Talk:List of articles every Wikipedia should have/Archives/2018

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Global Perspective: History

From reading the list, it is clear that the aim is to have a global perspective, which is great and critical for a global project like Wikipedia. With important entries like Ibn Battuta, Zheng He and the Gupta Empire, it is less anglo-centric and less euro-centric than most of these types of lists. Kudos to the creators for achieving that. There are still some critical gaps though, and it will require some additional work to make the list truly global in nature. Under History, I suggest adding the following four topics:

  • Mali Empire, the richest civilization during the 14th century, with extensive trade reaching three continents, and with a highly developed and sophisticated culture. In comparison, Medieval Europe was at the time a stagnant backwater.
  • Maya, one of the great early civilizations in the world, an independent inventor of writing and with sophisticated science and architecture.
  • Inca, the great civilization of South America, with direct or indirect reach over almost a whole continent
  • Sumer, the cradle of western civilization. While Sumer is part of Mesopotamia, which is on the list, it definitely deserves its own entry.

Of course, to add also means to subtract. I propose removing the Hundred Years' War, the Thirty Years' War, The crusades and the Treaty of Versailles. These are all important events in European history, but they are not the most important and defining trends of European history, which are represented by the existing entries of Medieval Europe, The Renaissance, the Protestant Reformation and World War 1. For example, the Hundred Years' War was a long lasting local skirmish between the French speaking lords of France and the French speaking lords of England, neither of which were of global importance at the time, and the Thirty Years' War was one of many violent periods in European history.

To double check my own thoughts on this, I consulted Felipe Fernandez-Armestos book Millenium: The history of the last 1000 years, which attempts to take a truly global perspective on world history. The Maya, Inca and Mali Empire all have several pages devoted to them, while the Hundred Years' War is not mentioned at all, the Thirty Years' War is given a couple of paragraphs, and the Treaty of Versailles is briefly mentioned in the chapter on the First World War. The Crusades get almost the same amount of coverage as the Maya and the Inca, but considerable less that the Mali Empire. (Sumer is older than 1000 years so it falls outside the scope of the book).

In summary, in order to make the list more global and less euro-centric, my suggestions are to include:

  • The Mali Empire instead of the Hundred Years' War
  • The Maya instead of the Thirty Years' War
  • The Inca instead of the Treaty of Versailles, and
  • Sumer instead of The Crusades.

Looking forward to hear what others think. Martinogk (talk) 03:13, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

That looks like reasonable and well motivated changes. Boivie (talk) 11:31, 27 May 2017 (UTC)
I'm inclined to agree with these arguments, except perhaps regarding the crusades which impacted the wider region (Europe, Middle East, North Africa) and two civilizations. Maybe we could postpone including either Maya or Inca until a better alternative to replace is found. — Yerpo Eh? 07:47, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
Yes, that sounds like a better approach, to instead remove something from a different category. With only 45 entries, the history section is surprisingly short compared to some of the other sections. To make room for both the Maya Civilization and the Inca, I suggest that we instead remove Esperanto, a constructed European language with 2000 native speakers and a couple of million fluent speakers overall. While Esperanto has some interest as the most successful constructed language, there are hundreds of languages around the world that are more commonly spoken, including Quiché, a modern Maya language with 2.3 million native speakers. Martinogk (talk) 03:03, 31 May 2017 (UTC)
Am I right to understand this comment was the only piece of „discussion“ on deleting Esperanto from the list? Amikeco (talk) 21:07, 18 March 2018 (UTC)
It seems to me that you are right, Amikeco. So the method was, one person, Martinogk, suggested to take out Esperanto, waited 18 days, no one else commented - and then Martinogk deleted Esperanto. I am sorry, this is not what I consider to be appropriate. Esperanto has a very special role in the world. It's not amazing that Esperanto is offered on a lot of language learning sites. A search of "Esperanto" via Google gets at least 100 million results. Just to count the number of speakers is not enough to understand the special role of this language. We should consider e. g. that China publishes daily news in Esperanto, along with only nine other languages. Esperanto has a world wide role and there are not a lot of languages that are learnt in so many countries.
Martinogk argued that e. g. Hundred Years' War is also part of Medieval Europe. OK. But with the deletion of Esperanto the whole subject and the idea of an international language, much quicker to learn than other languages, is omitted. --Lu Wunsch-Rolshoven (talk) 13:20, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
Even if the method was not perfect, I could hardly argue against removing Esperanto. Its role as a universal language has been completely overshadowed by English, so its actual impact is probably on par with the number of speakers. The idea behind it may be noble, but that's not enough in my view. At least presently; I might be persuaded to change my opinion if the autor's wishes come closer to realization in the next few decades, but for now, I support the removal. — Yerpo Eh? 17:31, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
You didn't touch the subject of the uniqueness of Esperanto, Yerpo. The fact that English is the most learned and used foreign language is nothing new in principle in human history - there were international languages like Latin or French before English. The unique thing with Esperanto is that one man put together the basis of Esperanto. Then people learned Esperanto and are still learning Esperanto and an international language community of a new kind was created and is expanding more and more. This community developed its own culture with books and songs etc., being a supranational community. This is something quite different from English. There is no real alternative between English and Esperanto (as many people seem to believe) - Esperanto has a very distinct approach, it's rather a complement. This special aspect of Esperanto was one main reason to include it in this wikipedia list.
The other relevant aspect certainly was the fact that Esperanto can be learned in about a fourth of the time needed for English and similar languages. This also is a unique aspect of the language Esperanto and one more reason why Esperanto should be included again. (And thanks that you agree about the method of deletion.) --Lu Wunsch-Rolshoven (talk) 07:56, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
We should also consider that a lot of linguists and others constantly misinform about Esperanto. That's why a well documented article about Esperanto is necessary in every wikipedia. --Lu Wunsch-Rolshoven (talk) 08:37, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
Uniqueness is certainly a criterion to consider, but is not sufficient for inclusion, in my opinion. Existence of misinformation, on the other hand, is definitely not relevant here - see also WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. — Yerpo Eh? 18:35, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
Probably we should think twice before deleting a unique subject; this obviously didn't take place. - Existence of misinformation is relevant, because a lot of people have ideas about Esperanto which are obviously false. Just reading the wikipedia article about Esperanto will help them to understand their errors. I do not speak about facts without sources, so RIGHTGREATWRONGS is not relevant here. But I would like to know, if those speaking against Esperanto already read the WP:Esperanto article. Did they? - Up to now there are only two people here who speak for the deletion of the Esperanto article from the list. Not a lot, it seems to me. --Lu Wunsch-Rolshoven (talk) 16:38, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
I fully support Lu Wunsch-Rohlshoven's proposal to undo the deletion of Esperanto from the list. The reason given when deleting it was short-sighted: The number of speakers is not what is relevant, but the attention it gets in scholarly and popular discourse. Esperanto gets much much more attention than languages of comparable size of speakers due to its special role as by far the most successful planned language ever. Marcos (talk) 18:28, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
As there isn't any further comment for quite some time, I hope, it will be ok to revert the change which deleted Esperanto. If someone wants to include Mayan Civilization (this is quite ok for me), he or she should find another topic to delete. Esperanto as a worldwide language should not be deleted, certainly not while speaking of a "Global Perspective"; Esperanto should stay in the list. Yerpo already commented, that the method (of deleting Esperanto) "was not perfect"... --Lu Wunsch-Rolshoven (talk) 06:26, 7 April 2018 (UTC)
Seeing that two people support and two oppose the removal, the final consensus is not clear, so restoring and then debating again would be overly bureaucratic at this point. Can't we just make another, specific discussion and then act according to its outcome? — Yerpo Eh? 17:08, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

@Boivie: hope you don't mind, but I reverted your changes to the list until tomorrow. We agreed a while ago that changes wouldn't be made just before the ranking is updated, to give communities more time to write/expand new articles and prevent them from score decrease. I'll self-revert back when the ranking is updated. — Yerpo Eh? 17:43, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

Suggest adding outer space and removing spaceflight

outer space is an important topic which is not included here, so I suggest removing spaceflight to free the quota for that. --Jason6698 (talk) 04:35, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

Though they are both vital, as the list can contain just 1,000 articles, and spaceflight means "ballistic flight into or through outer space", a small Wikipedia should have and then maintain outer space first.--RekishiEJ (talk) 06:02, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

As no people oppose this suggestion, if no further comments are raised by the following week, I will make the change by myself.--Jason6698 (talk) 08:33, 28 January 2018 (UTC)

I think outer space is a bit redundant to Universe. Many Wikipedias just describe outer space astronomical objects/structures in the article about the latter (96 vs. 151 interwikis). Spaceflight, on the other hand, is important as a technological topic, which this list lacks. So I'd prefer to keep spaceflight here. — Yerpo Eh? 06:42, 21 February 2018 (UTC)
I agree; "outer space" can also be discussed in an article on the solar system, so I'd keep space flight in the 1000-page list. Both, of course, can be in the 10,000 page list. A. Mahoney (talk) 15:25, 23 February 2018 (UTC)
Agree with Yerpo and A. Mahoney that with the Solar System and the Universe, we do not also need to include Outer Space. Martinogk (talk) 00:29, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

Replace biological classification by taxonomy

Now that in the English Wikipedia the former was merged into the latter, and the list asks that each Wikipedia should contain every article in the list, the former should be replaced with the latter here since English Wikipedia is the largest one, and a smaller Wikipedia does not have to have the article on biological classification as the English Wikipedia used to, but should have taxonomy instead. The list should contain zoology and genetics as well, since it is absurd that the list contains botany but not these two articles. RNA, Gene and heredity should be included as well. We can add these four articles without exceeding the 1,000 quota by removing five people, for instance, Marilyn Monroe need not to be kept, as the English Wikipedia page on vital articles (Lv3) does not contain her.--RekishiEJ (talk) 18:03, 21 December 2017 (UTC) added and changed a word 18:23, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

Week oppose for replacing biological classification, as it has far more languages (107) then taxonomy (54).
In principle, I argee that the quota of biography can be reduced. Howerver, further discussion is needed to find out who should be removed.--Jason6698 (talk) 08:41, 28 January 2018 (UTC)

remove Flamenco

I don't see why it should be in this list. --Gnom (talk) Let's make Wikipedia green! 13:41, 24 February 2018 (UTC)

What would you propose instead? A. Mahoney (talk) 18:32, 28 February 2018 (UTC)
Well, maybe with "pop music", which surprisingly isn't in the list yet. --Gnom (talk) Let's make Wikipedia green! 21:33, 4 March 2018 (UTC)
@Gnom:,@Amahoney: Agree that Flamenco can be removed. If we want to replace it with another music genre/dance, salsa is much more widely spread across the globe, making the list less euro-centric. Martinogk (talk) 00:20, 15 June 2018 (UTC)
@Gnom:, @Amahoney:, @Amahoney: Folk music would be a more general replacement. --Nk (talk) 19:35, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Lemon (and Soybean): Fruit vs Taxon

Currently Lemon is listed under foodstuffs/fruit as the species/taxon Citrus × limon (Q500) (instance of: taxon). While I was trying to have this reflected in Wikidata, @Succu: (d:) was disputing my edits [1]. If I understand his very brief remarks correctly, he is convinced that this list should rather reference the fruit lemon (Q1093742) (class: hesperidium, citrus fruit and berry), but seems not to bother to do anything about it, so let me play proxy here for his request: @Succu: asks to replace Lemon(-tree) (Q500) with Lemon(-fruit) (Q1093742). See also [2]

The same issue also applies to Glycine max (Q11006) (listed here as a taxon under foodstuffs/fruit as Soybean), but I couldn't find a separate article or wd-item for its fruit/bean.

Following his request, we would consequently replace the plants with the fruits (lemon for now) and end up with no english (or simple) articles for it. I find this problematic due to the nature of this list, but it is certainly possible. E.g. in german we can live with those holes as we include see-also-notes with them [3]. But whoever wants to track adoption of this list automatically will have to deal with it (already).

Citrus × limon (Q500) has far more sitelinks than lemon (Q1093742) 138 vs 25.

  • The taxon-item has sitelinks to simple and german talking about fruit and taxon, englisch says it's about the fruit, but actually also is about both.
  • The fruit-item has no sitelinks to english, no german, no chinese...

As a general rule, we could keep Wikidata-Items for taxons on this list as long as there are no separare Wikidata-Items for their fruits. Thus soybean would be replaced as well, once we find the fuit item.

My intend here is to seek clarification and as a German could also live without a sitelink to english, especially as lemon only appears there in the expanded list (level 4, 10.000 articles). --Aeroid (talk) 12:49, 4 March 2018 (UTC)


I'd like to participate in this discussion. My edition was reverted when I changed Citrus × limon (Q500) for lemon (Q1093742) and I'm going to explain why I think it might be in that way. Firstly, let's take a look to this list. In Foodstuffs, part 7 is about fruits (fruit (Q1364)), defined here in wikidata as a "part of a flowering plant" but I prefer the more complete definition in the english wikipedia: "a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants". Taking in account these definitions, it seems to be clear that the fruit is not the whole plant or tree. Now, let's take a look to the fruits mentioned in this part 7 and their definitions in the linked pages in wikidata: apple (Q89) "fruit of the apple tree", banana (Q503) "fruit", grape (Q10978) "the fruit, use Q191019 for the genus, use Q30046 for the species", Glycine max (Q11006) "species of plant", Citrus × limon (Q500) "nothospecies of plant (for lemon use Q1093742)" and nut (Q11009) "edible seed (with or without the rest of the fruit)". We can see that 4 out of 6 linked pages in wikidata talk about fruit (it could be doubtful "nut", but an extended definition of fruit is "any plant product useful to man, including grain, vegetables, etc" or "any edible part of a plant", but never the whole plant). As a conclusion, in my opinion, there are two mistakes concerning to "soybean" (in this list, it might be only the grain of the plant) and "lemon" (clearly concerning to lemon (Q1093742)). I think that Citrus × limon (Q500) has far more sitelinks than lemon (Q1093742) is not a strong reason to maintain Citrus × limon (Q500) because a repeated mistake (in my modest opinion, of course) doesn't make it true. Most of the languages that sounds, more or less, familiar to me, make the difference between the fruit and the fruit tree: lemon and lemon tree (english), limón and limonero (spanish), citron and citronnier (french), zitrone and zitronenbaum (german), limao and limoeiro (portuguese), limón and limoeiro (galician), llimona and llimoner (catalan), limone and (albero di) limone (italian); but only two (french and galician) have a page for everyone. The other have only one page for the lemon tree or two pages, being one a redirection to the other. On the contrary, for example, grape (Q10978) and Vitis vinifera (Q30046) have their own page on everyone of the mentioned wikis. Why all of these wikis have different pages for "grape" and "grape vine" but not for "lemon" and "lemon tree"? That seems not to be so coherent. Yours, --Xosé Antonio (talk) 01:30, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

Hi, I think that if apple, banana, grape, and nut point to the articles of the fruits, lemon has to point to its article too. In other hand, I think that soybean can't be considered a fruit, and I suggest change it for pineapple. Bye, --Elisardojm (talk) 12:28, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

Add Poverty

Add Poverty (social issues), remove Auto racing. (Really? Auto racing???) Guido den Broeder (talk) 22:44, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Good change. Thank you. Martinogk (talk) 00:23, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

Add HUNGARY

I suggest either adding the Hungarian language (because of its unique position of being a major non-Indo-European language in Europe, just as important as most other European languages and more important than most non-European languages) or the country Hungary (a regional superpower which contributed a lot to European culture and history over more than a millennium, probably more important than countries like Afghanistan, Congo, New Zealand, Sudan, Venezuela etc). — The preceding unsigned comment was added by 185.79.93.4 (talk)

These assertions don't convince me, so I suggest we keep the balance and not remove non-European topics to accommodate Hungary or Hungarian. — Yerpo Eh? 11:06, 25 June 2018 (UTC)
I do not think we should add more languages to the 18 that are already listed, but if we do, I would add Korean, Javanese, Vietnamese or Thai, all with over 50 million native speakers, rather than Hungarian, with 13 million. Martinogk (talk) 18:11, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

Giza pyramids

At the moment the list shows "Giza Necropolis", which is listed under wikidata Giza pyramid complex (Q13217298). This looks like a mixup because it is not about the pyramids but about the surrounding cemeteries. Surely the whole Giza Pyramid complex is meant, of which the cemeteries ("necropolis") are not the main interest. So I propose to link to Giza Pyramids (Q12508) . Kipala (talk) 14:35, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. I think it will upset a lot of people who organized their wikipedia a bit differently but the German Wikipedia shows after you expand both articles. One is about graves and the other buildings. --MarsRover 16:24, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
I guess if people organized different then with a look at this list and the connected ranking. But i do not see any reason to keep articles about the bunch of graves around Giza among the 1000 most important topics every wikipedias should have. The argument is for the pyramids; and also the German article de:Nekropole von Gizeh which is now connected to this entry has no place among the 1000 top, the de:Pyramiden von Gizeh however is, even though not connected here. So what can be done to correct this? Kipala (talk) 06:49, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
Unless someone disagrees I think you can switch it. There are a lot of articles that have even more challenging issues (e.g. Is "blindness" or "sight impairment"? Is this "nose" or "human nose"? Is it "biological classification" or "taxonomy"?). Probably there isn't a perfect solution but I think in this case graves vs buildings is easy to explain. --MarsRover 17:52, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
I agree, both about Giza and about the larger problem. In Latin Wikipedia we spend a lot of time chasing our tails as the specific Wikidata items on lists like this one keep flopping around; neither English, nor German, nor any other of the big WPs seems to have an ideal organization for everything! A. Mahoney (talk) 12:55, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

International organizations

Just stumbled about 'International organizations'. The major organizations like EU, AU, ASEAN, .. are there, but UNASUR is missing. IMO it is much more important an representing many more inhabitants than Commonwealth of Independent States (a more or less Russian organization). --Murma174 (talk) 11:47, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

Agree that Commonwealth of Independent States could potentially be removed. Founded in 2008,UNASUR is a young and fledgling organization, with Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Paraguay and Peru having recently suspended their membership. I would rather add the Organization of American States, which is older, larger, more active and more important. Martinogk (talk) 19:47, 10 August 2018 (UTC)
Yes, I'd agree to Organization of American States, as America is not represented in this chapter. --Murma174 (talk) 12:26, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

Artists

Claude Monet has 110 articles — more than Mimar Sinan, although he his listed as compulsory. In the pageviews the gap is much bigger: 9471 to 798. The former should replace the latter. And yet 5 artists is too much for a single century (the 15th or 18th have no one). Propositum (talk) 19:07, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

21st Century Scientists

The list of great scientists and inventors is missing Stephen Hawking who is number 23 on Wikipedia:Multiyear ranking of most viewed pages. I suggest deleting the 19th century British physicist James Prescott Joule to make way. More generally, I think the list skews towards ancient scientists at the expense of modern ones.T0mpr1c3 (talk) 12:07, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

I agree Hawking is missing, however Joule needs to be kept as well - his contributions to physics were so significant, that the Joule energy measuring unit is named after him - ever heard of the kiloJoule instead of the older calories? That's from him. Best regards. AntekVeganova (talk) 01:53, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

Michael Jackson

Why Michael Jackson not listed here?.He has wikipedia in 231 languages (Only trailing Ronald Reagan).I dont know what is the criteria to be listed here but i think Jackson should be listed here. Akhiljaxxn (talk) 00:30, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

This was already discussed, even more than once, I think. Please check archives. — Yerpo Eh? 09:35, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
I think he is safely more notable than Louis Armstrong. 201.27.100.86 15:14, 6 July 2019 (UTC)
He’s listed at Wikipedia:Vital_articles. I think they had some really good arguments for his inclusion. As he’s known all over the world, he certainly merits a place here as well. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by ‎93.160.84.113 (talk) 12:12, 4 March 2021 (UTC)
  • Support the addition, and I propose swapping out Elvis Presley (like it was done in the English language Wikipedia's vital articles, even when Elvis is more US/Europe-focused). Michael Jackson was far more innovator/creator and global than Elvis.--Awvazquez (talk) 02:24, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

Support Support I think it's time for Michael Jackson to be added to this list. I also support the Elvis Presley-Michael Jackson swap. --Salvabl (talk) 21:57, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

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