Wikipedia talk:Vital articles/Level/5

Project name

Currently at Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level 5. Should it have a different name, such as Wikipedia:Vital articles/Compendium? Or, the slightly different Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/5? power~enwiki (π, ν) 19:06, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

I'd personally like Wikipedia:Vital articles/Comprehensive. For the meantime though, it should definitely be Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/5 to match the others. J947^{( c ) (m)} 07:07, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

I agree, comprehensive sounds good. GuzzyG (talk) 18:03, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

Separate talk pages

The Wikipedia:Vital articles/Expanded list has a single talk page for all 11 sub-lists. Will that be feasible for a list five times as large, or should each of the sub-pages have its own talk page? power~enwiki (π, ν) 19:06, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

I think we should try to keep it all on a single talk page for simplicity. If that doesn't work, we can always split it up later. In the beginning as we are building the 50,000 article list, we probably won't adhere to a strict system of nominating articles for inclusion. People will be allowed to just add articles to the list that they think belong on it, just like the Level 4 list did in the beginning as it was being built. Rreagan007 (talk) 21:08, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

Agreeing here with Rreagan007 tentatively—the highest number of bytes we've got to on that talk page's last 10,000 edits is 456,668 (mid-January 2015) for anyone who wants to know. We just need a dedicated archiver. Also, power~enwiki, can we use your Power 10000 pages for some development of L5? I'd like to make use of the cities page, personally. J947^{( c ) (m)} 00:38, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

Oh well for my question. I'll create Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level 5/Geography/Cities then. J947^{( c ) (m)} 00:50, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

I only had about 10 cities added that weren't on the L4 list. Better to start fresh (that is, by copying the L4 list) on that one. The others may be useful. power~enwiki (π, ν) 05:24, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

Highest ever was a truly enormous ~665,000 bytes in this project's peak activity around July/August 2013. J947 ^{(c · m)} 23:08, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

I copied the L4 list for cities (and kept the Australian cities J947 added), at Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level 5/Geography/Cities. Any formatting suggestions/concerns? power~enwiki (π, ν) 05:49, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

How to update

Do we want to try to keep all the counts accurate as we're going, or wait until the lists are a bit more complete to update them all? Also, is there a script that can update the article quality markers? I'm not going to look these all up by hand. power~enwiki (π, ν) 06:11, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

I think as people add articles to the list, they should at least be updating the counts in the section headings. Rreagan007 (talk) 07:04, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

Page Creation

I'll create some more pages in about 12 hours, basically anything that seem clearly defined and less than 2500 in quota. Specifically:

• Languages
• Health, medicine and disease
• Astronomy
• Chemistry
• Earth Science
• Physics
• Mathematics

For Geography, I think that "countries" and "country subdivisions" should be the same page, and a third page for "physical geography" should take up everything else, but I'm not sure that's the best approach. Similarly, I'm not sure what the "Basics and Measurement" section should be called, or if it can be combined with something else. power~enwiki (π, ν) 06:18, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

A couple of observations. I see that you are putting in the Level 4 tags (i.e. "(Level 4)") which is great, but be careful. You have the Level 4 people listed under the sports section linking to the Geography list of Level 4 instead of the Biography list. I've gone ahead and fixed that. Also, if we are going to follow the same conventions in the other lists, all the articles listed in a higher level should also be bolded. Rreagan007 (talk) 06:41, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

The lack of bold was intentional, though I'm not sure it was correct. The geography linking was purely due to doing this way too late. power~enwiki (π, ν) 06:52, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

I see. I went ahead and added the bolding. I didn't realize you left it out intentionally. I guess you can remove it if you want, but I think the bolding helps to see what we've added to the Level 5 list that's not in the higher levels. Rreagan007 (talk) 06:59, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

I figured that if over half the items are going to be from Level 4 for a while, the bold would be too prominent (at the end it will be 20% bold instead of 10%). If it will get to 30k entries quickly (30% bold), it's probably best to do the bolding now. Regardless, I'm going to wait another day before creating more pages to let other people chime in. power~enwiki (π, ν) 18:08, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

A different idea:

1. New York City (Level 3)
2. Philadelphia (Level 4)
3. Spokane, Washington

Bold the article link and the "Level 3" link for level 3 articles, but only bold the article link for level 4. power~enwiki (π, ν) 18:54, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

One thing I would worry about with the bolding format you are suggesting is that it would be too subtle for the average person to pick up on and they would be more likely to think it is just a formatting error and might even try to "fix it" by changing the bolding to be all one way or the other. Rreagan007 (talk) 06:15, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

Vital Articles talk page template

Someone needs to update the Template:Vital_article code so we can tag the articles added to Level 5. Ideally, people should be adding that template to every article added at Level 5 not listed at a higher level. Rreagan007 (talk) 00:10, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

I've updated it for Geography (see at Talk:Bishkek). The other switch templates should be straightforward once the page divisions are decided and created. I'm going to need a bot or an alt-account with JavaScript helpers if I'm going to be adding thousands of these, any advice? power~enwiki (π, ν) 18:02, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

I'm working on a bot to update the talk-page templates (and to check/fix the levels on existing entries). I expect it to hit WP:BRFA later this week. power~enwiki (π, ν) 23:45, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

@Power~enwiki: I was actually thinking about that today! Also, a bot automatically updating/adding the article quality (including GAN, DGA, FAC, FFA, FFAC, and FGAN) would be nice. I haven't got the skills to code it myself, and I think anyway there should be just one VA bot. J947^{( c ) (m)} 04:11, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

I'll try to get GA and FA status detection at some point, but not initially. I cleaned up the L2 and L3 tags by hand, there were about 20 changes that needed to be made. power~enwiki (π, ν) 04:35, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

Update: this bot has taken longer than I thought it would. I'm finishing the code to find existing article ratings, it should be ready to test once that's done. power~enwiki (π, ν) 19:45, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

Sports biographies

I have now completed a rough outline of this section, i have left it at 737 for now until we get the final number sorted as it changed from 750 to 800, i think 800 is better. I have moved Bruce Lee to martial arts and Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hilary to climbing from their previous spots on level 4 to here as they fit better here. The way i have compiled this list is moving over SethAllen's 50k (he had 300 sports), having atleast one representative from each sports wikiproject, added some niche sports for diversity and tried to add people from different continents when necessary, i think this list is one of the most diverse/complete sports lists out there, with the extra space left i will fill up Athletics/more Association football etc. What do you guys think? I know there's relatively minor sports listed but i think it leads to a fuller list and it's better then having 300 soccer players. Everyone has a reason for being listed and if you think some is a odd listing, leave a comment and i will explain my reasoning, please don't go taking stuff out until we get a complete list/numbers allotted etc. I have listed a representative for nearly every Olympic sport too and have tried to add women when possible. GuzzyG (talk) 15:08, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

I've made a couple of changes because there were some guys you forgot and some guys that didn't belong. Basketball's my forte so I may suggest additional changes pbp 21:07, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

Looking at the baseball list, I think it's a mistake to assume the current list is supposed to be perfect. Some (Josh Gibson, Ted Williams) are clearly called for, others (Dale Murphy are less clear, and a few (Mike Trout) are probably WP:TOOSOON. power~enwiki (π, ν) 04:58, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

Balance between eSports and Equestrianism

The list currently contains 11 eSportsmen and only five representatives of Equestrianism, all jockeys. eSports is a relatively new phenomenon, in contrast to horse racing which has been a thing for centuries. I'd recommend we lower the eSports quota to 5 and raise the equestrian quota to 11, using most of that quota on racehorses since we already have jockeys. pbp 20:10, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

• There's no "quota" per-se, just a count of the articles on the page at the current time. I added one racehorse at Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/5/Biological and health sciences/Animals. power~enwiki (π, ν) 20:19, 25 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Hmmm, I might step away from this list. All very well, everyone add stuff in a free for all, I'm guilty of it myself too, but I don't like the direction of some of it. 11 people slightly famous for playing games like Call of Duty, in my own opinion is very very silly. How about videogames designers, companies, games, consoles, characters perhaps? How can we list a Call of Duty player before Call of Duty, of a Street Fighter player before Street Fighter, to me sounds absolutely ridiculous. How about articles like Nintendo, Sony, Wii, NES, Megadrive, Sonic, Zelda, Final Fantasy, Strategy game, fighting game, Platform game, history of video games, Gamepad, EA, Activision, Sid Meier, Red Alert, Konami, puzzle game, RPG, PlayStation, Xbox, Game Boy, Super Mario, Street Fighter, Beat em up, Atari, Pac-Man, Space Invaders, Donkey Kong and a tonne more. Why are we listing Walshy who appear only in the English wiki? Even the other guys that are in a handful of languages are not among the 10'000 most influential people in all history of the whole world. I know we want to diversify but really? If video games need representing how about designers, companies, games, consoles, genres, characters/franchises. There's a lot to choose from. Theses gamers are all low priority on the Videogame wiki project, a few are mid importance. It just seems like a joke to me. Sorry, I'll step away for a little bit now.  Carlwev  20:53, 25 November 2017 (UTC)
    • @GuzzyG: who added this. The articles obviously have problems; Walsh is widely regarded as the greatest and most successful Halo player of all time. feels like puffery. power~enwiki (π, ν) 20:59, 25 November 2017 (UTC)
• Obviously in any appropriate listing all of those things would be added as well, all because sports was done before designers doesn't mean i wasn't getting to that. I just have a very different interpretation of the list, if i was tasked to create a list of 800 sports figures for the Britannica, i wouldn't fill it with 600 soccer players (which is correct if you were purely going on worldwide notability) , 70 is fine and then you cover one of each, same with other fields, clearly this current generation of kids are gonna have their main form of entertainment be stuff like YouTube and sports be eSports - i did it to represent the 21st century, just like Mike Trout, 21st century baseball is baseball history too - i am like George Eastman why wait? Jockeys are not important it's mainly the horses, which do not belong in a list of people. I guess we cannot cover The Godfather and Marlon Brando, just seems like a quite silly arguement "The arts page isn't added too so why do we have these biographies.". I'll just step back for a bit i guess. Also saying they're low importance in Video Games is clearly irrelevant when you factor in the main eSports wikiproject does not have ratings. Clearly Wikipedia should have FA's (the point of this thing is to improve needed articles) on 21st century figures. Most of the American sports adds were from SethAllen's list anyway. I just did the most renowned 1-2 people from each sport with a WikiProject as i thought it was in Wikipedia's best interest to atleast have a FA from each WikiProject. esports is like motorsports or combat sports (a umbrella), i added one from each of the popular games, that's why there's 11. Clearly like Seth i should probably just do my own list, that focuses on representing everything that exists in a decent amount instead of having 100 from the same thing where you'd rather have an average soccer player then someone referred to as the best in a field (of only maybe 50k participants but it's still something). I mean it may be silly but i'm willing to bet people like Kim Kardashian, PewDiePie, and yes Walshy are looked back on as the leading proponents of uniquely 21st century phenomenons/fields, i hope someone looking back on this sites archives in 100 years can quote me on that too. Even people like Jenna Jameson, Ted Bundy, Bonnie and Clyde, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold and Charles Manson should be in such a list as this, it's a gut reaction to think otherwise in my opinion, history does not discriminate. GuzzyG (talk) 05:49, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

Proposal: Limit eSports figures to 3

Support

1. pbp 21:07, 25 November 2017 (UTC)
2. Weak support, there are other categories with concerns and I've made a wider-ranging proposal. This seems like a good limit for now. power~enwiki (π, ν) 21:15, 25 November 2017 (UTC)
3. Weak support, increasing by 1 every two years as it will become more and more important. J947 ^{(c · m)} 04:18, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
4. Support as Carlwev mentions, esports figures are arguably not the most significant people related to gaming anyway. Game designers are more notable. Gizza ^(t)(c) 02:48, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
5. Support Fine, and the three should be Billy Mitchell, Johnathan Wendel and Lim Yo-hwan. GuzzyG (talk) 07:20, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

Oppose

1. A lot of people play video games, and I think that they will consider all esports figures in the Lv5 list vital.--RekishiEJ (talk) 13:03, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

Discuss

Is everyone set on Reagan's people quotas?

If so, i would love to start creating the people sub pages and get the shell of them over and done with, i am doing business and explorers currently in my sandbox. As you see i work fast so if you guys want i can do the biographies part (It's better to know who's working on what so there's no clashes with what's being added). I don't mind manually tagging the articles with their class either, also when it's made tagging the articles with the template. GuzzyG (talk) 18:12, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

I expect some of the quotas to change, but I don't see anything that can't be fixed later. We can even merge pages later on if that's appropriate. I think Geography and "Biological and Health sciences" sub-pages are also in good shape. power~enwiki (π, ν) 20:08, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

My edits are obviously just suggestions and we can adjust them as we go as needed. The one category whose subdivisions I am concerned about is Society and Social sciences. I don't see a very good way to split them up. Perhaps we just leave it all in one list rather than trying to split it up? Or maybe just pull out languages at 1,000 and leave everything else together? Speaking of the language quota, I'm not sure there are 1,000 languages that are vital enough to include in the list; 300 or 400 may be more appropriate. We only have about 300 language Wikipedias (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wikipedias#1.2B_articles), and many of those have very few articles. Rreagan007 (talk) 21:05, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

I've dropped the Society sub-pages; I don't have a good idea of what's going to grow in Society. power~enwiki (π, ν) 21:46, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

Just a update

I have been working on each of the people subpages in my many sandboxes and it's coming along nicely, just letting you all know that i am still updating it and i plan to have the rough shell of it completed by the end of next week, i see a template has been made for level 5, i can start tagging articles manually when i am done.

I have also put in the effort to include both current pop culture people and historical influences, also i have diversified it by making an effort to include multiple people from each continent/countries, also adding women etc. Also for example every sport is represented by atleast one rep, including all current sovereign states with at least 2 politicians, each industry of business having a rep, each genre of art design, genre of music, pro and anti activism etc. If some of my additions look out of place it's because of this. While level 4 and 3 is good for being strict, i think level 5 should keep this type of placing as i think how i have handled the sports page is better then just having 300 soccer players or 150 baseball players etc. GuzzyG (talk) 17:23, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

In light of Cobblet's concerns i might spend a bit more time/days trying to make sure as many things are covered and spread out in terms of worldwide coverage and not just Western entertainment. GuzzyG (talk) 01:28, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

Keep in mind that the vital articles lists are supposed to be tailored for the English-language Wikipedia. Trying to include non-Western people is obviously good, but I don't think you should spend too much time and effort trying to make the list as global as possible. The most vital 10,000 people articles for English speakers won't be the same as the most vital 10,000 people articles for Chinese speakers. Rreagan007 (talk) 02:38, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

It's still good to represent some non-western entertainment, i've been a bit busy as it's my birthday on the 25th but i am still working on it, and now i am going to have to re-calibrate my sandbox lists with our updated ones, i did not think it would take this long but 10, 000 is a big number. GuzzyG (talk) 00:57, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

Keep in mind that English is an international language. For instance, English has been a compulsory subject in Chinese primary school since 2003. I will request deletion of the list if contributors willfully ignore or minimize issues of bias. Cobblet (talk) 23:41, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

Indeed English is the global lingua franca and there are readers of enwiki for all 200 or so countries of the world (except where it's blocked) not that it matters anyway. Copernicus isn't less vital because he was Polish instead of American or British. The passport you have shouldn't matter. The last thing we need is more bias. Gizza ^(t)(c) 02:45, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

There are still going to be language differences. I would expect the Chinese Wikipedia to have every Chinese emperor on the list, but I highhly doubt ours will. Rreagan007 (talk) 03:55, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

Regions are missing

Major regions like Eastern Europe would seem to belong in the /Physical_geography section. They certainly belong here more than "parks and preserves".  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  20:06, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

I assumed that was on the level 4 list so I hadn't added it, apparently it isn't. East Asia and a few others are on Wikipedia:Vital_articles/Level/5/Geography/Countries. power~enwiki (π, ν) 20:11, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

Other subpages

The splits listed on the project page have been stable for a few days, is anyone else planning to create the level-5 pages? I know GuzzyG has separate lists for people, but don't think anyone is working on the others. power~enwiki (π, ν) 23:03, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

I just went ahead and created the Mathematics and Philosophy/religion sections. I'll try to get around to creating some more this weekend. If someone is working on creating a particular section, they should try to give everyone a heads up here on the talk page. I know GuzzyG is working on the People subsections. Rreagan007 (talk) 02:22, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

When i am finished with people i can do arts too. P. S it's taking longer then i expected, i have the people ready to be listed but it takes me roughly an hour to list 100 people and check their icons and so on so i will be finished around Wednesday instead of Sunday. But arts should be easier as there's generally lists of the top things etc. GuzzyG (talk) 06:09, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

Sounds good. I'm adding all the pages on my various lists to Wikipedia:Vital_articles/Level/5/Society_and_social_sciences, I'll update the counts when I'm done. I don't plan to do anything else here this week, if any pages aren't created next Monday I'll make them then. power~enwiki (π, ν) 18:16, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

I should have all of them created by this afternoon (except for the people subpages that GuzzyG is working on. Rreagan007 (talk) 19:26, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

Move Hamburger to cuisines:Fast food

Hamburgers fall under the category of 'Cuisine:Fast food' more than 'Meat and other animal products'

ILoveTheDC10 (talk) 11:42, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

Moved. The article is about the sandwich not ground beef. Rreagan007 (talk) 18:14, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

Missing businesspeople

I took a look at businesspeople and I found that it's already near quota. That being said, I found some names that I feel are missing:

• Philip Armour (meatpacking magnate)
• Nicholas Biddle (financier, head of the Second Bank of the United States, could also be in politicians)
• Clarence Birdseye (frozen food pioneer, could also be in inventors)
• William Boeing (At present Howard Hughes is the only representative of the aviation industry)
• Donald Wills Douglas Sr. (see Boeing)
• William C. Durant (founder of GM)
• Harvey Firestone (tire guy)
• A.P. Giannini (founder of Bank of America)
• Jay Gould (robber baron railroad magnate)
• Conrad Hilton (hotelier)
• Samuel Insull (utilities magnate)
• Henry J. Kaiser (steel, ships, Kaiser Permanente)
• Will Keith Kellogg (it was once called the Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company)
• William Levitt (that's the Levitt of Levittown)
• David Packard (that's the Packard of Hewlitt-Packard)
• William Procter (that's the Procter of Procter and Gamble)
• Aaron Montgomery Ward (I think we're light in retail)
• Frederick Weyerhauser (Lumber/paper)
• F.W. Woolworth (see Ward)

I think we can make room for some of those guys by removing some low-hanging fruit. Donald Trump, Jr., Paris Hilton, they're just celebrities. Travis Kalanick is a flavor of the week. Tech businesses seem to be over-represented considering most of their significance is in the last 40ish years. Errett Lobban Cord seems not as vital when you remember Durant's not on there. And some of the Hollywood personalities such as Harvey Weinstein belong in directors/producers/screenwriters. pbp 14:41, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

Seems reasonable to me. We have to be aware of recent-ism, and famous but not vital people. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Emir of Wikipedia (talk • contribs)

I've boldly fixed this. I don't see how we get to 2500 politicians anytime soon. power~enwiki (π, ν) 15:58, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

OK, I've made most of the changes I suggested, with two exceptions. 1) I haven't moved the producers to producers yet, and 2) I haven't added Biddle, because I'm going to add him to politicians. pbp 16:45, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

Yeah i had these already in my mock 10k and was about to add them to my sandbox list, the list was copied over originally from SethAllen's one. I was going to add 100 more to the space of explorers and businessmen, because 300 is low. GuzzyG (talk) 00:57, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

I cut about a quarter of the businesspeople and added back nearly the same amount – I think 200 is a good cap. Cobblet (talk) 23:54, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

I largely agree with your moves. pbp 03:11, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

Sports sub-quotas

As these are apparently necessary. A first proposal:

• Sports business-people, coaches, commentators, journalists and referees (150)
• Major team sports (250)
  • Association football (75)
  • Basketball (50)
  • Baseball (40)
  • American football (30)
  • Cricket (30)
  • Hockey (25)
• Other team sports (50)
• Individual sports (250)
  • Martial arts (50)
  • Athletics (40)
  • Tennis (30)
  • Golf (20)
  • Figure skating (20)
  • Other olympic sports (90)
• All other (50)
  • Chess, bull-fighting, eSports, billiards, fishing, etc.
• Un-allocated (50)

I will modify the page to include the quotas if there's a consensus for them. power~enwiki (π, ν) 21:12, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for starting this. I'd make the Athletics quota higher (35-40), and specifically delineate a quota for e-sports. pbp 21:14, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

Athletics increased to 40. I've supported your proposal above and don't see a need to combine the two. power~enwiki (π, ν) 21:17, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

If the level 4 list has only 110 sportspeople (and that number is still going down: Indurain just got cut and we still obviously have too many tennis players – Borg, Court and Evert should all be cut) how can we possibly justify listing any more than 550 on the level 5 list?

I counter-propose the following quotas adding up to 500. The quotas for most of the big sports simply come from multiplying the numbers on level 4 by five. In my judgment (but I don't think this is controversial) the team-sport athletes on level 4 are as a whole much more notable than the individual-sport athletes; so even though there are more of the latter on that level, I suggest they be equally represented here.

• Coaches and referees (20; businesspeople and journalists/broadcasters should go in their respective sections)
• Team sports (240)
  • Association football (70)
  • Basketball (35)
  • Baseball (35)
  • Cricket (35)
  • American football (15)
  • Ice hockey (15)
  • Others (35)
• Individual sports (240)
  • Athletics (40)
  • Golf (15)
  • Gymnastics (25)
  • Martial arts, including boxing and wrestling (30)
  • Tennis (30)
  • Other Olympic individual sports (50)
  • Auto racing (20)
  • Chess (10)
  • Other non-Olympic individual sports (20)

Edit: Additionally, I propose that half of the extra 300 articles be allotted to politicians and leaders (499 at level 4, current level 5 quota at 2400) and the other half to scientists, inventors and mathematicians (242 at level 4, current level 5 quota at 1100). I don't think anyone has ever said that the level 4 list has too many of either even though both sections have slowly grown over the years. Cobblet (talk) 05:54, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

I disagree regarding the "Sports business-people, coaches, commentators, journalists and referees" and think that sports businesspeople/journalists are best handled here with a quota of at least 120. I am more-or-less fine with the rest of your suggestions at a quota of 600 (or, preferably, 650 to allow for loose enforcement of the quotas). The justification for increasing it a bit further is that there are a massive number of sports biographies on Wikipedia (spend some time on WP:NPP and you will appreciate this). While I expect enough sections to run out of articles such that this will be able to grow to 750, I have no good evidence for such at this time, and don't think that going up to the absolute limit immediately is beneficial in any case. power~enwiki (π, ν)

There are a lot of sports biographies on Wikipedia because Wikipedia's predominantly male editors are especially interested in sports. This list should not perpetuate the editorial biases of Wikipedians. (We also have a massive number of porn star biographies.) And I see no reason sports journalists and businesspeople should have a special quota reserved for them (and 100 is the epitome of overkill when we list zero at level 4) when we haven't yet discussed the quotas for other types of journalists and businesspeople. It's a simple matter of fairness. Cobblet (talk) 06:19, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

I'm torn between Cobblet and Power on this. I don't think that sportspeople are as inherently vital as a lot of the other professions on this list, but it does seem to be an easier list. Also, since Jurists has partially been spun off from political leaders (John Marshall, for example, appears as a political leader on Lv 4 and a jurist on Lv 5), I think some of the quota change should go to jurists/law enforcement/criminals. pbp 15:25, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "easier." I don't think we have close to 20 jurists/police chiefs/criminals on the level 4 list (and we've rejected adding people as notable as Blackstone and Escobar), so I don't see why we'd need more than 100 on the level 5 list. Cobblet (talk) 16:29, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

1) Because some politicians and philosophers at Lv 4 would be classified as jurists at Level 5, 2) because we probably will never fill politicians. We have enough space for most world leaders of major countries and still loads of room to spare. For example, look at American and British leaders since 1815 are at now. Then consider that the American list is about a 5-fold increase from the size we had at Lv 4, and the British list (which includes all monarchs since 1815, most of the PMs of note, and several people who were neither) isn't even a 5-fold increase. And those are pretty much the two easiest countries to populate lists of. pbp 18:44, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

1) That probably applies to fewer than 10 people. 2) OK, so by "easier" you mean there's more room. The fact that we filled up the US political leaders so quickly and modern Oceanian leaders have already been expanded 35x suggests to me that there isn't more room. (Let's just stick to "western" Anglophone countries for a second. Where are the Canadian PMs? Have we added everyone from List of English monarchs, List of Scottish monarchs and List of Irish monarchs yet?) And it's not like the sports personalities we currently list are all that vital – can we really think of no other US Senator, Congressman, state governor or city mayor to list instead of Jim Rome? Cobblet (talk) 19:40, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

I have deliberately refrained from adding any American politicians. As one point in your favor, I think Arnold Schwarzenegger is more relevant as a politician than as a body-builder. power~enwiki (π, ν) 19:50, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

If you do the "what if" thing then technically this whole list should be head of states or figures in government. I don't understand how lowering the quota for the list while upping the quota of the major sports and removing figures of sports which are popular in other countries that are non western is a ideal thing. Is the 75th soccer player gonna be more notable then the number one in a smaller sport? I don't see how Martial Arts is overpopulated, Boxing should have a "5x increase" from the list, martial arts itself is non-western and 9 is barely enough (and alot are olympic sports). MMA is maybe one overdone but it's not bad (and mainly big in Japan and Brazil, non-western countries), wrestler's should be cut to 20, and sumo is five. Considering this list is meant to represent a list of what should be FA's i don't see how the 10k list should be under as strict as rules from the level 4 list, currently popular figures need to be FA's too and if they get replaced by someone else just swap them on here. Just seems the list is getting more westernized. GuzzyG (talk) 00:12, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

I should clarify: I didn't mean to suggest that listing all those political figures was a good idea. Most of the work that has been done in that section has focused on western Anglophone countries (I personally would not have included every American president and Australian and New Zealand PM), and my point was only that even within such a limited context our work is hardly finished.

I don't know why you have the notion that adding more footballers means Westernizing the list. Adhering my suggested quota of 70, I've gone ahead and removed Neymar while adding 18 players who I think better reflect the sport's global popularity. Every player I've added is from a different country (Saudi Arabia, USA, South Korea, Paraguay, Cameroon, Chile, France, Sweden, Ghana, Mexico, Japan, Uruguay, Ukraine, Canada, Austria, Bulgaria, China, Ivory Coast), 15 of those 18 countries have no other footballers on the list, and four are women. Cobblet (talk) 18:30, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

I have (arbitrarily) set quotas at 675, trying to split the difference. I expect some of the quotas will need to be modified, and the "Other individual sports" section will need more guidance. I think there's clear agreement that Baseball and Martial Arts are over-populated, as well as many of the "other" sports. power~enwiki (π, ν) 19:50, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

Probably only a couple of New Zealand PMs are vital at best. If you add nine political leaders for every country with a greater population than New Zealand, you would add about a 1000 articles. And obviously countries with a longer history and population will more than likely have more than nine leaders added if you want to be proportionate. Also, adding PMs overlooks important New Zealand leaders of earlier times like Hongi Hika and Te Rauparaha. Gizza ^(t)(c) 02:32, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

And with that 1000 articles, guess what? You would still need to add 1, 500 more, and with Cobblet reducing sports guess where the extra load will go, another 100 to politicians? Now where are all of them going? Why are we removing politicians before even the first 1,000 of them are even on the list? GuzzyG (talk) 23:17, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

The target quota for political leaders is 2400. The nine modern New Zealand leaders were additional articles (not on Level 4). There are already 500 from Level 4. And my estimate of 1000 was very conservative. It was assuming every country with a larger population than New Zealand (about 120 of them) will get the same number of additions when most of them deserve much, much more. It also didn't take into account countries with a smaller population will get increases too. Population is only one broad factor but New Zealand hasn't punched above its weight in political history and events unlike say, Israel, Switzerland, Singapore or even Qatar. If New Zealand gets nine leaders, every country in the G20 would deserve 50 at the very least, not to mention the huge number of countries more important than NZ not in the G20. Just as importantly, it would exacerbate recentism. If we use a similar ratio to Level 4 as a starting point (and Level 4 is still very modern heavy), the number of leaders will be 36.8% of around 884 out of 2400. Even if the quota goes up to 2500, the number will be 920. That would make the number of new leaders (not on Level 4) around 700-736. I just think it's better to anticipate articles which won't make it once this is full rather than making it a free-for-all and then later removing having to remove thousands of articles shouldn't have been here in the first place. Having experienced that on Level 4, that was a very tedious and painful process. Gizza ^(t)(c) 00:01, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

On a list of 2400 politicians (and sports will be cut unfortunately) so 2500, i just think it's odd if one whole continent is represented by 50 or less people. (No matter how small it is), on a list like this every country/state with at least one recognition from a state should have a representative. But then again my view of this list is to have quotas so everything gets a slice. The popular idea on here is that someone like Mitt Romney is more of a historical figure then the prime minister of Samoa (true) but Mitt is a local state governor with no actual bearing on history in his country while to Samoa that prime minister will. Who is more likely to get listed and infact is? Even if Samoa "hasn't pulled their weight", we should still have some representation. Who from Swiss politics will you list, since they share government? I'd say Australia and New Zealand and the other countries in Oceania should have a bit more leverage as they represent a new continent. Like how i added a Oceanian rep in basketball (Gaze) but it got removed and we got a representative from the US in cricket. Funny. And yes every English speaking country should have more then 10 politicians as we are an English speaking an encyclopedia. Although i do not see how every US president should not be listed, that's just straight out false claim. GuzzyG (talk) 04:44, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

I don't think of Oceania as on par with the other five populated continents. There are only 40 million people in Oceania. That's a tenth of the population of North America and a hundredth of the population of Asia. Oceania is also hamstrung by the fact that its recorded history is much shorter than that of a lot of places. Though if we are going to cull American politicians (and we probably will have to, it's at or above 5x its size at VA/E), Mitt Romney would probably be in my top 10 of people most likely to be culled. No US president would. pbp 09:18, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

At soccer I suggest remove Majed Abdullah and Cha Bum-kun. I suggest added Giuseppe Meazza and Clarence Seedorf. Abdullah and Cha Bum-kun there aren't in FIFA 100 while.... Giuseppe Meazza is a player who won two world cup in succession and in 1938 as captain And Seedorf is one player in history who won four times UEFA Champions League for three diffrent clubs and as deffensive player. In my opinion this list is bad. Dawid2009 (talk) 17:58, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

On Jurists

A few days ago, at VA/E, @GeekyEnki: wondered about the VA status of the 23 lawgivers depicted in the House Chamber of the United States Capitol. Here's what it is now:

1. Alfonso X of Castile has been added to Level 5 politicians list
2. Edward I of England is on the Level 4 politicians list
3. Gaius (jurist) has been added to the Level 5 jurists list
4. George Mason has been added to the Level 5 politicians list
5. Pope Gregory IX has been added to the Level 5 politicians list
6. Hammurabi is on the Level 3 politicians list
7. Hugo Grotius is on the Level 4 philosophers list and the Level 5 jurists list
8. Pope Innocent III is on the Level 4 politicians list
9. Jean-Baptiste Colbert has been added to the Level 5 politicians list
10. Justinian I is on the Level 4 politicians list
11. Lycurgus of Sparta is on the Level 4 politicians list
12. Maimonides is on the Level 4 religious figures list
13. Moses is on the Level 3 religious figures list
14. Napoleon I is on the Level 3 politicians list
15. Aemilius Papinianus has been added to the Level 5 jurists list
16. Robert Joseph Pothier has been added to the Level 5 jurists list
17. Saint Louis of France is on the Level 4 politicians list
18. Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester has been added to the Level 5 politicians list
19. Solon is on the Level 4 politicians list. He is currently on the Level 5 politicians list but could be moved to the level 5 jurists list
20. Suleiman is on the Level 4 politicians list
21. Thomas Jefferson is on the Level 4 politicians list
22. Tribonian has been added to the Level 5 jurists list
23. William Blackstone has been added to the Level 5 jurists list

pbp 18:36, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

5% done

Current count is 12,204. We've added 2200 of the 40000 articles needed. I'm still not convinced we're going to get past 30,000. power~enwiki (π, ν) 05:03, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

From memory, the Level 4 list peaked at around this size before we started to go on a removing spree. Gizza ^(t)(c) 02:02, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

30000 seems like a more realistic goal, in my humble opinion. Orser67 (talk) 01:12, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

If it ends up being 30,000, I may need to make some major modifications to what I've done. A lot of my adds were based on a 50,000 list, not a 30,000 one. pbp 09:11, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

We've only just begun. It will be some time before we know if 50,000 is a good number or not. Rreagan007 (talk) 03:56, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

Sports Business People

100 is quite a high allotted quota for something which only has one article at Level 4. And I'm even less convinced that we need coaches for sports which don't have any players at Level 4. Mick Malthouse was the last person I expected to see in a vital list, especially when the sportspeople list is missing Hossein Rezazadeh, Naim Süleymanoğlu, Kim Soo Nyung, Carl Osburn and many others. Gizza ^(t)(c) 01:55, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

I don't see how all because of one's list failings should mean when we have the chance on this one to have a full representation of the complete history of sports to just ignore it. Obviously coaches are more important then players and that's a failing on the part of the level 4 list. Carl Osburn is on the list and i did not have the chance to add archers and weightlifters before i stopped due to people criticizing my additions and i am pretty sure they'd be labeled "niche" sports which should not have a listing now anyhow. I feel like when there's still spots left on the list these kind of "we don't have this" posts are a bit odd as you can always just add them. GuzzyG (talk) 02:00, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

Does anyone else agree that coaches are more important than players? Archery and weightlifting are two of the oldest sports around and have been in the Olympics for a long time. Nothing niche about them. Cobblet (talk) 02:35, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

On the contrary, Australian Rules Football is niche. It is incredibly popular in half of a country (south of the Barassi Line) and that's about it. It has become a spectator sport at most north of the line. BMX is niche too although for more being recent than not spread around the globe. Go to any city in the world with a gym and there will be people lifting weights. Obviously there are people who lift for aesthetic (bodybuilding) and health (weight loss) related purposes but becoming stronger, i.e. weightlifting is a huge motivator. Beyond the Olympics, Strongman competitions are very popular. Archery competitions have been around for thousands of years across many countries and cultures. Even a specific type of archery like mounted archery is more widespread than Australian Rules. And while there are exceptions with some sports (possibly American Football), there's no way coaches are generally more vital than players. In the case of cricket, Bob Woolmer isn't among the sport's 100 most important figures let alone 40 (if you roughly add up players and others). The most significant non-player by a mile is Kerry Packer, without whom even Richie Benaud wouldn't attain significance beyond his playing years. Gizza ^(t)(c) 03:05, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

Kerry Packer was on the list of businesspeople before I removed him for Kenneth Thomson. Feel free to add him back if you think removing him was a mistake. I think it is sensible to compare sports execs to businesspeople not listed from other fields and doing that will show just how non-vital the former generally are. Cobblet (talk) 03:48, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

Comparing like with like (Australian businessmen), I'd replace Dick Smith (entrepreneur) with Packer. Dick Smith is mostly known for complaining about customers not buying Australian-made products while Packer changed the game of cricket forever. He popularized the shorter version which didn't last for five days, introduced coloured clothing, made the professional game playable at night, and modernized it in many other ways. Gizza ^(t)(c) 04:09, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

He used to be one of Australia's major retailers in electronics and for continental diversity i added him. I doubt a "Australian of the year" is just known for controversy. BMX is an Olympic sport so hardly "niche". AFL is as historically relevant as American Football and if you pull up the "numbers argument" then table tennis and badminton should have just as many figures. Why did Boxing and others not get a 5x update from level 4 then, why pick and choose? Coaches are more important to the development of the play then the players, we're not a media organization pushing "stars" we're meant to track the history of the sport and coaches are who make the plays like film directors. That's a fault on the level 4 list just as the fact we don't have any music business-people or music producers. GuzzyG (talk) 07:06, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

1. Actually boxers currently have a 6x increase, and boxing as a sport has an 8x increase if you count the trainers and promoters as well. That's clearly not proportionate.
2. The power dynamics in sports and film are different. A director casts actors based on a script or artistic vision. Coaches usually design strategies around the players they have. I think that's why most people don't consider film directors and sports coaches equally important.
3. I don't see why Australians should be prioritized over people from other countries with a similar population just because some people consider the Australian landmass a continent. I'm inclined to follow Gizza's suggestion and swap Smith for Packer. Cobblet (talk) 23:30, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

1. American football has 3 figures on the level 4, Boxing has 4 but American Football's quota is 25 and and Boxing has to be lowered from 25? Even though it's been around longer and is worldwide and even an Olympic sport? If we're basing it off the level 4 list why does Basketball have a higher quota then Baseball or Cricket even though there's less basketball players on the level 4 list. Why does Rugby not have the same allocation as Ice Hockey then? They both have 3 people on the level 4 list. Why does Figure Skating get 20 when it only has 2 on the level 4 list? The "5x" rule is not consistent.
2. But it's then those strategies that the player's use. A bad coach can't help a good player, but a bad player can be helped with a good coach. Coaches just do not have a high media profile so subconsciously their seen as lower then they are.
3. They should not be prioritized but just have a seat at the table because Australia (and other Oceania) are still another continent at the end of the day and as NX and Australia are English speaking a list on English Wikipedia should represent them too. I agree Packer is more vital then Smith.
4. Also to Gizza's point about Archery and Weightlifting being around for centuries and should have some figures (i agree), would you say the same for Tug of War too? It's been around for centuries and it used to be an Olympic sport, if archery and weightlifting fit so does that. GuzzyG (talk) 00:54, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

1. I think you're looking at power's proposal, not mine. I suggested reducing numbers for both American football as well as the martial arts in general. Basketball has Naismith on level 4 in addition to the six players. I didn't propose explicit quotas for skating, rugby or boxing.
2. Just because person A influences person B's thinking does not make A automatically more vital than B. Sports is a form of entertainment: at the end of the day it's the spectators who decide who they care more about, the players or the coach. I don't think this is something we can only blame the media for. Do you think your opinion is a common one?
3. Are there individual tug-of-war players as notable as the archers or weightlifters Gizza's suggested? Cobblet (talk) 01:20, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

1. I may have, i still think a proper and more focused quota system should be thought up of every sport, just to be clear and to make it easier without people adding things randomly.
2. I will concede it is not common and i agree with you in general. I do strongly feel coaches and music producers too are overlooked on the level 4 list and all because some fields are not listed on the level 4 list does not mean they can not be listed here in decent numbers either.
3. Frederick Humphreys is the closest but still not really. All because a sport is not popular does not mean it shouldn't be listed though or if it's lost popularity, i know you've expressed disdain on the level 4 list but on this one i think we should include ancient athletes too like Milo of Croton, Pheidippides, Gaius Appuleius Diocles and Leonidas of Rhodes. GuzzyG (talk) 09:14, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

That's not quite what I said. I said they shouldn't be on the list while ancient non-athletes who are much more vital than them get left off. Cobblet (talk) 01:19, 2 December 2017 (UTC)

Pageviews of sports

To get a better idea and gauge the popularity of various sports on English Wikipedia, I've collected pageview stats on most major sports. Here are stats over last 365 days for the sports that appear in the templates for team sports, Summer Olympic sports and Winter Olympic sports. There is no template for individual sports hence I used the Olympic sports templates as a proxy though there is overlaps and a few notable sports missing, especially a few with many representatives on Level 5 which I've linked here.

I used a yearly period to account for seasonal variations though many sports run on quadrennial cycle with a major world tournament or Olympics held every four years. If those sports didn't have their major tournament within the last year, their pageviews may not quite reflect their long-term popularity compared to sports on an annual cycle.

As always, the number of views is just one thing to consider, but there are some big mismatches between the numbers of representatives of particular sports and the sport's popularity at the moment. Hopefully it will be useful and refine and improve the list. Gizza ^(t)(c) 01:38, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Here's another bunch of pageviews for sports with representatives on L5 but that not captured in the above links here. Gizza ^(t)(c) 03:34, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Rugby union: proposed swap

I propose we add Ned Haig. Haig is the founder of rugby sevens (which is a Level 4 article). I propose we drop Sebastian Chabal. Chabal was not one of the very best players of his era, not once earning a World Rugby Player of the Year nomination. Furthermore, of the twelve rugby union figures listed as vital, zero are from the century spanning the 1840s to the 1940s, but six are from the decade 2001–2010, so this swap would also partially cure an apparent case of WP:RECENTISM. CUA 27 (talk) 02:39, 18 December 2017 (UTC)