Talk:List of articles every Wikipedia should have/Expanded/Archives/2011

Errors in list

Here's some problems with this list:

Multiple entries:

• Dup found: Igor Stravinsky == Igor Stravinsky
• Dup found: Aristophanes == Aristophenes
• Dup found: Li Bai == Li Bai
• Dup found: Jean-Paul Sartre == Jean-Paul Sartre
• Dup found: Murasaki Shikibu == Murasaki Shikibu
• Dup found: Du Fu == Tu Fu
• Dup found: Laotse == Laozi
• Dup found: Maimonides == Maimonides
• Dup found: Martin Luther == Martin Luther
• Dup found: Ho Chi Min == Ho Chi Minh
• Dup found: Galileo Galilei == Galileo Galilei
• Dup found: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz == Gottfried Leibniz
• Dup found: Jim Lehrer == Jim Lehrer
• Dup found: Hercules == Hercules
• Dup found: Odysseus == Odysseus
• Dup found: History of the European Union == History of the European Union
• Dup found: History of the United States == History of the United States
• Dup found: Hong Kong == Hong Kong
• Dup found: Singapore == Singapore
• Dup found: Poetry == Poetry
• Dup found: Shiva == Shiva
• Dup found: Vishnu == Vishnu
• Dup found: Experience == Experience
• Dup found: Cardiologist == Cardiology
• Dup found: Radiologist == Radiology
• Dup found: Radiologist == Radiology
• Dup found: Physician == Physician
• Dup found: Influenza == Flu
• Dup found: Dove == Pigeon
• Dup found: Cod == Codfish
• Dup found: Tunafish == Tuna
• Dup found: Apatosaurus == Brontosaurus
• Dup found: Brahman == Brahman
• Dup found: Guernsey == Guernsey
• Dup found: Pecan == Pecan tree
• Dup found: Alcohol == Alcohol
• Dup found: Electrocardiogram == Electrocardiogram
• Dup found: Magnetic resonance imaging == Magnetic resonance imaging
• Dup found: Gasoline == Gasoline
• Dup found: Panama Canal == Panama Canal
• Dup found: Suez Canal == Suez Canal
• Dup found: Artillery == Artillery
• Dup found: Submarine == Submarine
• Dup found: Integral calculus == Integral

--MarsRover 07:51, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

I took the liberty of changing this to a bulleted list so I could strikethrough the ones I fixed. You might want to help me with some of the “double features”: lines that have two entries but should only have one. P.S.: are you getting a feeling that this list was based off of some guy’s personal preferences? I do, and I’ve been trying to clean them up Purplebackpack89 19:08, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

I did fix one, but many others were already fixed but it wasnt marked in the list. I marked the ones i fixed or checked. I only found artillery and fixed it, almost all the others were already fixed. So its more about checking the rest than about doing any fixes.

• All are fixed.--Abiyoyo 17:36, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Corresponding list

There seems to be more work done on this list, and this one is slightly moribund, but is at over 5000. This set of projects is going to be very hard to handle, esp. with two divergent lists. i have no ideas how to make this all work better, but i will make sure the two lists are linked at some point in their ledes. I have been enjoying adding names to the one i have linked to, but may be the only one working on it.(Mercurywoodrose, not logged in)99.31.212.33 00:28, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

I think it should be two separate lists. They will have much in common and it will make sense to compare them every now and then, but vital articles is for the EN-wikipedia only, stuff that might be vital for this language may not be that important globally and across different languages. The List of Articles every wikipedia should have is different, it should be as global as possible, and as soon as its done im sure it will be used to do comparisons between different wikipedias, to see how developed they are. Different languages might have different lists of vital articles, but all language versions redirect to the same list of articles each wiki should have. [1] directs some international attention here, and once this expanded 10000 list is done that will be its purpose as well. 79.230.23.254 02:16, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

I think i agree with you, and i think this is why there are 2 lists. thanks for the clarification.Mercurywoodrose 02:13, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Criteria for list

We should discuss first before big deletes like this so editors do not get frustrated. How does someone tell when a someone is too minor? The main criteria for the list is "10x the details of the core list" so if this other list had 3 WW2 leaders this list would have 30 leaders, right? --MarsRover 16:15, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

There are still gaps so huge that the rule doesnt really hold. While the 1000-article-list doesnt have any website or web 2.0 company, i just added: # Website, Facebook, Twitter, Google, Youtube, Wikipedia, Ebay, Amazon. Maybe a few of these should go into the 1000-article-list? I mean, a significant percentage of people on the planet are affected by these things.

Just let the list grow to 10.000, and then people will continue to have ideas, just like i found some really significant stuff thats missing, and then decide to kick out something else. As soon as it hits the limit, people will start looking for the most insignificant topics and make arguments why they are insignificant, or at least less significant than the substitute. Also, there can be diminishing returns which affect different topics differently. Once you got all professionals in sports that are or have been real global household names and covered the most popular kinds of sports, additions get more and more obscure. These diminishing returns are weaker when adding more chemical elements, or more individual countries, because all of them are arguably more important than the 182th sports professional you add. Are there any non-minor people in sports when you already have 181 of them? While we have only 10 living heads of state in the list?

Of course big deletes need to be discussed, any deletion on the list should have some argument backing it up! Also, lets first get to 10000 before starting deletions. And then we can discuss swaps, i agree that judging if something is significant enough or not is difficult, it gets much easier when you compare two things. 79.230.23.254 02:00, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

I forgot, final note: When you see a removal that is not in any way discussed here, why not just undo it immediately and invite the person that edited to a discussion here? Maybe deletions shouldnt happen at all before this reaches 10000, unless its really junk, but then you should be able to explain why you think its junk. and maybe add something else instead. 79.230.23.254 02:03, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Added 15 corporations

Hey, I thought there needed to be individual corporations on this list, so I added 15 of them in a variety of areas. All are multinational, those in italics are HQed outside the US:

• Oil-4 (Chevron, ExxonMobil, Petrobras, Royal Dutch Shell)
• Computers-3 (Apple, IBM, Microsoft)
• Banking-2 (Banks of America and China)
• Food-2 (McDonald's, Nestle)
• Phones-1 (AT&T)
• Heavy Industrial/Media-1 (General Electric)
• Personal Care-1 (Procter and Gamble)
• Retail-1 (Walmart)

Is 15 too many? Not enough? Are there some companies you'd like to see removed? Added? Purplebackpack89 05:11, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Sports/rec

Hey, I just finishing globalizing and adding to sports and recreation articles.

• Sports and rec articles on the 1000 Meta: 6 rec, 14 sports
• Sports and rec articles on this one: 22 rec, 128 sports

The sports section is almost full, as it contains almost 10x the number of entries the 1000 one does. It now has the general topics of Sport and Ball, 46 different sports disciplines, and subdisciplines and terms relating to those sports (for example, Marathon is a subdiscipline of Track and Field, Wushu is a subset of Martial arts). The list is now globalized, and contains sports popular in every corner of the globe. Almost all Olympic sports are on there, as are several former Olympic Sports, World Games sports, or sports that have wide international followings.

There is still room in recreation. The main thing I did there was expand the list of games to 15, which includes cards, dice, jacks, and marbles; the traditional games of Backgammon, Chess, Draughts/Checkers, Go, and Mancala; video games; plus the concept of board game and four specific ones representative : Pachisi (a traditional Indian game that's the basis for "cross and circle pursuit games like Ludo, Sorry, Trouble, and Aggrevation), Monopoly (world's best-selling game, and the only game with money on the list), Scrabble (word game) and Cluedo (detective/strategy/hidden card game). I think there's room for several more abstract topics relating to recreation, plus perhaps a couple of specific card or video games, and maybe add Tic-tac-toe and/or a trivia game like en:Trivial Pursuit. And maybe also add crossword and suduko to the list.

Any objections to what I have done? Any suggestions? Purplebackpack89 20:01, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Split this list

I suggest splitting this list into subpages, as made in en-wiki. The list is huge, and it is very inconvenient to edit such a big page. Any objections?--Abiyoyo 12:07, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

• I've moved.--Abiyoyo 17:51, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
• Do it. It's a pain in the neck to edit if you don't Purplebackpack89 21:59, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Changes to the list

I've made some changes to the list:

• formatting, optimising structure
• adding number of articles to section headers
• expanded some topics, that are not culturally-dependent, basing on en-wiki.

--Abiyoyo 17:51, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Synchronizing lists

The en-wiki and meta list may differ. That can be true for culture, sports, and all the other topics, that can be somehow biased towards english-language culture in en-wiki. On the other hand, the 90% of the lists content are and have to be the same. For now english list is better - it has much more elaborated structure and more articles in it. Although there are a few topics, in which the meta list is better. Now, before both lists are complete, it is reasonable to synchronize them in order both lists to have as much proper items, as possible. After the lists are complete, they should develop independently. But now, in the preliminary stage, they have to be synchronized. Several steps should be implemented:

1. Find duplicates in english list and correct them.
2. Optimize structure of both lists to be as much in common, as possible.
3. Find all the articles in meta list, that are not on en-wiki list, and add them into english list.
4. Copy the english list into meta (with some technical changes).
5. Delete the items in the meta-list, that are obviously english-culture biased (e.g. lots of american magazines).

It is possible, that such synchroniztion should be made several times before the lists are complete.--Abiyoyo 15:50, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

This sounds okay with me as long as we don't lose any of the current 'meta' articles. Hopefully just a cleaned-up superset would be nice. --MarsRover 17:45, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

• Neutral to weak oppose current proposal, but support some of general concepts: I applaud your efforts both here and there, Abi. However, I think the 90% threshold may be too high. 60-70%, sure. 80%, maybe. The problem is that Meta and EN's missions are different enough from Meta that the lists shouldn't be a carbon copy. I also feel both lists need a stragetic cleanup. There are things in the Meta list that belong on the EN list. There are things on EN that belong on the Meta list. And I'm afraid, despite our efforts, there may be some cruft on one or more lists that doesn't belong on any list. I think both lists need a long, strategic look at what they've got, and what they need (perhaps considering what is on other languages' Vital lists). Could the two discussions be done together? Probably. Will it take awhile? Yes Purplebackpack89 21:28, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

I agree, that the lists finally have to be different. Moreover, I am personally much more interested in meta list, not english one. But the fact is that the EN list draws much more attention and user efforts. Generally it would be good to just wait while both lists grow independently. But the reality is that thr EN list grows much faster and this list is neglected. What I propose is not to wait, but to take english list as a point to start from (without loosing articles from meta list of course). Finally, we'll have different lists, but what for to double the preliminary work of gathering the main content? E.g. geography section in EN list is much more better. Why to wait while someone will do the same job here on meta, if it is already made in en-wiki and will need only some fine-tuning of balance?--Abiyoyo 22:25, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't intend to wait. We can start the work when this thread closes, even sooner. On the other hand, I want it done properly; perhaps assess each section one by one thoughtfully. I don't think we should blindly dump all EN articles here (as I stated above, the EN list is longer, yes, but it also may contain things not even needed on it, let alone here); I think we should consider what we need, and perhaps consider things Wikipedias other than English have. French has a well-thought-out vital list, for example. Purplebackpack89 22:50, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

OK, we can discuss each section. BTW, woul you please give a link to a french list?--Abiyoyo 23:13, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

1. People. Lists are really different. Both are rather biased towards US citizens.
2. History. English is much better and quite unbiased.
3. Geography. English is much better and quite unbiased.
4. Arts. English is bigger, but less to moderate biased towards english-language music and literature.
5. Religion & philosophy. Allmost the same.
6. Everyday life. Really differ in sports, where meta list is better.
7. Sociey. Allmost the same.
8. Biology. Allmost the same.
9. Physical sciences. English is much better. This topic can not be really culturally biased.
10. Technology. Some parts are better in EN, some here.
11. Maths. Allmost the same.
12. Measurement. Allmost the same.

And I absolutely agree that both lists contain lots of junk and are far from being finished.--Abiyoyo 23:25, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

• French list
• Spanish list
• German list
• Japanese list, which can also be found written in Roman/English characters

FYI, these are 1000 lists, not 10000 lists, but I still feel much can be learned from their approaches Purplebackpack89 00:03, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Quotas for this list

• I think, what we really need is quotas. It would be rather dufficult to compare notability of an actor vs. a concept in mathematics. If we have quotas, people should compare notability within a topic, not a whole list.--Abiyoyo 14:22, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

I agree. The easiest way to create the quotas is look at the 1000 list and use the same proportions of each topic. --MarsRover 17:31, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

That's what I was thinking about. For the main topics the quotas should be counted as 1:10. But for the subtopics, the proportion should be 1:9 or 1:9.5, not 1:10, because there are some branches of knowledge, that were not notable enough for 1000 list, but are notable for this list. It's quite reasonable to give them 5-10 percent of this expanded list (e.g. anthropology). There's also a problem, that the structures of the lists are not the same, so some complicated calculations should be made.--Abiyoyo 23:20, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Or maybe the structure of the expanded list should be changed to comply with 1000 list?--Abiyoyo 23:28, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

I'd go even higher than 5-10%...I'd maybe even go as high as 15-20%. For example, this list adds simple things like chair and toothpaste that aren't well covered in 1000 topics. I also think we may have to do it section by section. But I support the general, rough idea of quotas Purplebackpack89 02:30, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

• I have made a preliminary table of quotas based on 1000 list. See Table. The method was the following:
  • For every section in the expanded list a correponding section in 1000 list was found
  • The 'coefficient of growth' was calculated based on decimal logarithmic function. I.e. 1 article in 1000 list 'grows' to 7 articles in the expanded list; 10 articles grow to 80; 100 grows to 900; 1,000 grows to 10,000.
  • The number of articles in 1000 list were multiplied by the found coefficient, making a rough preliminary quota suggestion.
  • The 'corrected quota ' column is reserved for quota correction, as mechanical multiplication gives sometimes strange result. It have to be corrected manually after discussion.

This is only a first step towards quota evaluation. They are rather unballanced. Now I suggest correcting the quotas in order to make the list ballanced.--Abiyoyo 12:46, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Quotas/Big Talk Part 1: People

The Meta 1000 list (which the German and Japanese Wikipedia borrow) has 204. The English Vital articles list has 123. The Spanish vital articles list has 270. The French and Chinese lists have 216 each. The English 10,000 has 2,143, but many of them are to non-notable and/or Americo-centric for this list. I think the proper amount for this list is a nice, round, 2,000; distributed in the way I suggest (actually, only 1,900 are distributed; there's 100 left over).

I am going to make a table with the various numbers each 1,000 list has; the number our 10,000 list currently has, and the number it should have (current total: 1620+25+10+20+50=1725+15+10+25+5+25+50+5=1860)

Topic	Meta 1,000	En lv. 3 VA	Fr 1000	Es 1000	En 10,000	Current	Suggested
Actors/Actresses	4	0	4	0	221 (inc Perf)	115	100
Artist/Architects	18	11	17	1	86	77	150
Authors/Poets	31	16	31	77 (inc Phil)	190	101	225
Composers/Musicians	21	11	22	12	194	125	150
Directors/Producers	9	0	11	0	57	67	60
Entrepreneurs	0	0	NA	3	35	22	35
Explorers	12	8	11	22	30	26	100
Performing artists	0	0	0	0	w/Act	39	35
Phil/Hist/PolySci/SocSci	26	15	24	w/Auth	96	92	200
Philosophers (part of above)	*	*	15	*	41	38	??
Historians (part of above)	*	*	*	*	10	10	??
Social scientists (part of above)	*	*	9	*	16	15	??
Psychologists (part of above)	*	*	*	*	29	29	??
Religious figures	10	11	৳	৳	124	37	125
Political/military leaders	39	22	46	104	449	98	300
Current political leaders (part of above)	*	*	8	21	*	12	??
Revolutionaries and activists	W/Pol	W/Pol	1	7	35	18	25
Sci/Invent/Math	34	30	22	22	189	198	225
Journalists	W/Auth	W/Auth	W/Auth	w/Auth	35	42	30
Sports figures	0	0	0	18	262	180	110
Myth/Legend	0	0	0	0	90	29	15
Fictional/cartoon	0	0	0	0	w/Myth	19	15

Right now, my total adds up to 1,900; you can allocate the remaining 100 (or haggle over the first 1,900) any way you wish. Note that most areas will add people; but a few will cut people (especially in the fictional characters realm). Remember, you still have 100 to play around with! Purplebackpack89 19:58, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

• 2000 sounds OK. I would cut explorers (100 is to much for a rather narrow topic) to ≈30, actors to ≈50 (giving actors half of the ammount reserved for scientists is too populistic imho), sportsmen also to ≈50 for the same reason. Increase scientists to 300 and social scientists/philo to 350. In humanities personal is much more important, than in physical science. That will leave us 55 articles more - they can be distributed elsewhere.--Abiyoyo 20:31, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

I notice you cut actors, but not other performers? Maybe actors to 60 (+10) and performers down to 25 (-10). Also, you wanna start making suggestions on who to cut? Purplebackpack89 00:25, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree on actors/performers numbers. Though i'm not ready to make any specific suggestions on which actors should be removed - i don't think i'm capable enough to do this.--Abiyoyo 11:14, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Actors

We seem to be deciding to cut actors to 60. I think the list should include 25 or so Americans, and the rest from around the world. Abiyoyo, the other person on this revamp, above says he's not qualified to make it to 60. Maybe I could get him to find lists of important foreign actors, and then maybe we can figure out what actors belong. I think the list will need several Bollywood actor/actress, several English actor/actress, several French actor/actress, and at least one actor/actress each from Eastern Europe, Japan and China Purplebackpack89 15:58, 5 November 2011 (UTC)