Wikipedia talk:Vital articles/Level/5/Archive 21

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Archive 21

VA5 quota now 50,075. Reduce Countries and subdivisions by 50? 1348/1400 to 1348/1350

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Per Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/5, VA5 quota is currently 50,075 articles, not 50,000. Countries and subdivisions is currently 1348/1400 articles. Shall we reduce the quota by 50? Making it 1348/1350. starship.paint (RUN) 08:07, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Support

1. Per nom. Makkool (talk) 11:42, 12 April 2024 (UTC)
2. As nom. starship.paint (RUN) 09:51, 13 April 2024 (UTC)
3. We have too many pointless country subdivisions, so we could and should reduce it even further. Vileplume 🍋‍🟩 (talk) 21:11, 14 April 2024 (UTC)
4. Per nom, rightsizing. Hyperbolick (talk) 08:55, 17 April 2024 (UTC)
5. Even if there would turn out to be demand for more of this category it can be increased again, and for now quota can be taken from under-quota pages.--LaukkuTheGreit (Talk•Contribs) 08:48, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
6. I agree that this could be reduced even further. Tabu Makiadi (talk) 22:35, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

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Add List

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Super-basic and fundamental topic. List should be under Information, as a list is one of the most common types of/ways to organize information.

Support

1. BD2412 T 01:13, 3 April 2024 (UTC)
2. Hanif Al Husaini (talk) 05:00, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
3. Per nom. Don't think it’s true that these lists are just for improvement. FAs don’t get kicked out. Hyperbolick (talk) 08:53, 17 April 2024 (UTC)
4. We should definitely have List on the list. QuicoleJR (talk) 21:21, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

Oppose

1. The purpose of the VA project is to identify a list of articles that we should devote more editing resources towards to make them high quality. We don't need that for list: there is no specialized history to them (the article itself mentions that the scholarship on lists is fragmented) and their purpose and existence is straightforward; it's basically a dictionary term. Almost everything on the article seems fairly obvious. It also establishes a dangerous precedent. Where do we stop? Should we add paragraph for example? Aurangzebra (talk) 06:50, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Neutral

Discussion

What is the process from here? We have more than four participants and four support votes (80% support), and the discussion has been open for six weeks, with over a week since the last comment. BD2412 T 22:24, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

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Level 5 proposals must run for at least 15 days?

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Currently, L5 proposals must run for at least 14 days. But, all higher level proposals must run for at least 15 days. Propose to standardise L5 to at least 15 days as well. starship.paint 07:57, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Support

1. as nom. starship.paint 07:57, 29 May 2024 (UTC)
2. Vileplume 🍋‍🟩 (talk) 01:40, 31 May 2024 (UTC)
3. LOL-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 23:30, 1 June 2024 (UTC)
4. Barely makes a difference, but why not. Consistency is good. QuicoleJR (talk) 18:39, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
5. Makes sense to align with Level 1-4. Aszx5000 (talk) 11:08, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

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Proposed new rule: while nominating an article, also list the proposed location in the vital article list

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The purpose of this new rule (to support a nomination, the location to where it should be added it must be listed) is to lighten the burden on closers, who are working without reward. They have to figure out where the article should go, despite not necessarily having any expertise in the topic. The burden of effort should be on the nominator and the supporters, not the closer. Ideally, the nominator should provide the location. If the nominator does not know the best location, they can provide multiple potential locations and the other supporters can chime in on which is the best one. This will apply to all nominations made after this proposal passes. starship.paint (RUN) 01:34, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

Support

1. per nom. starship.paint (RUN) 12:56, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
2. Seems fair. Hyperbolick (talk) 22:14, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
3. I have seen the wave of terror that is User:feminist's proposals in the society section. I don't envy you at all when you close their discussions. SailorGardevoir (talk) 06:52, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
4. Sometimes the nominator does not know (speaking from experience), but most of the time this should be done. Would make closing things that aren't removes much easier. QuicoleJR (talk) 18:41, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
5. Yes, harder, but makes sense. Is this a proposal for all Levels? Aszx5000 (talk) 22:48, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

   @Aszx5000: - higher levels are less of an issue now that we are mandating that nominations must be included at lower levels. Thus there is already a clue on where the nomination should go at higher levels. starship.paint (RUN) 08:51, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

If you need an example of a nomination where the potential location is not immediately obvious, see Wikipedia talk:Vital articles/Level/5/Society#Add Self-defense. starship.paint (RUN) 01:36, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

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VA template in edit summaries

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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)

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Clarification that early modern period ends in 1815

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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)

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User:DannyS712/DiscussionCloser is useful for closing discussions

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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)

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Shutting off automatic archiving

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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)

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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)

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Premature closures

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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)

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Notification

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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)

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Bad bot edits by @Cewbot:

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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)

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

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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)

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Proposal: Splitting the society subpage

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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)

Just to update, the STEM page included a lot of very stale proposals. Tech still dominates the page, but now that the cruft is closed out, it's at a much more manageable ~135 kB. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 18:39, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

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Improve a random Level X article

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The button seems to not work. Pressing it will either just reolad the page or take to some category like which is clearly not random and makes the editor choose. ExclusiveEditor _{Notify Me!} 07:29, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

Good find, it kicks me to the maintenance category for VA articles by quality rating. I'm already building up a decent backlog of projects here, but if nobody else gets to it, maybe I can look into making it a genuine "I feel lucky" button. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 18:39, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

I just looked into it, and it was a simple fix. The service on Toolforge only needs URL parameters, but the catch is it's not smart enough to descend through a container category. You have to feed it individual ones from the bottom of the category tree.

I've currently set it only to return Stub, Start, and C class articles, along with Lists (Lv5 still has about 110 and we've never officially discouraged them). My thinking is the lower-quality articles are easiest to improve quickly.

Also, I didn't make changes to the button on any of the sublists. Those already worked since the "Vital ... by <topic>" categories are leaves in the category tree. Those buttons don't filter at all on quality though and may return even FAs. AFAICT the service on Toolforge only allows adding categories (i.e. union / whitelist), whereas it would need parameters for intersections or complements (i.e. blacklist) to filter on topic & quality simultaneously. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 15:31, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

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