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Wikipedia talk:Vital articles/Level/5

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Latest comment: 2 days ago by Lophotrochozoa in topic Quota reallocations to enable moves of sections
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Level 5 Subpages

People History and geography Arts and everyday life Society STEM

Introduction

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The purpose of this page is for discussions of over-arching matters regarding Level 5 Vital articles, such as procedures, quotas, or other broad changes. Level 5 Vital articles are meant to be 50,000 topics for which Wikipedia should have high-quality articles.

If you want to propose articles to be added, removed, or swapped from the Level 5 Vital articles lists, please do so at the relevant subpages: #1 People; #2 History & geography; #3 Arts and everyday life; #4 Society (philosophy, religion, recreation, and social sciences); #5 STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics).

Discussions on this page and its subpages follow these guidelines:

Voting count table (>60%)
P = passes
F = fails 		opposing votes
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
0
supporting votes
 – – – – F F F F F F
1 – – – F F F F F F F
2 – – F F F F F F F F
3 – F F F F F F F F F
4 P P P F F F F F F F
5 P P P P F F F F F F
6 P P P P F F F F F F
7 P P P P P F F F F F
8 P P P P P P F F F F
9 P P P P P P F F F F
  1. Before being closed, a Level 5 proposal must:
    1. Run for at least 15 days; AND
    2. Allow at least 7 days after the most recent vote; AND
      For nominations made after 13:36, September 26, 2025, closure is acceptable 7 days after most recent vote that established a consensus to implement or fail (see below) or the most recent subsequent vote against this consensus.
    3. Have at least 4 participants if nominated before 20:53, 20 May 2025 (UTC).
  2. For a proposal to be implemented on the Level 5 list:
    1. It must have over 60% support (see table); AND
    2. It must have at least 4 support votes !votes.
  3. For a proposal to failed:
    1. It must not have over 60% support (see table); AND
    2. If nominated after 20:53, 20 May 2025 (UTC), it must have at least 2 oppose votes !votes.
  4. For proposed additions, the nominator should list (and possibly link to) at least one potential section in the level 5 vital articles list for the article to be added to. Supporters can also help in this regard.

For reference, the following times apply for today:

  • 15 days ago is: 05:14, 19 November 2025 (UTC)
  • 7 days ago is: 05:14, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

If you're interested in regularly participating as a closer, the following browser tools may also be helpful:

V5 histogram data

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Latest comment: 5 months ago8 comments5 people in discussion
 

For me and my posterity, here is histogram data of interwikis. Here's the data dump:

Since interwiki usage is contentious, I thought we would be better if we had data on this :) -1ctinus📝🗨 23:32, 4 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Hello,
The main issue I have with Wikilinks is that they are not the only variable we have, just the easiest one to grab from the front page. I think we should consider multiple ones. Are you using Python to run these? GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 00:51, 5 May 2025 (UTC)Reply
Looks like 20-30 is pretty normal. Having more than 150 is irrelevant to VA5. Having single digits is concerning. pbp 01:12, 5 May 2025 (UTC)Reply
Agreed w GeogSage as we should be looking at at least a few different sets of objective, quantifiable data before we put our own interpretation and collective wisdom together.
But yes, we as a group probably should review all 1-link articles. That in itself seems like they may not have the world-impact they need for this project. GauchoDude (talk) 12:05, 5 May 2025 (UTC)Reply
Could you compile a named list of the articles with no interwikis? I think that would be an essential list of articles for pruning. I want to make it clear that there's no obligation to do this (beggars can't be choosers), but this sort of data really helps out the project. ALittleClass (talk) 23:43, 1 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
ALittleClass, 1ctinus: These really should be immediately put up for removal. GauchoDude (talk) 16:20, 6 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
the world is your oyster. Feel free to nominate any article you see as innapropriate. -1ctinus📝🗨 17:57, 6 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

I have it. @ALittleClass:

-1ctinus📝🗨 16:08, 6 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

Is it time to split the V5 talk pages into more subpages?

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Latest comment: 6 months ago22 comments9 people in discussion

Some of these talk pages are getting outrageously large. No formal proposal here, just food for thought. -1ctinus📝🗨 20:00, 25 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

As discussed a bit above, I don't like the sub-pages but they are likely a necessity. Adding more is probably necessary at this point, as my browser lags when I try to edit some of them and my rig isn't a pushover.
That said, I think we can do some serious reorganization of the existing pages, for example History probably has more categories then is necessary and we could combine them to make it smoother. We should also standardize the subpages a bit, as stated in the discussion directly above this. If the headings are the same across ALL subsections at a level, it doesn't really matter if it is 1 or 100 pages, the script above can handle it. The current set up requires sperate inputs for each sub-page at level 5, while levels 1-4 can be done with one input for each. I'd prefer 5 to roughly 39 lines, and I'm sure others using the API would feel the same. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 20:14, 25 May 2025 (UTC)Reply
This thread is about splitting the talk pages, not the list subpages. Lophotrochozoa (talk) 23:38, 26 May 2025 (UTC)Reply
yikes, my brain is on subpages lately and I completely misread this. Thanks for pointing this out! While I agree we could split the sub-pages, this makes it harder to get people interested in voting, unfortunately. It's likely unavoidable at this point though. We might consider this a good opportunity to dramatically increase both the number of subpages and talk pages, perhaps going as far as a separate talk page for EACH subpage. From a technical standpoint, we already have these page, but they have redirects at the moment. For example: Wikipedia talk:Vital articles/Level/5/Biology and health sciences/Plant could just be the talk page for plants, and perhaps we could get the wikiprojects to advertise them, like Wikipedia:WikiProject Plants in the case of the plants page. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 04:42, 27 May 2025 (UTC)Reply
I was thinking of suggesting splitting History and Geography a few weeks ago into, say, History, and Geography, but then I checked and it was the shortest subpage so I thought there was greater need elsewhere. CMD (talk) 02:48, 26 May 2025 (UTC)Reply
It may be time to reapproach level 5, we could try farming it out to the various WikiProjects to sort out. Give each sub-page at level 5 to the corresponding project with agreed upon quota. Editors interested in the topic could then do swaps/additions within the category. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 04:49, 27 May 2025 (UTC)Reply
That requires active WikiProjects, which will not be the case. That said, the more specific the divisions, the easier it would be to invite specific WikiProjects to discussions. (Putting aside for the moment the downsides of splitting up the discussions.) CMD (talk) 05:09, 27 May 2025 (UTC)Reply
True! Well, we wouldn't have to leave it to JUST them, but if we could get them to make a link on their page somewhere as a tab or something it could minorly improve it the attention those articles get. Splitting things up has a lot of cons, I'd prefer to have no split at all, but from a practical perspective we're starting to run into a few problems. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 06:01, 27 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

What we need to consider is a moratorium on new proposals if the page hits a certain size, say, over 300K. The page being so long means that people don't even look at all the active proposals. pbp 02:55, 26 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

A moratorium sounds good, but I would also like to split the talk pages. Lophotrochozoa (talk) 23:38, 26 May 2025 (UTC)Reply
People is currently at 421,000 bytes in size. Society is at 429,000. STEM is at 302,500. History and geography is at 128,000.
Also the only talk page split that I would support is maybe splitting Arts from Society, so that we can have a talk page solely dedicated to our listings of specific works while Society within scope doesn't get impacted much. I don't think it makes much sense for things like Government debt   5 and political parties to be proposed on the same page where we suggest adding films or music. λ NegativeMP1 03:06, 27 May 2025 (UTC)Reply
Agree splitting is necessary. No preference on how. Hyperbolick (talk) 04:44, 27 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

@1ctinus, GeogSage, Chipmunkdavis, Purplebackpack89, and NegativeMP1: There is already a proposal to split off a separate talk page for arts. Lophotrochozoa (talk) 15:21, 27 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

I would oppose all splits other than that one, which I haven't made up my mind on. What we really need is for more people to vote on things, close things, and archive things. QuicoleJR (talk) 16:12, 27 May 2025 (UTC)Reply
I agree with Quicole, though I'd add in the moratorium. Once things are more under control, the moratorium won't have to be invoked very often pbp 17:23, 27 May 2025 (UTC)Reply
@QuicoleJR: Speaking of archiving, why hasn't you archived the STEM talk page lately? It is over the 300 000 bytes, which is the moratorium cutoff proposed by pbp. Lophotrochozoa (talk) 11:17, 28 May 2025 (UTC)Reply
I tend to forget about that one a lot because I don't have as many ideas there as I do for the other three. Will go clean it up now. Thanks, QuicoleJR (talk) 12:37, 28 May 2025 (UTC)Reply
@Lophotrochozoa: The STEM talk page has been fully archived, and is now at around 210 kilobytes. Thank you for the reminder. QuicoleJR (talk) 14:50, 28 May 2025 (UTC)Reply
Thanks. Lophotrochozoa (talk) 15:59, 28 May 2025 (UTC)Reply
Is there any way to get an auto archive bot that ONLY targets closed discussions? GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 17:49, 28 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

The lack of votes is especially annoying when other votes are dependent of on a vote that is being ignored; for example Wikipedia talk:Vital articles/Level/5/STEM#Alt proposal: swap out Peripheral, which has only two votes, needs to finish before we can finish the nominations of Wireless network and Wikipedia talk:Vital articles/Level/5/STEM#Add Input/output. Lophotrochozoa (talk) 20:24, 28 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Each of the Level 5 subsections seem to get about as much traffic as the main Level 4 page, I personally find it fine to scroll through them as is. At some point (which we haven't reached) the granularized talk pages become more of a hindrance than a benefit. ALittleClass (talk) 21:58, 28 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Stubs

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Latest comment: 6 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion

I created a list of v5 stubs. We should try to aim for zero on this list through improvement or pruning.

-1ctinus📝🗨 11:34, 30 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Create a sub-page for geography titled "Basics and technical geography"

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Latest comment: 1 month ago9 comments4 people in discussion
PASSED
closing as passed 4 to 0, open for more then 15 days with 100% support and more then 7 days after the most recent vote. This is a "Move or reorganization", but does have quota reallocation involved, so wanted to be clear it passes the threshold of additions/removals.GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 20:35, 6 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

We currently have the basics of geography, as well as technical geography, under physical geography. As many of these concepts are also a part of human geography, this isn't accurate or ideal. I suggest a smaller sub-category similar to the "Basics and measurement" that has 333 articles under STEM.

Support
  1. As nom. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 03:20, 23 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
  2. Lophotrochozoa (talk) 14:32, 23 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
  3. Per nom. GauchoDude (talk) 14:27, 24 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
  4. Weak support per below discussion. I don't particularly like how small it is, but it is probably necessary for accuracy. QuicoleJR (talk) 16:13, 22 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Oppose
Neutral
Discuss
@GeogSage: I'm inclined to support, but first, how many articles will be in the new category? QuicoleJR (talk) 12:37, 22 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Depends how we want to slice it, but if we include the 13 articles under "basics," 27 "Earth" articles with things like the meridians, and 53 "Technical geography" articles we would have 93. If we use the entire "Basics" section currently on Physical geography, we have 130. There are several things that have been thrown into the "Earth science" section at level 5 that are just Geography at higher levels. Specifically, the biomes should be placed in physical geography, as well as the specific landforms. Geodesy   4 could be moved into technical geography. We have several sections thrown around other places as well, such as "Navigation and time keeping" under Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/5/Technology, and the navigation articles could potentially fall under a technical geography section, which is 20 articles. It might grow over time, and would be the smallest section, but would help to make the geography section a bit more internally consistent. As it stands, at level 5 Human geography is literally in the section for physical geography, and that should probably be moved.. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 16:09, 22 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I prefer moving biomes to biology. Lophotrochozoa (talk) 13:11, 25 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

7 days after most recent vote/snowball clause

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Latest comment: 2 months ago24 comments10 people in discussion

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I would like to address something that needs to be addressing. I find myself refraining from voting in a lot of proposals that are obviously going to pass because you have to wait 7 days after the vote in order for the discussion to pass. If a proposal is obviously on track to fail like if it has 7 opposes with no supports or 7 supports with no opposes, do you think it would be alright to use the snowball clause for this project to do so? I think it should be fine. If anyone objects to the addition or removal, then they could create a new proposal. What do you think? Interstellarity (talk) 21:57, 24 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

I think we should just drop that 7 day after last vote clause. 15 days and enough votes should be enough, if someone wants to vote on a stagnant proposal older then 15 days and tip it, then close, I don't see why that would be a problem. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 22:23, 24 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
agreed, at the very least it should be reworded to be "7 days since the vote can be read as passed" (so that more support votes don't make it take longer) ALittleClass (talk) 22:39, 24 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
Yes, either remove the 7-day rule, or modify it to apply only when there have been votes on both sides, not counting the nominator's. And there have been plenty of snow closes before in this project.--LaukkuTheGreit (Talk•Contribs) 06:53, 25 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
Oppose because the original reason this was enacted was proposals being closed as successful right after someone opposed/unsuccessful right after someone supported, stopping discussion as consensus began to shift so that they could get their preferred result. I would rather not bring that back. QuicoleJR (talk) 16:42, 7 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
I agree that it makes sense for oppose votes to delay closing as passed and oppose votes delay closing as failed, but that's not a reason for redundant votes to delay the closing. Lophotrochozoa (talk) 16:55, 7 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
I'm fine with snow closes at 7-0 and above/1-7 and below. QuicoleJR (talk) 16:58, 7 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Weak oppose: Wikipedia and its projects aren't under any time constraints. I think it's more important to give people ample time to vote vs. trying to rush as many through as possible. Obviously at Level 5 it's a bit more chaotic because it's the largest subsection of the Vital Articles initiative, however that could be addressed by continuing to split out talk pages. I think it's probably more important for the historical record/conversations to show just how many people at a given time were either for or against a nomination/removal instead of quicker closes, IMO. GauchoDude (talk) 14:09, 25 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

I have previously proposed a change to this rule. It is absurd that support votes prevent closing votes as passed
@GauchoDude: If you want the historical record to show how many people supported a proposal, it would make sense to allow us to make redundant votes without delaying the change. Lophotrochozoa (talk) 12:18, 26 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
I see your point but not necessarily. While unlikely, in your above scenario, a proposal could be sitting 7-0 after 2 minutes of it being proposed, someone moves to quickly add it through and that's a wrap, however that doesn't take into account the thousands (millions?) of other Wikipedia users who could potentially alter that vote. Unlike AfD conversations, this is very much a popularity contest and the above scenario would only need 5 no votes to change the outcome of that event.
At the end of the day at least IMO, having votes open longer literally does not affect anything whereas moving to close things early could. I think it's actually more important, as we are currently at capacity for the whole project, to see historical votes/conversations of 7-0 or 17-0 instead of a quick 4-0 as it indicates someone/something had overwhelming support when brought to a vote whether for addition or removal. A proposal like this kills those future conversations. GauchoDude (talk) 13:32, 26 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
No one is proposing that we ban redundant votes. As both Interstellarity and I have pointed out, it's the current rules that discourage redundant votes. Lophotrochozoa (talk) 17:15, 26 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
I've never heard of or seen anyone voting on closed proposals. With a snow close, you're essentially calling races early (albeit generally with good cause).
The current rules only bother those trying to get votes done quickly instead of letting the process play out. If you, or others, don't feel like you don't want to vote because it extends the process, that's a preference which you're absolutely free to exercise. However with closing votes, that's in essence procedurally preventing further voting/conversation. To me, there's a difference there. GauchoDude (talk) 19:39, 26 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
Since there have been complaints about talk pages growing too big (and I don't think you have denied that it's a problem) getting votes done quickly is a good thing. Lophotrochozoa (talk) 14:52, 25 September 2025 (UTC)Reply


We should distinguish between the seven-day rule for contrary votes (closing as passed after oppose votes or closing as failed after support votes), necessary votes (votes without which there wouldn't be enough to close as passed or failed, respectively) and redundant votes. The vote currently stands at 4-2 for removing the seven-day rule for redundant votes (GeogSage, ALittleClass, LaukkuTheGreit and me supporting, GauchoDude and probably QuicoleJR opposed), 2-2 for removing the seven-day rule for necessary votes (GeogSage and LaukkuTheGreit supporting, GauchoDude and probably QuicoleJR opposed, and ALittleClass neutral), and 1-3 or 2-3 for removing the seven-day rule for contrary votes (GeogSage supporting, GauchoDude, QuicoleJR and me opposed, LaukkuTheGreit neutral; ALittleClass supports this if we take their comment literally, but I suspect that they didn't think about contrary votes. Lophotrochozoa (talk) 17:47, 7 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

I would support changing the language to specifically, where a support vote does not reset the timer. ALittleClass (talk) 18:06, 7 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
If you want to change the rules so that support votes don't reset the timer for closing as passed, the analogue for closing as failed would be that oppose votes don't reset the timer. Lophotrochozoa (talk) 18:48, 10 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
I think the rule works fine as-is, with an option for IAR snow closes in particularly obvious situations. QuicoleJR (talk) 19:55, 7 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
Generally, when one is troubled by having to wait for 7 days to close something, there are a bunch of other discussions that need to be closed or archived. What's the rush.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 17:40, 11 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
It mostly the principle of the matter: support votes should mean support, not "don't add/remove yet". Are you voting against changing the rules? Lophotrochozoa (talk) 17:51, 17 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
  • I think it is OK to change the rule to 7 days after achieving a quorum consensus ( 4 supports and over 60% or 2 opposes and not over 60%) or the most recent vote contrary to the consensus, which is what I think people are saying. Once someone presents an opinion contrary to consensus, we should allow time to react to that. I oppose removing the 7 day consensus for contrary votes or necessary votes. I support removing it for votes consistent with preexisting consensus.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 23:21, 9 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

The current tally is 6-2 or 5-3 for removing the seven-day rule for redundant votes (after my previous summary Kevinishere15 and TonyTheTiger expressed support for that; ALittleClass opposes removing the seven-day rule for closing as failed after redundant votes if we interpret their last comment literally, but I believe they didn't think through what their suggestion would mean for closing as failed), 3-3 or 2-4 for removing the seven-day rule for necessary votes (TonyTheTiger opposed; ALittleClass supports removing the seven-day rule for closing as passed after necessary votes, but I believe they didn't think through what their suggestion would mean for closing as failed) and 1-4 or 2-3 for removing the seven-day rule for contrary votes (ALittleClass supports keeping the seven-day rule for closing as passed after contrary votes, but supports removing it for closing as failed after contrary votes if we interpret their suggestion literally, but again I believe they didn't think through what their suggestion would mean for closing as failed). Lophotrochozoa (talk) 00:24, 25 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Please note that the close was accompanied by a change at Wikipedia:Vital_articles#Closing_a_proposal, but practically, I think if people reference anything they look at the template at the top of the page they are closing. Tradition has been that nomitions are subject to the rules at the time of their nomination so I have changed the header template at Template:Vital article level 5 rules to reflect this new consensus.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 15:43, 26 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

More quota reallocations

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Latest comment: 6 days ago46 comments10 people in discussion

There are two subpages in serious need of quota increase and if we had to tie each vote for a quota increase to a decrease for another page, it would be too complicated. Thus I suggest that we vote on the increases and decreases separately. To reallocate the quota, we need both enough votes for an increase and enough votes for a decrease. Lophotrochozoa (talk) 14:18, 7 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

  1. I notice a lot of things being listed for adding that were recently deleted. These quotas need to be thought over.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 03:44, 9 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
I'd like to give Writers the quota cut. We have gotten it beneath its current quota and it still has a lot of filler that could be trimmed. QuicoleJR (talk) 13:24, 14 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Increase the quota for Politics and economics

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PASSED
Quota increased 4-0 Lazman321 (talk) 03:31, 8 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The Politics and economics is currently 82 over quota and it's easy to find more omissions and hard to find entries to remove.

Support
  1. As nominator. Lophotrochozoa (talk) 14:18, 7 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
  2. J947 ‡ edits 01:30, 8 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
  3. It not only includes Politics   2 and Economics   2 as subjects, but also War   2 and Law   2. I wanted to suggest VAs like Sovereign wealth fund, Hedge fund, and Mutual fund rather than cutting down on this list. 96.95.142.29 (talk) 20:35, 27 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
  4. Lazman321 (talk) 20:53, 27 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Oppose
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Increase the quota for Culture

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The Culture subpage is currently 27 over quota, but I think we should move 43 entries for websites from Technology to Culture, which would make it 70 over quota.

Support
  1. As nominator. Lophotrochozoa (talk) 14:18, 7 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
Oppose
  1. I could see giving Culture a quota bump in the future, but it isn't in the most need right now. I'd rather give the slots to Narrative Arts, which also desperately needs them. Once Narrative Arts gets its bump, I'd be willing to move to support. QuicoleJR (talk) 17:01, 8 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
Discussion

@GauchoDude, J947, QuicoleJR, and GeogSage: If you don't want to increase the quota for culture, where do you want to move the quota slots you want to remove from other subpages? Lophotrochozoa (talk) 10:50, 5 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

I think Narrative Arts needs another quota bump, and I could also see some slots going to Technology. Ideally we would have given the Writers slots straight to Narrative Arts, but those already got used up by Politics and economics. I might open a proposal to give Narrative Arts more quota if another 100 slots opens up. QuicoleJR (talk) 12:09, 5 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
We won't need to increase the quota for technology if we move websites from technology to culture. Lophotrochozoa (talk) 12:51, 5 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
Another one I proposed below is drugs and medicine. I'm honestly not sure how most people vote, but based on the 1st vital article criteria we list "Give direction to the prioritization of improvements of English Wikipedia articles (e.g. which articles to bring to WP:GA and WP:FA status)" I can't think of more critical stuff on Wikipedia then medical information. Like it or not, people use Wikipedia for medical knowledge, and like it or not, Physicians are using AI trained on Wikipedia to help them diagnose patients, ESPECIALLY outside the United States in the developing world where people might not have as much access to healthcare. Voting along the vital article priorities, I think we should focus on bringing in some articles that are life and death, and maybe a bit less on the G.O.A.T. of competitive Goat farming. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 17:27, 5 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
Responding to Lophotrochozoa, we should obviously allocate any and all available spots to only sports figures moving forward.
Before y'all get all angry, I'm kidding. I can feel GeogSage's glare from here.
In seriousness, IMO, they probably should go towards History. I'm basing that on absolutely nothing but gut feeling and vibes, but it seems odd to me from a high level that every major event that's ever happened fits into 3,300 of 50,000 articles, or not even 7% of the project? That feels broken. GauchoDude (talk) 18:22, 6 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
If you're feeling something, it's the shockwave from my repeated facepalms. Broadly, my goal has been to reduce this bias and introduce more conceptual big picture articles, and I have been trying to do so for over a year... I've been doing some research on the vital articles as a bit of a hobby, and my belief is that it is formed mostly from the "bottom up" without much in the way of a higher order plan. This has resulted in the list we have today, where individual articles that are interesting to Wikipedia editors end up vastly over represented.
In all seriousness, I agree with the main argument, history feels a bit broken, and believe that extends to other sections like Geography   2, The arts   1, and Health   3, Medicine   2 and Disease   2. I believe that some people have taken to the idea that individual biographies of people involved in historical events is the same thing as representation of that history. For example, we do not include biographies at all until level 3, but at level 3 we have 111 biographies, 84 history articles, 41 arts articles, and 106 Geography articles. This sudden disproportionate representation of biographies, when they were not previously represented, echos through levels 4 and 5. I believe this is because broad abstract topics are really hard for people to grasp, so they tend to latch onto individuals to serve as the "main character" so to speak. In science, we see this problem when the majority of research is a team effort, but we tend to look for individual geniuses to venerate. Human history   1 is a level 1 article, and I think we are using the life stories of individual humans to flush this section out.
I'm basing this on slightly more then gut feeling and vibes (I've been looking at edits and discussions from years ago when the project was in early phases, in addition to looking at various page statistics when prototyping a "Vital Index"), but wouldn't feel comfortable publishing these results. Call it hypothesis with some exploratory data analysis, but without conclusive results and a call for further study in the discussion section. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 19:26, 6 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
Look at us, agreeing on something. We love to see it. Similar to your thought process, I think we could stand to reduce the amount of biographies at L5 by adding more historical events. It would, I believe, be a similar process to the topics that arise of "work" over "person" we see arise in literature, arts, etc. GauchoDude (talk) 12:34, 7 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Decrease the quota for Artists, musicians and composers

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It's hard to find somewhere to take the quota slots, but some people have complained that we overrepresent pop culture and this subpage is currently 33 entries under quota, which would make it only 67 over quota if we reallocate 100 slots.

Support
  1. This is the second-largest people category for Level 5, it makes sense to reallocate from here. GauchoDude (talk) 19:08, 11 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
Oppose
  1. Artists have a more permanent vitality that some types of vital people. Once a sports legend has his records broken we seem to support lowering his vitality. People will keep going to museums to see artists. Their records for sales prices and such don't seem to have as much sway in vitality. I can't see reducing artists. Composers are the same. Musicians seem to be a bit more fleeting, but I am against this nom.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 01:08, 24 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Neutral
  1. I'll vote for this if it turns out to be necessary to reallocate. Lophotrochozoa (talk) 14:18, 7 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
  2. Not my first choice, but Narrative Arts need slots from somewhere. Consider this a support only if neither of the other two (sportspeople and miscellaneous) pass. QuicoleJR (talk) 16:12, 14 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Decrease the quota for Sports figures

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We have already decreased the quota for sports people less than a year ago, and the subpage is still 24 over quota (so that it would be 124 over quota if we decrease it by 100), but it's hard to find better options.

Support
  1. J947 ‡ edits 01:30, 8 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
  2. Always support.GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 23:33, 13 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
  3. We need the slots somewhere else. QuicoleJR (talk) 16:02, 21 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
  4. Valuing sports figures so highly is itself a form of Western-centrism.飞车过大关 (talk) 13:57, 21 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
Oppose
  1. lol, no. GauchoDude (talk) 19:06, 11 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
    Do you still think that our inclusion of a Scrabble player forces us to have extremely generous standard for athletes? We have decided to remove him after all; I just closed the discussion. Lophotrochozoa (talk) 22:42, 11 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
    No, the standards across nearly all biographies is laughable. Sports is one of the few that's actually fairly tighter than most, potentially even the most stringent at this point. It's probably because we're not forcing inclusion of random small island countries' people because of "non-western bias" or whatever, but instead basing it much more on world impact and sporting merit. The fact is, the sports figures bucket is now nearly the smallest of the entire project and is repeatedly targeted over "quota concerns" despite some other subsections of people not even subject to quotas at all. Looking at you, 1,657 writers or 1,409 musicians or 881 social scientists etc.
    I'm sure it could still be cut down, as could any section, but at this point there's so much slop all over the other biogrpahy sections that sports is very much not the place I'd start. Considering the anti-sports crowd have been systematically reducing that quota for as long as I've been here, maybe more attention should be placed on the rest of the sections for once. GauchoDude (talk) 14:17, 12 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
    By the same token one could say that it's crazy we list 1,124 sports figures as opposed to just 472 actors, 229 painters, 181 historians, 138 economists, or 94 chemists. We don't achieve an equilibrium when all the big buckets we have are represented in similar numbers at VA5. Would your opinion change if the sports figures subpage was subsumed into the Miscellaneous subpage? That would be silly. Some occupations warrant more representation than others. I'm a big sports fan from a big sports country, but it still seems a bit absurd to me how many sportspeople we list. It's out of proportion to VA4 and the VA4 figure is already controversially large. J947 ‡ edits 02:19, 13 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
    I think biographies is extremely bloated. 15,000 is 30% of the vital articles at level 5. I'd be fine with cutting everyone but the 111 ones we have at level 3, and pushing those 111 to level 5. That said, the project is built on compromise. The problem is that sports figures have more representation then many other groups, when they generally don't meet a strict criteria for what would make a person "vital," namely "Individuals within the People section represent the pinnacles of their field with a material impact on the course of humanity, such as Albert Einstein 3 in "Inventors and scientists", William Shakespeare 3 in "Authors", and Genghis Khan 3 on "Leaders"." Even if an athlete represents the pinnacle of their field, there are very few that have a material impact on the course of humanity. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 04:35, 14 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
  2. Per GauchoDude. Bluevestman (talk) 23:52, 23 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
  3. Not on board with last reduction.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 01:05, 24 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Neutral
  1. I'll vote for this if it turns out to be necessary to reallocate. Lophotrochozoa (talk) 14:18, 7 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
  2. I've got to ask: if sports figures are reduced to 1000, and systemic bias is to be completely eliminated, does that mean reducing US sportspeople to only 50 entries because the US makes up only 5% of the world population? I would not be happy about that, on an English-language encyclopedia. 96.95.142.29 (talk) 19:18, 27 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
    No, American sportspeople would not go down to 50 slots. It would still have many more than that. QuicoleJR (talk) 15:02, 28 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
    If that's the case I'm not concerned one way or the other. 96.95.142.29 (talk) 21:02, 28 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Decrease the quota for Miscellaneous people

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We often find out-of place entries on the Miscellaneous people subpage. We have already decreased the quota less than a two months ago, and the subpage is still 49 over quota (so that it would be 149 over quota if we decrease it by 100), but it's hard to find better options.

Support
  1. J947 ‡ edits 01:30, 8 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
  2. There probably shouldn't even be a miscellaneous section. GauchoDude (talk) 19:07, 11 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
    The problem is that there are vital people who are hard to categorize. Every time I think we can eliminate that section, I look through it and find several influential people who have made major impacts on civilization. We have criminals, Pseudoscientists, Explorers, and Businesspeople in this this section. There are cases for these people having material impacts on human civilization, which is not something that can be said about most of the sports figures we list at level 4, much less level 5. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 04:23, 14 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
  3. We need the slots somewhere else. QuicoleJR (talk) 16:03, 21 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
  4. 飞车过大关 (talk) 08:27, 18 November 2025 (UTC)Reply
Oppose
Neutral
  1. I'll vote for this if it turns out to be necessary to reallocate. Lophotrochozoa (talk) 14:18, 7 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
Discussion

@J947, GauchoDude, QuicoleJR, and 飞车过大关: We have enough votes to decrease the quota but where do you want to increase it? Lophotrochozoa (talk) 15:31, 27 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

I want to give it to Narrative Arts, personally. QuicoleJR (talk) 16:03, 27 November 2025 (UTC)Reply
Yes, you've said that, but we can't vote on it unless you make a formal proposal. Or should I make the proposal for you? Lophotrochozoa (talk) 16:40, 27 November 2025 (UTC)Reply
I've been waiting to make a proposal until we had slots available to give. I'll open it shortly. QuicoleJR (talk) 16:49, 27 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Equalizations that amount to an unapproved quota shift

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Latest comment: 4 months ago4 comments2 people in discussion

Geography is a bit under quota at 5153/5200 of which Countries and subdivisions is at 1272/1300. So it would be perfectly reasonable to come up with 20 or so subdivisions to bring things closer to quota, but Wikipedia_talk:Vital_articles/Level/5/History_and_geography#Equalization_of_subdivisions_in_Africa and Wikipedia_talk:Vital_articles/Level/5/History_and_geography#Equalization_of_subdivisions_in_Asia amount to about 120 that seem to be passing with little opposition. It does not seem like anyone is aware of this shift as #More_quota_reallocations does not attempt to clear a path toward an increase of 100 for countries and subdivisions. Should we talk about whether we want to bump countries and subdivisions up to 1400.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 21:01, 9 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Be advised that nominator User:EchoVanguardZ has been blocked by User:Guerillero since May.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 21:03, 9 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

See Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/SameOldSameOldSameOld for more info on the block -- Guerillero Parlez Moi 10:06, 10 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Biographies

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Latest comment: 4 months ago6 comments3 people in discussion

As noted by @GeogSage above, specific people take up 30% of the entire Level 5 quota. That's roughly aligned with the proportion of biographies among all enwiki articles (~2m/~7m), but intuitively seems to me way too high within VA. Sure, as humans we're interested in other humans, but can biographies really deserve almost a third of the quota leaving two-thirds to cover literally all other important topics in the known universe? I'm not intending here to get into detailed argument about which specific chunks within People are too big, but I'm interested in whether at the macro level there's any consensus for a lower total size for the category as a whole? For comparison, specific people occupy the following percentages at higher levels: L1 0%, L2 0%, L3 ~10%, L4 20%. YFB ¿ 13:24, 19 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

I'd ideally like to get Level 5 bios down to 20%, although 25% might be a more realistic goal. QuicoleJR (talk) 14:04, 19 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
A journey of a thousand miles and all that, aim for 25% now and then see where we're at. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 17:08, 19 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
Sounds reasonable. 25% would be 12.5k so we'd be looking to lose 2,509 of the current People VAs. Which is enough to be getting on with! YFB ¿ 20:06, 19 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
I came across User:1ctinus/V5 Report, which if I'm reading the data correctly puts the number of American people VAs at 4,545 (sum of US and 'Multiple (US)'). Given the ludicrous US bias that represents—almost a third of the 15,000 people we list as vital, out of all the people who have ever lived, come from a country that is not even halfway through its third century—we could presumably look to find all of our 2,509 cuts by just dropping Americans. I'm not being provocative here. YFB ¿ 21:00, 19 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
I have been working on the stats for the project. I made a list recently for writers you can see here, and have data for the whole project posted on my github here. I think we can use some basic math to remove a lot of these people. For example, if you look at the vital scores for the writers (these are only valid WITHIN the writers, they don't account for other sub-pages), there are many who are in the bottom 10% for all/most of the variables I included. These could probably be cut outright. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 05:56, 21 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Take 100 slots from the Writers and Journalists quota

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Latest comment: 3 months ago6 comments5 people in discussion
Quota reduced 5-0. QuicoleJR (talk) 21:27, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Exactly what it sounds like. Writers is bloated with tons of unimportant people, and is one of the largest People categories on the list, with 2000 slots. The People category in general also has more slots than it really should. I don't think it would be hard to cut it down to the new quota of 1900, and there are several other categories that need the slots more. I would rather give these slots to Health, Technology, or Narrative Arts rather than Writers. This proposal does not come with an increase attached, so we will decide where to send these slots in a different discussion if this passes.

Support
  1. As nom. QuicoleJR (talk) 14:16, 19 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
  2. Sure. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 17:08, 19 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
  3. Yes, per nom and consistent with my comments above. YFB ¿ 20:01, 19 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
  4. Support Makkool (talk) 18:23, 22 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
  5. Per nom. GauchoDude (talk) 14:25, 24 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Oppose
Neutral
Discuss
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

More representation of transport

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Latest comment: 2 months ago11 comments6 people in discussion

Somehow, transportation only has 461 vital articles (1 level 2, 8 level 3, 75 level 4, 370 level 5). This seems awfully small for the method by which humans.... move. I find it much more likely to come across a biography that is a vital article than a transport article; although this is fair to some extent, I think there should be more allocated slots.

For example, I think that train operators on a national level (e.g. National Rail, Amtrak, Nederlandse Spoorwegen) should be Vital level 5, especially as flag carriers often are (British Airways, American Airlines, Air China).[a] Equally, major railways seem to be absent from vital articles (e.g. East Coast Main Line, West Coast Main Line, High Speed 1, High Speed 2 in the UK and I'm sure it's equivalent globally). Away from railways, I think the same could be said about major roadways (e.g. M25 motorway in the UK, Interstate 80 In the US, Route 1 (Iceland)).

As someone incredibly biassed towards transport, I think it should have 1000 articles at or above level five[b] (I'm completely willing to haggle down). For example, could we try handing WikiProjects a potential number of vital articles, let users generate ideas about ones worth of vital article, then work from there?

Interested to hear people's thoughts on this. JacobTheRox(talk | contributions)

Notes
  1. ^ interestingly KLM isn't level 5 and absolutely should be.
  2. ^ I'm not suggesting chucking a load of articles into level 5 but just making the space for them to slowly be added with consensus at their local WikiProjects.
Support
  1. Support as nom JacobTheRox(talk | contributions) 19:21, 30 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
    You have not submitted a list of nominees for consideration here. There is no specific list of articles for me to support or oppose. The way to change the composition of the vital articles is through the nomination process. Start nominating things. They will get a fair shot and you will get feedback. I would hop on this. I expect us to be overquota at level 5 within 30 days because of #Equalizations that amount to an unapproved quota shift. Once people see that we are overquota, people will start responding differently to batch and mass nominations.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 20:39, 30 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
    P.S. non of the links above should be nominated here. They should be nominated at Wikipedia talk:Vital articles/Level/5/Society.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 20:41, 30 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
    I will assemble a list then for Wikipedia talk:Vital articles/Level/5/STEM as that is where it seems to be hosted. JacobTheRox(talk | contributions) 14:50, 31 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
    I am not sure why you assert STEM. See Wikipedia:Vital_articles/Level/5/Society_and_social_sciences/Politics_and_economics#Transport.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 16:09, 31 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
    @TonyTheTiger That's only the transport companies. There is a large transportation section on Wikipedia:Vital_articles/Level/5/Technology#Transportation. Having these separated might be a problem. 166.140.230.92 (talk) 19:51, 31 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
  2. Support a shift of quota from biographies towards transport. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 18:26, 22 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
  3. Per nom. GauchoDude (talk) 14:25, 24 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Oppose
  1. Oppose until Jacob tells me what this vote passing would do. It's been a month and I still haven't received an answer as to what we're voting on here. QuicoleJR (talk) 12:41, 22 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
  2. There is no viable nomination here. We nominate specific articles or sets of articles, not broad themes.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 14:29, 22 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Neutral
Discuss

@JacobTheRox: What is this proposal about? Are we discussing a batch addition, a quota increase, or something else entirely? I need to know what I'm voting about before I vote on it. QuicoleJR (talk) 16:13, 24 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Sub-categorization for visual artist biographies

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Latest comment: 3 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Hey all, raising this here instead of just on the People sub-talk page so it reaches a broader group. But I've become a bit concerned by the subcategorization strategy for the Visual artists subsection on the VA5 Artists/musicians/composers list. In particular, there seems to have been a choice made to divide all artists into Western or non-Western (though the former is not explicitly named as such in the sub-categorization), with a much bigger emphasis on Western artists. Before I go on a tear with questions or post a wall of text, can anyone give insights into how the divisions/categories were created or are applied? I just see a lot of artists that could firmly belong under multiple sections, particularly many non-Western modern/contemporary artists who are globally recognized. It also feels quite odd to give Western artists the recognition of divisions by era or medium while non-Western artists are categorized solely by their geographic/national/ethnic identity.

Thanks for any insights! 19h00s (talk) 01:24, 7 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Splitting the L5 talk pages to correspond with the L5 pages

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Latest comment: 3 months ago4 comments4 people in discussion

I think it would be better to split the L5 talk pages to correspond to the L5 categories rather than bunch them together like we do now. For example, where does Philosophy and religion go? STEM is such a confusing name that doesn't correspond to the subpages. The categories are ambiguous, and they need adjusting. Therefore, I propose splitting the pages into these categories (same as main list). If there is a need to bunch up subpages, they can be done on a case by case basis.

  • People (no change)
  • History (split from History and geography)
  • Geography (split from History and geography)
  • Arts (split from Arts and everyday life)
  • Philosophy and religion (split from Society)
  • Everyday life (split from Arts and everyday life)
  • Society and social sciences (split from Society)
  • Biology and health sciences (split from STEM)
  • Physical sciences (split from STEM)
  • Technology (split from STEM)
  • Mathematics (split from STEM)

Interstellarity (talk) 00:10, 25 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

  1. Support and agreed. GauchoDude (talk) 11:46, 25 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
  2. Oppose unless the 5-way split is not resolving size issues. More pages would make participation more onerous with more discussions to watch.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 15:30, 25 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
  3. Oppose, like TonyTheTiger I wouldn't like further fragmentation of discussions.--LaukkuTheGreit (Talk•Contribs) 16:17, 25 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Please see discussion on L4 talk page about categories

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Latest comment: 3 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Wikipedia_talk:Vital_articles/Level/4#Reorganizing_the_categories_of_the_level_4_and_level_5_vital_articles. Interstellarity (talk) 00:24, 25 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

User:The Blue Rider Closing discussions without a quorum

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Latest comment: 1 month ago46 comments7 people in discussion
PASSED
There was broad consensus that closing without using the VA5 rules definition of a quorum was inappropriate. When called to a vote, all voters except User:The Blue Rider (4-1 total) felt that The Blue Rider's closes should be undone. I'll spend some time this afternoon trying to undo these closes and revert/restore/reopen the discussions-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 13:47, 26 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Discussion moved from WT:VA

User:The Blue Rider has been actively closing for the last 3 weeks doing dozens if not hundreds of closes. Several have been closed as Moot or Stale because discussion has become inactive for some time. Here are two 3-0 discussions closed as moot since Blue Rider's return to closing. There are about 700 edits to go through (a large proportion of which are closes). I have no idea how many premature closes have been completed. I reverted one today. Then I started to go through past edits, but I'll just show the first two that I found: here and here. This must stop and discussions must all be restored.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 19:29, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

P.S. not sure if this is only a VA5 thing.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 19:30, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I don’t see a problem with it. If a discussion hasn’t had any activity for months, it usually means the nominator didn’t do a good job explaining why the article is vital. In a way, not voting on a proposal is a kind of “vote” in itself. Further, the project has always struggled with having participants closing discussions. If we just let things run indefinitely, good luck getting the pages to even load. The Blue Rider 19:38, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
A little unrelated, but what's up with the excessive amount of antagonism that has been happening in this project? This used to be a much more friendly place. The Blue Rider 19:49, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
VA5 has voted on various iterations of this subject several times in the last year or so. Maybe I should move this discussion to VA5.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 22:14, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
The point is that many subjects are neglected by discussants. Our queueing system compels eventual quorums. Even neglected subjects need a deserve a decision from a quorum.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 22:26, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
+1. J947 ‡ edits 22:33, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Maybe we could have a system where proposals closed and archived as "no consensus" can be revived at a later date with the same votes in place, if someone wants to refresh the topic. Say, if after 8 months a proposal only has two votes, we could archive it, and if someone wants to later on we could consider the previous proposals votes. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 05:15, 4 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I would support this, then the previous votes wouldn't go to waste. Makkool (talk) 16:51, 4 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
User:GeogSage, I think implementing an 8 month expiration would reduce the compulsion to vote on old nominations at the top of the queue. Right now, we know if something is near the top of the queue after 6-8 months we better seriously consider voting or else it will just sit there. If we know there is an impending expiration, we would end up back in the situation where less central/popular topics don't get fully considered, thus defeating the purpose of the queue.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 22:39, 7 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I think this is counterproductive; most people think this is counterproductive; so I'd appreciate if closing discussions as no consensus (technically not moot) that were close to passing would cease. The fact that we have limited closers is counterbalanced by the fact that if two people are looking at a discussion and wondering when to close it, the person who thinks it ready to close first will close it (and the opinion of the person who was laying off closing it becomes irrelevant). So there's an inbuilt bias towards closing early that in my technocratic, procedural mind I dislike seeing exacerbated. J947 ‡ edits 22:33, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
The issue is with talk page size. They become VERY full. Wikipedia:Article size recommends keeping articles below 9,000 words, and some browsers may experience technical issues if the pages get to big when users try to edit them. If you look at the data for Level 5 people, it has 10,815 words and is 233,821 bytes. While this is not completely ridiculous, it can easily become that way if we get more proposals opened then closed. We need to strike balance between keeping page size under control, and allowing time for a vote to close as no consensus. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 00:03, 4 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
They're all fine (i.e., usable) at the moment. Compare the village pumps and ANI, which currently figure at over 500KB with few complaints despite being very important for everyone to access. Anecdotally, it's about that same point that we start to get problems here. If your proposal is closed without quorum, you're meant to raise it again at some later date. We're at a trough in page size and that future date could easily be at a peak in page size. If you think the trough of 250KB is itself too big for a talk page, then we should split them more. J947 ‡ edits 00:23, 4 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
We have consistently voted to split talk pages rather than speed up closures.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 00:32, 4 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Here's an idea: What if people actually voted on the old proposals and helped them reach a consensus? All it takes is a few votes here and there pushing things towards a result. Voting on others' proposals more is something we as a project need to work on. QuicoleJR (talk) 00:37, 4 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
That'd be nice, but we need to push for more visibility for older proposals somehow, because them sitting at the top of pages doesn't seem to help. PrimalMustelid (talk) 00:58, 4 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I think if everyone occasionally looked through the old proposals and left a few votes, it would really add up. I just did it on the Society page, for example. I also think that we could maybe add a "quid pro quo" system where you have to vote on proposals before adding your own, although I'm not sure how that would work in practice. I also like the idea of sending out invitations to various WikiProjects to invite more people to vote on these proposals. QuicoleJR (talk) 01:16, 4 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I don't think a quid quo pro system would work in practice, since it'll end up as a gatekeeping system for newer or infrequent users. The main reason that it was implemented in DYK was to control the flooding of nominated content, backed by the high activity rate there; I don't see it not blowing up in our faces here. Theoretically, we could consider sending out occasional invitations for proposals to WikiProjects related to nominated content. PrimalMustelid (talk) 01:34, 4 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I scroll through periodically to vote. The issue is for many of the proposals, I either don't care or don't believe my opinion is valid due to a lack of knowledge on the topic. I am often tempted to just vote my gut and speed vote everything, but that doesn't seem right. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 01:52, 4 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I find your hesitancy in this valid. My opinion is that some vibe-based voting in needed though. Not every topic has enough people that know about it participating in this project to make fully informed votes. So, rather than those topics never having progress and instead being neglected, we should do more bold voting. Makkool (talk) 16:51, 4 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
As another point, 3-0 discussions should definitely be voted on and closed as 3-1 rather than closed as no consensus Makkool (talk) 16:54, 4 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

Vote regarding pre-quorum closures

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This discussion is going to digress without anything being resolved. What I meant to do is determine what to do regarding the pre-quorum closures. I propose that all of User:The Blue Rider's pre-quorum closures over the last three weeks be reopened/restored/reverted to allow voting to continue and that they assume their previous date priority in the queue. I am not sure whether they should be requested to revert themselves or some sort of administrative reversion should occur.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 04:33, 4 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

Support
  1. Support as nom. -TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 04:33, 4 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
  2. Support per nom. I agree in this issue of nominations not gaining interest, that we should do "no consensus" closings at some point. But I think it should be some set time that we decide on, like the 3 months mentioned in the closing note The Blue Rider found. In this case on pre-quorum closes, I think they should be all opened back, because I don't think one user should make calls like this for the project. Rather, I think it's always better to cast a vote. Like, if you think a nomination is not getting supporting votes because it's unconvincing, then oppose and it gets one step closer to be closed as failed. Makkool (talk) 16:34, 4 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
    Eventually, a user does need to make a call on the proposal; it's intrinsic to a closing act. In my impression, people think closures are the final say on the topic, and thus have this sort of phobia towards closing discussions. Like GeogSage pointed out, the articles can be renominated at a later date!
    For example, TonyTheTiger reverted my closure on the proposal for JD.com, when it had been 5 months since the last vote was casted and the tally was 1-1. JD.com can be reproposed later if needed, it's okay to close discussion when they didn't attract participants for that much time! Obviously, it would have made no functional sense to oppose the proposal, wait even more months, and only then, close it. The Blue Rider 17:00, 4 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
    At least the discussion has begun! If the aim is to get it proposed at a later date, then you're starting from scratch again. What if that proposal also fails to gain traction quickly? Should a third one be started? Seems like an easy way to make the proposer discontented to me. I've got no idea why two discussions on the same topic is seen as preferable to one long-time one. J947 ‡ edits 22:08, 4 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
    Two oppose votes is enough to close as failed, and closing only takes seven days from the last vote. I strongly prefer voting on these old proposals than "no quorum" closes. QuicoleJR (talk) 22:13, 4 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
    @J947 and QuicoleJR: you both sounded like you supported, but neither of you actually cast a vote although you opined in the support section.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 00:30, 5 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
  3. This will be a headache to enact, but I think we should. It's not fair to make TBR do it, since they are a volunteer like the rest of us, and I will help with some of it. I understand the rationale behind these closures, but I think that keeping these discussions open until a quorum is reached would be better for the project. The best solution would be for more people to vote support or oppose on these proposals so that a quorum is reached. QuicoleJR (talk) 00:58, 5 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
  4. J947 ‡ edits 21:59, 7 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Oppose
  1. A nomination is not something sacred that should be uphold to the highest of considerations before being closed. If it failed to attract participants then there's something wrong with the nomination (lack of interest or not convincing enough) or maybe it's a more general problem of the VA project. It's a bad precedent to mass revert closures that had no participation for many, many months; I'm not going to do it myself nor I think there's an administrative action available to mass revert non-disruptive edits on specific pages. The Blue Rider 09:43, 4 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Neutral
  1. Seems like a headache to implement. This was if anything a good faith set of closures in our very complicated ecosystem, and I don't think much harm was done. I suggested above we could have a system that allows users to re-open no-consensus proposals at a later date if they're interested, where votes can be imported by pinging the users, and if they want to change their vote they can. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 16:46, 4 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Discuss
@J947, GeogSage, QuicoleJR, PrimalMustelid, and The Blue Rider: , Pinging all prior discussants.
TonyTheTiger, you said: VA5 has voted on various iterations of this subject several times in the last year or so, but the only discussion I could find debating something similar said in the closing note: ...We can make judgment calls for extremely long-lived proposals as necessary (3+ months)..., so, in reality, J947's comment: ...most people think this is counterproductive... is not true, quite the contrary. The Blue Rider 10:01, 4 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
We voted to increase from 3 to 4 supports required, to require 7 day wait (later excepting SNOW closes), and have had many procedural votes about how to support and whether to continue both of those decisions.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 12:38, 4 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Exactly, so nothing directly about pre-quorum closures, thanks. The Blue Rider 12:40, 4 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
We have voted to make quorum more strict and uphold it. Above there is a nomination about waiting 7 days that seems like it is going to be retained.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 12:42, 4 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

N.B.

VA4 restored 2 discussions -TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 17:54, 26 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
STEM restored 10 discussions -TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 17:54, 26 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
Society restored 35 discussions -TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 18:19, 26 October 2025 (UTC)Reply


Arts and entertainment 5 discussions were previously restored in 13:47, September 28, 2025 by User:Makkool
People 8 discussions were previously restored at 07:54, September 20, 2025 by User:Makkool, restored 5 discussions-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 21:52, 26 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Finding some quota for Wikipedia:Vital_articles/Level/5/Biology_and_health_sciences/Health#Drugs_and_medication

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Latest comment: 2 months ago11 comments3 people in discussion

This has been something I've wanted to do for a while, but it is a bit of a large move. The WHO Model List of Essential Medicines includes 1200 drugs, however we only have 159 articles for Drugs and medication. In terms of the vital article projects goals, I believe these drugs should be included for prioritization of improvements and to be on a centralized watchlist. When a doctor tells someone they need a new drug, or if a family member is starting a new drug, often the first thing they do is check Wikipedia to understand what it is. These articles should be the highest quality to avoid medical misinformation. As AI is using Wikipedia for training data, and medical professionals are using AI to help them, we should try to keep that training data of extremely high quality. I'm not sure where we can find more then 1,000 quota in the project though. Starting discussion here to see if it is possible.

Discuss

GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 01:54, 7 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

  • Is this list more important than listing every Nobel Prize winner or every Hall of Fame athlete? Like always we evaluate each subject on a case-by-case basis.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 13:31, 7 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
    Yes. People aren't interacting with Nobel Prize winners in their day to day life. Misinformation related to hall of fame athletes will not result in people not getting life saving medication. Hall of fame athletes are not vital, at all, based on the vital article criteria. Essential medicines are. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 19:49, 7 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
    This is a shocking line of thinking. If people (or AI) are consulting Wikipedia for medical advise, then that's beyond our control. "People aren't interacting with Nobel Prize winners in their day to day life." I mean, if it weren't for Alexander Fleming, penicillin wouldn't be on that list. They may not be going out to beers with them, but they absolutely run across the work of Nobel Prize winners every day.
    That said, I also think we could use more coverage here, because the impacts are fairly widespread and substantial. However, that likely represents a fraction of the 1,200 drugs listed no different than we list a fraction of authors, historical events, celestial bodies, and whatever else.
    Jim Bob getting medical information from ChatGPT that pulls from Wikipedia, or Googling it himself because he doesn't trust his doctors, is of absolutely no material consideration for me. GauchoDude (talk) 20:38, 7 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
    If people (or AI) are consulting Wikipedia for medical advise, then that's beyond our control. Bad information in some articles is going to be more impactful then others. Medical information should be of the highest quality. Alexander Fleming   4 is important in an academic sense, Penicillin   4 (and Antibiotic   3 drugs) are important to peoples every day life. We have central outside authorities that have made a list of essential drugs, how are we going to go through and vote on which one we think is most important?
    Jim Bob getting medical information from ChatGPT that pulls from Wikipedia, or Googling it himself because he doesn't trust his doctors, is of absolutely no material consideration for me. Jim Bob votes. Elected officials make decisions without consulting or against the advice of experts to make Jim Bob validated. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 20:52, 7 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
    "We have central outside authorities that have made a list of essential drugs, how are we going to go through and vote on which one we think is most important?"
    Literally the same way we don't have every single member of List of galaxies, Lists of animals, List of extinction events, List of military occupations, etc. This entire project is predicated on us making determinations on a case by case basis as to what's important for inclusion, whether rightly or wrongly.
    I have no idea what you're on about for your last bit. GauchoDude (talk) 21:30, 7 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
    We can avoid this issue by relying on outside sources to help us make determinations. As it stands, the list is absolutely chaos, has no consistency, and no way to justify why some things are vital and others are not. For example, why is Sevoflurane not listed, but Propofol   5 is? Do we have expert editors that can come in and discuss why we should keep Paracetamol   5, but Calcium gluconate is not worth including? How many individual votes would we need, and what are the odds that any consistency would come out of voting on one drug at a time? The vital article list has no direction, and most editors don't even consider vital article criteria, metrics, or really anything besides their opinion, much less outside sources. There is no value to the project if we can't justify the reasoning for including some things, while excluding others. Generally, on Wikipedia, outside sources matter a lot more then editors opinions, however this is not the case for vital articles.
    There is a lot of medical misinformation on the internet, and this impacts the highest levels of government. If Jim Bob falls for this, they can vote for people that will put policy into place that is based on medical misinformation spread online. We should prioritize keeping articles related to essential medicine at the highest quality to avoid contributing to the infodemic surrounding modern medicine. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 21:43, 7 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
    User:GeogSage There is no reason to propose any broad class of dozens or hundreds of articles for mass removal or addition. Everything should be done on a case by case basis. The default is that a drug is not vital enough to be among the most vital 50,000 articles until an argument is made that it is. Proposing that broad classes should be added or removed because we are not expert enough to decide is ass-backwards.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 03:46, 9 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
    The list is pretty much full at this point, the brainstorming era is over, now we need to do some major edits. Case-by-case voting gets us an inconsistent, wildly biased list. I don't think Wikipedia editors debating which of the drugs on the UN list, are vital and which aren't, on a case-by-case basis will produce meaningful results. I don't actually think the opinions of the editors who vote are consistent with project criteria, or really anything, we mostly seem to have stuff added on first impulse and vibes. I think that we should use outside sources to determine what drugs are considered vital, and then consistently adding them all at once (Other sections would benefit from bringing in outside literature as well). Trying to go through all the drugs would take years, and the editors voting on them would come and go, and if a particular drug passes or fails is a toss up. The status quo in vital article space is incredibly entrenched, and we should consider ways to make changing large portions of it easier in order to manage 50,000 articles. The fact we do not already list the drugs considered essential by the United Nations is "ass-backwards." We have less space for drugs and medicine then film actors.
    We need something to point to that justifies the items on the list besides anonymous people's opinions. Being able to say "we included the drugs listed by the United Nations as essential, deferring to those experts" would be a step towards that consistency. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 06:24, 9 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
    Great, then I look forward to us including members of the entire Hollywood Walk of Fame, every sports Hall of Fame, every individual who has received Orders, decorations, and medals of the United Kingdom, all Medal of Honor recipients, Presidential Medal of Freedom awardees, etc.
    Unless, just maybe, because a list exists and is put together by experts, that doesn't necessarily mean we need inclusion of the full breadth of the list. Of course, unless you know more than the President(s) of the United States, Royal Family, Hollywood, etc. in those respective topics.
    This was obviously in sarcasm and as TonyTheTiger has also seemed to agree, this should continue to be done on a case by case basis. I will have no further comment. GauchoDude (talk) 12:24, 9 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
    Your examples are all biographies. As I've said, individual people are rarely vital per the project criteria, certainly not as vital as essential medicines. Given a binary choice between keeping the list as is, and removing all biographies, I would be absolutely choose the latter. That said, those lists of important people would likely be better then whatever we have now. Wikipedia is built on references to outside sources, our existing list is completely original research. Individual editors making it harder to change the status quo of the list is the problem, as fundamentally, it is not possible to manage 50,000 articles with the existing system. It literally is less red tape to get an article deleted then removed/added from the vital article list. If I would have proposed this 10 years ago, it would likely not have been met with this level of resistance, and I probably could have just boldly done it without discussion. Now, we are left with a list made of those bold decisions by a Hodge podge of editors, and no way to clean it up before the heat death of the universe. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 16:17, 9 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

Implementing Wikipedia_talk:Vital_articles/Level/5/Archive_22#Require_2_oppose_votes_before_failing

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Latest comment: 1 month ago12 comments5 people in discussion

No one updated Template:Vital article level 5 rules following the May discussion closure. I believe the thrust of this result was that

  1. 3-1 votes have to be left open
  2. 3-2, 2-2 and 1-2 votes (or the rare 0-2 where the nominator did not support) may be closed as failed after 15 days and 7 days after last vote. (nothing new for 3-2, and 2-2)
If I have incorrectly updated the template, feel free to get involved.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 23:23, 7 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

Odd interpretation of rule change, IMO at Wikipedia_talk:Vital_articles/Level/5/History_and_geography/Archive_9#Remove_or_move_Electrification

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Vital articles 5½

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Latest comment: 1 month ago5 comments4 people in discussion

Is there a master list somewhere of all articles that used to be vital but got voted out of level five? Or were proposed for level five and failed? Should keep such a list, call it Vital articles 5½. Hyperbolick (talk) 22:18, 8 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

Don't think so, but there is Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/4/Removed for some articles removed from VA4 before VA5 came about. It is a useful resource for potential additions. J947 ‡ edits 23:02, 8 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
P.S. note that the template does not account for move/redirects. So Jay-Z does not look like he is VA5, because he must have been at Jay Z, when he was removed.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 23:48, 8 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
No, but you can read through the talk page archives to get a similar result. QuicoleJR (talk) 13:59, 8 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
@QuicoleJR: that’s exactly the work I wish to evade. Hyperbolick (talk) 02:51, 9 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Recount at Wikipedia_talk:Vital_articles/Level/5/People/Archive_14#Swap_Kim_Campbell_with_Mark_Carney

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Latest comment: 2 months ago6 comments4 people in discussion
Close corrected to remove Kim Campbell.

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

It seems to me that there was consensus to remove Kim Campbell. Do others agree?-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 00:00, 9 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 00:00, 9 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

Yes, I count 5–1 in favour of removing Campbell and 2–5 against adding Carney. J947 ‡ edits 00:15, 9 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
My reading was 2 full supports, 1 full oppose, 4 oppose for addition, 3 supports for removal as seen bellow that closure. I just forgot to remove her, sorry. The Blue Rider 01:07, 9 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

What is the appropriate pageviews to pay attention to (baseline or current event?)

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Latest comment: 2 months ago5 comments4 people in discussion

I was not sure where to make this inquiry. This is a general question with a specific example that is currently at issue. For the level of pageviews I am interested in discussing it is probably only a VA5 issue. Because of the Sudanese civil war (2023–present), recent pageviews for Sudanese topics are elevated. Should I assess vitality using this elevated pageview level or the base level pageview level. Here are 10-year pageview stats for 10 Sudanese states at issue for VA5 level. Many have baseline levels below 25 and some below 10 pageviews per day. They all have elevated pageviews since the conflict arose. Which pageviews are important for this type of event that could last for years or could end soon?-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 17:42, 30 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

I have always been under the assumption that it's the entire page's history for average daily page views. Commenting here to see if there are any differences in opinion. GauchoDude (talk) 19:21, 30 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I tend to look at average daily views over the past month, but I don't think there is a good rule. The problem with data like this is how you frame it can impact the conclusions drawn from it. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 19:55, 30 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Baseline ideally. No (i.e. vanishingly few) concepts are vital one month then not vital the next. I've got a script (or maybe gadget, idk) that shows last month's pageviews at the top of the article. That generally suffices given its similarity to the baseline, but in cases where it's likely they'll differ it's best to check. J947 ‡ edits 02:09, 1 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
  Comment: One interesting one I saw when looking at the projects overall statistics was an individual who passed away on our list exploded in views for a very short time, which skewed some analysis. The page for Dead Internet Theory goes viral periodically when someone makes a new TikTok or YouTube, and the views over the past few years have a rather extreme range. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 04:30, 1 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Take 100 slots from Philosophers, historians, political and social scientists

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Latest comment: 24 days ago14 comments7 people in discussion

This one might be controversial, since it's a more academic category of biographies, but I think that this category could stand to lose 100 slots. It's already 50 articles below its current quota, and it wouldn't be too hard to find more targets for removal. Several of the people listed are "work above the person" cases who could be swapped for their major works.

I also think that Biographies in general needs cuts across the board, but many of the sections I'd like to cut more just got cut and need some time before we can take another 100. If this passes, I'll likely open a proposal to give these slots to Narrative Arts, since that page is overquota and there are more good add targets than removal targets. But for now, this is just a straight cut, not a swap. We don't need to give this many slots to philosophers, especially since it's already well under quota.

Support
  1. As nom. QuicoleJR (talk) 13:58, 8 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
  2. Eh, per discussion below, reluctant support. Biographies were added boldly by the thousands, we will need to be aggressive to balance things out before the heat death of the universe. Quota is needed else where. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 01:44, 15 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
  3. Same. I don't love making cuts here when there are so many creatives (while not a perfect description, for me that's "Artists, musicians, and composers", "Entertainers, directors, producers, and screenwriters", and "Writers and journalists"). I'd also reduce the state leadership bits ("Politicians and leaders" and "Military personnel, revolutionaries, and activists") before this area, but this is the proposal at hand. GauchoDude (talk) 16:02, 24 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
    Politicians and leaders has way too many omissions of major international political figures to even consider cutting while so many artists et al are listed Iostn (talk) 21:18, 26 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
Oppose
  1. Cutting athletes and entertainers -- many of whom are famous only in the English-speaking world -- is more meaningful than cutting philosophers, historians, and social scientists.--飞车过大关 (talk) 13:53, 21 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
    @飞车过大关: Obviously. However, the last cut to Sportspeople was too recent to garner enough support for another one (although another one is necessary) and Entertainers has seen too much pushback for now. Ideally, I'd like to see almost all of the biography categories lose some slots, since I'd like to move towards listing other topics, and I'd like to get bios down to about 12.5k instead of 15k on the list. That will require some amount of cuts to the academic listings, and this category of academics was the easiest first target. Because of this, I ask you to please reconsider your oppose. I'd also be willing to compromise on only taking 50 slots, bringing Philosophers down to the number of articles it actually has, but I'd prefer to take the full 100. QuicoleJR (talk) 14:04, 24 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
  2. As it stands, this section is far too unbalanced towards European/Amerian figures, and any attemptto rectify that will entail adding more figures. Also strongly oppose is this proposal isonly for cutting 100 rather than 50, which would be more defensible. Iostn (talk) 21:16, 26 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
    @Iostn: I would support only cutting 50. This proposal was opened before that one passed. QuicoleJR (talk) 21:18, 26 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
Discuss
  1. I tend to think we under represent these individuals. A random Sports illustrated Magazine gets more views then a peer-reviewed journal, and the biographies of academics are not always the most prominent. That said, based on the vital article criteria I think academics fit better then almost all our other biographies. For example, I tried to get Nominate the geographer Arthur Getis. Not a lot of interwiki links, not a lot of views on Wikipedia, but his scopus scopus report is 13,155 citations and an H-index of 36 (meaning at least 36 different papers with at least 36 citations, I'm fairly confident they are missing a lot of his work in this metric). There is a journal article titled Arthur Getis: a legend in geographical systems. He won the Distingusihed scholarship award from the American Assocaition of Geographers, which indicates a "distinguished track record of high-quality research in geography which has moved the discipline forward." He has an entry in the Sage Encylopedia of Geography. I believe there are many individuals on the list of academics that are similiar, low Wikipedia metrics with huge footprints IRL. I'm not sure why this is besides the academics who know about these people can't be bothered to make the pages for them. I could find 50 geographers we don't include that are similar cases, I'm sure this is true in other disciplines. Not voting oppose, mostly because I'm not a fan of biographies in general, but these wouldn't be where I'd start. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 03:42, 9 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
    @GeogSage: Trust me, I'd love to cut Sportspeople above Philosophers. However, Philosophers was the easiest cut that didn't already have an open proposal, and the cuts need to come from somewhere. Once the multiples of 50 proposal passes, I'd be willing to only take 50 slots as a compromise, but we need these slots elsewhere (especially in Narrative Arts). QuicoleJR (talk) 16:06, 14 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
    Fair enough, which is why I didn't outright oppose and just opened discussion. If this gets enough momentum that my vote is the deciding, I'll reluctantly support. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 17:23, 14 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
  2. I would support if we separated the "Jurists" section into legal scholars and practitioners, and moved the latter to Politicians and leaders. Tabu Makiadi (talk) 00:27, 10 November 2025 (UTC)Reply
    I'd be fine with that, since some judges are democratically elected and many of them take political roles when ruling on the legality of legislation. QuicoleJR (talk) 00:31, 10 November 2025 (UTC)Reply
  3. I too would be fine with 50. Hyperbolick (talk) 01:20, 10 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Allow quota to be multiples of 50

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Latest comment: 1 month ago10 comments8 people in discussion
Multiples of 50 allowed 7-0. QuicoleJR (talk) 14:05, 24 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The restriction that the quota for each subpage has to be a multiple of 100 makes it hard to move many entries unless their number is close to a multiple of 100. Thus I would like to allow multiples of 50.

Support
  1. As nominator Lophotrochozoa (talk) 23:25, 8 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
  2. Per nom. GauchoDude (talk) 00:10, 9 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
  3. Or just allow it to be whatever. It's unnecessarily restrictive, especially now we have a subpage of just 129 articles. We set the quotas by vote; there's no need to have any more restrictions. J947 ‡ edits 00:39, 9 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
  4. I never found the rationale for quotas to be multiples of 100 fully convincing. As we slowly optimise the VA5 lists the large quota chunks increasingly get in the way.--LaukkuTheGreit (Talk•Contribs) 06:30, 9 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
  5. I wouldn't want to go any lower than this, but I am willing to allow this much wiggle room. It would make things much easier. QuicoleJR (talk) 23:43, 9 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
  6. TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 02:18, 10 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
  7. I don't see the harm in using intervals of 50. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 03:15, 10 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
Oppose
Neutral
Discussion
  1. I've been too busy to participate much and probably will be for a while. I won't oppose it, but as someone that really pushed for the denominations of 100 (and actually would prefer larger ones), I'll just repeat the warning: The easier and more common it is to do quota proposals, the more the VA5 list will go off the rails. The overwhelming justification for the quotas is to force hard decisions on the articles; once you start changing the quotas to ease current proposals, the tail is wagging the dog. Every quota discussion also sucks up oxygen from refining the actual lists, and without letting the quotas act as a brake (barring some other major process change), the bloated categories will keep growing through salami-slicing. Just my 2 cents. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 14:12, 18 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
I appreciate this perspective, but have a different view. The vital articles were created through a poorly planned set of bold additions by editors trying to get the stuff important to them included. The general addition process is a bottom up approach to making a list. The quota adjustments are a top down approach, that can help with general planning and guardrails for the additions/subtractions. As it stands, several thousand articles likely need to be cut, and doing so through current means is going to take a substantial amount of time. It appears that some temporary structure from early in the project has essentially become permanent, and trying to change stuff is an up hill battle. The list is pretty conservative, once something is added, removing it is really challenging. We need some mechanisms to go a bit faster, and I think quota can help with that. As discussed earlier, I prototyped a vital index, maybe we can use something like that to help set some minimum quantifiable standards, set a quota, and cut everything that doesn't make the cut until we are at quota. Then discuss fine tuning and swaps after. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 05:23, 21 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Are people listed here (specifically level 5) supposed to have long-lasting importance?

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Latest comment: 1 month ago4 comments2 people in discussion

I understand it as being a list of people that people care about currently. But if it was a list of who would still be considered important in a century, most of the actors and musicians (not only the sports people) would have to be removed. However, I'm not sure what people will care about in a century is especially relevant for Wikipedia. 173.8.211.177 (talk) 17:15, 9 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

There isn't a clear consensus on who exactly is "supposed" to be listed at each level. It's mostly a set of extremely loose suggestions, gut feelings, popularity, and people that happen to be included in the American 5th grade history curriculum. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 17:32, 9 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
So then I guess it's okay to propose people who are very popular recently, regardless of what anyone can predict for their level of fame in a century. I'll start doing that. 173.8.211.177 (talk) 17:37, 9 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
It's fine to propose who ever, but be aware there is still discussion on how IP editor votes are to be counted. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 17:39, 9 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Splitting Technology into some sub pages.

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Latest comment: 10 days ago5 comments5 people in discussion

If you look at our categories, technology is the 2nd largest after history that is missing sub-pages, with 3,220 articles. I believe we can split this out a bit to make the pages more manageable. I'm not quite sure how to go about this, but on first glance, without changing the current section headings, something like:

  • Basics (20 articles) and engineering (65 articles), Machinery and tools (324 articles): 409 articles total
  • Military technology (308 articles): 308 articles total
  • Industry (219 articles), Infrastructure (182 articles): 401 articles total
  • Agriculture (234 articles), Biotechnology (44 articles), and Medical technology (44 articles): 322 articles total
  • transportation (currently 462 articles): 462 articles total
  • Computing and information technology (currently 613 articles), Media and communication(123): 736 articles total
  • Electronics (currently 116 ) and energy (currently 177): 293 articles total
  • Navigation and timekeeping (84 articles), Optical technology (62 articles), Astronomical technology (73 articles), and Space (72 articles): 291 articles total

We would need to round out sub-quotas and such, and this method results in a lot of smaller categories. They could be further combined or completely reorganized, but I think splitting them up a bit is smart.

Support general reorganization
  1. As nom. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 04:55, 18 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
  2. Sounds good. Lophotrochozoa (talk) 10:48, 24 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
  3. Agreed. GauchoDude (talk) 13:00, 24 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
  4. Sure. ChaoticVermillion (converse, contribs) 01:23, 13 November 2025 (UTC)Reply
  5. 飞车过大关 (talk) 18:59, 23 November 2025 (UTC)Reply
Oppose
Discuss possible

Regarding 飞车过大关 closers

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Latest comment: 1 month ago12 comments7 people in discussion

So User:飞车过大关 just closed a bunch of discussions. I'm a little concerned at how close this is to the last vote casted, especially since a lot of these last votes was their own. Does anyone else feel this way? Bluevestman (talk) 19:52, 25 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

We are talking about these and [1], which is a bit over 2 dozen closes.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 03:56, 26 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
Actually, it is too early to close these discussions; there's supposed to be at least a seven-day wait period after the last vote was casted. And they're not just closing it before this period ends, they're casting their vote and closing simultaneously! Can someone reopen these discussions? I would love to do them myself, but I don't have the time right now. Bluevestman (talk) 22:25, 25 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
@Tabu Makiadi, @LaukkuTheGreit, @QuicoleJR. Bluevestman (talk) 01:04, 26 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
  • All closes were against current policy, but if I am seeing things correctly all but one were for unanimous discussions. I would prefer if we stayed within policy (and reversed these closes), but it is not likely to make that big of a difference.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 03:56, 26 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
    Fair. I'm not a huge fan of the seven-day wait period on top of the other wait periods though. Vital articles has instruction creep that has exceeded most other projects. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 04:04, 26 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
    Revert even if only for formality, there's no use to the rules if we don't enforce them.--LaukkuTheGreit (Talk•Contribs) 13:59, 26 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
  • Agree with what looks to be the consensus. If the current rules state these should not have been closed yet, then it's pretty black and white that all need to be reversed. Also, while I'm not claiming impropriety by any stretch, does anyone else find it a bit odd that this account was created within the week, is only active on en.wiki, has over 250+ edits and has only participated in the wildly niche Vital Articles project without any edits anywhere else, and is already closing articles? It certainly might be a skill issue on my end, but I've been here for months and don't even know how to close articles. Feels weird. GauchoDude (talk) 15:20, 26 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
    "wildly niche" - you know it's prominently linked on the talk page of every important article, right? 12.50.145.130 (talk) 15:00, 27 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
    @TonyTheTiger, @GauchoDude: It is strangely common for accounts to be created and immediately dive into the vital article space. I brought it up first back in May, and have since done two different SP investigations (First, Second). I am maintaining an off Wiki list of evidence, but so far SP investigations are not quite as fruitful as I thought they would be. There is the possibility that something draws new users to this point of the project. There is also the possibility of a user using VPNs or something to make related accounts appear unrelated in investigation. I smell a calamari, but don't want to open a third investigation until I have more time to go over the list I have. I recommend looking at every editor in the project. I have columns for number of edits, first edit, and approximate number of edits before entering vital. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 19:47, 27 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
    I am a new user from China, and I often browse English Wikipedia while surfing the web (I rarely read Chinese Wikipedia because its articles are full of errors). Once, I learned about the existence of the Vital Articles project on English Wikipedia and found it very interesting. However, when I clicked into the list of people, I noticed it was filled with Anglocentrism, 21st-century centrism, and a bias toward sports and entertainment. Finding this unacceptable, I registered this account. Upon learning that voting was required for Vital Articles, I participated in the voting. Later, I realized that Vital Articles is a very extensive project, so I decided to get involved.
    I must clearly state that I am participating in the voting solely as an individual and as a Chinese citizen, not representing anyone else. If I were truly manipulating other accounts, the number of votes in Vital Articles would have doubled, and those accounts would certainly have suggested adding more Han Chinese figures.
    Lastly, my English proficiency is quite poor, which leads to many grammatical and word errors in my responses. This also caused me to misunderstand the Vital Articles discussion archiving rules, misinterpreting the 7-day rule. Frankly, when I saw that you suspected me of being a malicious user, I was truly hurt. My intention in closing the discussion was to promote updates to Vital Articles, not to disrupt or cause trouble.
    As for my proficiency in coding, as a Chinese person who has learned HTML, I am not unfamiliar with Wikipedia’s source code. In fact, the first time I used the atopg template, I missed the abot code. So, I really don’t understand why using the atopg template would suggest fraudulent activity on my part.
    Finally, I apologize to the English Wikipedia community for my rash actions. However, I must emphasize that my participation in this discussion was not with malicious intent, and I can only represent myself, not other users. 飞车过大关 (talk) 03:49, 28 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Æ's old account wasn't working repeatedly making unapproved changes to Narrative Arts

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Latest comment: 1 month ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Over the past few weeks, Æ's old account wasn't working (talk · contribs) has repeatedly added films to WP:Vital articles/Level/5/Arts/Narrative arts without them having passed a vote, and has continued despite my reversions. VA5's BRD period is long over and additions/removals must be approved first. I have zero experience with edit war procedure (I tend to edit less busy/controversial articles) so I thought I'd first start a discussion here, plus I thought others here need to notice this.--LaukkuTheGreit (Talk•Contribs) 13:55, 26 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

That's sounds really annoying. Bluevestman (talk) 20:58, 27 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Take 100 slots from Countries and Subdivisions

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Latest comment: 24 days ago3 comments3 people in discussion

There shouldn't be 1300 slots just for countries and administrative divisions. I feel like it would be easy to remove 70 from the list. I would probably move them to Physical Geography, or split 50/50 between Geography Basics and Physical Geography. ChaoticVermillion (talk) 11:26, 1 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

I could support this, if you have a good proposal for which articles to cut. The 50/50 split is needed. It would be fairly easy to remove 70 from the list if we had everyone on the same page, but there is a real hoarder mentality and change is very conservative. I just did a bold move of 3 articles from Countries and Subdivisions into Geography basics, but there is only so much we can shuffle for a proposal like this. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 19:02, 1 November 2025 (UTC)Reply
I'm good with this, I really want to give Narrative Arts more quota and at this point I'm willing to take the slots from nearly any other subpage. If you can come up with enough good removals, I'll gladly support the quota shift. QuicoleJR (talk) 20:48, 9 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Rename the "Countries and subdivisions" page to mention regions

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Latest comment: 13 days ago1 comment1 person in discussion

There is a proposal to rename the "Countries and subdivisions" subpage. Lophotrochozoa (talk) 01:20, 21 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

reminder about the zero interwiki article list

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Latest comment: 10 days ago1 comment1 person in discussion

I'm not very active here anymore, but I believe 1cintus had posted a list of articles with no language links and set up a quarry in the last few months. While not necessarily being a complete reason for demotion in it of itself, it is a good list to check for articles that may not meet vitality, so anyone interested could look through it. ALittleClass (talk) 02:58, 24 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Add 100 slots to Narrative Arts

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Latest comment: 4 days ago7 comments6 people in discussion

I've been saying this for a while, but slots finally opened up, so let's make it official. Our coverage of the narrative arts is currently very much inadequate, and we have hit the current quota. There are several important works still needing representation, but to make room for them, we need quota. The reduction to Miscellaneous people should be enough to fill this void and allow us to properly represent the narrative arts. I would have used the Writers quota removal to make it a more thematically appropriate transfer, but that got used up too quickly. Narrative Arts has needed a quota bump for a while, so let's give it one.

Support
  1. As nom. QuicoleJR (talk) 16:52, 27 November 2025 (UTC)Reply
  2. Obviously. λ NegativeMP1 17:24, 27 November 2025 (UTC)Reply
  3. Sure. I would also support moving some to Culture as well. Another "place" we could look is the specific geography locations in Physical geography, and sub-regions and cities. There are several that I think could get snipped, and were likely added by people with specific interest in the place, rather then because of their broad vitalness. I've been looking at how to approach that section using spatial analysis, rather then general stats.The lowest hanging fruit is always going to be biographies though. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 19:36, 27 November 2025 (UTC)Reply
  4. Support 50 slots, tentatively oppose 100. The section is overquota and needs breathing room, but I'd like us to clean up some weaker entries like Loyalist Teaching   5 and The Woman Warrior   5 and/or see if other sections like Technology could also use expansion before jumping to a 100 increase in Narrative Arts.--LaukkuTheGreit (Talk•Contribs) 19:48, 27 November 2025 (UTC)Reply
  5. Per nom(Support 50 slots).飞车过大关 (talk) 18:10, 29 November 2025 (UTC)Reply
Oppose
Neutral
  1. I would prefer to add those slots to Culture, but if we don't get the votes for that, I won't stand in the way of adding them elsewhere. Lophotrochozoa (talk) 18:12, 27 November 2025 (UTC)Reply
Discuss

@LaukkuTheGreit: The best way to give breathing room for the technology section is to increase the culture quota by 100 slots and move websites from technology to the mass media section of the culture page. Lophotrochozoa (talk) 21:20, 27 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Add a no-consensus close for VA5

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Latest comment: 4 days ago10 comments2 people in discussion

I frequently notice very old discussions on the VA5 list, which are often 6-12 months old, just sitting around not being voted on. These old discussions crowd the talk page, and while I can't speak for other people, I sometimes feel obligated to just vote pass/fail on an old proposal so it can finally close. All the other levels have no-consensus closes, and I think that VA5 would benefit from one too. Since VA5 is less restrictive and the barrier for a decision is lower, a no-consensus close would ideally happen after a longer period of time than the other levels, to give it a chance to be voted on. My proposal would be the following:

  • After 60 days, a proposal may be closed as NO CONSENSUS if the proposal hasn't received any votes for 60 days, regardless of tally.
  • After 90 days, a proposal may be closed as NO CONSENSUS if the proposal has no oppose votes and two or less support votes.
  • After 120 days, a proposal may be closed as NO CONSENSUS if it has neither 60% support and 4 or more support votes nor less than 60% support and 2 or more oppose votes.

@GeogSage said this under another proposal on this page, with I think is a good idea as well: "I suggested above we could have a system that allows users to re-open no-consensus proposals at a later date if they're interested, where votes can be imported by pinging the users, and if they want to change their vote they can."

Support fully
  1. As nom. Shocksingularity (talk) 03:52, 29 November 2025 (UTC)Reply
Support 60-day rule
  1. If adding everything fails. Shocksingularity (talk) 03:52, 29 November 2025 (UTC)Reply
Support 90-day rule
  1. If adding everything fails. Shocksingularity (talk) 03:52, 29 November 2025 (UTC)Reply
Support 120-day rule
  1. If adding everything fails. Shocksingularity (talk) 03:52, 29 November 2025 (UTC)Reply
Support resurrecting no-consensus proposals with old votes
  1. If adding everything fails. Shocksingularity (talk) 03:52, 29 November 2025 (UTC)Reply
Oppose
  1. We have hashed this out a few times already. All durated limits will result in less popular topics never achieving quorum. The purpose of the queue system is so that every nomination get consideration by a quorum, which by the current rules is either 4 supports and greater the 60% or 2 opposes and 60% or less. If we just allow the less popular topics to sit until a quorum is achieved they will eventually rise to a high enough position in the queue to compel a quorum.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 06:29, 29 November 2025 (UTC)Reply
Discuss

Shocksingularity (talk) 03:52, 29 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Quota reallocations to enable moves of sections

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Latest comment: 2 days ago11 comments2 people in discussion

These proposals were originally made with the proposal to allow the page quotas to be multiples of 5 but I would like to note that there are alternative options if we have any sections to spare, for example if we decide to only increase the narrative arts quota by 50. Lophotrochozoa (talk) 22:02, 1 December 2025 (UTC)Reply

Reallocate 50 slots from Biology to Animals

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I have proposed that we move the 58 articles about human evolution and 9 other articles about the evolution of specific groups of animals from Biology to Animals. The only way for both subpages to remain close to the quota is to reallocate 50 slots from from Biology to Animals (or from Earth science if my other proposal passes).

Support
  1. As nominator Lophotrochozoa (talk) 23:25, 8 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
Oppose
  1. Oppose quota reallocation, biographies are the problem, we should aim to trim them and move some of the slots into these sections. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 03:16, 9 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
Neutral
  1. Neutral on shifts of articles between sections. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 03:16, 9 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
Discussion

Add 50 slots to animals

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As the biology subpage is over quota and the animals subpage is not under quota, we could add 50 slots to animals without taking them from biology. Lophotrochozoa (talk) 22:02, 1 December 2025 (UTC)Reply

Support
  1. If we have 50 slots to spare. Lophotrochozoa (talk) 22:02, 1 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
Oppose
Discussion

Reallocate 50 slots from Earth science to Biology

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I have proposed that we move 69 articles about biomes from Earth science to Biology. The only way for both subpages to remain close to the quota is to reallocate 50 slots from Earth science to Biology (or to Animals if my other proposal passes).

Support
  1. As nominator Lophotrochozoa (talk) 23:25, 8 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
Oppose
  1. Oppose, when it comes to major quota shifts, I think we should aim for biographies. I think "Earth science" likely needs to be substantially larger itself. I'm also not sure I agree with the biomes being in the Earth science, as they are generally a Biogeography   5 concept. 03:16, 9 October 2025 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by GeogSage (talk • contribs)
Neutral
Discussion

@GeogSage: I agree that Earth science isn't the best place for those entries, hence why I proposed the move. Did you misspeak? Lophotrochozoa (talk) 14:20, 9 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Ah, mistake, not a fan of them in Earth science, but think they are biogeography concepts more then biology. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 17:33, 9 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
I see biogeography as a branch of biology more than of geography, but I may be biased as I am more familiar with biology than with theoretical geography. Lophotrochozoa (talk) 18:05, 9 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
When it comes to biogeography, it is all about the distributions. Biogeographers are going to land in geography departments, use spatial methodology, and publish geographic research that happens to be about living organisms. A biologist is going to have a different starting framework. There is of course a lot of overlap, but that is true of all the "Mother sciences," for example, biology could be called a specific form of chemistry, and chemistry a specific form of physics. The extreme specialization is a relatively new phenomena. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 17:29, 14 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
Add topic
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