Wikipedia talk:Vital articles/Level/5

General Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Level 4 Level 5

Level 5 Subpages

People History and geography Society STEM

Introduction

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 Society (arts, philosophy, religion, everyday life, recreation, and social sciences); #4 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
   3. Have at least 4 participants.
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 proposed additions from August 2024 onwards, 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: 21:22, 2 November 2024 (UTC)
• 7 days ago is: 21:22, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

VA template in edit summaries

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.

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I know this has been brought before but surely there is a way for the template to work in edit summaries, because its extremely annoying to not be able to simply click on the proposal; most of the time it doesn't work but I have seen some instances were it did work. The Blue Rider 21:56, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

Yes, it’s annoying to me as well. Not sure how to fix this, but willing to get some ideas. Interstellarity (talk) 21:11, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

I have also found this really annoying. Maybe we could try asking at VPT? QuicoleJR (talk) 17:25, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

me too.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 15:01, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

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.

Clarification that early modern period ends in 1815

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.

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For as long as I can remember, the cutoff between early modern and modern on the vital articles page. However, recently another editor has been moving articles around to split early modern at 1800. The significance to 1815 is the end of the Napoleonic Wars and the Congress of Vienna that defined the world order for the next 99 years. 1800 is a 00 year but has no additional historical significance. _pbp 21:35, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Support 1815

1. _pbp 21:35, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Support 1800

1. Based on our early modern period article, which generally supports a 1500-1800 date. SailorGardevoir (talk) 22:34, 8 April 2024 (UTC)
2. Rounder number. Hyperbolick (talk) 08:54, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

   So? Aside of being a "round number", there's no watershed event that begins or ends that year. _pbp 20:47, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

   Sure you could find something. John Adams elected president, marking the tradition of transition of power in the American democracy. Hyperbolick (talk) 02:32, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

   John Adams was elected in 1796... _pbp 01:00, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

   Election of Jefferson, then, ushering in the principal that an electorally defeated incumbent head of state gracefully leaves office. Hyperbolick (talk) 03:47, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Support something else

Discussion

FWIW, the article (which is trash, BTW) states, "There is no exact date that marks the beginning or end of the period and its timeline may vary depending on the area of history being studied." _pbp 00:10, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

@SailorGardevoir: Without saying "it's what the article says", can you defend why 1800 is a good year for that split? What watershed event occurred in that year? _pbp 00:10, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

It’s a nice round number that’s close to the end of the French Revolution, which is what most people consider the main event that divides the modern era into early and late periods, not the Congress of Vienna. SailorGardevoir (talk) 00:44, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

Another reason for just having 1800 be the starting date for the early modern period is that it downplays the Eurocentricity of dividing time into these specific periods. What's the main divider for the Ancient and Post-classical periods? The Fall of the Western Roman Empire? What's the main divider for Post-classical and Early modern? Either the Fall of the Eastern Roman Empire or the Discovery of the Americas. What's the main divider for Early modern and Late modern? The French Revolution (or apparently the Congress of Vienna). With the exception of the Discovery of the Americas and arguably the French Revolution, these events mostly just affected Europeans. SailorGardevoir (talk) 20:46, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

I haven't read thoroughly on the topic, but I have for a while, in and out of Wikipedia presumed or believed that 1815 was the cut off transition year for the modern period, just like A.D. 467 is the cut off from Ancient to Post Classic. In general, we use worded titled eras on the vital project from level 2 and down, with Ancient, Post-Classic, Late and Early modern at lev2, followed by Stone, Medieval, Iron, Bronze, Renaisance, Pre-Columbian at lev3 and more at lev4. We list the worded eras and list other things under them, we do not list numbered centuries and/or decades until level 5, the majority of the project uses eras not centuries. Eras are marked by significant events or technologies not coincidental arbitrary calendar round numbers, otherwise we would end up with odd cut offs like splitting Ancient Rome into before and after A.D. 1 or something, which would make little sense.  Carlwev  13:07, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

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.

User:DannyS712/DiscussionCloser is useful for closing discussions

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.

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Thanks Hanif Al Husaini, I followed your example in using this, and it is helpful! All can try it out! starship.paint (RUN) 12:43, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Is it just me or the "Close" button doesn't show up anymore. Already tried to install and uninstall multiple times and no success. The Blue Rider 17:34, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Often happens to me. I don't have a fix other than to keep reloading. J947 ‡ ^edits 09:46, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

@J947 @The Blue Rider @Starship.paint uninstalling the script and installing User:DaxServer/DiscussionCloser.js fixed the problem for me. Hope this helps. feminist🩸 (talk) 06:48, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

@Feminist: - thank you! I think I already did that :) starship.paint (RUN) 12:46, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

I just copied DaxServer's discussion closer.js and made my own adjustments. Thanks. The Blue Rider 20:17, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

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.

Shutting off automatic archiving

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.

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Can someone please disable automatic archiving? Unclosed discussions with a clear consensus are getting auto-archived, and this is bad. QuicoleJR (talk) 21:16, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

+1. J947 ‡ ^edits 23:50, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

We need more prompt closures. Perhaps there should be some form of a qui pro quo requirement that to nominate something you must close something. Plus we need to do everything we can to make closures easier, that chiefly includes telling everyone from the start of the nomination where you want the nominated page to be added to. We should not be making closers do extra work on figuring out where things have to go. The nominators or supporters should figure that out. starship.paint (RUN) 03:06, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, I think there is a reason removals get closed before additions. However, I still think we should turn off automatic archiving and just archive things manually after closing them. QuicoleJR (talk) 14:15, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

I'm fine with turning off automatic archiving. starship.paint (RUN) 14:49, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

I am not sure how to turn it off without retaining the ability to automatically create new archive pages once the current archive page is too big. I've set the automatic archive to a year in the meantime. starship.paint (RUN) 01:39, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

That should work. Thanks! QuicoleJR (talk) 22:28, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

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.

Swap Muhammad ibn Ali al-Sanusi with Senusiyya

I'm bringing it here rather than the people talk page since the Senusiyya will be placed under history if they get added. If anyone has seen my proposals lately, I have been pushing for the removal of articles that I personally feel are never going to escape stub-class. I will admit, that kind of the reason I want to get rid of al-Sanusi, although now I'm starting to think that his article can improve after all if we transplant some of the info from the Senusiyya article to him. However, even if we can improve his article, we have also been removing people who are chiefly known for finding a royal dynasty without actually being rulers, and I ultimately think that's why he's here. Instead, we should swap him out for the order he belongs to. Although only one of them end up ruling Libya, they still seem to play a big role in resisting Italian colonial rule.

Support

1. SailorGardevoir (talk) 07:32, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
2. Hanif Al Husaini (talk) 02:55, 21 May 2024 (UTC)
3. Support adding Senusiyya to History. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 19:08, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Oppose removing Muhammad ibn Ali al-Sanusi from People. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 19:08, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

Discuss

• All of the relevant sections (whether you put the man under Religious figures or Rebels) are technically still under their quotas so I say why not have both for now? A personal theme of mine at Level 5 is that it's arguably even more useful for stimulating mergers / splits than improving single articles in isolation. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 19:08, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

Too much of a focus on U.S. removals?

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In cities, there's been at least 30 removals or proposed removals... ...when the U.S. is NOT the most overrepresented (looking at cities per million of urban population, most of Oceania, Europe and the Caribbean, and more than a few countries elsewhere have more VA articles than the U.S. does).

In politicians, there's been a whole of of removals or proposed removals... ...when the U.S. is NOT the most overrepresented there either

What's also ironic is that entertainment personalities is one of the areas where the U.S. is most OVERrepresented and it hasn't received as much attention as cities and politicians. _pbp 19:16, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

A few editors have begun working to trim down that section. I agree Questions? four Olifanofmrtennant (she/her) 01:13, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

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.

Premature closures

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.

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I noticed and reverted two discussions were closed with a nominator support and a single oppose vote based on time (see [1] and [2]). Although the time indicates that the nomination is not a subject of high interest, time does not seem to indicate a consensus having been achieved. Is there an interest in adding a rule to close based on time without a consensus regarding vitality.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 05:06, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

If there's less than four votes after 60 days, it seems fine by me to close as "no consensus" _pbp 05:37, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

I see lots of subject that just do not get attention of our discussants that still need active consideration rather than people who can not be bothered by a subject. We do not even require 4 voters. 4 discussants is a very low threshold. We have lower thresholds than level 1-4. If we are going to time things out it should not be until 90 days since last comment. However, I don't think we should do that.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 11:20, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

90 days sounds about right, but I agree with TonyTheTiger that I wouldn't like see votings closed en masse just because they didn't find enough attention in time. The pages get very long, and stuff in the middle isn't seen by everyone. Too early closings before enough people have considered would mean that subjects that get less interest would not improve and stay the way they are. It would be better if we closed and archived the votings that are ready in due time. That would move the ones waiting for votes higher on the page, where they would get noticed by more editors. Makkool (talk) 13:27, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

I would also agree with 90 days; these pages are very long, and I don't think it is helpful to have discussions open for more than 90-days. The Level 1-4 have a time limt for a no-consensus, so Level 5 should have too. I would suggest that this is proposed at the VA main page for decision? Aszx5000 (talk) 11:07, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

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.

Trying to improve the nav bar in level 5

I'm trying to improve the nav bar at level 5 to make navigating through lists a lot easier. The link is at Wikipedia:Vital articles/Nav bar/5. Because this list is broken down into many sublists that are difficult to navigate, I'm trying to figure out the best way to organize this navbar. The level 4 navbar seems to be OK, so I am looking for some advice on how I can improve navigation with the navbar. Right now, it is a bit of a mess so any advice and editor improvements to it are welcome. Interstellarity (talk) 23:55, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

It the table on Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/5 useful in this regard. I think the table is trying to break up into equivalent sized sections? Aszx5000 (talk) 22:52, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

Notification

I was going to post this notice a few days ago when I found out, but better late than never.

Hanif Al Husaini, a major contributor to the VA5 project, passed away on May 27, 2024. There is a section on his talk page for comments of remembrance. May he rest in peace. QuicoleJR (talk) 20:00, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the notification. May he rest among the stars in peace. The Blue Rider 13:20, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

Redirect this talk page to the new VA landing page talk page

Shouldn't this talk page be redirected to the new VA landing page talk page? It feels that we are having discussions about Level 5 processes and procedures that would be best hosted at the overall VA talk page level (which used to be one the Level 3 talk page), and not outside of that. Better to have one single page for making such suggestions at VA? thanks. Aszx5000 (talk) 11:03, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

I'd actually keep this one separate, at least for now. The regulars here can probably tell you I'm a broken record on this, but I think Level 5 will always need to work differently from at least Levels 1-3, purely because of scaling issues. I'm usually very for consolidating pages, but VA5 is sort of an exception. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 19:08, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

Proposal: Splitting the society subpage

The society subpage is way too long and was thinking that it should be split into multiple subpages. Not sure how to split the subpages, but was hoping to get some input on how we should split it. Interstellarity (talk) 12:27, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

After closing and archiving a lot of proposals, the society page isn't particulary bloated; less than 200k bytes - the People subsection has more as of now. The Blue Rider 17:41, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

For some context, with our first-year anniversary of the separate proposal pages coming up, XTools now reports the following (approximate) sizes:

Proposal page sizes

Subsection	Size, end of 2023 (kB)	Current size (kB)
People	195	150
Hist & Geo	305	130
Society	580	210
STEM	165	180

So while Society is still the largest, it was relatively massive in the beginning and has trended down in size the most. STEM on the other hand is the only one to trend up. So if we do decide to split Society, which I personally support, we should also discuss splitting Math & Science from Tech (which dominates the discussion page). -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 19:08, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

Bad bot edits by @Cewbot:

Hello,

I just noticed that Cewbot recently removed all the Level 4 tags from Level 5. This means that, on the vital article template on article talk pages, Level 4 articles are instead listed as level 5 articles. _pbp 15:53, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

I don't know if it's the same set of issues, or it just runs less often, but looks like Cewbot has been on holiday for a couple weeks now. I have other things to do first, but I can check if Kanashimi is OK, and maybe help with this eventually. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 19:08, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

Add a button that makes it easier to nominate vital articles according to the new rules

I think it would be helpful to have a button in each of the subpages that makes the nomination process for adding and removing articles a lot easier. I was thinking a template could look something like this. The format proposed is commented in the edit source screen. Please let me know your thoughts on this. That way, we can have more nominations that are rule-binding. Interstellarity (talk) 21:10, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

• I like it, if you can make it, sure. starship.paint (RUN) 14:29, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

Propose quota change: Culture +100 Biological and health sciences -100

There's clearly work remaining, but I don't think there are that many easy cuts in the Culture section (Universities? Museums?), which is almost 200 entries over quota. On the other hand, Biology has taken too long to fulfill (nearly 400 under quota), and a similar proposal was made for Level 4 months ago. This one would be:

• Culture 1750 ---> 1850 (currently has 1946 entries).
• Biology 5815 ----> 5715 (currently has 5412 entries).

1. Biology, biochemistry, anatomy, and physiology 1200 ---> 1150 (currently has 1062 entries).
2. Plants, fungi, and other organisms 1075 ---> 1050 (currently has 968 entries).
3. Health, medicine, and disease 1140 ----> 1115 (currently has 1005 entries).

Support

1. As nominator. Tabu Makiadi (talk) 16:37, 5 October 2024 (UTC)
2. Support, other cuts could definitely be made to Television articles for example Makkool (talk) 14:29, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

   Support, although I have been trying to improve the Health section. The problem is that nobody votes on the more technical proposals. QuicoleJR (talk) 14:20, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

3. Questions? four Olifanofmrtennant (she/her) 15:39, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

Oppose

1. oppose. I think we could likely trim plenty from both sections, and we should emphasize reducing the list rather than shuffling stuff around. For example, while I love academic journals, I think half could probably be cut from the list. We could likely cut half the magazines, TV, and Radio articles while we're at it. I struggle to believe WWE Raw is one of the most important articles on Wikipedia, and while King of the Hill might be among the greatest animes of all time, I think it probably could be cut as well. While an argument could be made that Sports Illustrated is impactful, I don't know if Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue needs to be included as well. Biology and health sciences probably could be expanded tremendously, but I'm sure there are cuts to be found there as well. I look through Public health topics, and pages like Infant mortality and Birth defect are not included. In short, I believe that Wikipedians have been a bit overzealous about getting their favorite TV show or publication listed while slacking a bit on Biological and health sciences topics.GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 02:20, 21 October 2024 (UTC)
2. Strong oppose, on a few counts. I'll be slowly coming back from a hiatus & doing some other things (like a mark-1 vitality estimator) before proposals here. I'm against removing slots from the biology section for now though because: 1. I don't think its current size reflects the subject, just a bias in the interest level by proposers. I'm not a botanist, but I have 45 plant nominations alone that I didn't get around to earlier this year. So we could probably exceed the current quota with more participation. 2. I know it's not an agreed convention for now, but I think we should also move away from overly-tuned quotas with more than 1 or 2 significant digits. 3. If any of the Society sections gets a quota bump, I would actually like to see it go to Religion & Philosophy. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 11:58, 31 October 2024 (UTC)
3. After thinking about it for a bit, oppose per Zar2gar1. QuicoleJR (talk) 16:00, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

Discuss

If Biology is 400 below and Culture is 200 above, who are we not just shifting 200 from Biology to Culture? BD2412 T 15:40, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

1. I may propose something similar if this one passes, but I think there's a decent amount of cuts for an outright +200 increase. Tabu Makiadi (talk) 16:37, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

I don't support that, since I think there are certainly enough additions to get at least the Health section to the quota. I also think enough cuts can be made to get Culture down to the new quota. QuicoleJR (talk) 14:23, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

What are your more technical proposals? GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 02:26, 21 October 2024 (UTC)