Talk:List of articles every Wikipedia should have

See the list of removed entries for articles that were listed in the past or are still under consideration.

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New stable version

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

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

Aswan Dam

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

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

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

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

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

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

Analytical chemistry, Physical chemistry and Inorganic chemistry

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Food

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

timing of changes

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

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

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

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

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

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

ethnocentrism and cultural imperialism

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

DMSchneider 10:03, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

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

A few comments.

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

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