇺🇦 (talk) 08:39, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

User:Feminist, So if a vote is 4-3 and a voter comes and makes it 5-3, you want to do a rush close rather than see if there is further input? The point of the delay is to see if the most recent discussion participant has said anything that would sway opinions in a close vote or said anything that would lead someone else to say something significant to the disucssion. This is the precise kind of situation that should not be closed quickly.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 15:05, 10 February 2024 (UTC)
Perhaps I should have phrased it better: a discussion should not be required to remain open if the most recent vote would not have changed the outcome of the discussion. A 4-3 discussion would be below 60% support and hence should be closed as "no consensus"; if that were changed to 5-3, the discussion should remain open for 7 days from the most recent vote. However, a discussion that was already 4-0 (with the last comment from 7 days or more ago, which meant it would have been eligible for closure as "passed") should not be forced to remain open just because someone else decided to make it 5-0.
The point of the delay is to see if the most recent discussion participant has said anything that would sway opinions in a close vote or said anything that would lead someone else to say something significant to the disucssion. Indeed, if the most recent discussion participant merely says something that affirms the consensus which already existed in the discussion, the discussion should not be left open just because of the 7-day rule. feminist🇭🇰🇺🇦 (talk) 15:13, 10 February 2024 (UTC)
This is essentially what I've started doing on the STEM talk page, and I just invoke WP:AVALANCHE in the close comment. I've been avoiding it on proposals with any actual oppose votes though, unless there's a giant margin (like 7-1). My thinking is that someone actually gave an argument and could still theoretically persuade others.
I agree too with what you said about respecting proposals that can be swung by 1 or 2 votes (like 4-3). I actually try to keep those open longer than the 7-day rule requires, to see if we can at least get a margin for pass or fail of at least 2 votes. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 16:25, 10 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Honestly, this will be less of an issue if we return to the queue format. Right now, we are seeing the topics at the top of pages as we revisit pages and not seeing topics at the bottom. The things we see more have more votes. Once we start having neglected things at the top again, we will be spending more time on them and less on closing things early. However, WP:AVALANCHE for all in favor and WP:SNOW for all opposed still exist. In our case since nominators usually support SNOW applies to all vs. 1 nominator. Votes can get turned around by the right argument and we are trying to allow the right arguments to see light. I think most other stuff should stay open for 7 days just to allow discussants who are not unanimously aligned to communicate before being cut off. The point is to allow people in disagreement to comment and to be heard in order to achieve a better consensus. -TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 06:54, 11 February 2024 (UTC)
  • P.S. as a reminder. Even AVALANCHE can sometimes not be what they seem. We want to try to let reasoned arguments have time to catch on. See Wikipedia_talk:Vital_articles/Level/4#Add_Everyday_life.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 16:13, 11 February 2024 (UTC)
Now that the conversion to the queue format has been complete, it is quite apparent to me that what is needed is discussants at the society subpage, which is still overloaded with 2023 nominations. We need that more than people expending energy on what types of rush closes should be allowed. Now, that we are back in queue formation, hopefully we can expend time as discussants and closers of the neglected topics that make their way towards the top of the queues rather than doing rush closes.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 14:52, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
I wouldn't want to open a proposal myself (don't have time to implement it right now even if it did pass), but might splitting the Society category be good? There are subtopics I'd be interested in, and I have a big list of Religion and Philosophy topics that are missing (for example, we don't even list Neoplatonism, Seal of the Prophets for Islam, Ancestor veneration in China, or Hasidic Judaism). Whenever I visit the talk-page though, besides the sheer size, most of the participation seems to be related to pop-culture, specific businesses, or everyday life. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 17:04, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
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Is removal without talk page discussion allowed?

DONE
Agreement that participation is sufficient to ask for discussion on any list changes; landing page instructions now updated. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 03:31, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

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From the main WP:VA5 page: "Feel free to remove irrelevant articles from the list, however, it may be contested by a discussion. Mass deletes of articles should always be preceded by discussion.". Is this still what happens? Are undiscussed removals allowed? If not, how should this text be changed? Hanif Al Husaini (talk) 09:56, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

I think we should be discussing all add/remove decisions and only make them based on feedback and consensus.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 12:38, 12 February 2024 (UTC)
I was actually really skeptical of discouraging bold changes at first, but I've been pleasantly surprised by the level of participation. I think we could actually cut those lines and the part before that mentions adding boldly.
Instead, we can just say that all changes (add or remove) should be discussed on the talk-page first. Also for sections over quota, we could strongly encourage people with an add proposal to balance it with a removal, maybe even say "a separate removal" (to minimize swaps, which seem to get messier). -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 23:36, 12 February 2024 (UTC)
Agreed. J947 ‡ edits 08:54, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
They should not be. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 03:36, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
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Linking the People Subpages to the respective talk section.

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Just a heads up that I added the redirects to the People talk page in all of the subpages as a user deleted them a while ago, leading to the 'Talk' link being red without being noticed. Sorry if I did not announce this before I made those edits. CrisBalboa1 (talk) 15:05, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

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Adding the time period to headers of eras in lists

Dear all, I have added the general time period for Ancient history (before AD 500), Post-classical history (AD 500 to 1500), Early modern period (AD 1500 to 1800), and Late modern period (after AD 1800) to the headers in our lists in Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/5/People/Philosophers, historians, political and social scientists. I think this will make our categorizing easier. See [3]. Do let me know if you have any objections. If no one objects, we can expand this to the rest of the lists. starship.paint (RUN) 02:19, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Support. Probably should have a solid date for these periods. SailorGardevoir (talk) 22:26, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Are you able to edit individual sections in list pages (e.g. Arts)?

Is there any way to edit individual sections instead of loading the entire ~200,000 byte page? Loading the entire page, instead of a section, is lagging my computer. I am having difficulty adding or removing things from the list. Very frustrating. starship.paint (RUN) 14:04, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

The sectional edit links are hidden by the __NOEDITSECTION__ magic word transcluded onto all list pages via Wikipedia:Vital articles/Labels. I assume that these edit links are intentionally hidden to prevent anonymous editors (or those unfamiliar with VA) from editing the pages. feminist🩸 (talk) 13:05, 25 February 2024 (UTC)
Thanks, I was wondering this as well. It was added in this edit by User:CactiStaccingCrane - the edit summary talks about a test, was it intentionally left there indefinitely? A better preventive measure would be page protection.--LaukkuTheGreit (Talk•Contribs) 16:00, 25 February 2024 (UTC)
Well, I think I am going to undo that change, and let's see if the world ends. starship.paint (RUN) 14:12, 26 February 2024 (UTC)
Changed. Things seem fine...? starship.paint (RUN) 14:21, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

Proposal: Have a specific subsection for us to focus on per week

When I quickly scroll through our VA5 list, it generally looks good to me. But when I focus on specific subsections and really take a deeper look at the entries, some of them are clearly incorrect and there are notable omissions. For example, when I closely inspected the Law Enforcement section of Miscellaneous People a few weeks ago, I found 5 clear candidates for deletion, all of which are on track to pass now in the thread. Every few days, we see a new batch post like this where someone identifies some problematic subcategory with easy candidates for removal. If we do this in an organized manner, we can maybe reach an equilibrium for this list quicker than relying on haphazard one-offs as people notice them. Every week, we can have a new subsection (e.g. European actresses, biochemistry, intergovernmental organizations etc.) to focus on, either random or going in order, and we can encourage people to look through that section as a starting point. We can invite in the relevant corresponding Wikiprojects to chime in and since there is a focus, it won't overwhelm them.

Of course, people will still be free to suggest things in other categories. This subsection of the week will just be an optional but recommended target of focus. What do you all think? Aurangzebra (talk) 03:25, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

I'm not opposed to this and it makes sense; I've seen similar process ideas come up in very different contexts. Bringing in wikiprojects is especially a good point. My one counterpoint is that most editors here seem to focus on some topics, myself included. So IDK if it will drive more progress or only break up participation some into weekly shifts. But if it's not compulsory and runs in parallel with normal proposals, I don't see any harm in trying it. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 17:04, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
I don't want to object or stand in the way of anyone who wants to put in effort, but I want to say that I feel that the current batch of proposals is already a significant backlog. starship.paint (RUN) 09:11, 18 February 2024 (UTC)
Judging by the sheer number of basic (non-proper noun) STEM and social science concepts I have nominated recently, I think the list is very incomplete in many sections as it is. feminist🩸 (talk) 07:36, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

Quotas: general consensus

Hi everyone, since the talk-page has more room to breathe now, I'd like to kick off a set of discussions about quotas. As above, I'd like to try keeping them more open-ended and consensus-building. But bringing something to a more formal vote is totally an option if we're split and think it's important. Let's start by getting back to basics.... -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 19:44, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

Purpose of the quotas?

Not much discussion, but participants agreed in-section quotas shouldn't immediately block new proposals ("soft quotas"). Also agreed that quotas should factor in relative strength of proposals, but quota transfers between sections should have a relatively high-bar and not chase proposal quantity or popularity alone. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 03:31, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

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Sounds silly I know, but I suspect we don't all see the quotas the same way. Are they soft or hard? Should they follow or lead how a section's size changes? I think those differences kind of follow from what we think the quotas are actually intended to do though.

I've mentioned before that I see them as accomplishing 2 things:

  • Imposing discipline so we're forced to weigh how vital articles really are
  • Allowing the sections to evolve mostly in parallel
    • For example, we don't have to weigh 5 specific actors or electronics topics directly against each other

I've never really had any feedback on those thoughts. Does anyone disagree with that? If so, how do you see the quotas fitting into the project? -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 19:44, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

I think quotas should be soft rather than hard. They should serve as a rough indicator of how many articles we currently want in each section, so as to prevent an editor who is overenthusiastic about a given topic from nominating too many articles in that topic. Yet we are generally able to compare the importance of two articles between two different sections. If we find ourselves nominating more important articles for removal from one section, while at the same time nominating less important articles to add to another section just to enforce quotas, we should question whether to adjust the quotas between these two sections instead of being hamstrung by the quotas. Discipline against adding too many articles overall is imposed by the 50,000 cap we have on all vital articles.
As an example, I remember in 2019 nominating Penang  4 to Level 4 and removing George Town, Penang  5 (which was Level 4 at the time). The swap proposal passed, but as J947 pointed out, Penang is not as vital as other country subdivisions listed at Level 4 and so may be at greater risk of removal in the future. Right now, in 2024, this remains the case: Penang remains less important than other country subdivisions listed at Level 4, but it makes no sense to list George Town at Level 4 but not Penang, because the state is more important than the city. So, the solution to the discrepancy in the importance between Penang and other country subdivisions is to list more country subdivisions and fewer cities at Level 4 (assuming the country subdivisions added are more important than the cities removed), rather than to enforce existing quota by removing country subdivisions. feminist🇭🇰🇺🇦 (talk) 06:32, 11 February 2024 (UTC)
OK, that's good input. I personally feel the same about the softer quotas and that there should be some feedback, with pressure on a section's size suggesting quota changes.
What you said about directly comparing articles across sections was interesting too. I'll give that some thought and probably come back to it in another sub-discussion. I'll give this discussion a bit more time first though and see if anyone else wants to comment. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 23:47, 12 February 2024 (UTC)
I think quotas should be hard-ish: flexible from one subtopic to another, but changes between topics (e.g. increasing Geography by taking from Arts) should be fairly rare and the bar should be set pretty high.
The biggest problem with soft quotas is that topics with fewer contributors can become “piggy banks” for the more popular topics to grab from when they fill up (and these proposals will tend to pass given the imbalance in potential voters). |This exact scenario happened not too long ago. I think these swaps do a disservice to both topics – the “loser” is permanently diminished while the “winner” temporarily averts the need to reckon with what is and isn’t vital, becoming less a list of vital articles and more a regular old list of articles.
Also worth keeping in mind is that the number of articles in a section is a product of the number of proposals and votes, not vitality. Topics like “People” and “Culture” have broad appeal and receive the most attention (and are consequently well over their quotas). The natural sciences have fewer contributors and the bar for getting something onto the project can be higher – to explain why Amborella trichopoda is vital I’d need to at least touch on cladistics and the evolutionary history of flowering plants, which is a hard sell in an already small voting pool. -- Marchantiophyta (talk) 04:11, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
Oh, I agree completely that popularity is still driving the quotas some rather than balance. And I actually intend to start a follow-on discussion on exactly what you said about setting a high bar for moving between sections. When I do, I'd be very interested in your thoughts about doing that in detail.
Just to clarify too, when I refer to soft or hard quotas, I simply mean it within a single section. Essentially, how tight a leash on new proposals should the quota act as? So if a section is say at 502 with a completely hard quota of 500, an addition proposal would be immediately disqualified unless it came with at least 3 removals. My impression from past discussions is that there's overwhelming consensus against that and for soft quotas at this level.
I wanted to try getting behind the "how / what" of the quotas some though and see if we had missed anything about the "why". -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 17:04, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
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Quota denominations

This discussion has more concrete implications (like rounding the current quotas), but I'd like to avoid a formal vote if we can reach consensus without one. AFAIK no one has advocated hard quotas (blocking any new additions once we hit the quota) or that quotas should just chase proposal counts as a box-checking exercise.

With that in mind, is there any reason not to require all quotas be round 100s, or even larger multiples of say 200 or 300 (my personal preference)? The appearance of round numbers really doesn't matter, but it does help rolling-up counts and auditing them at a glance. More importantly, I expect if we require quota allocations in larger chunks, they should become rarer and more carefully considered. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 21:54, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

Add Technical geography

ADDED
Added 6-0. Hanif Al Husaini (talk) 05:03, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

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Technical geography is a term used to describe "using, studying, and creating tools to obtain, analyze, interpret, understand, and communicate spatial information." This branch has been used to subdivide the discipline since at least 1749. Many subtopics and techniques within this discipline, like cartography, projections, and remote sensing, are already listed fairly highly. I recently suggested the three branches human geography, physical geography, and technical geography be moved to level 3, but was told to try moving the first two to level 4 and technical to level 5 first. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 16:48, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

Support
  1. Per nominator. The Blue Rider 17:44, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
  2. Support per above.GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 19:50, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
  3. Hanif Al Husaini (talk) 04:28, 8 March 2024 (UTC)
  4. per nom Aurangzebra (talk) 20:10, 8 March 2024 (UTC)
  5. --RekishiEJ (talk) 05:42, 20 March 2024 (UTC)
  6. Vileplume 🍋‍🟩 (talk) 01:27, 2 April 2024 (UTC)
Oppose
Discuss
Thanks for the heads up! Articles for improvement have the opposite rule, and I didn't know the convention here. I appreciate the help!GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 19:50, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
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Cewbot

How often does Cewbot run? I just added a page to the list and the templates still haven't been updated. QuicoleJR (talk) 18:46, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

It can take a few hours or days. The Blue Rider 21:39, 1 March 2024 (UTC)
Ok. Thanks! QuicoleJR (talk) 22:02, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

VA5 quota now 50,075. Reduce Animals by 25? 2357/2400 to 2357/2375

Withdrawn by nominator, which is myself. starship.paint (RUN) 12:36, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

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Per Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/5, VA5 quota is currently 50,075 articles, not 50,000. Animals is currently 2357/2400 articles. Shall we reduce the quota by 25? Making it 2357/2375. starship.paint (RUN) 08:12, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Support
Oppose
Discuss

I'd rather reduce Basics_and_measurement down to 350. It's a nice round number. Besides, I think we have more animals omitted rather than measurement units. Makkool (talk) 11:42, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

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Recent move

@Interstellarity, did you just move the people pages to biographies without discussion? SailorGardevoir (talk) 01:14, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

Hi @SailorGardevoir and thank you for asking. The short answer is that I did move the pages without discussion. The long answer is that I opened up a discussion on the level 4 page here. There was one comment in that discussion that suggested that it could be retitled Biographies rather than People. I probably should've opened up a discussion on this page before doing all those page moves and I encourage editors to post their comments here. I am more than happy to move those pages back if consensus disagrees with me. Interstellarity (talk) 02:05, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
I don’t think @SnowFire’s comment was meant to be a sign-off for you to do this. SailorGardevoir (talk) 02:17, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

Proposal to Split society subpage

User:Zar2gar1 suggested this above. Here are the current page sizes:

STEM-94,014 bytes
Society-532,282 bytes
History and geography-237,116 bytes
People-284,427 bytes

I propose that we split society in a fairly even manner into 2 or 3 separate subpages-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 21:10, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Size updates

STEM-126,155 bytes
Society-518,292 bytes
History and geography-235,486 bytes
People-318,168 bytes-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 14:36, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

Current size updates

STEM-118,652 bytes
Society-387,125 bytes
History and geography-189,091 bytes
People-175,675 bytes


Support
  1. as nom. I'd support either 2 or 3 separate pages.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 21:10, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. It's already the second smallest category. The page size is not too worrying at this point IMO, but more of a reminder that we could be focusing our attention on other areas. J947 ‡ edits 23:27, 18 February 2024 (UTC)
    Just to clarify, the proposal is for the overall talk-page category, which also includes Arts, Religion and Philosophy, and Everyday Life. You're right though that we don't list those on the corresponding project page. Even if you combine them all, those sections really don't have large quotas either; they just attract a very disproportionate amount of attention. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 01:42, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
Neutral
  1. Close and/or archive every discussion that can be closed and archived first. Let’s wait and see if the society subpage is in fact naturally unwieldy or if it was just that the old system f***ed that subpage especially hard. SailorGardevoir (talk) 23:33, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
    Of whom are you an alt of? The Blue Rider 21:16, 18 February 2024 (UTC)
    Pardon? J947 ‡ edits 23:27, 18 February 2024 (UTC)
    Well, it's clear this isn't their first time on Wikipedia. Was just curious what was their previous account, namely if it was someone that used to be active on this project. The Blue Rider 19:51, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
    To be fair, this might work if we're patient. Page stats show it has gone down at least 50kB since the end of December, but I doubt we'll know if that's a reliable trend for a few months yet. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 01:42, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
Discussion
How would it be the proposed division? The Blue Rider 21:16, 18 February 2024 (UTC)
Yeah, after thinking about this a bit more, most of the sections (except maybe people?) mix general concepts with specific instances. The society one is just very popular. It may seem forced given the quotas aren't that high, but a naive 2-way split (say Arts + Religion and Philosophy as one, Everyday Life + Society as the other) would result in talk-pages closer to 250kB. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 01:42, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

We need some help at Society. There are 200+ proposals. We even had a repeat proposal just seven days later. I am not sure if there is enough attention to proposals stuck in the middle of the page. starship.paint (RUN) 09:44, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

Add Princess Peach

WP:SNOW rejected, it is essentially 1-6. starship.paint (RUN) 12:42, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

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Princess Peach's popularity has been slowly growing even more since she was given her own game, Princess Peach: Showtime! as well as losing her damsel in distress style in The Super Mario Bros. Movie

Support
  1. Greenish Pickle! (🔔) 11:20, 15 April 2024 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Would rather have Bowser or Luigi. The Blue Rider 15:46, 15 April 2024 (UTC)
  2. Every fictional character we list has been the "headliner" for some massive global franchise. Until Peach spawns her own global franchise (e.g. blockbuster movies, video games, and series about her specifically), I would oppose. Aurangzebra (talk) 06:41, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
  3. Strong oppose; we need less video game articles, not more. And are Sonic the Hedgehog (character)  5, Hatsune Miku  5, and Lara Croft  5 really that important? Vileplume 🍋‍🟩 (talk) 14:20, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
  4. I would NOT rate her among the Top 50 fictional characters ever nor among the Top 10 video game characters ever. pbp 15:49, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
  5. Agree with TheBlueRider. Heck, I'll add Yoshi or Donkey Kong the character before I add Peach. SailorGardevoir (talk) 23:07, 17 April 2024 (UTC)
Neutral
  1. don’t want to pile on an O but neither is this character vital. Hyperbolick (talk) 08:57, 17 April 2024 (UTC)
Discussion
  • @Greenish Pickle!: Princess Peach is vital for video games, but this list can only include 50,000 article from all of Wikipedia, so some things that are vital for a specific project are not vital for this list. I have not decided on the merits of this proposal yet, just explaining why this is meeting such heavy opposition. QuicoleJR (talk) 14:38, 17 April 2024 (UTC)
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Add Cathedral of Christ the Saviour

Because currently it is the largest and tallest church in Russia (link), it is definitely vital at this level.

Support
  1. As nom.--RekishiEJ (talk) 10:19, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
  2. Per nom. QuicoleJR (talk) 17:28, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
Oppose
Discuss

Remove Cartogram and add Thematic map

SWAPPED
Swapped 4-0. Hanif Al Husaini (talk) 01:48, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

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I'm a bit surprised that Cartogram is the thematic map that made it onto level 5 as they are quite rare comparatively. I suggest dropping the page for cartogram completely and replacing it with thematic map, a category of maps that includes cartograms. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 23:00, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Support

  1. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 23:01, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
  2. Hanif Al Husaini (talk) 05:01, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
  3. Per nom. Hyperbolick (talk) 08:52, 17 April 2024 (UTC)
  4. SailorGardevoir (talk) 22:30, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

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Add Cosmos  5

Added 4-0. starship.paint (RUN) 02:46, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

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Not sure where this should be listed, but is an important topic for level 5. Interstellarity (talk) 13:58, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Support
  1. Interstellarity (talk) 13:58, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
  2. Per nom.GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 23:01, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
  3. Per nom as well. Hyperbolick (talk) 08:50, 17 April 2024 (UTC)
  4. SailorGardevoir (talk) 22:30, 17 April 2024 (UTC)
Oppose
Neutral
Discussion
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Add Voyager Golden Record  5

Added 5-0. starship.paint (RUN) 02:45, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

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Not sure what category I should put this in, but this is an important time capsule that shows human life. Interstellarity (talk) 13:49, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

Support
  1. Interstellarity (talk) 13:49, 15 February 2024 (UTC)
  2. Support, despite the unusual context, one part of me leans towards putting it with other Specific anthologies somewhere in Culture. Indented under Voyager program  4 in Tech also makes a lot of sense though. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 22:49, 15 February 2024 (UTC)
  3. per nom. Fine with placing it either in Culture or under Voyager program. We may also want to consider pioneer plaque which is a similarly identifiable and widely-known capsule. Aurangzebra (talk) 18:46, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
  4. Support --Thi (talk) 09:33, 4 March 2024 (UTC)
  5. Support, pretty cool. Hyperbolick (talk) 02:34, 18 April 2024 (UTC)
Oppose
Neutral
Discussion
  1. How many known time capsules exist?-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 00:38, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
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NA articles.

Can we get the Cewbot assessment page to include articles rated NA? That’s usually an indicator that something got moved. SailorGardevoir (talk) 23:43, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

VA5 quota now 50,075. Reduce Basics and measurement by 25? From 375 to 350?

PASSED
Carried out 6-0. Makkool (talk) 09:19, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

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Per this discussion, the Basics and measurement list is likely to be reduced from a total of 367 articles to 350 articles soon. So, I am proposing to reduce the quota from 375 to 350, so that VA5 can move back towards 50,000 quota. starship.paint (RUN) 12:39, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Support
  1. per nom. starship.paint (RUN) 12:39, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
  2. as suggestor Makkool (talk) 13:39, 23 April 2024 (UTC)
  3. Hanif Al Husaini (talk) 12:23, 28 April 2024 (UTC)
  4. Reasonably put. Already an awful lot of measurements. Hyperbolick (talk) 08:30, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
  5. --LaukkuTheGreit (Talk•Contribs) 08:44, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
  6. Very reasonable. Tabu Makiadi (talk) 22:34, 3 May 2024 (UTC)
Oppose
Discuss
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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