Talk:List of articles every Wikipedia should have/Archives/2012

Archives of this page

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2004|2005|2006|2007|2008|2009|2010|2011|2012

New stable version

Is it possible to create a stable version 1.3? Version 1.2 was created almost two years ago. --Wikijens 08:08, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

I think it has been pretty stable for a while now. If you want to make it a version 1.3, I won't mind. Boivie 14:31, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

I was thinking about this the other month as well. Definitely should make a new stable version. As I know a number of wiki's only update their list to the most recent stable version. -Djsasso (talk) 13:02, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

If that is the case, I think we should have a new stable version at least once a month, so those wikis don't miss out on the improvements made here. Boivie (talk) 15:08, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

The point of going by the stable versions is so the wiki's don't have to change month by month as meta changes and that it is a stable (ie unchanging) version. Most of the changes that happen here often look like changes for the sake of changing so its preferable in some cases to only change when there are enough changes to justify a change. Looking back at the history it appears that it happens about every 2 years...unfortunately one didn't get done last year. -Djsasso (talk) 15:26, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Aswan Dam

It strikes me that this structure is there. It is just one of many large dams and I don't see how it is more significant than en:Hoover Dam or en:Three Gorges Dam. Instead, I propose to replace it with the generic en:Wall, which we lack at the moment. -- Liliana • 23:03, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree with switching "Aswan Dam" with "Three Gorges Dam". But I think "Wall" is a bit too basic. Including "Roof" or "Door" would be more useful and I wouldn't want those topics either. --MarsRover 17:53, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Agree, "wall" is too generic to be useful. Three Gorges Dam would be a good replacement, tho, as the largest dam on Earth. — Yerpo ^Eh? 18:10, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

I kind of agree with you.--RekishiEJ 19:50, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Another problem with en:Wall is that it covers both walls in buildings, and barrier walls. I don't know about other languages, but in my native language those two concepts have different names and can not be joined together in one common article. Boivie 22:07, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Very obviously, the person who added wall to the list didn't realize the fact that in some languages walls in buildings and barrier walls can not be joined together in one single word. Let's substitute Three Gorges Dam for wall.--RekishiEJ 11:00, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Good idea, I think that we should make this change (to Three Gorges Dam) Bulwersator (talk) 06:30, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Done, as there appears to be consensus. — Yerpo ^Eh? 10:22, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Analytical chemistry, Physical chemistry and Inorganic chemistry

Analytical chemistry, Physical chemistry, Inorganic chemistry and organic chemistry are 4 major branches of chemistry. organic chemistry is already in this list and all the others are not. I think they are more important than some chemical elements, like en:Helium and en:Neon. I propose

• to replace en:Helium with en:Inorganic chemistry
• to replace en:Neon with en:Physical chemistry
• to replace en:Zinc with en:Analytical chemistry

--Wolfch 12:53, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Support. It's not a bad idea to have an article about every element in the periodic table, but there's really not all that much to say about some of them, whereas there's a lot that someone might want to know about these various branches of chemistry. A. Mahoney 13:00, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

No objections. -- Liliana • 13:57, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

I am not sure "Analytical chemistry" rises to an article every wiki must have. In the en.wp NavBox it is listed under "other" branches which implies that is a minor branch. I agree with including "Inorganic chemistry" since we have its counterpart "Organic chemistry" and I can see removing "Neon" since it famous for signs but not much else. The other ones I have no opinion. --MarsRover 17:46, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't agree with your opinion that analytical chemistry is a minor branch, since the reason that this is listed under "other" branches in the en.wp NavBox is because it has no sub-fields, unlike other three major branches of chemistry, which have some sub-fields. So I agree with Wolfch that helium, neon, and zinc should be replaced with inorganic, physical and analytical chemistry, though these three elements is important and should be listed on the list in my opinion.--RekishiEJ 19:48, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Any more opinions, or can I change?--Wolfch 03:53, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Support. Almafeta 21:16, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Done--Wolfch 06:13, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Food

When I look at our food section I see stuff like en:Barley, en:Sorghum and en:Wheat. This is amusing, because these aren't food - you can't go out and take barley and eat it. They're plants, and even as plants, I see no need to list them all, especially since we have en:Cereal which can list them too.

As for replacement articles, en:Cherry and en:Raspberry are probably good bets. If needed, add en:Tomato too. -- Liliana • 22:55, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Usually these cereals are not eaten raw but they are still known as en:Staple foods. Of your choices, "Cherry" and "Raspberry" seem mainly cultivated in Europe or North America so I don't agree with those choices if this list is to be universal. --MarsRover 18:17, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Agree with MarsRover --Barcelona 11:19, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Suggest something better in this case! I noticed en:Egg (food) is missing... I think those are eaten around the world. -- Liliana • 14:23, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Extremely strong oppose. Almafeta 19:01, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Why is everyone against this? I don't understand the point in having one general article on Cereal, and then every single cereal in the same list. Okay, some of them are important enough to be in there (Rice and Wheat are, Maize probably too), but others like Sorghum? I mean, who has actually heard of it? -- Liliana • 23:56, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

I suppose lots of people have heard about sorghum, since it is described as the 5th most important crop in the world. The European Union has 0.83 % of the world production of sorghum; which can explain why some of us haven't heard of it. Boivie 08:21, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

5th most important crop isn't that much. It means there are four more important ones. -- Liliana • 13:33, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

• Sorghum you can debate. Barley I'd say weak keep. But wheat's definitely gotta be on there Purplebackpack89 05:18, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

timing of changes

I see that the change we've all agreed on, replacing Watt by Menstruation, has taken place. I argued in favor of doing this, so I'm happy. But I notice this happened on 31 January. Since the table gets updated on the first of the month, making a change on the last day doesn't leave any time for editors to ensure their WPs have the new article; this can be a surprise for those who are paying attention to their scores. Can we establish a convention that this list doesn't get updated in the last two or three days of a month, or the first day so it doesn't change out from under the program that calculates the scores? A. Mahoney 13:06, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

True... but all the other wikipedias are surprised, too, so everyone is unprepared. (Except for English and Catalan, of course, but they're special cases; English is the oldest and Catalan has an extremely focused and organized group working on the vital articles and the expanded vital articles.) It'd effectively reduce all wikipedias by about the same amount. Almafeta 19:04, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

If memory serves, the same thing happened on the last or next-to-last day of the month a year or two ago, except that several articles were changed. A. Mahoney's suggestion makes sense. Also: replacing any item on the list would not "reduce all wikipedias by about the same amount." It'd lower the score of the smaller wikis more. Why? Because, being smaller overall, they'd be less likely to have an article for the new topic, so their score for that line in the code would be reduced to zero, whereas the big wikis, with hundreds of thousands of articles, would be likely already to have an article in place, and their score would fall to 0.01 at worst. Jacob. 71.163.69.94 01:20, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

even if it's the samen for everyone, I think changes should take place at the beginning of each month, not the last day --Barcelona 11:37, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree with the idea of A. Mahoney to stablish a convention and with the proposal about changes should come into force at the beginning of each period.--Loupeter 16:18, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes! Do not make changes on the last few days of any period. Give wikis time to adapt before the next calculation of scores. 71.163.198.245 20:15, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

If the prestige of having one less missing or underdeveloped article really matters so much to people, how about something like this: "As a courtesy to editors working on improving their project's score on the List of Wikipedias by sample of articles, it is recommended that any changes to this list are implemented between the 5th and 15th each month." — Yerpo ^Eh? 08:33, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

much better, tranks. And changes should be minimal, because the core topics should be quite stable --Barcelona (talk) 11:22, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes: good idea. 71.163.198.245 20:15, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

It would be even better (because it doesn't involve anyone not related to List of Wikipedias by sample of articles) if the bot just calculates the numbers starting from the version of the list from 15th. --Nk (talk) 14:01, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm a bit confused. I think the point is to keep enough time for discussion. In 15th-31st, we should be able to discuss and revert changes in the previous period when appropriate. If we automatically use the 15th version, and no changes including reverts are permitted in the remaining period in the month, wouldn't it just shift the rush moment two weeks earlier? Instead, I believe a visible notice on the page (not only on this talk page) would be sufficient. --whym (talk) 10:25, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

ethnocentrism and cultural imperialism

I apologise in advance if this issue have been covered before. And please correct me if I misunderstand or am missing something. The article seems to be telling contributors to various Wikipedias in various languages that they should prioritise articles on the listed subjects - but in many sections the subjects listed clearly reflect culture, worldviews and intellectual traditions of a specifically western tradition (for want of a more specific term). This is most obvious in the biography section, especially in the arts biographies (actors... artists... authors... composers) but is evident in many of the sections. So, for example, the simplified chinese language wiki should prioritise, within it's top 1000 articles, an article on e.g. Sarah Bernhardt? Can there be any conceivable justification for this stance? What is going on here? Is the wikipedia movement really to be used as yet another tool of western imperialism? I have other thoughts on this, and would gladly make suggestions, but would like to hear some justification for the mere existence of such a list first.DMSchneider 00:47, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

If you read through the archievs of this discussion page, you will find that there have been discussions about this, and a general wish to get a global focus on the list. I guess however that most of the people that has been involved in the discussions has been from "western" countries, which of course will influence the results. And, at least in the last few hundred years, the western cultures have had a more global influence than most other cultures. Boivie 06:13, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Here's a few discussions about removing biases: /Archives/2006#Eliminate bias in Authors, playwrights and poets, /Archives/2009#Serious Eurocentrism - and I can begin to fix it. Feel free to discuss any changes to the list that you see as an improvement. If you don't like en:Sarah Bernhardt who would be better actress for the list? --MarsRover 06:32, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the prompt response. I'm somewhat relieved to see that these issues have been discussed before, and find myself in broad agreement with the 'Serious Eurocentrism' concern raised by user Aghniyya, and subsequent discussion. At this stage I will make some general suggestion on possible approaches to the list that may go some way to reducing bias, and leave specific figures/subjects out of the discussion for the time being:

- The list ought to strive to reflect, in accurate proportions, the intellectual, symbolic and cultural traditions of the balance of peoples that constitute the human family today. Most importantly, there are many subjects and domains of activity and practice that simply stem from common human experience, sharing the planet, and common issues and challenges we face. These should take up the greater share of the list. The sections on the specific cultural traditions of certain societies should in fact be minimized, and to the extent that a techno-scientific worldview is also largely the product of western culture, the science subjects should not over-dominate (more on this below):

- History and Geography should be most prominent. The history of nations/civilization should not focus too much on individual figures, but rather on chronologies. It should also be cautious to counter the 'history is written by the victors' syndrome, so include the perspectives of the oppressed as well as the dominant. Even where this is ugly. Think Howard Zinn. There should be much more on the history of important transitions in universal material culture such as farming and food. The establishment of these and the variety of how they are practised should be elaborated and central, as well as other material realities. But it should be balanced and not techno-progressive - for example, forager societies must be noted. The lives of the vast majority of the world's people are very much dominated and orientated towards material concerns and security, and to the extent that Wikis can contextualize such concerns, and serve as a repository for knowledge and practice in these matters, this is surely a crucially valuable role. In the same spirit, earth sciences, and information on e.g. healthy soils, biodiversity and pollution issues should play a prominent role in this list.

- There is far too much material on the sciences and mathematics. This is way beyond the concerns of most people in most societies. Around half the world's population are farmers. Why do we need articles on Capacitor, Inductor, Transistor, Diode, Resistor, Transformer? This is a good example of the techno-scientific bias of this list. The health and anatomy section reflects only the western medicine tradition, and it's interventionist, chemical practices, which is very different from e.g. the traditional chinese system, and indian traditions, with their whole-body, dietary practices etc. The technology section's articles on clothing / agriculture technologies and basic engineering are pitching at the right level given most people's concerns. The weapons section is just odd.

- There is and should remain plenty of material on the variety worldviews, social organization and political systems, and also some reflection on the psychological and symbolic processes by which these get propagated, in order to relativize these variations somewhat, and universalize the general human experience with these things. But the analytic aspect should be not too scientific, since this may include bias. E.g. if there are to be psychology articles, they should avoid an exclusively western perspective - which is difficult given the history of the discipline. The philosophy section should be redone in much more general terms, reflecting different traditions. E.g. dialectic is not a philosophical tradition in Chinese culture nor society; all the categories here reflect purely the western tradition.

- The music section is totally dominated by western traditions - I don't see anything on e.g. Chinese or Indian traditional styles or instruments in there. The article on 'opera' explicitly only treats the European tradition. That's very poor.

- I could go on and on, but I won't. In summary - remove the techno-scientific progressive bias. Remove the dominance of western categories from all the general subjects (health, medicine, philosophy...etc). Remove most of the biographies, and minimize the cult of personality. Go look at the most popular articles on Chinese, Indian and other wikis. Don't suggest that THEY SHOULD TREAT THE SUBJECTS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE WIKI AS THE MODEL TO BE EMULATED - instead, go look at their intellectual traditions, their narratives, and make the English language wiki reflect something of their worldview and culture! DMSchneider 11:09, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

While it's difficult to disagree on most of those points, the comment is unfortunately too general to be useful. Mind that this list is not necessarily assembled by experts, but by general population of Wikipedia editors. It'd be much more efficient if you proposed some specific changes to start the discussion. — Yerpo ^Eh? 14:14, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Okay. I am not going to make specific suggestions for articles right now, although I will be happy to make specific suggestions in future edits. My suggestion is to first remove much of the western content from the list, because it sends the wrong message, and people are presumably spending valuable time translating this stuff.

Western traditions/figures should only take a proportional (vis population) fraction of the list. This might be 10%~20%. The list can then be reconstituted with suitable fractions from e.g. Chinese (~20%), Indian ~17%, African ~17%, Middle Eastern (10~20% ?)and other societies and traditions (Japanese, Polynesian, Innuit, Native North, Central and South American. These could be at some meta-scale (e.g. 'Japan' as a whole), or preferably some specific cultural tradition within the larger nation (e.g. the Ainu culture within Japan).

To get ideas about what content to include from non-western cultures, either ask colleagues on other wikis to contribute suggestions, or go to the other wikis and see what e.g. which figures their popular historical biographies are on, what works of literature are considered influential, which events are focused upon in their history pages... etc.

DMSchneider 10:03, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure that percentage of global population as the only measure is appropriate here. The fact that western culture is globally the most influential should be taken into account. — Yerpo ^Eh? 10:23, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

You illustrate very succinctly precisely the problem we are attempting to address. You are justifying cultural imperialism by making reference to... cultural imperialism! Surely the essence of the whole wiki project is the converse - an attempt to get beyond such historical domination of the knowledge and world-view of the many by the few, not to replicate this domination. It is as if the liberation were intended only to democratize knowledge within the English language culture, but to maintain a non-democratic, top-down, imperialist project in the inter-cultural realm. DMSchneider (talk) 12:37, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Let me ask you a similar question. For example, why should the simplified Chinese language wiki prioritise, within it's top 1000 articles, an article on e.g. Muhammad Iqbal? It's easy to say we should ask other language editors, but that won't solve the main problem: what criteria should we use for inclusion? The way you suggest, this list would end up as a mashup of local heroes that almost nobody could learn anything from, because their contributions were too culture-specific. You may say that this is true for the current version of the list (which you are saying), but your solution contributes nothing, except the additional problem of arguments about whose local hero is more worthy of inclusion, which would inevitably arise.

The way I see it, the only reasonable solution would be to leave out culture-specific terms as much as possible and include those that are really globally important. I agree with you that we should focus on crucial ideas and concepts rather than people or events, which would involve seriously reducing the number of biographies. In this light, focus on techno-progressivistic terms is necessary (although trimming may be needed in a couple of spots). Those are the concepts that are transforming the whole planetary society right now, and cannot be simply waved away as "western", as Almafeta pointed out below. They made Wikipedia possible and even a farmer will benefit from learning how. It is in my opinion not biased to exclude, say, en:Hunter-gatherer, even though it was a key period in development of modern society; this type of society, while some may still exist, is not sustainable today. However, we should look for underlying key innovations that made such transitions possible and are still relevant - concepts as en:Trade, en:Division of labour etc.

The same idea is behind prioritizing science-based medicine over local systems of healing knowledge embedded in local mythology and tradition. What "western" medicine does, is to take elements of those systems that work, try to find out why they work and incorporate the findings. Sure, sometimes the way this is done can be labeled as exploitative which is deserving of all condemnation, but in general, this approach has contributed a lot to doubling the human lifespan in past 100 years. What other medicinal system can make a claim that even begins to compare?

As for your accusations of imperialistic tendencies, this part of the discussion is a dead end. I have but one quote in reply: "Wikipedia is a mirror, not the lamp." — Yerpo ^Eh? 19:20, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

A few comments.

1. First, Wikipedia is by its nature a 'techno-scientific progressive' project; it's a project on the Internet to be read by people who are on the Internet. The idea that technology and science are just 'tools of western imperialism' is silly. In today's world, there is no 'eastern science' or 'western science'; there is no 'eastern technology' nor 'western technology'; and culture is eagerly following where the science and technology has led.
2. Second, there is a de facto rule in this list mandating globalization; at least one person per continent has been included in each major area, even if there are more globally influential people. Frida Khalo is in but Donatello is out, for example, on the sole virtue that Frida Khalo is from North America, Donatello is from Europe, and Europe has 'enough people' - even though if you ask any thousand people anywhere in the world, hundreds will have heard of Donatello while tens will have heard of Frida Khalo. We've already gone through several cycles where all European contributions to global culture have been decimated to make room, and the entirety of American contributions to global culture is usually reserved for the North American or South American slot in the list; if you were to go any farther, you might as well ban any European or American from appearing in the list.
3. Third, the idea that folk medicine should be treated with the same respect as actual medicine is ridiculous; en:Folk medicine as an entire field might merit one article in the expanded list of vital articles, but it has no place in the core 1000. The top 1000 has no room for antiscientific topics - whether eastern or western; no eastern accupuncture and no western homeopathy, no eastern Reiki and no western humors.
4. Finally, the English wiki is not the model to be emulated because it's western. It's the model to emulate because it has the most active community, the most rigorous standards for content and citation, and the highest standards for quality. Languages don't care about borders - all language wikis can be read and edited from anywhere in the world, and nowhere is this more true than in the global community for our oldest wiki, English.

Sorry to come down so hard on you. Almafeta 11:51, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

A response.

1. First, Don't confuse the medium with the message. Also note the connection of this list with related projects whose goal is to create an offline/stand alone version of wikipedia, and printed versions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team/Core_topics); wikipedia is not simply 'a project on the internet to be read by people on the internet'. Even if it were, this would not justify the pushing of a techno-scientific cultural perspective. Your claim that there is no distinction between western and eastern science is historically inaccurate. There are distinctions between the traditions, most clearly in medicine. I agree there is convergence, and that western science is replacing eastern science in many areas. An important question is how and why this is happening. There is a significant co-option of e.g. tradition Indian medicine practices by western pharmaceutical firms, very often in a manner which exploits and seeks to dominate those Indian traditions (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercialization_of_indigenous_knowledge), and is being pushed by western institutions like the WTO. Are you aware of any of this?
2. Second, The problem is that we are claiming that other wikis should prioritize the content of this list. In other words we are telling people in other cultures what and how to think. This is dangerous ground, and I would argue potentially goes against the whole idea of the wiki project. If it is to be done at all, it must reflect a balanced perspective that respects the diversity of cultures around the world, not just another form of imperialism. The 'at least one person from each continent': nice idea, but many of the lists do not follow it. And even if they were to, it would still allow 80-90% of the content to reflect western influences/traditions.
3. Third, see point one
4. Finally, You are confusing the medium with the message again. It's great that the English language wiki is so well maintained and structured, with citation/quality standards etc. Here we are talking about the content of wikipedias. This List of articles every Wikipedia should have is essentially saying that the wikis of other cultures (languages) ought to prioritize a set of knowledge content and a world-view that we set out here. It is thus asserting the imposition of a set of perspectives - and is thus a form of cultural imperialism, and is dangerous. If it were the imposition of some kind of balanced multi-cultural perspectives (that I have been arguing it must strive for if it is to exists at all), there might conceivably be arguments that the positives could outweigh the negatives. But in terms of its current content, it is multicultural only to a negligible extent. In calling for the imposition of a specific cultural perspective on other cultures, it joins other historical forms of cultural imperialism. Is this really what the wikipedia movement is all about? I'd like to know whether Jimmy and other key contributors to the wiki project agree with the goals of this list.

Don't apologise. These debates are important. Sorry for the delay in responding. DMSchneider (talk) 12:37, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

I fully agree with DMSchneider. This is the most ridiculous list I habe ever seen in Wikipedia. There is no need to reform it, just put it into the wastebasket. And becaus nobody seems to answer the questions raised bei Schneider, I repeat the most important one: "I'd like to know whether Jimmy and other key contributors to the wiki project agree with the goals of this list." It would fit perfectly in the paternalism shown by Wikimedia to "the global south". --13Peewit (talk) 01:08, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

You clearly have no idea about how Wikipedia works if you're asking for opinion of "key contributors"... — Yerpo ^Eh? 19:20, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Some small wikis are incredible lopsided with their article topics. When you only have a couple of editors that only care about one or two topics, the structure can be sort of a mess. For example, the Shona Wikipedia has less articles than this list and a majority of them are on geometry and human reproduction. I don't think it paternalistic to offer some suggestions for other topics but rather it' helpful. --MarsRover 16:07, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Removal of "actors, dancers, and models"

Something notable from another conversation.

Currently, we have Sarah Bernhardt; Charlie Chaplin; Marlene Dietrich; and Marilyn Monroe in the top 1000. They've been in there since version 1.0. Of these, one is an acclaimed director whose works (including en:The Great Dictator and en:Modern Times) are politically and socially important... and three are largely famous for being sex symbols. I propose moving Charlie Chaplain to Film Directors and Screenwriters and removing the other three actors and that section from the list. I believe their contributions to the stage are important enough to keep them in the expanded list, however. Additionally, I suggest that future actors be included in the Artists section.

I suggest replacing the three removed articles with the three elements recently removed from the list: Helium, Neon and Zinc. Almafeta (talk) 08:08, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree with removing the actors. They simply don't have the fame of all the other people listed in the Biography section. I bet in 100 years nobody will remember any of them anymore. I don't agree with readding the chemical elements, though. -- Liliana • 08:20, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Taking away three women will change the gender balance in a direction I think some people will object. I, however, don't mind the removal of those three. Boivie (talk) 10:43, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

There are no women in the writers section. After quick review en:Gabriela Mistral seems to be the most appropriate candidate in the Nobel laureates list. --Nk (talk) 17:08, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

en:Murasaki Shikibu seems like a solid choice as well.

Andejons (talk) 07:02, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Shikibu has been on the list. She was removed when there were too many entries on the list, and we were going back to 1000. But I don't mind reinstate her in the list, unless people think it's too much to have both her and The Tale of Genji. Boivie (talk) 16:52, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Marilyn Monroe is more than a symbol, I'd keep her article. --Barcelona (talk) 11:24, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't have an opinion about whether actors and dancers should be listed in their own category or under Artists, but I do think there are dancers worth having in this list. I'd recommend en:Martha Graham and en:Isadora Duncan (both women) and perhaps en:Vaslav Nijinsky (a man). Not quite dancers but choreographers: en:Marius Petipa, en:George Balanchine, and en:Antony Tudor are all worth discussing. As for actors, en:Ichikawa Danjūrō I was influential, but someone with more knowledge of Kabuki than I have should suggest the really important names here. Not much is known about en:Thespis but if he existed at all, he is at the foundation of the Western theatrical tradition; I wouldn't argue all that strongly for him in the 1000-article list but would expect to see him in the expanded list.

Thus I propose retaining the category, and replacing Sarah Bernhardt and Marlene Dietrich with Martha Graham and Isadora Duncan. A. Mahoney (talk) 13:03, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

• Why is Pele, the best athlete of the XX century, is not included in the list? Remove any singer (for example, Umm Kulthum), and include Pele in the main list, please.--Soul Train (talk) 12:20, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

He's famous, but not important in a way that would merit inclusion on this list. — Yerpo ^Eh? 18:58, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

What are you talking about? He is the greatest sportsmen of XX century according IOC, greatest football player of XX century. And you talking that some Umm Kulthum, whom knows no one except Arabian word, is more important than PELE? o_O I can't belive my eyes.--Soul Train (talk) 20:23, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

replacing some artists, architects and musicians

Hi! i'd like to suggest deleting: Antonin Dvorak, Giacomo Puccini, Franz Schubert, Gustav Mahler, Antonio Vivaldi and Piotr Ilitch Tchaikovsky. all of them are well known but i think they are not as important as Guillaume Dufay, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Claudio Monteverdi and Arnold Schoenberg.

i'd remove also Frida Kahlo and Henri Matisse, adding Phidias, Vassily Kandinsky. Marcel Duchamp and Andrea Palladio

regards Tetraktys (talk) 04:11, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

I think historically suggestions that consist of changing a bunch of articles at once are not very successful. If you can just do "one for one" suggestions with a sentence say why the new article is more important than the latter, it is easier to debate. Also, the reason the current items were added can sometimes be found in the archives (ex. Frida Kahlo rationale) so I think the new rationale should explain why the old rationale is no longer valid. --MarsRover 20:46, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

well, i think it's more difficult to handle many topics at the same time. we could in the other hand subdivide this topic.

i add bellow some descriptions about their influence from the wiki-en, and some other opinions:

What's the over-all proposal, then? I see 8 names to be deleted (6 composers, 2 painters), 8 to be added (4 composers, 4 visual artists); the balance between music and visual arts would change. Tetraktys, it might be useful if at each name below you gave a specific trade-off (for example, not just "remove Antonín Dvořák" but rather "remove him and replace with Kandinsky," or whatever); then we can consider each one individually. I for one think all 16 of the names proposed here are legitimate candidates, and find it hard to judge among them, but I certainly favor the three early composers.

Specific details, then, please! A. Mahoney (talk) 12:10, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

well, the list is not perfectly balanced. we have now 18 Artists and architects and 21 Composers and musicians. my proposal would in fact create a better balance with 20 Artists and architects and 19 Composers and musicians. but i don't see the point to discuss each change separatedly, since all them belong just to 2 areas of culture.

i think this proposal is standing for more than one month with a very faint response. some names didn't receive even a single comment. if people don't engage in the discussion one could take silence for consensus. Tetraktys (talk) 21:49, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

You better don't do this. You don't get responses because your proposals are not specific enough - for each new article you have to specify an article to be removed. If your proposal is to exchange the complete sets of names above I would strongly oppose. --Nk (talk) 10:39, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

i think that's just bureaucracy, but in order to please you, let's separate: (PS: for my comments supporting/opposing each one please see individual names below this section)

1. same field, not a big deal

• remove Antonin Dvorak and replace with Claudio Monteverdi
• remove Giacomo Puccini and replace with Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina
• remove Gustav Mahler and replace with Arnold Schoenberg
• remove Antonio Vivaldi and replace with Guillaume Dufay
• remove Frida Kahlo and replace with Phidias
• remove Henri Matisse and replace with Marcel Duchamp

2. Composers and musicians / Artists and architects: different fields, but for the sake of a better balance - 20 / 19 - as stated before

• remove Piotr Ilitch Tchaikovsky and replace with Vassily Kandinsky
• remove Franz Schubert and replace with Andrea Palladio

Tetraktys (talk) 22:42, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Thank you! I support Monteverdi for Dvorak, and Palestrina for Puccini. I would prefer classical sculpture over Phidias, but would support replacing Frida Kahlo with that general page. For the remaining five proposals, I neither support nor oppose: either way is OK and I would be happy to see articles on all these people. A. Mahoney (talk) 12:24, 13 April 2012 (UTC)~

Thank you and sorry for the delayed response. I support all proposals except 2: I prefer Classical sculpture over Phidias; I'm not really convinced about Duchamp (seen that we already have Dali); and I would look for a female writer (?) if we have to replace Kahlo. --Nk (talk) 17:13, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

ok, me too, but we can't have them all. please read carefully what i wrote below about the others. it's a common complaint that the list is biased, and it is indeed. for example, out of 21 composers, we have 10 romantics and 3 baroque and none from the middle ages. out of 19 artists/architects, only 3 are architects and none represents classical architecture, suggesting that it is not important, clearly a wrong assumption Tetraktys (talk) 19:17, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Antonín Dvořák

nothing says he is so special

Don't agree on removing him. His style had great influences in succesive music; moreover what about New World Symphony?--Nickanc (talk) 19:42, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

can you quote sources to support your opinion? i am not saying that he is not a good composer, but can he stand beside monteverdi or palestrina, who influenced many generatins? Tetraktys (talk) 01:18, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Dvořák was considerably less influential than Machaut, Dufay, Palestrina, Monteverdi, etc. 71.163.198.245 20:15, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Certainly, it is difficult to compare him with historical composers, but looking to XX century he is certainly a notable figure. Firstly, his cello concerto is historical, and, with Pau Casals execution of Bach's cello suites, it determined the changement inside cello literature within XX century. Moreover, en:New World Symphony influenced greatly many pieces of film music (Star Wars or Lord of the Rings film scores are the first I remember, but John Willams, for example, owes many music features to him). He is also a great exponent of czech culture and music, and the first who led to meet up american music with european tradition inside New World Symphony.--Nickanc (talk) 15:20, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

i agree he is important, i personally like his music, but here it is not the place to discuss just "importance", we have to choose who is "widely important", because we can't add all names which are just important.Tetraktys (talk) 22:02, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Lots of composers wrote for the cello. The point about film music could be pertinent, but is it true? Do composers of film music (see film score) really draw mainly from Dvořák, and not from what might be called general late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century style? The list already has Brahms (for the Germans) and Tchaikovsky (for the Slavs), both of whom probably exemplified artistic invention and contributed more widely to the development of musical style, and Dvořák therefore isn't needed. 71.163.76.223 15:14, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

I would agree with his removal (although I love him very much). vvv^t 09:30, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

no more opinions? should i change the list? Tetraktys (talk) 07:51, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Giacomo Puccini

Described by Encyclopædia Britannica Online as "one of the greatest exponents of operatic realism", he is regarded as one of the last major Italian opera composers. His repertoire is essentially rooted in verismo.

ok, but we have already Giuseppe Verdi illustrating that trend. and Verdi is far more influential.

True. 71.163.198.245 20:15, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. vvv^t 09:22, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

no more opinions? should i change the list? Tetraktys (talk) 07:51, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Franz Schubert

Today, Schubert is seen as one of the leading exponents of the early Romantic era in music and he remains one of the most frequently performed composers.

ok, but from romanticism we already have Brahms, Wagner, Chopin and Beethoven! way too much romantics!

True. 71.163.198.245 20:15, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. vvv^t 09:22, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

no more opinions? should i change the list? Tetraktys (talk) 07:51, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Gustav Mahler

As a composer, he acted as a bridge between the 19th century Austro-German tradition and the modernism of the early 20th century. While in his lifetime his status as a conductor was established beyond question, his own music gained wide popularity only after periods of relative neglect which included a ban on its performance in much of Europe during the Nazi era. After 1945 the music was discovered and championed by a new generation of listeners; Mahler then became one of the most frequently performed and recorded of all composers, a position he has sustained into the 21st century.

his work, however important, is transitional. he didn't create anything new.

True (well, of course, like most famous composers, he did make new & interesting things, but one takes your point). 71.163.198.245 20:15, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Are you serious? He was extremely influential on most of XX century music, from Shostakovich to New Viennese School. vvv^t 09:09, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

yes, i'm serious. i know about his prestige and i personally like him, but we have to make choices, we can't add everybody. from romanticism we already have a bunch of names, no more is needed. from contemporary music i would prefer very much adding schoenberg because he is really revolutionary. mahler is in between, great, but just transitional music. could he stand beside schoenberg in terms of influence? hardly. Tetraktys (talk) 07:51, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

I'd keep Mahler; his effect on the development of the symphony and other large-scale forms seems significant to me. A. Mahoney (talk) 12:10, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Antonio Vivaldi

Vivaldi is recognized as one of the greatest Baroque composers, and his influence during his lifetime was widespread over Europe. Today, Vivaldi ranks among the most popular and widely recorded Baroque composers.

again we alrady have Bach and Handel from baroque, whose influence was much wider

True. 71.163.198.245 20:15, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Replace him with Monteverdi, he is much more influential. vvv^t 09:24, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

no more opinions? should i change the list? Tetraktys (talk) 07:51, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Here is a specific proposal: Monteverdi for Vivaldi. I support it, fond as I am of Vivaldi -- I agree Monteverdi is more important in the broad scheme of things. A. Mahoney (talk) 12:10, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Piotr Ilitch Tchaikovsky

Some of these rate amongst the most popular concert and theatrical music in the classical repertoire. His music was extremely popular then, and still is today, although critics have sometimes dismissed it as lacking in elevated thought. By the end of the 20th century, however, Tchaikovsky's status as a significant composer had become secure.

as stated, his work is not an unanimity, although he is very popular

His academic star has been rising for the past few decades, so maybe he should stay in the list for now. 71.163.198.245 20:15, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

ok, i can live with him Tetraktys (talk) 22:02, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Frida Kahlo

Her work has been celebrated in Mexico as emblematic of national and indigenous tradition, and by feminists for its uncompromising depiction of the female experience and form

she is very popular within mexico and abroad and in feminist circles, but other women are so and even more. in artworld her work is more a like an eccentricity than really innovative. Frida can be good, but not that much

A constant complaint about this list have been that is euro-centric and biased and your suggestions are European men. A non-European women like Frida seems someone we want to keep for balance sake. --MarsRover 09:42, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

but indeed, if she is an emblem of Mexico, his importance is mexican only, not global, while, for example, Kandinsky is globally known and studied. It may seem eurocentrism, but in fact it is not our fault if european culture conditioned in such a way the world.--Nickanc (talk) 21:57, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

i understand the reason to support frida, but i think that reason is not strong enough. she is famous, ok, she is good, ok, but did she influence generations or create a school? no. did she create anything new? no, because she simply used a commonplace language of her age. was her art a true emblem of indigenous culture? no, because indigenous culture was only one of many elements he translated into her painting. so, why really we would keep her? just for pity? what kind of balance is this? this is not balance at all, because it is a new construction and does not reflect real history. to me this sounds like original research Tetraktys (talk) 01:18, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

no more opinions? should i change the list? Tetraktys (talk) 07:51, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Replacing Frida with Phidias, as said before. let's go! :)--Nickanc (talk) 15:32, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

I thought we'd decided that classical sculpture (as a whole) would be a more useful page than Phidias alone. A. Mahoney (talk) 20:50, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Henri Matisse

Matisse is commonly regarded, along with Picasso and Marcel Duchamp, as one of the three artists who helped to define the revolutionary developments in the plastic arts in the opening decades of the 20th century, responsible for significant developments in painting and sculpture. His mastery of the expressive language of colour and drawing, displayed in a body of work spanning over a half-century, won him recognition as a leading figure in modern art

ok, very nice, but picasso is already there, i think it is not a good idea to take more than one artist for a given school, unless he is hugely important.

no more opinions? should i change the list? Tetraktys (talk) 07:51, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

I would propose to replace Matisse with Kandinsky, because of his influence on Abstractism and we have none abstractist in this list, while with Matisse we have already Picasso.--Nickanc (talk) 15:34, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

Duchamp

Considered by some to be one of the most important artists of the 20th century, Duchamp's output influenced the development of post-World War I Western art. He advised modern art collectors, such as Peggy Guggenheim and other prominent figures, thereby helping to shape the tastes of Western art during this period

we already have Picasso for the 20th century and that's ok, because he and Duchamp developed very different languages

no more opinions? should i change the list? Tetraktys (talk) 07:51, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

We also have Matisse. I think two 20th-century European painters are more than enough for this list - if anything, we should probably reduce rather than increase this number. — Yerpo ^Eh? 06:46, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Claudio Monteverdi

Monteverdi's work, often regarded as revolutionary, marked the transition from the Renaissance style of music to that of the Baroque period.

besides, the is the first great composer of operas, and the one that laid the genre's cornerstone. remember how influential opera was along many centuries, until today!

Monteverdi would most definitely be on many academicians' list of the "ten greatest composers of all time," and his absence from the list is inexplicable. 71.163.198.245 20:15, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

i guess there are many inexplicable things on that list heheheTetraktys (talk) 22:02, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

no more opinions? should i change the list? Tetraktys (talk) 07:51, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Guillaume Dufay

As the central figure in the Burgundian School, he was the most famous and influential composer in Europe in the mid-15th century.

i don't need to say anything more. but - we have no composer from the middle ages! how unfair!

He's another of many academicians' "ten greatest composers of all time" and deserves to be on the list, especially when compared with some of the lesser lights who are already there. He's the one composer who best represents the fifteenth century. 71.163.198.245 20:15, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

disagree, he's important but not as some of the artist included. We should have balance among periods but it's more imporant to have "core" biographies, the most famous composers, and Dufay isn't in that list --Barcelona (talk) 17:44, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

i think he is not "that famous" just because the list is biased towards modern music and neglects everybody before bach. i think that is very unfair. we know a lot about medieval music nowadays and it is not any more an obscure topic, so that it would justify ignoring it. i would cite some authors:

• "his contemporaries regarded him as the greatest composer of their age" The Harvard biographical dictionary of music
• "the most significant figure of the period" The Cambridge music guide
• "the most famous composer of the century, perfectly exemplifies the tendency of music to cross national boundaries" Culture & Values, Volume II: A Survey of the Humanities with Readings
• "the outstanding figure in the Burgundian school of composers that flourished in the first half of the fifteenth century, and which established the compositional techniques that led to the great flowering of vocal polyphony in the period of Lassus and Palestrina" Masterpieces of music before 1750
• "the greatest composer of his generation" Symbolic scores: studies in the music of the Renaissance
• "leading composer of the time" Medieval France: an encyclopedia

Tetraktys (talk) 07:51, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Andrea Palladio

widely considered the most influential individual in the history of Western architecture. All of his buildings are located in what was the Venetian Republic, but his teachings, summarized in the architectural treatise I Quattro Libri dell'Architettura (The Four Books of Architecture), gained him wide recognition.[1] The city of Vicenza and the Palladian Villas of the Veneto are UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

said enough

we could debate about him, but not agree with your proposals of removing --Barcelona (talk) 17:47, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

well, i think you have to justify your opinion Tetraktys (talk) 07:51, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Kandinsky

there is not much on wiki about Kandinsky. so i quote some authors:

• in 1910 Kandisnky wrote his famous book On the Spiritual on Art ... stablished the philosophical basis of non objective painting. the following year he finished and exhibited his first entirely non-objective canvases, which attracted world-wide attention and excited controversies of tremendous import." p. 8

• his widely exhibited works exercised a profound influence on other artistas of the early 20th century, expanding the russian-born painter renown as a pioneer of abstract art" back cover

• Not long ago it seemed that this century had not only begun with Kandinsky, but had ended with him as well. However, no matter how often his name is cited by the zealots of new and fashionable interpretations, the artist has passed into history and perhaps belongs to the past and to the future to a greater degree that to the present p. 5

• one of the most influential of all artists and theorists of the exressionist era" p. 152

• a work such as Composition VII constitutes a true landmark in the history of painting [1]

• one of the founding fathers of abstract painting p. 150

• Pioneer of abstract art and eminent aesthetic theorist, Vasily Kandinsky broke new ground in painting in the first decades of the twentieth century. His seminal pre–World War I treatise Über das Geistige in der Kunst (On the Spiritual in Art), published in Munich in December 1911, lays out his program for developing an art independent of one’s observations of the external world. guggenheim museum

no more opinions? should i change the list? Tetraktys (talk) 07:51, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Phidias

commonly regarded as one of the greatest of all sculptors of Classical Greece - the wiki-en article is not very good....

Fídias é tido como um dos fundadores e um dos mais perfeitos expoentes do Alto Classicismo na escultura, sendo louvado desde quando vivo até os dias de hoje como um dos mais importantes escultores do ocidente (Phidias is regarded as one of the founders and one of the finest exponents of High Classicism in sculpture, and praised since he lived up to this day as one of the most important sculptors of the West) wiki-pt - featured article

we must remember that the classic standard he set was hugely influencial specially in ancient rome, renaissance and neoclassicism, all very important periods, and there he was considered an unsurpassed master. his Zeus Olympeios was one of the seven wonders of ancient world!

Considering that not much is known about the person itself maybe it's better to add a wider subject like en:Classical sculpture. --Nk (talk) 13:07, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

i guess yours is a better idea. i felt miserable having to choose between him and Polykleitos Tetraktys (talk) 22:02, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

If we add en:Classical sculpture, what goes out? (I'm a classicist by profession, so I'm not complaining, just counting.) A. Mahoney (talk) 12:10, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Palestrina

He had a lasting influence on the development of church music, and his work has often been seen as the culmination of Renaissance polyphony. Conservative music of the Roman school continued to be written in his style (which in the 17th century came to be known as the prima pratica) by such students of his as Giovanni Maria Nanino, Ruggiero Giovanelli, Arcangelo Crivelli, Teofilo Gargari, Francesco Soriano and Gregorio Allegri. Palestrina's music continues to be regularly performed and recorded, and to provide models for the study of counterpoint.

again a hugely important master, regarded as a model until romanticism for sacred polyphony. Tetraktys (talk) 06:13, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Another of many academicians' "ten greatest composers of all time," who obviously belongs on the list. Delete, say, Chopin or Schubert. 71.163.198.245 20:15, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

no more opinions? should i change the list? Tetraktys (talk) 07:51, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Arnold Schoenberg

leader of the Second Viennese School... Schoenberg's approach, both in terms of harmony and development, is among the major landmarks of 20th-century musical thought; at least three generations of composers in the European and American traditions have consciously extended his thinking or, in some cases, passionately reacted against it.... Schoenberg was widely known early in his career for his success in simultaneously extending the traditionally opposed German Romantic styles of Brahms and Wagner. Later, his name would come to personify pioneering innovations in atonality that would become the most polemical feature of 20th-century art music. In the 1920s, Schoenberg developed the twelve-tone technique, a widely influential compositional method of manipulating an ordered series of all twelve notes in the chromatic scale. He also coined the term developing variation, and was the first modern composer to embrace ways of developing motifs without resorting to the dominance of a centralized melodic idea.... Schoenberg was also a painter, an important music theorist, and an influential teacher of composition; his students included Alban Berg, Anton Webern, Hanns Eisler, Egon Wellesz, and later John Cage, Lou Harrison, Earl Kim, Leon Kirchner, and many other prominent musicians. Many of Schoenberg's practices, including the formalization of compositional method, and his habit of openly inviting audiences to think analytically, are echoed in avant-garde musical thought throughout the 20th century. His often polemical views of music history and aesthetics were crucial to many of the 20th century's significant musicologists and critics, including Theodor Adorno, Charles Rosen, and Carl Dahlhaus. His thought also had a considerable influence on the pianists Rudolf Serkin, Artur Schnabel, and Eduard Steuermann, and, later, Glenn Gould. Tetraktys (talk) 22:02, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes, Schoenberg and Stravinsky are probably regarded by historians of music as the most important composers of the first half to two-thirds of the twentieth century. 71.163.76.223 15:06, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

no more opinions? should i change the list? Tetraktys (talk) 07:51, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Hector Berlioz

He was replaced with Edith Piaf because she is more famous and more iconic; this may be true, but Berlioz is regarded by many as a father of modern orchestration. His textbook in orchestration was read by all composers on the list who were after him, and his Symphonie fantastique was a revolution in his time. I believe we may add him back. vvv^t 09:33, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

that may be true but i strongly oppose adding more romantics Tetraktys (talk) 07:51, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

I strongly opposed to replacement of Berlioz through Edith Piaf too. Ir Wagner is there, Berlioz must be too! He is the father or romantism. Or he could replace Umm Kulthum as compromis, I dont understand, why is this woman so special. --Nolanus (talk) 22:51, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Disagree. The list is too short for so many representatives of one style and age. There is Wagner already. As for Umm Kulthum, I don't know anything about Arabian music, but it is, probably, fair to represent it here to some measure as well as Indian or Chinese music. These do exist and are distict. Additionally, I'd say that 20th century music is not covered sufficiently. Gershwin? He is different. --93.73.19.163 08:56, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

Writing system

I propose replacing "alphabet" with "writing system", which is more broad term and includes chinese characters. Also propose replacing "Hangul", which is used only by Korean, with "orthography". --Fryed-peach (talk) 13:58, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Replacing Alphabet with Writing system seems sensible to me. The other one I'm not so sure about. -- Liliana • 16:13, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree with the first suggestion. We included Hangul because we removed the Korean language a while back. Korea is important enough for at least one article about it's culture. Also, orthography since to overlap writing system a little bit. --MarsRover 20:58, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Writing system covers Hangul, whose article it makes redundant. Surely some other topic for Korean culture could be found? Jacob. 71.163.199.152 21:15, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

OK, I'll replace alphabet with writing system, and don't touch Hangul. --Fryed-peach (talk) 05:10, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Supported in theory, but with the caveat that the English article should be improved - at least to mention alphabets, logographies, and syllabatries (the three most common kinds of extant writing systems) in its introduction. It's likely that when this hits the core 1000, a lot of wikis are going to hurriedly translate the English article. Almafeta (talk) 19:49, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I noticed adding writing system makes writing redundant. So, propose replacing writing with translation. --Fryed-peach (talk) 05:32, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Writing is a different subject though. It refers more to writing novels and books and stories. -- Liliana • 17:36, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Hey, colleagues, did we agree on replacing en:Alphabet with en:Writing system? Or isn't this still under discussion? I am confused about the difference between en:Writing and en:Writing system since they seem to cover much the same ground: symbolic ways of representing language in visible form. Can someone point to a pair of articles in some other language that actually distinguish these two ideas? A. Mahoney (talk) 18:40, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

In any case, making a change less than 36 hours after its proposal is way too quick for interested parties to respond, especially in the last few days of a month, when the change may reduce the score of the smaller encyclopedias. I propose rescinding this change, effective in February, computing the February scores with en:Alphabet instead of en:Writing system, and then reconsidering this whole issue during March. Jacob. 71.163.199.152 21:09, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

I didn't see much consensus here, so I changed back, at least temporarily. Sorry if that was a bad thing to do. I agree with Fryed-peach that it isn't a good idea to have both "Writing" and "Writing system" -- in practice the two topics have a large overlap. I'm not saying the original idea was a bad one, but fuller discussion is needed and some other changes need to be made at the same time. Andrew Dalby (talk) 13:47, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

I like Fryed-peach's suggestion of including en:translation; I would keep one of the several pages about writing systems -- at the moment, at least in English WP, "alphabet," "writing," and "writing system" all seem to overlap. I would also like to see the page Liliana proposes, about "writing" in the sense of "things people write," but that's not what en:Writing contains right now, and that would also overlap with pages called "literature" or the like. We may need to look at this more globally: what are the important things about:

1. language
2. texts (form, genre)
3. preservation of texts (writing, memorization, oral composition)

and how many articles out of 1000 should be allocated to this area? A. Mahoney (talk) 13:56, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

First, I must apologize my hasty edit and late response, sorry. Then I'll describe my thoughts. This list currently has "alphabet", which, strictly speaking, excludes Chinese and Japanese characters, for instance. As a Japanese, I feel the current state of the list is imcomplete or biased. However cunsuming other 2 slots by adding "logography" and "syllabary" is probably not acceptable since many people are trying hard to add articles about other topics. "Writing system" is a generic concept that covers segmental, logographic and syllabic systems. So replacing "alphabet" with "writing system" is my first priority. "Writing" covers similar topics but I think "writing" is too vague, overlaps both "writing system", "literacy" and "literarure", and difficult to give a clear direction so not appropriate as target to develop into big article. Besides, en:writing system has 92 interlanguage links while en:writing has 84, so I guess the former is more popular article. Adding "writing system" makes "writing" somewhat redundant and therefore remove it. This is my second priority. Those series of changes give us one extra slot. I proposed adding "en:translation" since I, as Japanese Wikipedian, think it very important topic. This is my third priority. Fryed-peach (talk) 08:23, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for that explanation, Fryed-peach! As a translator I also think "en:translation" is a very good idea. So I would agree with both of your proposed moves, if we can get agreement that they should both be made together. You're right, "Writing system" is more inclusive than "alphabet" and therefore a better choice. Andrew Dalby (talk) 13:26, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Having an article on Translation seems like a good idea. For reasons not far from those adduced by Fryed-peach, adding en:Writing system would eliminate the need to have separate articles on Arabic alphabet, Chinese characters, Cyrillic script, Greek alphabet, and Hangul. Deleting those articles would free up five slots. What topics would best fill them? Or do people think it useful to retain these five supremely favored examples of writing systems? And then how is the absence of unfavored ones (such as Devanagari, Japanese writing system, Mayan script, etc.) explained? They're just not very interesting or important? or what? The first order of exemplification would be, not the systems of specific languages, but general topics: Abjad, Abugida, Alphabet, Logogram, and Syllabary. Hey, that's five right there! But we already have Alphabet, so the fifth linguistics-related topic could be Morpheme. (Other pertinent possibilities might be Undeciphered writing systems and Calligraphy.) 71.163.201.254 20:59, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

I support including Writing system and Translation, and removing the six specific writing systems. To fill the five slots, Abjad, Abugida, Logogram and Syllabary sound too much technical, while they are (supposedly) covered by the general article for writing systems. I like Morpheme better. Calligraphy is already covered in this list. I wouldn't add Undeciphered writing systems because it could be a subtopic of writing system (although it doesn't seem to be mentioned in the English article). Other worthwhile candidates might be some linguists such as Pāṇini and Ferdinand de Saussure. I would also add International Phonetic Alphabet and Dictionary (or Lexicography) as another linguistic-related topic, which has a wide coverage in a number of languages already. --whym (talk) 21:37, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

Well, looking into this again, I've changed my mind. Instead of continuing proposing a chain of changes endlessly, perhaps we should concentrate on the things we can agree relatively easily. I can see there is substantial support for replacing Writing and Alphabet with Writing system and Translation, while no opposition to that has been made in the recent months. Can we apply the change? I think in a separate venue we can continue discussing the other points raised (including a more general article for "things people write", and other replacements of writing system articles with some linguistic topics). --whym (talk) 23:42, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Proposal 1: Writing system instead of Writing: I'm still not sure what the difference is supposed to be, but if "writing system" means the characters, symbols, and so on, in the sense of the book The World's Writing Systems (Daniels and Bright, Oxford UP), then I agree. Proposal 2: Translation instead of en:Alphabet: Here I definitely agree. A. Mahoney (talk) 22:25, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Done [2]. Regarding comparison of writing system and writing, yes, that is my understanding. 'Writing' is a typical example of polysemous English words. 'Writing system' refers to a clearer, narrower concept, which is good because it will make this list more consistently translated between languages. --whym (talk) 07:22, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

I reverted the change temporarilly - see Talk:List of articles every Wikipedia should have#timing of changes. --Nk (talk) 13:57, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, I was unaware of the discussion. Now I agree It should wait for the next period. --whym (talk) 10:33, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Computer data storage

I propose replacing "hard disk drive", which is not a fundamental component of computer, with "Computer data storage". --Fryed-peach (talk) 14:06, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

In looking at the two articles the HDD article seems more practical. I think having the most popular computer data storage device is more important that the topic of itself. --MarsRover 21:12, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't agree. HDD article isn't discussing distinction between primary and secondary storage, HDD is secondary, and memory/cache hierarchy, which are very fundamental concepts of computer. --Fryed-peach (talk) 00:52, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Disagree. Almafeta (talk) 19:43, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Why? --Fryed-peach (talk) 20:03, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure we need en:hard disk drive or en:central processing unit at all. Clearly en:computer is important, but details of the hardware are rather less so. I'd rather see these two articles replaced and the slots given over to more of the dancers, composers, or writers that have been discussed recently. I propose replacing en:hard disk drive with en:Martha Graham and replacing en:central processing unit with en:Claudio Monteverdi.

Disagree - neither of those two would make the top 1000 on their own. Almafeta (talk) 18:59, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Disagree, this topics are not very important Bulwersator (talk) 06:18, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Sinan, Mimar -> Submarine

I think that submarine is more important and influential topic Bulwersator (talk) 06:28, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Disagree. Submarine is an important topic but;
I- There are two articles about it: "Ship" and "Boat".
II- The list is already Orientalist enough. Sinan is one of the most important representatives of Eastern and Islamic architectural schools. If we remove him, the list will be completely Western-centric. --78.185.216.43 01:37, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

We should not have both ship and boat. Remove one of them and replace it with submarine. -- Liliana • 03:01, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Liliana --Barcelona (talk) 10:48, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Me too. IMO, en:Boat is a better candidate for replacement than en:Ship. — Yerpo ^Eh? 11:32, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

I also agree with Liliana and Yerpo: keep Mimar Sinan and replace Boat with Submarine. A. Mahoney (talk) 12:04, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Done -- Liliana • 18:05, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

What about timing of changes discussion? "As a courtesy to editors ..., it is recommended that any changes to this list are implemented between the 5th and 15th each month." --Rar (talk) 10:11, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

"courtesy to editors"? Bah. I don't care. Who thought of that crap, anyway? -- Liliana • 10:28, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

please respect the timing as was already talked--Barcelona (talk) 18:57, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

en:Aircraft -> fr:Avion

The term is too English language specific. --93.73.19.163 09:30, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

No it isn't, it's just broader than en:Fixed-wing aircraft. I don't see a good reason to include a term that doesn't cover helicopters, baloons and other aircraft. — Yerpo ^Eh? 10:12, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Look. French, German, Russians, big wiki are struggling with this term, because it is alien. This is not the term every wikipedia should have. OK. Keep you score high if it pleases you. --93.73.19.163 14:19, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

I don't see anyone "struggling" with this any more than "my" language edition. I'd appreciate if you kept your insinuations to yourself next time. German article, for example, is long. Aircraft is simply a technical term that also encompasses other important aircraft which, again, I don't see a good reason to ignore. A second alternative would be en:Aviation. — Yerpo ^Eh? 08:55, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

I also prefer Aviation as more general in both scope and usage. --Nk (talk) 10:42, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Philippines

This issue has been reopened so many times, so let's just do it one-by-one. I propose to add en:Philippines to the Countries section, because it is nowadays one of the most important Asian countries. In exchange, we should delete en:Vatican City which is, as far as I can tell, completely redundant to en:Catholic Church and shouldn't be in the list at all. -- Liliana • 18:14, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Cities

I took a close look at our cities list. I noticed that we currently have three US cities: en:New York City, en:Los Angeles and en:Washington D.C.. One of these should probably go - my call could be LA as that doesn't really have anything important about it other than maybe Hollywood.

In the same list, I noticed that there is no Canadian city! At the very least, we should add en:Toronto as the largest city, and arguably one of the most iconic Canadian cities. -- Liliana • 20:49, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

not ervey country can have cities, why a Canadian one and no from another country? Disagree--Barcelona (talk) 09:14, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

Indeed, I see no good reason why Toronto should be on this list. Better remove LA (or even both LA and Washington) and make room for a different topic. I proposed adding en:Immune system a while ago, for example. — Yerpo ^Eh? 09:30, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm kind of shocked we don't have Immune system. That's almost a better replacement. -- Liliana • 11:33, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

And I believe that we have already agreed to remove Integumentary system because it is overlapping with Skin (see Talk:List of articles every Wikipedia should have/Archives/2011#Integumentary system -> Hospital). It would be good also if we clarify what we want in the Anatomy section - general or human specific articles (now we have both types). --Nk (talk) 17:24, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes we did, it just was never done because a few people disagreed with adding Hospital in place. I'd put in my opinion but biology is my weak point, so sorry if I can't help. -- Liliana • 18:03, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

I agree that Integumentary system should be replaced with Immune system, which is an important article. When it comes to replacing Los Angeles I suggest an Asian or an African city. How about Ho Chi Minh City, a large and historically important city? --Helt (talk) 10:36, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

I opened a new discussion about this below to keep it organized. — Yerpo ^Eh? 13:50, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Well, I'm open to suggestions, but Saigon? Really? Asian cities are quite abundant in the list and I'm not sure we need more of them. -- Liliana • 14:22, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

That is of course a good point. And Vietnam is already covered in the countries section. I guess I just find it slightly more interesting than Toronto ;) --Helt (talk) 19:01, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

I might be biased but Los Angeles is a keeper, IMO. Several countries have more than one cities in the list (e.g. Russia, Brazil, India) so not sure 3 cities is out of line but I would remove Washington DC before LA. Other than being the US capital it has no other reason to be in the list. --MarsRover 18:19, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Number of articles (1009)

I counted and there's 1009 articles......just FYI — The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.110.56.131 (talk) 13:36, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Hmmm: I get 1006. But I don't see what we've gained: there were just 1000 at the first of the month. Ideas? A. Mahoney (talk) 18:03, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

You are both wrong. I counted again and got exactly 1,000 articles.

4+18+31+21+12+9+34+26+39+10
	204 // biographies
13+5
	18 // philosophy
2+5+2+13+3
	25 // religion
3+5+23+7+3+2+13+5+4+5
	70 // social sciences
1+19+3+2+1+6+3+5+1+2+4
	47 // language
2+12+1+8+1+1+3+2+1+1+1+3+1+3+3+2+11+2+3+2+2+3+1+28+3+1+1+1+2+7+2+2+2+3+5+1+2+1+11+1+2+9+3+11+4+7+2+3+1+2+6+23+1+3+1+4+1+1+4+1+6+6+10+7+6+1+7+15+2+2+4+2
	299 // science
7+1+4+2+6+1+2+1+2+6+7+2+1+2+6+1+4+7+3+3+1+1
	70 // technology
6+5+7+12+2+3+1+1+2+9+2+6+6+3+2+9
	76 // arts
1+10+16+18+11+8+46+44+30+6+1
	191 // geography & history
204+18+25+70+47+299+70+76+191
	1000

-- Liliana • 18:31, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

The 6 or 9 "extra" entries were probably the result of counting the lines. Not every line is an entry - see for example "Components" under the subsection Electronics. — Yerpo ^Eh? 07:51, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Integumentary system -> Immune system

I propose removing en:Integumentary system which is an important, but not very recognizable biological concept. It also overlaps in part with en:Skin on this list (skin is one of the integumentary system organs in vertebrates). We'll have to decide someday whether we want to focus on general or human specific articles in the Anatomy section, but for now, I propose replacing en:Integumentary system with en:Immune system which is a crucial topic that should've been included long ago. — Yerpo ^Eh? 13:49, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

+1. --Nk (talk) 10:45, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Support - Helt (talk) 18:32, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Agree with change --MarsRover 17:51, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Support. - A. Mahoney (talk) 16:43, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Support. Lesgles (talk) 04:47, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Done — Yerpo ^Eh? 11:30, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Benito Mussolini

I think it should be included in the call list. Hitler is listed. And Mussolini - the founder of fascism, is missing. Fascism had a great impact on the world history in the 20th century. To exclude suggest Rosa Luxemburg (Lenin and Stalin is enough) or Kwame Nkrumah. --Kolchak1923 (talk) 06:39, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Support to replace Kwame Nkrumah > Benito Mussolini. --Movses (talk) 06:03, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Oppose. This has been discussed before. Fascism is listed, so its founder doesn't have to be. Replacing Kwame Nkrumah with Mussolini would make this list even more western-centric. — Yerpo ^Eh? 06:49, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Oppose - I agree with Yerpo above. - Helt (talk) 18:32, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

• And what it would be more western-centric? So it should be. Kwame Nkrumah is not well established culture of the world? His general, no one knows and it is not clear for what reason he made ​​the list. Probably just because he is African... --Kolchak1923 (talk) 09:28, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Oppose - We don't have Pan-Africanism in the list so we should have Kwame Nkrumah and we do have Fascism so we don't need Mussolini. --MarsRover 17:50, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

• You can see Rosa Luxemburg. What does the ideology (fascism) and personality (Mussolini)? This is a list of different topics. --Kolchak1923 (talk) 03:52, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
  • And the list does not have a lot of things: a pan-Germanism, Pan-Slavism, Pan-Islamism, etc. --Kolchak1923 (talk) 03:55, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

True, the list is missing a lot of topics since its limited in size. So, that why have two topic that overlap is not good idea. True, one is a personaility and the other an idealogy. But the Mussolini article has a big section about Fascism and the Fascism article has a big section about Mussolini. When topics overlap that much one of them has to go. And in my opinion, the lessor of the two is Mussolini. As for Rosa Luxemburg being redundant that don't make Mussolini not redundant. --MarsRover 06:28, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Mussolini's most important Rosa Luxemburg. As far as they can partition a large en-wiki, and in other languages ​​do not. --Kolchak1923 (talk) 19:25, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

With the same argument we could think about removing Karl Marx or Marxism (+we have Communism as well). --Nk (talk) 17:10, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

I agree. Why then in the list of Karl Marx, Marxism, Communism, Stalin, Lenin, Rosa Luxemburg. Not much is it? --Kolchak1923 (talk) 04:40, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

You're right, we could remove either Carl Marx or Marxism. — Yerpo ^Eh? 10:31, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Sovereign state

The article Sovereign state is absent in 33 different languages. This could be an indication that this article is not considered important or that the article does not translate easily into some languages. I suggest the article be replaced with Sovereignty which covers the subject more broadly and has 32 more interwiki links. - Helt (talk) 18:32, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

• Agree with removing Sovereign state. But maybe State (polity) is a better substitute?--Abiyoyo (talk) 11:11, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
• The entry State really should be in every Wikipedia. It was initially in this list. But English Wikipedia made something ridiculous. So we had to write another article about slightly different aspect of the same thing. It is not good if State disappears altogether. --93.73.19.163 19:06, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

I agree "State (polity)" would be a better replacement. --MarsRover 05:56, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

• I withdraw my proposition of Sovereignty and support the substitution of Sovereign state with State (polity). --Helt (talk) 18:57, 27 April 2012 (UTC)
• I also support State (polity). Sovereign state was one of the ones that surprised me when I was translating the list. Lesgles (talk) 04:45, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Support the new proposal. — Yerpo ^Eh? 09:15, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Done -- Liliana • 11:21, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

North Korea

We have South Korea in this list, but don't have North Korea. North Korea is one of eight states that have nuclear weapons. --Andreykor (talk) 18:25, 25 April 2012 (UTC) I suggest to exclude Vatican City (we have Rome and Catholic Church). --Andreykor (talk) 06:53, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Thought their first nuclear bomb test sort of fizzled. Anyway I don't think having a nuclear bomb means you automatically make the list. But would support adding the Korean War which sort of covers the creation of NK. --MarsRover 06:06, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Oppose. Although North Korea is a fascinating state, it's merit as one of the world's most closed dictatorships does not justify a place on this list. The Vatican State is, in addition to being the world's smallest independent state, the main episcopal see of 1.2 billion Catholics. --Helt (talk) 19:02, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

nor Vatican or North Korea should be in the list, they are not basic topics --Barcelona (talk) 13:48, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Least popular ten

The score was calculated as [stubs + 4*articles + 9*long_articles].

There should be a reason of small popularity of the entries. Maybe they do not belong. --93.73.19.163 07:18, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Entry	Score	Comment
en:Integumentary system	67	Replaced already
en:Trimurti	73	Wrong political correctness. Bring en:Shiva back, please.
en:Sovereign state	75	Appeared as the result of English chapter making disambig of the en:State. Is being replaced.
en:Physical chemistry	81	Maybe not 1000-list important. I'd put en:Chemical reaction in.
en:Fiction	82	Fiction/nonfiction classification is not universal.
en:Large intestine	85	I am not sure, but maybe en:Kidney would be a better choice.
en:Sensory system	90	The anatomical classification by systems is not universal.
en:Hindi-Urdu	91	Wrong political correctness. Bring en:Hindi back, please.
en:Nut (fruit)	91	Don't know, for me this is a good entry.
en:Strong interaction	93	Maybe too difficult for smaller chapters, but for me this is a good entry.

Just after an overview, I agree that physical chemistry should be replaced with chemical reaction. Not really an opinion on the other things. -Barras talk 10:43, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, replace en:Physical chemistry with en:Chemical reaction. -- Liliana • 11:24, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

I agree with this. Also, with reverting the Shiva change. --MarsRover 16:25, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

interesting study. I agree with Shiva proposal, and also about removing large intestine (not sure about kidney's alternative). The other ones, I'd leave them for the moment --Barcelona (talk) 13:53, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Full list is bulky. I've put it on my talk page. --93.73.19.163 16:08, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for this; it's useful. But where is your talk page? With just your IP address here it's hard to know. A. Mahoney (talk) 12:05, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

I've created an account. --Shouldbe design (talk) 14:26, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

great, thanks. I see en:United States has the top score, followed by a bunch of other countries and the two World Wars. The first (arguably) scientific entry is en:Mars, 39th, and the first related to the arts is Mozart at 60. The maximum score should be 2466 (since there are 247 active Wikipedias in the chart), and only en:United States is over 1/3 of that. What can we learn from analyzing this list? A. Mahoney (talk) 15:34, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

we can see from where should we translate, or where to focus--Barcelona (talk) 08:55, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

You probably meant 274 active Wikipedias. Concerning the article with the maximum score, we learn that the mean score is 866/274 = 3.2, so, in average, article about the US has the score a little bit below the "simple article", and this length tends smaller for other subjects. In general, from this list we learn subjects on which Wikipedia users tend to maintain relatively large article. -- Ace111 (talk) 23:43, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, you're right, I transposed the figures here, but 2466 is still correct (it's 9*274). And I agree with Yerpo that each Wikipedia chooses its own areas to specialize in -- we at Latin, for example, have lots of articles about classical antiquity. Still and all, I wonder whether the prevalence of historical or geographical or political articles tells us something about Wikipedians in general; where are the arts and the sciences? A. Mahoney (talk) 12:06, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

IMO, articles about countries are fairly easy to "beef up" with standard structure and a lot of sources to draw from. They, along with wider geographical concepts (continents etc.) are widely considered canon encyclopedia content and are also linked from a lot of other articles. — Yerpo ^Eh? 12:28, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

"Nut" is not an official biological classification and not all language has a word for it. Similar problem we had with "Whale" where its a common word in English but other languages don't have a word for it. Something like "Walnut" would be more popular. --MarsRover 16:25, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Some of these are relatively new additions to the list, which may be why they haven't been written in all languages yet. I agree with going back to Shiva instead of Trimurti. "Fiction" is a difficult category; this should perhaps be replaced with translation, which has been proposed as an addition before in a different context. The others I'd keep. A. Mahoney (talk) 12:05, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

In my opinion, this analysis shows what a monumental task it is to create general encyclopedias in 274 languages. Note that most projects have a rather (or extremely) small community of editors dedicated to create content, and while this list is useful, the 1000 subjects listed here are but a drop in the ocean. Many editors will focus on local or their background-specific subjects instead of general ones, or are simply unaware of this list. It'd be interesting to add all the article scores together and compare them to 2466000 which is a theoretical global maximum. Then we can create a progress bar :) — Yerpo ^Eh? 17:13, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

The total is 261130 as of 3 June 2012 --Shouldbe design (talk) 06:38, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

The total is 266923 as of September 12, 2012 --Shouldbe design (talk))

So almost 11 %, that's not so bad. — Yerpo ^Eh? 18:05, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Achaemenid Empire

I was shocked when came to "Prehistory and ancient world" section it was not there. --Z 22:05, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

What historical article would you remove to make room for it? --MarsRover 07:18, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

We have Cyrus the Great... --Nk (talk) 17:07, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

You're right that we have already an article about Achaemenid leader Cyrus the Great. But Cyrus the Great (≈ 559-529 bC) is only a few part (the starting) in the history of Achaemenid Empire. I think that Achaemenid Empire article is more useful than Cyrus the Great as it covers a larger period when the territory, the social/political organisation or the culture of this empire are better known, defined and observable.--Nicolas Eynaud (talk) 12:11, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Agree --Z 13:54, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

High number of fruits

Isn't the current number of fruits a bit high? For example why is a lemon one of the 1000 most important things you should have? If we look at it as a plant than i could think of much more interesting plants, say for example an oak which is (mainly was) used to create lots of stuff (boats, houses, furniture). If we look at it more as a product being used then I think more interesting things could be named. I don't understand why there should be 6 fruits for two reasons: normally I believe the plant which grow the fruits would be considered what you write about, the fruit being a section of that description. If you look at is as plants (there are no specific plants in the list) more interesting plants could be thought of. On the other hand there is the factor it plays in live. I wouldn't consider specific fruits to be that huge of an impact (also when not looking to the western or current cultures). Mvg, Basvb (talk) 10:29, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

PS also could be considered to replace one or two by some important flowers (tulip, rose, poppy, sunflower) a totally other things which I believe would be interesting is the hole weight story (in the past having some weight was considered a shown of wealth, currently there is the hole anorexia vs overweight extremes).

6 fruits and 1 vegetable seems really an overkill. I support removing lemon and putting en:Onion. I like the option of onion more than cabbage, carrot or tomato. It goes in lots of dishes. --93.73.19.163 13:56, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

By "onion," do you mean Allium cepa (commercially the most important onion)? or do you include other edible plants commonly called onions? (And if you exclude them, why?) It'd be more comprehensive to go up one notch on the taxonomical ladder and base an article on the genus Allium, thereby including chives, garlics, leeks, onions, ramps, shallots, and related species cultivated only for their flowers. Jacob. 71.163.202.57 13:48, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Sweet potatoes and tomatoes are much more important economically than onion. --Nk (talk) 17:08, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Karl Marx and Marxism

1. As it stated in the section #Benito Mussolini by Yerpo You're right, we could remove either Carl Marx or Marxism.
2. I propose to remove "Marx, Karl" because "Marxism" movement it's wider than father of the movement.
3. One removed from list, but who\what will be added ?
4. My proposition to add the en:Stephen King article. --Movses (talk) 02:56, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

You have a good argument to remove Karl Marx but you don't have much of an rational to include Stephen King. In general the list doesn't seem to include pop music like Madonna or Michael Jackson so not sure being popular writer means your important either. --MarsRover 06:21, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

My point is not en:Stephen King only. I think Madonna or Michael Jackson are also good candidates :-) My rationale was 350 million sold copies. But I see, that one lady have over 4 billion. So, I propose to change "Marx, Karl" >> "Agatha Christie". --Movses (talk) 19:09, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

I don't think these guys are the core topics on an general encyclopedia, pehaps yes from a pop culture one. If we remove Marx (not sure about it), I'd not add nor Stephen King nor Madonna but I'd try to rescue one ot the proposal above about more important topics --Barcelona (talk) 10:37, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

What about en:Christian democracy or it is too regional? (And I would replace en:Shia Islam (why do we have Shia Islam and Sufism but not Sunni Ilam?) with en:Islamism or en:Political aspects of Islam.) --Nk (talk) 16:59, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Christian democracy is absolutely regional for me--Barcelona (talk) 07:58, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

And en:Karl Popper? If I'm not wrong he was proposed before + that will keep the thematic balance. --Nk (talk) 17:00, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Which sources said for Karl Popper ? --Movses (talk) 18:11, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Christian democracy is regional for me too. But, what about "Marx, Karl" >> "Agatha Christie" ? Rationale - Christie wrote 80 detective novels mostly featuring Poirot or Marple and it has been suggested that only the Bible and Shakespeare’s canon have outsold an estimated 4 billion copies of her books.--Movses (talk) 22:39, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

• I suggest adding Benito Mussolini. --Kolchak1923 (talk) 09:30, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
• In my opinion, we shall not look to sold copies but with the influence on history and thought history, especially for philosophers as Marx. The argument to remove Marx is really good and I agree with it, I think also historians of Marxism would agree. I support Nk's proposal, Popper is indeed very important in science philosphy, like Marx is in political philosophy.--Nickanc (talk) 15:42, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

  Marx should stay, he is one of the most prominent thinkers in the history and he is not very much connected to Marxism. If there should be biographies in the list, Marx belongs. As for Popper, he is important, but logical positivism has Wittgenstein and Russell already. Too many for one style. Wikipedias that have articles about Wittgenstein and Russell will have an article on Popper anyway. --93.73.19.163 09:02, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

  I'm somewhat surprised of the statement that Marx is not connected to Marxism. Could you clarify it? (Btw, Russel is not in the list.) --Nk (talk) 12:56, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

  As much as Plato to idealism. Kickstart, hence the name. Marx is famous by the quote "If that is marxism then I am not marxist" which means that even by the end of 19th century people who called themselves marxists were far in their ideology from Marx. --93.73.19.163 09:14, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

State (polity)

I am not sure that the article en:State (polity) is proper in the List of articles every Wikipedia should have. In the article en:State (polity), there is "States may be sovereign". My understanding is a state may be a country. However, State sometimes is en:Federated state. There are two different words for country and Federated state in Chinese (Chinese is my mother language). So it is difficult to build (or translate an article has the meaning of en:State (polity). I suggest to use en:Country to replace out en:State (polity)--Wolfch (talk) 07:06, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

You are talking about an entirely different notion. This is not about geography, a land, but about the mechanism of organization and repression, a very important political subject. An entity anarchism is against. Don't you have that notion in Chinese? --93.73.19.163 22:10, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

Version 1.3

Could someone make a fixed version 1.3? It's more practical with a stable list for some purposes. I'm not sure how it should be done myself, so I would appreciate if someone took the time to do it. Thanks in advance. --Wikijens (talk) 19:19, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

It's nothing special, just copy the list to List of articles every Wikipedia should have/Version 1.3, format the header as in the old archives and be done with it. — Yerpo ^Eh? 16:32, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

Ok. I made a try. Hope it was done correctly. I noticed that the numbers of articles in the category Science was wrong. I counted 299 articles with all subcategories included. --Wikijens (talk) 17:16, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

Ocean

Is the entry en:Ocean necessary in addition to en:Sea? Notice the introduction of the former "The word 'sea' is often used interchangeably with 'ocean'..." and of the latter: "Sometimes the terms sea and ocean are used synonymously." In some languages there is not a very clear distinction (like with the concepts city – town). I think it could be removed to give place to something else. I will not suggest a replacement, since I'm sure there are already several good suggestions just waiting for a place on the list.

Moreover I think we should be careful with concepts that are not very clearly defined or where the words are ambiguous in English. Because this list is the basis of a ranking, many people want to add their language as an iw-link resulting in big iw-complications. Some problematic entries are en:Sex and en:Law (quite different concepts are connected to these articles, if you look at the iw-links). --Wikijens (talk) 21:58, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps we should replace Sea with Cartography, which is also a basic geographic concept. I agree that "sea" and "ocean" are not really different, and it's only a matter of convention that we refer to the "Mediterranean Sea" but the "Atlantic Ocean" and so on. A. Mahoney (talk) 21:02, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes, Cartography is a good suggestion, but i think it is better to keep Sea and replace Ocean. --Wikijens (talk) 19:28, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Agree, except why keep "Sea" instead of "Ocean"? Ocean would logically link the all the major Oceans of the world; would talk about ocean currents, hurricanes, global exploration and other important topics. Sea on the other hand would be basically a list various unrelated bodies of water that tend to be salty. --MarsRover 05:23, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

I think that in many languages Sea (de:Meer, el:Θάλασσα, fr:Mer, sv:Hav) is the general term and the term Ocean just marks a technical distinction. I believe that in all these languages and several others people would talk about the sea when looking from land for example at the Atlantic even if it is technically an ocean. Introduction to many articles about the sea (I checked also Italian and Spanish) includes two definitions of the term sea, either as distinct from ocean, or as including the total body if saline waters of the earth. Notice also iw-links from the article Seawater, which almost all have as an element the equivalent of the word sea, even if it obviously includes the water of the oceans. Finally the fact that almost all languages have a word for ocean directly derived from the greek word, while words for sea seem to be local, shows that the latter is a notion which is important in many different cultures, while the former is rather som technical distinction. --Wikijens (talk) 14:03, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

If we want to remove one of these (not sure about it, a lot of languages have the difference between them), why adding Cartography? In the sections above there are many better suggestions, already discussed. And geography has already plenty of articles--Barcelona (talk) 18:39, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Family and relationships

I think almost the whole category could be removed to give place to other subjects. At least en:Child seems unnecessary to me. en:Man and en:Woman I also find unnecessary as we have en:Human. If en:Sex is removed and replaced by both en:Sexual intercourse and en:Gender, we have covered most of the wanted ideas. To add up my suggestion:

• add en:Sexual intercourse and en:Gender
• remove en:Child, en:Man, en:Woman, en:Sex

This leaves two free spaces for other articles. --Wikijens (talk) 22:39, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Maybe en:Sexual reproduction instead of en:Sexual intercourse, I'm not sure about that. The reason I want to remove Sex is shown more clearly in the french article: "Le mot sexe désigne souvent l'appareil reproducteur, ou l’acte sexuel et la sexualité dans un sens plus global, mais se réfère aussi aux différences physiques distinguant les hommes et les femmes." So for all languages not deriving from latin, there might be three or four words covering these concept. We should choose one ore or two of them. --Wikijens (talk) 22:54, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

My two cents: "Child", "Man" and "Woman" on the surface seems like little more than definitions. But since we are missing various topics associated with raising children, parenting, topics specific to men, topics that only affect women, I think these are core topics that would connect to a lot of topics we wouldn't necessarily want in this list. Removing "Sex" I think is an improvement since the topic is a bit to broad but your two replacements don't seem necessary. --MarsRover 05:40, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

I'd strongly keep man, woman and child, if they are just definitions, improve them, but all them refer to basic topics. If we have reproduction (in general) we shouldn't have sexual reproduction, or we should add the other types of reproduction systems. That makes sense to me. I disagree with sexual intercourse, too specific--Barcelona (talk) 18:45, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Good point about reproduction, so I agree that sexual reproduction is not necessary. I find the article en:Sex problematic because it seems to be mainly about sexual reproduction even if there is a seperate article about this. Maybe this part could be made less dominant in the article, and iw's such as de:Sex could be removed/changed? I disagree about man, woman, child. I doubt you would find single entries about these terms even in a quite big conventional encyclopedia, rather there would be a short definition in a dictionary. In my opinion an article about en:Family is enough or there could be introduced in the list something like en:Ageing or perhaps en:Gender if the biological aspects are not enough. I hope I haven't made too many suggestions at the same time :-) --Wikijens (talk) 15:06, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

I believe that en:Gender is a better replacement of Man/Woman - it could cover rather well the subject of the 2 articles. --Nk (talk) 13:07, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Bad idea. As a representative of the language in which different words are uses for different notions, I see that you propose to replace the entry from the biological section (sex) with an entry from the societal section (gender). The biological sex should stay. And the entry feminism partly covers gender. More in a separate article but I don't see the should be in every wikipedia importance to it. As for man, woman and child, IMHO, they should be in every wikipedia. Certainly, they are in every wikipedia, aren't they? If they are not, that's too bad. If you were writing a wikipedia in a new language, what does comes first, woman or gender? It is woman. --93.73.19.163 17:03, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Track and field vs. Athletics

In English WP there are two separate articles, en:Track and field and en:Athletics, and a debate going on on the talk page of the latter about whether these actually are two different topics or not. I suggest that this list should include the more general topic, en:Athletics. In most of the world they're pretty much the same, but as the talk pages in English WP point out, for Americans "track and field" doesn't include marathons or other road races, but "athletics" does. (For some Americans anyway -- this is debatable.) So I propose replace "Track and field" with "Athletics." A. Mahoney (talk) 12:51, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Support. Tomer T (talk) 17:28, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Support (en:Athletics (sport) should be in the list). I think the change can be made immediately, as the iw's have already been changed. The longer we wait, the more language will add again iw-links from en:Track and field, creating iw-conflicts. (Latin already did). --Wikijens (talk) 10:48, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

yes, Latin did -- but that was me and I'm keeping on top of this discussion :-) If there are no objections in the next few hours, I'll make the change this afternoon (my local time). A. Mahoney (talk) 12:29, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

:-) --Wikijens (talk) 19:42, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Done -- and good luck to all the Olympic athletes competing in these and other disciplines! A. Mahoney (talk) 19:44, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Philosophers and social scientists: C. S. Peirce, J.S. Mill, B. Russell

Charles Sanders Peirce founded pragmaticism (pragmatism) and (in statistics) randomized experiments. In logic, he was the architect of relational logic and quantification theory.

John Stuart Mill (c.f. Harriet Taylor) is a more important feminist than de Beauvoir, and an important liberal utilitarian.

Bertrand Russell was an important logician, analytic philosopher, and popular--literary writer, vastly more important than Noam Chomsky.

One could also consider Amartya K. Sen, Ken Arrow, or Paul Samuelson as social scientists to replace de Beauvoir (??), Chomsky (??), Freud, Nietzsche, or Sartre (?).

1. Beauvoir, Simone de
2. Chomsky, Noam
3. Freud, Sigmund'
4. Nietzsche, Friedrich
5. Sartre, Jean-Paul

As a philosopher, Sartre was even less important than Husserl or Heidegger.

Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 10:38, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, I am not an expert in this but the bold ones, "Freud" and "Nietzsche", I think need to stay. I can see "Noam Chomsky" being replaced with someone who won a nobel prize. --MarsRover 07:17, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

As for the names suggested as additions, they are not in the same level, Stuart Mill being less important than the other two, I don't think he can replace any name in the list. In the supressions list, the least important would be surely de Beauvior, the second one Chomsky; the other three are must-keep in any sense for me. Perhaps we can change just one name, so we keep the balance (not more logic than social), but if we remove the only woman, the list would lose gender balance. More opinions? --Barcelona (talk) 09:20, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Concerning Chomsky my opinion is that as a principle we shouldn't include living people. On the other hand as someone mentioned recently Russell is too close to Wittgenstein to have them both --Nk (talk) 16:51, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, Sartre definitely needs to go -- not a first-rate thinker!

History

Herodotus or Thuscyidides could replace one or both of these writers:

1. Sima Qian
2. Zhu Xi

Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 10:38, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

I cannot say whether this is a good move or not. But a common complaint about this list is it's biased toward western topics. I think in general if we should try to keep the same balance (e.g. replace Asian topic with Asian topic). --MarsRover 07:00, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

agree with MarsRover: think about an Western name to replace (I would prefer Heroduts, it's the first one) --Barcelona (talk) 09:21, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

True but I still find Zhu Xi redundant as we have Confucianism. We could think about something like en:Srivijaya because inside Asia itself we have some bias towards China and Japan. --Nk (talk) 16:58, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Btw, interesting BBC article says "Sima Qian" is the Chinese "Herodotus". So, don't see that as much of an improvement. --MarsRover 23:21, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

I don`t agree with removing Sima Qian or Zhu Xi and adding Thuscyidides. Thucydides is known for his History of the Peloponnesian War, he is not universal scientist unlike Herodotus or Sima Qian. Herodotus could replace a modern western thinker, like Beauvoir, Simone de (we have en:Sartre, Jean-Paul and en:Feminism), en:Ludwig Wittgenstein or Chomsky, Noam. --Igrek (talk) 20:30, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

It seems to me as a classicist that one cannot very well distinguish between the importance of Herodotus and Thucydides. They seem very obviously equally important. But, that said, Thucydides did more than Herodotus to shape historiography, which, under his influence, has become primarily the study of political history (including the history of war). Perhaps every Wikipedia should have an article on Ancient Greek historiography, thus including both Herodotus and Thucydides as well as other very important figures (e.g. Xenophon and Polybius). After all, one can argue that the Ancient Greek historians collectively created the tradition of (at least) Western historiography. --Cessator (talk) 22:17, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

Srivijaya

en:Srivijaya could replace one of cities. We have 44 cities and 45 articles on history only (?). I propose replace Sydney, or Brussels (we have en:European Union) or Vienna. --Igrek (talk) 20:53, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

No, certainly not Brussels. It would be the same like replacing Washington because the United States is in. Not Sydney as the only city in Australia. Vienna maybe, but why not taking an Asian city, since Srivijaya is part of Asia.--Joopwiki (talk) 19:47, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Eurocentrism

Browsing w:WP:CSB I noticed a 2008 comment describing Eurocentrism on this page. A comment was also made on the discussion page here. The problem has not been addressed. This bias is particularly egregious if you consider that this document is intended for Wikipedias in mostly non-European languages. Perhaps the most egregious example is the inclusion of w:Paul the Apostle instead of adding someone from a non-Christian religion (e.g. w:Zoroaster. If celebrities from other continents are not to be found, then the list should reduce its reliance on biographies and focus on more universal concepts. Thanks, Groupuscule (talk) 09:13, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Initial list was far more eurocentric. Now it is more balanced. As for Zoroaster, there is Zoroastrism, which is enough. Meso-american religions are not represented. The pressure of English is subtler thing. Germans, of all people, do not have an article on Electromagnetism. Why? Because the term is unnatural for a German physicist. --93.72.154.102 11:30, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

So let's replace electromagnetism with Herodutus, as German language does not have equivalent term for eletromagnetism, and Herodutus is the father of Greek historiography.--RekishiEJ (talk) 20:34, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

but we are replacing a physics term by an historical figure, it should be a in-science movement--Barcelona (talk) 08:28, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Note that St. Paul is from another continent. :) --Nk (talk) 18:37, 6 November 2012 (UTC)