Wikipedia talk:Vital articles/Level/5/People

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 discussion page is to select 50,000 topics for which Wikipedia should have high-quality articles.

Any article currently on this list may be challenged. The discussion is open to the following rules:

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: 01:19, 11 February 2025 (UTC)
• 7 days ago is: 01:19, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

If you're interested in regularly participating as a closer, the following browser tools may also be helpful:

• Streamlined closing with User:DaxServer/DiscussionCloser.js
• One click archiving with User:Elli/OneClickArchiver
  • Consider User:andrybak/Archiver if you prefer archiving several discussions in one go

The following link represent all current Level 5 Vital articles that are classified as people:

Further information: Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/5/People/Miscellaneous

Further information: Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/5/People/Artists, musicians, and composers

Further information: Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/5/People/Entertainers, directors, producers, and screenwriters

Further information: Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/5/People/Military personnel, revolutionaries, and activists

Further information: Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/5/People/Philosophers, historians, political and social scientists

Further information: Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/5/People/Politicians and leaders

Further information: Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/5/People/Religious figures

Further information: Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/5/People/Scientists, inventors, and mathematicians

Further information: Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/5/People/Sports figures

Further information: Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/5/People/Writers and journalists

Film scholar additions

There is under-representation in art historians of scholars and historians focusing on film. I feel these could be essential names to list, to have more balance between different art forms in that section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Makkool (talk • contribs) 16:26, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

It is worth noting that it may seem like film scholars are under-represented simply because film theory as an independent field is a relatively novel concept but there are many prominent film scholars we list whose primary contributions are in other domains e.g. François Truffaut  4 who was foremost a director and Gilles Deleuze  5 who was primarily a philosopher. Aurangzebra (talk) 06:11, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, that's correct. We also already list Sergei Eisenstein  4 and André Bazin  5 who are prominent, and the latter is represented in the art historians and critics section. I think with the space we have, we can list some more. Makkool (talk) 09:11, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Add David Bordwell

His book Film Art "is still used as a seminal text in introductory film courses". 14 interwikis.

Support

1. As nom. Makkool (talk) 16:26, 16 July 2024 (UTC)
2. Art / culture theorists are under Social Scientists, which still needs to be topped up. No need to overthink it. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 17:52, 1 February 2025 (UTC)
3. Let's just try to get this over the finish line. Aurangzebra (talk) 04:39, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

1. I don't buy a person being important for redlinked books.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 13:34, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Neutral

1. Going to reserve judgment on this one but it's worth noting that we don't include seminal textbook authors in other more noteworthy fields. Aurangzebra (talk) 06:11, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

   His article also mentions that he has written "influential articles on theory, narrative, and style". He seems to be an important figure in academic film studies, at least in North America. Don't know if his scholarship is read in Europe for example. Makkool (talk) 09:11, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Discuss

Add Vito Russo  5

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.

---

Queer film theorist and author of The Celluloid Closet, "'an essential reference book' on homosexuality in the US film industry".

Support

1. As nom. Makkool (talk) 16:26, 16 July 2024 (UTC)
2. Iostn (talk) 21:22, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
3. per nom Aurangzebra (talk) 01:58, 22 January 2025 (UTC)
4. Art / culture theorists are under Social Scientists, which still needs to be topped up. No need to overthink it. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 17:52, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Neutral

Discuss

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.

Add Manthia Diawara

African film scholar who "contributed significantly to the study of black film".

Support

1. As nom. Makkool (talk) 16:26, 16 July 2024 (UTC)
2. Art / culture theorists are under Social Scientists, which still needs to be topped up. No need to overthink it. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 17:52, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Current bio does not get me to say vital.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 13:39, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Neutral

Discuss

Add Ira Losco

Losco is probably the only Maltese musician that could make the list (though I believe Aidan who has been dominating the charts in Malta for the last 5 years could make it in the future). She has competed in Eurovision twice (the first time coming 2nd), won numerous awards and is frequently described as Malta's queen of pop. She would probably go in the Popular music: General section as she almost exclusively sings in English (one of the official languages of Malta). Sahaib (talk) 13:27, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

Support

1. Make vote by nom explicit. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 04:13, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
2. Weak support, mainly because we should probably have one Maltese musician. I would probably prefer someone that sings in Maltese though, even if they're less commercially popular. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 20:37, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Weak oppose. The popular music: general section has 84, in my opinion, major stars. Losco's accomplishments don't stack up regardless of where the subject is from. GauchoDude (talk) 20:50, 27 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Makkool (talk) 15:52, 14 February 2025 (UTC)
3. Not big enough for me.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 17:02, 21 February 2025 (UTC)

Neutral

Add dieting figures

Some well-known people related to dieting and healthy eating are missing from the list. Add to section Miscellaneous/Health and fitness.

Add William Banting

First person to "popularise a weight loss diet based on limiting the intake of carbohydrates" like starch and sugar. His influence is evident that his name became a verb to mean losing weight, which still exists in Swedish.

Support

1. As nom. Makkool (talk) 16:27, 18 October 2024 (UTC)
2. Weak support, but good point about Miscellaneous being under quota. I say, "brainstorming is welcome." -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 22:31, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
3. sure Aurangzebra (talk) 18:46, 21 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Don't think he's that significant. J947 ‡ ^edits 03:54, 16 February 2025 (UTC)
2. Not so vital.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 17:05, 21 February 2025 (UTC)

Discuss

1. I hope the people opposing are not basing it on only the article's lede paragraph. The Legacy section is to me solid proof that he is a notable enough figure to list as vital. Makkool (talk) 17:58, 21 February 2025 (UTC)

Add Michio Kushi

Introduced the macrobiotic diet to the West.

Support

1. As nom. Makkool (talk) 16:27, 18 October 2024 (UTC)
2. Support, good point about Miscellaneous being under quota. I say, "brainstorming is welcome." -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 22:31, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
3. Non-Western + solid pageviews. J947 ‡ ^edits 03:54, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

Add Walter Willett

Known for promoting the Mediterranean diet. The article cites The Boston Globe that he is "world's most influential nutritionist".

Support

1. As nom. Makkool (talk) 16:27, 18 October 2024 (UTC)
2. Support, good point about Miscellaneous being under quota. I say, "brainstorming is welcome." -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 22:31, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

Difficult, this one. Not very well-known but apparently quite significant – perhaps the opposite of many nutritionists. J947 ‡ ^edits 03:54, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

Add Ann Wigmore

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.

---

First to introudce the idea of a raw food diet in the US.

Support

1. As nom. Makkool (talk) 16:27, 18 October 2024 (UTC)
2. After some more thought, let's add her for now, both in line with the other suggestions and Miscellaneous people having the room. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 20:37, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Currently only in 4 other languages. Sahaib (talk) 23:13, 18 October 2024 (UTC)
2. Little-known naturopath. J947 ‡ ^edits 03:54, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

Discuss

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.

Add Tanni Grey-Thompson

After seeing her featured in the BBC's Icons documentary series, I think that she is a vital Paralympian, campaigner and even a Dame. Though she is not a finalist for her category, she is in the four chosen nominees.

Support

1. As nominator. CrisBalboa1 (talk) 01:32, 28 October 2024 (UTC)
2. Interstellarity (talk) 21:48, 31 December 2024 (UTC)
3. Support, after some thought, we could probably use another paralympian for now. It looks like we'll be taking a hard look at the Sports section in the near future, but paralympians are probably not going to be over-represented. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 20:37, 11 January 2025 (UTC)
4. Let's get this over the finish line Makkool (talk) 15:52, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Neutral

Discuss

Military & Revolutionary Proposals (set 2 of 2)

Add 3 relevant to the early Mughals

All 3 would be in the Early Modern period:

• Mustafa Rumi, Ottoman advisor to Babur who helped introduce musketeers to the Mughal army
• Ustad Ali Quli, another Ottoman advisor to Babur who helped modernize Mughal artillery
• Pir Roshan, Pashtun sufi leader that started a long resistance to Mughal influence

Support

1. As nom. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 17:22, 16 November 2024 (UTC)
2. per nom. Makkool (talk) 18:41, 16 November 2024 (UTC)
3. Support Pir Roshan only Iostn (talk) 22:15, 22 November 2024 (UTC)
4. Support only Pir Roshan. Kevinishere15 (talk) 10:12, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Oppose Ustad Ali Quli and Mustafa Rumi, stubs with low pageviews and interwikis (zero in the case of the former) Iostn (talk) 22:15, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

   That's fair, and that neither even has a Turkish interwiki is a negative in my mind. That said, since we're still under quota in this section, do you think you'd be willing to give these a chance for now just to see if anyone can expand them? There are citations, their historical influence is noteworthy, and they give us good non-Western and pre-1800s coverage. I normally don't discuss votes, but while I won't rehash my comments above, I don't like the idea of deciding just on current metrics; they can sift out a lot of chaff, but sometimes they just reflect a lack of interest to date (by readers or editors). -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 22:31, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

Discuss

Just to clarify the margin, we're currently at 4-0 to add Pir Roshan, but only 2-1 to add Ustad Ali Quli and Mustafa Rumi. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 05:17, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

Add 3 Irish republicans

All 20th century and political figures too, but they served as military Chiefs of Staff for the IRA at significant points or over long periods of time. I guess they could all go under Rebels or Military figures:

• Richard Mulcahy, fought in the Easter Rising, second-in-command under Michael Collins, and later Minister of Defence for the pro-Treaty government in the Irish Civil War.
• Moss Twomey, longest-serving Chief of Staff for the IRA in the 1920s and 30s after its first split from the Irish government.
• Cathal Goulding, long involvement with reviving the IRA after WWII, served as Chief of Staff for most of the 1960s, and a major influence in shifting political alignments of the IRA and associated parties.

Support

1. As nom. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 18:27, 17 November 2024 (UTC)
2. per nom. Makkool (talk) 14:00, 20 November 2024 (UTC)
3. Per nom. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 20:51, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Moss Twomey is not in any other languages, neutral on the other two. Sahaib (talk) 20:22, 17 November 2024 (UTC)
2. Oppose Moss Twomey and Cathal Goulding (also note the latter led the Official IRA, the less active IRA splinter during the Troubles) Iostn (talk) 22:15, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

   Just to add some context, you're right that Goulding's faction largely sat out the Troubles and therefore isn't as notable. It seems like Goulding was important to reviving the IRA before that split too though. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 22:31, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

Discuss

Just to clarify the margin, we're currently at 3-0 to add Richard Mulcahy, 3-2 to add Moss Twomey, and 3-1 to add Cathal Goulding. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 05:17, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

Add 3 for the Bangladesh Liberation War

We list others as leaders, but we currently don't include:

• Sam Manekshaw, Chief of Staff for the Indian Army and responsible for the overall strategy behind Indian victory.
• Tikka Khan, actual Pakistani theater commander and governor in Bangladesh, significantly responsible for Operation Searchlight.
• K. M. Shafiullah, sector commander (including the capital city of Dhaka) during the war and appointed to Army Chief of Staff for the new military shortly after independence.

Support

1. As nom. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 14:03, 18 November 2024 (UTC)
2. per nom. Makkool (talk) 14:00, 20 November 2024 (UTC)
3. Per nom. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 20:52, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
4. Maneshaw only _pbp 16:07, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Oppose Khan and Shafiullah. Relatively minor figures with few interwikis. _pbp 16:07, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

   These were definitely brainstorming on my part, especially Shafiullah, so I'm not that invested in them being added. More as a comment though, if one of the 2 or 3 people arguably most responsible for trying to genocide Bangladesh has few interwikis, I'd take that as an example of how unreliable interwikis are as a metric sometimes. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 21:00, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

Neutral

Add 3 from the Iran-Iraq War

Last batch, but this should bring the section to about 900:

• Adnan Khayr Allah, Iraqi Minister of Defence throughout the Iran-Iraq War.
• Mohsen Rezaee, also a politician, but commanded the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (Pasdaran) for most of the war; also arguably its first regular commander and organized it into a genuine military force.
• Ali Sayad Shirazi, commander of Iran's conventional ground army (Artesh) for most of the war.

Support

1. As nom. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 14:03, 18 November 2024 (UTC)
2. per nom. Makkool (talk) 14:00, 20 November 2024 (UTC)
3. Per nom. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 20:52, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

Adnan Khayr Allah, a ssomeone who is most well-knwon as a Minister of Defence (i.e. a cabinet member) would normally go under politicians, in fact Mohsen Rezaee might also belong there as someone who is seemingly more well-known as a political candidate Iostn (talk) 22:15, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

I agree both are kind of borderline, but the way I see it, even if he's in a cabinet-style organization and didn't start out as a soldier, Khayrallah is primarily known for commanding a military. Razaee is arguably even more borderline, but I think he's still known more for his military accomplishments than bureaucratic ones, plus he started his career as a rebel. And in elections, I think he mostly appeals to conservatives or Realpolitik voters, again because of his military accomplishments. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 22:31, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

Just to clarify the margin, I interpret this as currently at 3-0 for all. I sort of goofed up by accidentally typing "decline" instead of "neutral" for some reason. @Iostn: Did you actually want to Oppose by posting under the Decline header, or just neutrally discuss? -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 05:17, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

I think I meant that as a "discuss" comment Iostn (talk) 22:49, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

Add Henri Fayol

19th-century French management theorist best known for developing a systematic approach to administration. He's regarded as one of the two founders of Scientific management  5 along with Frederick Winslow Taylor  5.

Support

1. As nom. To Social scientists ---> Business theorists. Tabu Makiadi (talk) 22:50, 16 November 2024 (UTC)
2. Support, Social scientists is still under quota, and this is probably the sort of topic Lv 5 is perfect for (a bit niche but still notable). -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 22:31, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
3. Makkool (talk) 23:18, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

Add Ralph Gonsalves

Per the article, he is currently the longest-serving democratically-elected state leader having been prime minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines since 2001. He has also twice served as chairman of the Caribbean Community. Sahaib (talk) 22:42, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

Support

1. Added for nom Sahaib. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 22:31, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
2. Makkool (talk) 23:18, 30 November 2024 (UTC)
3. Weak support, not sure leading these islands has the same geopolitical heft as some others we're discussing, but we still have a cushion in Leaders. We can revisit things more systematically when we need to prune the section. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 20:37, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

Add Bernardino de Sahagún

A Spanish Franciscan friar who is highly regarded as a pioneer of ethnography and anthropology. He was one of the first Europeans to scholarly document and write about pre-Columbian civilizations, most notably in the Florentine Codex.

Support

1. As nom. To anthropologists. Tabu Makiadi (talk) 00:50, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
2. Strong support, good find. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 04:13, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
3. Makkool (talk) 13:10, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

Add cinematographers

Currently we lack many prominent cinematographers. I propose the following for consideration. All wouldn't need to get in. About 10 vital cinematographers is probably enough. (Sven Nykvist from Sweden and Gregg Toland and Vilmos Zsigmond from the US are already listed).

Add Roger Deakins

From the UK. 16 Academy Award nominations and 2 wins, known for being technically innovative.

Support

1. As nom. Makkool (talk) 19:44, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
2. Yeah, after looking over the list, we definitely need more people behind the camera. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 14:40, 30 December 2024 (UTC)
3. per nom Aurangzebra (talk) 03:23, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

Add Emmanuel Lubezki

From Mexico. Known for a ground-breaking style. 8 Academy Award nominations and only one to win in three consecutive years.

Support

1. As nom. Makkool (talk) 19:44, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
2. Yeah, after looking over the list, we definitely need more people behind the camera. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 14:40, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

Add Kazuo Miyagawa

From Japan. Highly influential pioneering cinematographer, worked in Rashomon with Kurosawa.

Support

1. As nom. Makkool (talk) 19:44, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
2. Yeah, after looking over the list, we definitely need more people behind the camera. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 14:40, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

Add Raoul Coutard

From France. Crucial to the French New Wave movement with his hand-held documentary style.

Support

1. As nom. Makkool (talk) 19:44, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
2. Yeah, after looking over the list, we definitely need more people behind the camera. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 14:40, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

Add Gabriel Figueroa

From Mexico. Hasn't worked in extensively Hollywood unlike Lubezki, but considered one of the most important to Mexican cinema.

Support

1. As nom. Makkool (talk) 19:44, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
2. Yeah, after looking over the list, we definitely need more people behind the camera. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 14:40, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

Add Subrata Mitra

From India. Considered one of the greatest cinematographers of India, and a pioneer. Worked on Pather Panchali.

Support

1. As nom. Makkool (talk) 19:44, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
2. Yeah, after looking over the list, we definitely need more people behind the camera. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 14:40, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

Add Christopher Doyle

From Australia, but worked in Hong Kong cinema extensively. Behind the distinctive visual style of Wong Kar-Wai's films.

Support

1. As nom. Makkool (talk) 19:44, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
2. Yeah, after looking over the list, we definitely need more people behind the camera. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 14:40, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

Add Edi Rama

Has served as prime minister of Albania since 2013.

Support

1. As nom. Sahaib (talk) 14:42, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
2. Per nom. Makkool (talk) 12:39, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
3. Weak support, not sure how powerful the PM position is in Albania, but Leaders has a cushion for now. We can revisit more systematically when pruning the section. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 20:37, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

Move Zero Mostel from comedians to stage actors

His vitality stems from his three Tony Awards, especially the one for Teyve. _pbp 15:18, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Support

1. _pbp 15:18, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
2. Sure, why not? -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 01:36, 15 December 2024 (UTC)
3. Makkool (talk) 13:10, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

Oppose

Discussion

Add Breyten Breytenbach

A while back there was actually a vote to remove his brother, Jan Breytenbach, a soldier far less well known than he is. Also quite a nice South African who has hardly killed anyone.

Support

1. Nom Iostn (talk) 17:46, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
2. Weak support, after some thought, even if Writers is still over quota, we probably under-represent Poets. Though I honestly haven't checked the current numbers. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 05:17, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
3. Surprised he wasn't here already. I think we underlist South African writers. J947 ‡ ^edits 05:31, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

Move Robert Cecil, 1st Viscount Cecil of Chelwood  5 and Ralph Bunche  5 to politicians

I cannot fathom why they are not listed under politicians when their principal endeavors were diplomatic/political (both received the Nobel Peace Prize for diplomacy). In addition, Cecil was a Cabinet secretary in the British government. _pbp 16:07, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Support

1. _pbp 16:07, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
2. Makkool (talk) 17:15, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
3. Agree completely that, for now, Politicians is probably the best place for them. TBF though, we really don't have a good area for non-military officers (diplomats, economic planners, viziers, etc.) -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 20:37, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Discussion

The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster doesn't really do anything. Sahaib (talk) 16:40, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Cecil also served in both houses of parliament _pbp 20:17, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

Add recent military leaders from the Russo-Ukrainian War

After reclassifying less political brigands and pirates under Criminals, instead of Rebels, we have a lot of slots open in the military section. I normally don't suggest recent figures, and I know the topic brings out a lot of emotion in people, but I think the current war between Russia and Ukraine is clearly historical. That makes generals from both sides notable:

• Valery Gerasimov, general staff and current theater commander of Russian forces
• Oleksandr Syrskyi, current commander of Ukrainian forces
• Sergey Surovikin, previous theater commander of Russian forces, also led Russian forces in the Syrian civil war
• Valerii Zaluzhnyi, previous commander of Ukrainian forces

I don't know whether he belongs under Rebels, Businesspeople, or something else, but I'd also suggest

• Yevgeny Prigozhin,

both for his role in forming the Wagner Group and the weird (sort of?) rebellion he led in 2023. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 02:37, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

Support

1. As nom. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 02:37, 31 December 2024 (UTC)
2. Support. See discussion.GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 18:30, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Mixed

Neutral

Discussion

• This is an interesting situation. As the conflict continues, these roles might change. A leader who seems vital now may in hindsight be only a footnote in a larger war. Furthermore, can we use these modern leaders to look back in time to other conflicts and identify people who might be "vital." For example, August von Mackensen led the join invasion of Serbia during the Serbian campaign  5 of WWI (which likely saw at least 700,000 combat casualties on all sides, and between half a million and 800,000 dead civilians). WWI is not in the news today so not on the forefront of our minds, but it seems to me that either people like him are vital, or people like Valery Gerasimov are not, as a vital article should ideally always be vital.GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 18:30, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

  @GeogSage: Yeah, I'm normally hesitant to vote for adding living people to VA, especially recently notable ones. But in this case, I think they're tied up with some clearly historical events and we have the room. As for your analogy, I would totally support adding this von Mackensen character; I'm not familiar with him, but the figures you mentioned seem like a strong argument to me, and of course... we still have the room. I know we do at least include Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck  5 so there's also a precedent of some "deep-cuts" in the list of WWI figures. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 05:17, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

Add Hassan Djamous to Military leaders -> Modern African

Upfront, the page is currently a stub and may not have many interwikis, but I suspect that's more a coverage bias than a lack of notability.

He was the commander of Chadian forces during the Chadian-Libyan War, and became famous for his effective use of light technicals, particularly at the Battle of Fada. Chad ultimately won the war, which is sometimes known as the Toyota War due to Chadian tactics under his command. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 02:37, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

Support

1. As nom. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 02:37, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

Oppose

Neutral

Remove Robin Cook (American novelist)

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.

---

Out of all suspense and crime writers we list in the Modern US and Canada writers section, he seems least vital. Has released best-sellers and had TV and movie adaptations made from this works, but isn't a household-name like Clive Cussler or Michael Chrichton. Hasn't received any literary awards in the genre.

Support

1. As nom. Makkool (talk) 17:51, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Support, I've actually heard of him and he may have a lot of overlap with Michael Crichton's audience. We're over-quota with Writers already though, and I'm starting to wonder how much VA5 should make space for contemporary best sellers. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 20:37, 11 January 2025 (UTC)
3. Support. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 23:12, 2 February 2025 (UTC)
4. PrimalMustelid (talk) 01:00, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Neutral

Discuss

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.

Add Angela Burdett-Coutts, 1st Baroness Burdett-Coutts to Philanthropists

Filthy rich 19th-century Brit who was the matron of a bazillion causes. Arguably one of the most influential women of Britain of that period

Support

1. _pbp 13:23, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Sure, philanthropists is under Miscellaneous, which we're still topping up. No need to overthink it. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 17:52, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Her father Francis Burdett is not listed. It would be like listing Lachlan Murdoch, Ivanka Trump, Ailsa Mellon Bruce, Christina Onassis, Frédéric Arnault instead of their fathers. Sahaib (talk) 14:07, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

   Would it, though? Do any of the sons and daughters you list have more interwikis than their daddies? Angela out-interwikis her daddy 17-13. By comparison, Aristotle Onassis throttles his daughter in terms of interwikis, 62-20. With the Mellons, it's 31-4. I'm sorry; while I think your analogy was in good faith, I just don't see it as particularly applicable to the Burdetts _pbp 16:02, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

   If you check the talk page of Francis he is rated as High-importance to WikiProject Politics of the UK, I'm not an expert on the subject so I don't know if that rating is accurate but the point I'm making is that whilst he doesn't get as many pageviews, he is arguably more vital. Sahaib (talk) 16:40, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

Discussion

Swap Margaret, Maid of Norway for Malcolm III of Scotland

Margaret, Maid of Norway is known for having a short disputed reign (similar to Lady Jane Grey who was recently removed), she was also 7 at her death making her possibly the youngest vital person listed. Malcolm III of Scotland, whose name means "great chief" reigned for 35 years during which he invaded England a number of times. Additionally he is major character in Macbeth, his wife was canonised as a saint and his daughter married Henry I of England making him the ancestor of all English monarchs after that.

Support

1. As nominator. Sahaib (talk) 16:38, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Support, I normally balk at swaps, but this one is a pretty clear jump in notability. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 21:20, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Remove Nusret Çolpan  5

We should probably list more non-Western visual artists (though he was based in Istanbul), but his influence seems mostly regional.

Support

1. As nominator. Tabu Makiadi (talk) 20:53, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Iostn (talk) 20:42, 11 January 2025 (UTC)
3. Per nom. GauchoDude (talk) 18:33, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Oppose, I know this is technically already passing, but after some thought, we should probably keep this guy. Non-Western artists are under 1/22 of the entire section, and he's the only contemporary we list in the miniature tradition (at least 500 years old, spanning from SE Europe to India). Along with Hossein Behzad  5 (and maybe indirectly Abanindranath Tagore  5), he's only 1 of 2 or 3 we list since the 17th century. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 21:20, 26 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Per Zar2gar1-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 22:43, 26 January 2025 (UTC)
3. Changing to oppose Makkool (talk) 21:48, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

Discuss

Remove Silver Horn  5

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.

---

Similar to above.

Support

1. As nominator. Tabu Makiadi (talk) 20:53, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Per nom. GauchoDude (talk) 18:34, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Oppose, non-Western artists are under 1/22 of the entire section, and he's currently the only artist we list for his genre. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 21:20, 26 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Per Zar2gar1-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 22:45, 26 January 2025 (UTC)
3. Changing to oppose Makkool (talk) 21:48, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

Discuss

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 Władysław II the Exile for Mircea the Elder

The only two monarchs of Wallachia listed are Vlad the Impaler (Dracula) who is level 4 and Alexandru Ioan Cuza at level 5. Poland and Lithuania have 28 (14 in Post-classical (500–1500) and 14 in Early modern (1500–1800)). Mircea's article could be expanded a lot from Romanian Wikipedia, an example of a detail not included in the English version is that he was featured on comparative coins in 2011. Basically he ruled Wallachia at its peak, had conflicts with the Ottomans and has a lasting legacy as can be seen by the film Mircea (film). He ruled a lot longer than Władysław and has more language links.

Support

1. As nominator. Sahaib (talk) 23:03, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

I feel that Basarab I of Wallachia would be the better add. _pbp 13:21, 22 February 2025 (UTC)

Add Mary Oliver

Another add to writers for a change. She is arguably one of the most famous contemporary American poets.

Support

1. As nom. Makkool (talk) 14:17, 5 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Sure, everyone did a good job trimming Writers and we under-represent poets. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 21:20, 26 January 2025 (UTC)
3. Per nom. J947 ‡ ^edits 04:17, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

Swap Edmund Ironside for Oswald of Northumbria

The only Anglo-Saxon monarchs listed prior to Æthelstan (considered the first King of England) are Offa of Mercia, Alfred the Great (vital 4) and Edward the Elder. There is no monarch of Northumbria listed which is why I suggest adding Oswald of Northumbria as he brought Bernicia and Deira together and promoted Christianity in the region. He was also Bretwalda which basically meant that he was the most powerful Anglo-Saxon monarch at the time and a cult developed around him in the Middle Ages, there is even a place in Slovenia named after him (Ožbalt). Edmund Ironside has not left as big of an impact or legacy as he briefly ruled as King of the English prior to Cnut, other short reigning monarchs not listed include Edward V and Francis II of France.

Support

1. As nom. Sahaib (talk) 15:59, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

1. A much less important king. A meaningless exchange.--109.81.90.210 (talk) 18:05, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

Discuss

@109.81.90.210: can you please expand on your response. What do you think makes Edmund Ironside vital? Another option could be Edwin of Northumbria. Sahaib (talk) 18:45, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

for example interwiki? 55:28? Does this score mean nothing? Or was this dominance caused by King Edmund's teenage fan club, which created articles for him on 40 Wikipedias with the help of Google Translate? 109.81.90.51 (talk) 13:20, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

The interwiki links are just the result of him being king of England, which doesn't automatically make a person vital, the same way not every Emperor of Russia is listed (Paul I of Russia) or every King of Portugal (Afonso VI of Portugal), or every Emperor of Japan (Emperor Go-Momozono), etc. Sahaib (talk) 13:48, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

Remove Dodi Fayed

His film production career was quite short. His father Mohamed Al-Fayed  5, uncle Adnan Khashoggi  5 and cousin Jamal Khashoggi  5 are already listed.

Support

1. As nom. Sahaib (talk) 07:18, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Support, I suspect he was primarily added for his association with Princess Diana. Never realized he was connected to the Khashoggi family though. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 20:37, 11 January 2025 (UTC)
3. Suppport. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 23:10, 2 February 2025 (UTC)
4. We removed some modern British royals who were much much more vital than this guy. J947 ‡ ^edits 23:56, 2 February 2025 (UTC)
5. Per nom. Tabu Makiadi (talk) 01:52, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Neutral

Discuss

Add Johnny Miller (aviator)

I don't know much about aviation, so I stumbled upon this page and am not sure whether this guy belongs. I will nominate him.

Support

1. as nom-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 20:08, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Weak support to Miscellaneous -> Explorers (that's where we list Amelia Earhart  4). Simple brainstorming seems reason enough with Miscellaneous still under quota. We can always revisit when it comes time to trim the section. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 17:59, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Looking through the category Category:American aviation pioneers, I see a lot of people. I Don't think he is particuarlly noteworthy compared to everyone on that list. Take it up a level to Category:Aviation pioneers and I think he becomes a bit lost in the croud rather then standing out. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 20:52, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Two interwikis, article created in 2020 twelve years after his death --> not VA5. J947 ‡ ^edits 23:59, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

Neutral

Discussion

Add Devika Rani

I don't especially prioritize the Entertainers section, but the article describes her as "Widely acknowledged as the First Lady of Indian cinema".

Support

1. As nominator. Tabu Makiadi (talk) 03:13, 10 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Iostn (talk) 20:42, 11 January 2025 (UTC)
3. Support, we have the room, and while it's totally an assumption, I'm guessing Bollywood is under-represented relative to its impact. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 05:17, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

Swap Bae Yong-joon for Lee Jung-jae

This isn't WP:RECENTISM as they are both the same age with Lee starting his career slightly earlier. Lee has 12 more language links, more pageviews, and more awards (see List of awards and nominations received by Lee Jung-jae). He could also go in the film section but TV is probably where he has the most cultural impact.

Support

1. As nominator. Sahaib (talk) 06:48, 10 January 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Mixed

1. Support add, neutral on removal (note that Winter Sonata  5 is VA) Iostn (talk) 20:42, 11 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Same as lostn. For Lee Jung-jae, I can see a recentism argument being made against him here since it seems like he only became a superstar after Squid Game. However, the fact that he became famous in the West as a purely Korean-language actor (this has since changed) is a VA5-worthy accomplishment in and of itself. I could also be completely biased since I'm fresh off watching Squid Game Season 2. Aurangzebra (talk) 08:54, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
3. Weak support add, weak oppose removal. We probably should cut in the future, but actors are technically under-quota and probably still biased towards English-speakers. No need to overcomplicate it. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 21:00, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

Discuss

Add Milo Đukanović

Vital Montenegrin politician due to him being prime minister (1991–1998, 2003–2006, 2008–2010, 2012–2016) and president (1998–2002, 2018–2023).

Support

1. As nominator. Sahaib (talk) 20:58, 11 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Weak support, my first reaction is to oppose on procedural grounds (we have too many leader additions in play), but you opened this several weeks ago. Also IIUC we consider repeated terms in office as a strong precedent here to date. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 17:52, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

Move Ken Kutaragi  5

So this is rather an interesting/complicated case, he is currently listed under "video game designers", but he isn't technically responsible for design of video games themselves, rather he is most well-known for his technological work on developing the PlayStation, the system rather than the games themselves. He also became the chair/CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment and is currently president of another company, meaning he could be listed under businessmen. Even under Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/5/People/Scientists, inventors, and mathematicians, there are two different subsections he could fit under, "Inventors and engineers" or "Computer scientists and programmers". Iostn (talk) 21:20, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

@Iostn: In a situation like this, I would say split out his accomplishments by category, then place him according to whichever ones are most notable or outstanding. Do you have any opinion on that; I'm not sure I'll have time to skim the article myself. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 05:17, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

He is most notable for designining/engineering the PlayStation, I don't think he would be listed if he was just CEO of the SOny Computer Entertainment division but I think he could be argued as having served as a businessman for a longer period Iostn (talk) 22:47, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

If the engineering project is his most notable accomplishment, than let's list him as an engineer. The section also has room. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 17:59, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

Move to Inventors and engineers

1. Support, nom suggests lead engineer of the PlayStation is his most notable achievement, so let's list him as an engineer. This section also still has room. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 17:59, 23 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Most logical place for him Makkool (talk) 16:19, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
3. Makes sense to me. QuicoleJR (talk) 14:41, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

Move to Computer scientists and programmers

Move to Businesspeople

Keep under Video game designers

Add Yi-Fu Tuan

Yi-Fu Tuan is a Chinese-American geographer who is considered one of the key figures in Human geography  4. He is highly notable within the discipline, essential to the covering of other topics within Geography  2, and while he was an American professor, he was born in China so this inclusion may help to reduce our western bias.

Support

1. As nom. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 00:49, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Support, if he's a human geographer, this is actually easy because we're way under quota in Social Scientists. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 05:17, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

   I have a list of social scientists from geography about a mile long. I'm not as fluent in my other disciplines, but I know the ones we tell grad students are "vital." There are some at Level 4 I proposed that are struggling as well. The hard thing with the social sciences is that a high h-index does not mean they will have a well developed article. For example, Waldo R. Tobler  5 has an h-index on his ResearchGate of 40, and 16,636 citations. Mei-Po Kwan  5 has an h-index of 95 and a i10-index of 338 on Google Scholar. Over the past 10 years though, views for the pages have not been high compared to other types of articles. What is absolutely vital to academics in the ivory tower doesn't seem to translate well to Wikipedia, as one 2015 publication by Mei-Po Kwan et al. has more citations then her page has had views since 2015. She won the The Applied Geography Specialty Group of the American Association of Geographers James R. Anderson Medal of Honor (Considered by some to be the highest award for a geographer in America) in 2022, so the discipline has recognized her work. I have one proposal I'll make after this based on this comment. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 06:09, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

3. Makkool (talk) 15:40, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Neutral

Discuss

GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 00:49, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

Religious figure proposals

Add Paul Tillich

"was one of the most influential theologians of the twentieth century". Not sure if he should be in philosophers instead. I'm hoping we could one day have a clear separate section for theologians in the Social scientists page, but that will be for the future. I'm not exactly looking forward to separating them out from the philosophers one by one.

Support

1. As nom. Makkool (talk) 19:23, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Support, and we don't list Theologians in the Religious Figures section? -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 05:17, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

   We don't list them all there like Thomas Aquinas  3, who is in philosophers. I find it arbitrary and it's been on my mind as something that should be discussed. The best would be to have them all in either Religious figures or in Social scientists separate from philosophers. In the latter case Religious figures would be reserved to religious leaders and to figures other than academic theologians. Makkool (talk) 08:54, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

   It does seem arbitrary, and I've actually been wondering something similar about bundling all Philosophers with Social Scientists. Not so much theologians, but I wonder if it would make more sense to split primarily moral philosophers from more intellectual ones. For example, if I think of Muhammad  3, Confucius  3, and Willard Van Orman Quine  5, I would personally consider Quine the odd-one-out there.

   That would obviously be a separate discussion for Lv5 as a whole, but beyond filling out actual articles, we definitely still have a lot of organizational work to do here. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 17:14, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Neutral

Discuss

Add Philipp Spener

Founder of Pietism, which I'll be also proposing later. Pietism was highly influential to Protestantism, as part of the Lutheranism in Central and Northern Europe and as influence to other Christian denominations like Methodism and Anababtism.

Support

1. As nom. Makkool (talk) 19:23, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Support, and more generally, our coverage of religious topics is really anemic; don't get me started on some of the basic concepts we're still missing. I'm still waiting for the Society talk page to quiet down some, but I have at least 30 or so ready to propose. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 05:17, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Neutral

Discuss

Add Carlos Castaneda

American anthropoligist and best-selling writer, and an highly influential figure in the new age movement by promoting neoshamanism.

Support

1. As nom. Makkool (talk) 19:23, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Support, whether you put him in Social Scientists or Religious Figures. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 05:17, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Neutral

Discuss

Add Bede Griffiths

An English Benedictine monk who worked in India as a missionary looking to find common ground between Christian and Hindu mysticism. He was a significant promoter of religious dialogue between Eastern and Western traditions. He used to be listed, but at some point he was removed without discussion, so this is a proposal for re-adding.

Support

1. As nom. Makkool (talk) 18:24, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

1. _pbp 18:46, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

Neutral

Discuss

Italian singers (set 2 of 2)

Add Gianni Morandi

A very famous Italian singer. I wonder why he is not on the list.

Support

1. As nom. Moscow Connection (talk) 03:33, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Per nom. Makkool (talk) 20:10, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
3. Weak support, Italian pop singers may or may not be over-represented now; the page organization makes it hard to get a clear sense of balance. I'll defer to the nom on this one, but going forward, we'll probably want to trim Italian pop musicians before adding more. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 17:52, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Low-importance on Wikiproject Italy and I don't think we want to be adding any more musicians than we absolutely should since this is an area that's already oversubscribed. Aurangzebra (talk) 20:39, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

Neutral

Discuss

Add Umberto Tozzi

A very famous Italian singer-songwriter. I think he is more relevant to the English-speaking community than most of the current list.

Support

1. As nom. Moscow Connection (talk) 03:33, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Per nom. Makkool (talk) 20:10, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
3. Weak support, Italian pop singers may or may not be over-represented now; the page organization makes it hard to get a clear sense of balance. I'll defer to the nom on this one, but going forward, we'll probably want to trim Italian pop musicians before adding more. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 17:52, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Low-importance on Wikiproject Italy and I don't think we want to be adding any more musicians than we absolutely should since this is an area that's already oversubscribed. Aurangzebra (talk) 20:39, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

Neutral

Discuss

Add August Ferdinand Möbius

German mathematician renowned for his contributions to geometry and topology. His work laid the groundwork for modern algebraic geometry.

Support

1. As nom. Tabu Makiadi (talk) 19:45, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Strong support, did work in other fields too. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 05:17, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

Add Margaret Mahy

Margaret Mahy was an acclaimed children's author from New Zealand. She won several major awards and written over 100 books. Currently we don't list any children's authors from NZ, so she should fit well to the list.

Support

1. As nom. Makkool (talk) 20:33, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Weak support, everyone did a really good job of trimming the Writers section, and it's now back within the cushion. We'll probably want to trim more in the future, but for now, we can add a couple. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 17:59, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

Rebels, revolutionaries and activists changes (set 3 of 4)

Remove George Ripley (transcendentalist)

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.

---

Largely a footnote in the history of utopian socialist communities

Support

1. Nom Iostn (talk) 18:48, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Support, especially since modern American activists are close to 1/8 of the entire section. Way more Transcendalists to choose from also. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 05:17, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
3. Makkool (talk) 15:40, 26 January 2025 (UTC)
4. PrimalMustelid (talk) 01:01, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

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.

Add Zumbi

Perhaps the most famous anti-slavery rebel in Brazil

Support

1. Nom Iostn (talk) 18:48, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Strong support, adds good coverage outside America and before the 19th-century. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 05:17, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
3. Makkool (talk) 15:40, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

Add Kōtoku Shūsui

Among the forebears of Japanese anti-state leftism

Support

1. Nom Iostn (talk) 18:48, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Support, adds good coverage outside America. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 05:17, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
3. Makkool (talk) 15:40, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

Add Jose Maria Sison

Filipino rebel leader for over 50 years

Support

1. Nom Iostn (talk) 18:48, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Support, adds good coverage outside America. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 05:17, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
3. Makkool (talk) 15:40, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

Add Iqbal Masih

Widely commemorated child activist

Support

1. Nom Iostn (talk) 18:48, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Support, had to skim the article, but beyond coverage outside America, also adds coverage on an issues basis. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 05:17, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
3. Makkool (talk) 15:40, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

Add Leila Khaled

Not sure how we don't already have any Palestinian figures on here

Support

1. Nom Iostn (talk) 18:48, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Support, adds good coverage outside America, and we should almost definitely have 1 Palestinian activist. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 05:17, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
3. Makkool (talk) 15:40, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

Add Mordechai Vanunu

In the tradition of Daniel Ellsberg  5, Chelsea Manning  5, etc

Support

1. Nom Iostn (talk) 18:48, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Support, precedent of other government whistleblowers seems clear. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 05:17, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
3. Makkool (talk) 15:40, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

Add Maryam Rajavi

Leader of the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran, one of the longest running armed groups attempting to overthrow the Iranian government

Support

1. Nom Iostn (talk) 18:48, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Makkool (talk) 15:40, 26 January 2025 (UTC)
3. Very weak support, I think either the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran article or Massoud Rajavi would be more appropriate. But they're a notable enough part of the past half century to have one article representing. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 21:00, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

This one's complicated because after I first put aside my feelings about the MEK, I agree she would probably fit most under the Activist umbrella. However, if I had to think of a clear analogy, I think the closest would be Helga Zepp-LaRouche, the final wife and eventual heir of Lyndon LaRouche  5. By that precedent, if we're going to have 1 person to represent the MEK, we should list Massoud Rajavi instead. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 05:17, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

I nominated Maryam first purely based on her seeming to be more well-known, and in any case the LaRouche movement had peaked well before LaRouche died Iostn (talk) 23:09, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

Right, I know she's in the news now & then, but your 2nd point also kind applies to the MEK too. The MEK has been a despised fringe group within Iran since Operation Mersad, and by the time Massoud Rajavi "retired" in the early 2000s, they were essentially just a small cult camped out in Iraq. I think the only reason they're even notable in the West nowadays is enough of the American government & media, along with some wealther Iranian emigres, still fantasize about overthrowing the Iranian government. The MEK is the one group that can offer "subterfuge as a service" (again similarly to the LaRouche movement) so they get money & attention. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 17:52, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

Kind of missed this comment earlier but yes, you do have a point, although that said the foreign funding and attention they receive does elevate her nonetheless, regardless of wherever said attention is justified. I guess the question for now is if people here would be ok with adding both of them, regardless of other factors. Iostn (talk) 19:50, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

Add Nimr al-Nimr

Saudi sheikh and opposition leader, whose execution saw international condemnation

Support

1. Nom Iostn (talk) 18:48, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Support but maybe under Religious Figures instead? I know he wound up in English news for more political reasons, and the article reflects that, but I think he was primarily still a religious leader. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 05:17, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
3. Makkool (talk) 15:40, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

Add Dutty Boukman

Important instigator of the Haitian Revolution  4

Support

1. Nom Iostn (talk) 00:07, 31 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Makkool (talk) 21:21, 31 January 2025 (UTC)
3. Sure. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 17:52, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

Add Chen Sheng

Leader of the first of many uprisings that led to the eventual dissolution of the Qin dynasty  4, China's first imperial dynasty

Support

1. Nom Iostn (talk) 00:07, 31 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Makkool (talk) 21:21, 31 January 2025 (UTC)
3. Sure. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 17:52, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

Add Wolfe Tone

Important forefather of Irish republicanism

Support

1. Nom Iostn (talk) 00:07, 31 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Makkool (talk) 21:21, 31 January 2025 (UTC)
3. Sure. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 17:52, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

Rebels, revolutionaries and activists changes (set 4 of 4)

Remove Theodore Dwight Weld  5

This may be controversial, but he is a fairly obscure figure today, the US is generally overrepresented and we already have many others to represent the American abolitionist movement such as Harriet Tubman  4, John Brown (abolitionist)  5, Frederick Douglass  4, Harriet Jacobs  5, et al

Support

1. Nom Iostn (talk) 00:07, 31 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Makkool (talk) 21:21, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Weak oppose, despite American activists being over-represented. I've honestly never heard of him, but skimming his article, that may be more of a reason to keep him? It sounds like he was actually pretty influential. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 17:52, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

Neutral

Discuss

Remove Nikolay Alexeyev  5

There probably needs to be some other non-US LGBT activists (I did once propose Karl Heinrich Ulrichs  5 be moved from sexologists to here but got no response), but he doesn't seem to be that prominent outside of Russia, and also seems to have rather uh, let himself go since the 2000s.

Support

1. Nom Iostn (talk) 00:07, 31 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Makkool (talk) 21:21, 31 January 2025 (UTC)
3. Sure, deferring to nom. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 17:52, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

Swap Gail Dines  5 for Emily Davison

Don't even really know why Dines is here, we list Andrea Dworkin  5 who is much more well-known and impactful as a figure representing anti-pornography feminism, and pageviews and interwikis are also relatively low. Meanwhile, we seem to have a relative defecit of suffragettes, and Davison's death remains one of the most famous moments of the suffrage movement.

Support

1. Nom Iostn (talk) 00:07, 31 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Makkool (talk) 21:21, 31 January 2025 (UTC)
3. Sure, deferring to nom. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 17:52, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

Swap Ivan Kalyayev  5 for Boris Savinkov

Russia during the late Tsarist era was rife with assassins like Kalyayev, so someone who stands out much more would be the head of the armed organization to which he belonged. Arguably he might belong under assassination in Misc > Crime instead, but unlike Kalyayev, the latter's notable activities went beyond that.

Support

1. Nom Iostn (talk) 00:07, 31 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Makkool (talk) 21:21, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Mixed

1. Oppose removing Kalyayev, but support moving him to Misc -> Assassination and also adding Savinkov. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 17:52, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

Discuss

I actually added Kalyayev during the WP:BRD era for a couple reasons. The article doesn't actually get into it, but IIRC, his assassination of Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich was linked to the Khodynka Tragedy (note we list neither). Also, the article only mentions the play by Albert Camus  4, but he's also a notable figure in The Rebel (book). -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 17:52, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

I think we should probably add those two first, especially as there's no question to me of their vitality. Iostn (talk) 20:28, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

Add Béla Kun

Known as the leader of the 1919 Hungarian Revolution - very surprised to realize he was neither here nor in politicians

Support

1. Nom Iostn (talk) 00:07, 31 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Makkool (talk) 21:21, 31 January 2025 (UTC)
3. Sure. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 17:52, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

Add Anna Walentynowicz

Arguably only second to Lech Wałęsa  4 in terms of Solidarity (Polish trade union)  5 figures

Support

1. Nom Iostn (talk) 00:07, 31 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Makkool (talk) 21:21, 31 January 2025 (UTC)
3. Sure. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 17:52, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

Remove Irataba  5

A very thorough FA, but he seems more minor outside of the context of the Colorado River peoples, and overshadowed by other US indigenous figures we list, such as Sitting Bull  4, Geronimo  5 and Wilma Mankiller  5, as evidenced by the low number of interwikis and pageviews. Definitely important regionally, but unfortanately falls short when the US is already overrepresented.

Support

1. Nom Iostn (talk) 20:28, 11 February 2025 (UTC)
2. _pbp 15:19, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

Add Phan Bội Châu

Important pioneer of the Vietnamese anti-colonial movement

Support

1. Nom Iostn (talk) 20:28, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

Add Shih Ming-teh

"Shih was one of the most prominent personalities of the Tangwai movement and greatly contributed to Taiwan's democratization. He has been referred to by some as "Taiwan's Mandela" on account of his efforts for democracy and prolonged incarceration." - also to note, we don't list anyone else from Taiwan currently

Support

1. Nom Iostn (talk) 20:28, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

Add Roger Casement

Important Irish nationalist, anti-colonialist, humanitarian and investigator

Support

1. Nom Iostn (talk) 20:28, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

Add Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho

Leading figure of the Carnation Revolution  5 and alleged leading figure of Forças Populares 25 de Abril

Support

1. Nom Iostn (talk) 20:28, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

Add Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya

Wife of imprisoned Belarusian opposition politician who herself became the figurehead of Belarus's government in exile after running against Lukashenko in 2020

Support

1. Nom Iostn (talk) 20:28, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

Add Kōhei Uchimura

One of the most internationally decorated male gymnasts of all time with an argument for best ever in his sport. 7 Olympic medals (3 gold) and 21 World Championships medals (10 gold).

Support

1. As nominator. GauchoDude (talk) 17:04, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Support per above. Max Whitlock could also probably be added. Sahaib (talk) 17:26, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
3. Sure, relatively ancient sport (even if modern competitions are newer), and we can afford 1 addition after all the removals. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 05:17, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Oppose straight add on new athletes. Could support a swap, but don't have one in mind. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 04:46, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

Discuss

1. I'm not sure if I needed to clarify in the nomination, but Uchimura, if confirmed, would go under Level 5 Sports Figures, Gymnastics category, MAG (men's artistic gymnastics) subcategory. GauchoDude (talk) 19:42, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

Add Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg

The Miscellaneous category is still under the limit. I propose Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg to a subcategory Victims. Wife of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, shot during the Sarajevo assassination along with the Archduke. (47 iw)

Support

1. --109.81.95.217 (talk) 18:59, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

1. There is others of victims with more or the same amount of language links that are not listed such as:
   • Edward V (64) - recently removed (though Princes in the Tower is listed)
   • Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia (60)
   • Zoran Đinđić (55)
   • George Floyd (50)
   • Alexei Nikolaevich, Tsarevich of Russia (47)
   • Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna of Russia (47)
   • Paweł Adamowicz (47)

   Some other people I found with less language links who could potentially be listed include:

   • James Stewart, 1st Earl of Moray - first head of government to be assassinated with a firearm
   • Sir Henry Wilson, 1st Baronet - senior British army officer
   • Alexander I of Serbia - King of Serbia
   • Pierre Laporte - Canadian politician killed during the October Crisis
   • Carlos Prats - Chilean army officer
   • Hanns Martin Schleyer - German business magnate

   -- Sahaib (talk) 20:21, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

2. Weak oppose, the representation of victims angle is interesting. I'm not sure about listing her (or even Franz Ferdiand to be honest) especially since we already list the much deeper, historical Causes of World War I article. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 05:17, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

Discuss

Add Niklas Edin

Curling is at level 4, so there should probably be some more curlers added. Edin is arguably the greatest European curler of all time, so should probably be added.

Support

1. As nominator. Sahaib (talk) 23:26, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Weak oppose for now, largely a matter of timing. There's a concerted effort to trim the athletes section right now, regardless of whether the quota changes. Part of that is figuring out how much representation less mainstream sports like curling should have. If we decide down the road we need more curlers, I would be fine adding him then. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 21:00, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

Discuss

Add Tadej Pogačar

Pogačar is probably vital enough by now due to achieving the Triple Crown of Cycling.

Support

1. As nominator. Sahaib (talk) 23:54, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Meant to propose him earlier last year when he won the Tour De France for the 3rd time. Arguably a top 3 all-around cyclist of all time and he still has a long career ahead of him. Aurangzebra (talk) 01:59, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
3. Support, it's an exclusive enough accomplishment that we can treat him as an exception to the current pruning. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 21:00, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

Add Nathan Chen

Per this except from the article "Chen, who has been referred to as one of the greatest men's figure skaters of all time by news outlets, holds the highest winning percentage in competitions in the modern era with a more-than-three-year winning streak from 2018 to 2021 in what has been described as one of the most dominant four-year stretches in the sport's history."

Support

1. As nominator. Sahaib (talk) 00:02, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Changing to strong support; we removed 2 figure skaters to balance so I can get behind this as promised. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 21:00, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Very weak oppose for now, entirely based on timing and our current pruning. I'm not even into figure skating, but I'm aware of him from the Olympics. If someone starts a separate proposal to cut 2 other figure skaters though, I'll switch to strong support. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 21:00, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

Discuss

Add Viktor Axelsen

Axelsen was the world number one for 183 weeks, the third-longest reign in badminton history.

Support

1. As nominator. Sahaib (talk) 00:33, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Weak oppose for now, largely a matter of timing. There's a concerted effort to trim the athletes section right now, regardless of whether the quota changes. Part of that is figuring out how much representation less mainstream sports like badminton should have. If we decide down the road we need more, I would be fine adding him then. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 21:00, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

Discuss

Add Fan Zhendong

Table tennis section is a bit small. Per the article, "From December 2013 to December 2024, Fan was ranked top five in the world according to the ITTF -- this eleven year streak is the longest in men's singles history...He is also a two-time team event gold medallist, as well as a two-time World Champion and four-time World Cup champion in men's singles."

Support

1. As nominator. Sahaib (talk) 01:09, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Weak oppose for now, largely a matter of timing. There's a concerted effort to trim the athletes section right now, regardless of whether the quota changes. Part of that is figuring out how much representation less mainstream sports like table tennis should have. If we decide down the road we need more, I would be fine adding him then. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 21:00, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

Discuss

Add Carl O. Sauer

Carl O. Sauer is likely one of the single most influential geographers to American geography in the 20th century. His focus was on Human geography  4, and on his page they mention he has been called "the dean of AmericanHistorical geography  5." Per above, we are under quota on social scientists.

Support

1. As nom. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 06:13, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Support, Human geographers are an easy add with Social Scientists still incomplete and no plans to shrink the section. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 17:59, 23 January 2025 (UTC)
3. Makkool (talk) 15:40, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Read through the article and I don't see the importance here. Sure, he made the most influential paper on cultural landscapes but that isn't a VA5 topic nor should it be. I think it's bad precedent to add unknown academics whose influence mainly pertains to subfields. It's a very slippery slope. If we do go down this route, I would prefer academics whose influential papers can directly be attributed to societal impacts. For example, we don't list Ashish Vaswani and the other authors who wrote Attention Is All You Need, the paper that every researcher points to as the one that is responsible for the current AI boom. Aurangzebra (talk) 03:40, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

Neutral

Discuss

Proposal signature

GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 06:13, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

Add Abdul-Malik al-Houthi

Key figure in the Yemeni civil war (2014–present), Houthi insurgency and the Red Sea crisis.

Support

1. As nominator. Sahaib (talk) 16:05, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Support, starting to get a little nervous about the Leaders cushion, but clearly influential with staying power. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 17:59, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

Add Li Keqiang

Served as Premier of China for 10 years. All of his predecessors since 1949 are listed.

Support

1. As nominator. Sahaib (talk) 22:53, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Support, starting to get a little nervous about the Leaders cushion, but good point about the other premiers as precedent. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 17:59, 23 January 2025 (UTC)
3. Iostn (talk) 21:43, 23 January 2025 (UTC)
4. Zinderboff (talk) 02:26, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

Underrepresented countries in Contemporary Politicians based on population (set 2 of 2)

Add Filipe Nyusi

Served as President of Mozambique for a decade, was previously defence minister. According to the article, his term saw poverty increase, escalation of the war in Mozambique's central and northern regions, an economic crisis and he was accused of abusing power. Mozambique is also relatively underrepresented in Politicians and leaders/Contemporary (1945–present).

Support

1. As nom. Sahaib (talk) 15:23, 21 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Support, getting nervous about the cushion for Leaders, but good points about representation. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 17:59, 23 January 2025 (UTC)
3. Iostn (talk) 21:43, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Neutral

Add Li Qiang

Has served as Premier of China since March 2023. All his predecessors since 1949 are listed (except Li Keqiang who I also recently proposed should be added). China is also relatively underrepresented in Politicians and leaders/Contemporary (1945–present) even including Hong Kong and Macau. He was also Communist Party Secretary of Shanghai, Communist Party Secretary of Jiangsu and Governor of Zhejiang.

Support

1. As nom. Sahaib (talk) 15:41, 21 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Weak support, getting nervous about the cushion for Leaders, but let's go ahead and follow the precedent of listing premiers for now. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 17:59, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Neutral

Sportspeople removals, spin-off proposals

Remove Christy Ring, considered individually

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.

---

Irish hurler, with a career spanning over 20 years and according to the page, many records, and considered by many to be the best player in the sport's history. For representation considerations, he's only 1 of the 2 currently listed "Gaelic Sports" players.

Support

1. Support. I don't think we need to have an individual representative for every sport any more then we need to have characters from every media franchise added. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 20:14, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Weak oppose, after considering both the claims around his athleticism and that we only list 2 for the sport, I'd actually be OK keeping him for now. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 17:59, 23 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Per above. Kevinishere15 (talk) 00:23, 24 January 2025 (UTC)
3. Oppose. As being considered the best in his sport. GauchoDude (talk) 12:17, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

Neutral

Per the Sport in Ireland page "In terms of support and attendance, Gaelic football accounted for 34% of total sports attendances at events in the Republic of Ireland in 2003, followed by hurling at 23%, association football (soccer) at 16% and rugby at 8%", Gaelic football is the most popular Gaelic sport in Ireland over Hurling. Gaelic football lost it's two representatives in the previous cutdowns. I don't see how Hurling should have any then. It probably should have been 1 for each or none. But not just 2 for the least popular of the two. 118.210.28.183 (talk) 21:23, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

Hmm, good catch, that's probably a consequence of us going by the section header, which lumps all "Gaelic sports" together. That happens sometimes since Lv5 is so fluid, but thankfully we can always revisit things after a cool-off period. Whoever closes this, consider including a note to revisit adding back Pat Spillane for Gaelic football. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 18:01, 24 January 2025 (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.

Remove Jim Shoulders, considered individually

American rodeo cowboy, won 16 world championships (the record at the time), and clearly successful in the sport. For representation considerations, we currently list 6 rodeo riders (but note, only 1 polo player and 0 for Buzkashi  5).

Support

1. Pageviews are quite low compared to other rodeo cowboys. Sahaib (talk) 18:29, 23 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Support. Less influential then media franchises that would never make the cut. We don't list multiple characters from moderately successful videogame franchises, we don't need list all the successful athletes in a sport. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 18:35, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Oppose. Huge list of accolades lending credence to him being a pillar within his sport. If we're looking to reduce rodeo, I think J.B. Mauney, Larry Mahan, or Charmayne James may make more sense? I'm certainly not an expert on the topic, but the resume seems stronger than others unless I'm missing something. GauchoDude (talk) 18:59, 23 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Changing to oppose, after looking into it a bit more, cutting Mahan and Murray from Rodeo is enough for now. Seems like Shoulders is pretty legendary in the sport too. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 20:27, 2 February 2025 (UTC)
3. Support swap with Lane Frost as proposed below. Kevinishere15 (talk) 21:08, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

Neutral

I'm actually neutral on this one for now; I'd have to think roughly what representation rodeo riders should have. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 17:59, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

1. The rodeo additions were chosen from community discussion from people that are knowledgeable on this subject [1] Should be worth noting that Montanabw's final recommendation was "So I recommend Bill Pickett, Jim Shoulders or Larry Mahan (preferably both), Charmayne James, Ty Murray, and Trevor Brazile" three of which would be removed here and would leave J.B. Mauney who was not. Subject matter discussion with interested and knowledgeable people is probably preferable compared to rough cuts for this reason. 118.210.28.183 (talk) 21:09, 23 January 2025 (UTC)
2. I think we should only have one or two rodeo riders on the list, if that, since rodeo is a very niche sport. However, I don't know enough about to sport to know whether Shoulders should be that one rider. QuicoleJR (talk) 18:29, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

Discussion

Lane Frost could maybe be added instead since he gets approximately 38x more pageviews daily on average and arguably had a greater impact on the sport during his lifetime (Challenge of the Champions) and because of his death (The Last Ride (bull riding accident)). John G. Avildsen (at level 5) directed a film about him titled 8 Seconds in which Frost was played by Luke Perry (also at level 5). Sahaib (talk) 20:42, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

Cricketer changes

On a perusal of the cricket section, it's skewed more towards batters and the 1990s/2000s than I'd like. Wally Hammond is the most striking omission: he's generally viewed as a top ten batsman. I'm going to list my proposed changes and lump it all into one big poll in which you can indicate your supports and opposes – if there's any you take particular issue with, I'll explain my reasoning but I'm not going to go deep into it right from the get-go.

Additions for the batters: Wally Hammond (England 1930s), George Headley (West Indies 1930s), Greg Chappell (Australia 1970s), AB de Villiers (South Africa 2010s).

Removals for the batters: Inzamam-ul-Haq  5 (Pakistan 1990s/2000s), Mahela Jayawardene  5 (Sri Lanka 2000s), Shivnarine Chanderpaul  5 (West Indies 2000s), Sanath Jayasuriya  5 (Sri Lanka 2000s), Geoffrey Boycott  5 (England 1970s)

Additions for the bowlers: Michael Holding (West Indies 1980s), Shaun Pollock (South Africa 2000s)

Other areas that might warrant change are the inclusions of Clarrie Grimmett, Chris Gayle, Steve Waugh, Rahul Dravid, Jack Blackham, Ranjitsinhji, and Younis Khan and the non-inclusions of Javed Miandad, Allan Donald, Waqar Younis, Courtney Walsh, Ray Lindwall, Kane Williamson, Andy Flower, Aubrey Faulkner, Ravichandran Ashwin, and Anil Kumble.

Support (most)

1. Support all as nom. J947 ‡ ^edits 01:21, 22 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Support almost all, weak oppose Pollock. It's a very naive approach, but I skimmed his article and while he's clearly had a lot of success, I didn't notice any superlatives like in the other articles. The rest of the proposal will still balance things (+1 for bowlers and -2 for batsmen). -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 02:54, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

   I can live without Pollock being listed, but I feel like he can get a bit shafted. Whilst a level below the other test bowlers listed, his batting pedigree and ODI bowling mean he should be listed as an all-rounder in my opinion, and I would prefer him listed than the four below. J947 ‡ ^edits 23:43, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

   Hmm, I'll take note of that. Since it looks like the current bulk swap I started will bog down fast, I can probably incorporate him in the v2 swap I'll try later. My condition that we at least trim a couple cricketers for the new quota (but no more than 5 altogether, proportional to the quota drop) is just stronger. You've given us a lot of good input here though, and I didn't think of it before, but a swap that's m-to-n instead of 1-to-1 is a relatively smooth way to adjust representation. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 03:30, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

3. Support all removals. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 23:07, 2 February 2025 (UTC)
4. I trust you since you seem to know cricket well. I actually wanted to propose AB de Villiers a few months ago because he's one of the rare cricketers I recognize and I saw he wasn't on this list so a strong support for him. Aurangzebra (talk) 03:30, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose (most)

1. oppose additions.GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 23:07, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

   Opposing Hammond (a top-ten test batsman) and de Villiers (a top-five ODI batsman) is nonsensical, as they should be listed if the cricketer section was half its size. J947 ‡ ^edits 23:43, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

Discussion

@J947: It's good to get some input from a cricket fan (I know next to nothing about the game except that it's like the one thing the entire former British empire can agree on). I'm fine deferring to your knowledge on this, but as written, it would add 1 cricket player overall. Do you think you could pick just 2 more players from the list to remove, as a new subproposal within this one? If so, I'll definitely support this proposal entirely. I don't think Cricket should drop below 55 people even if we cut the Sportsmen quota to 1,100, but I'm sympathetic to the trimming. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 17:59, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

I actually had real trouble picking the next cricketer to replace – that's why I left it at that. Note that if the Bodyline swap passes then the number of players will revert to 60 and it will even out. A potential removal for the cricket section is International cricket  5, given we don't have anything like International football (a dab page) etc. If pushed, I'd suggest Younis Khan  5 could be removed as well although that leaves the list without any Pakistani batsmen. J947 ‡ ^edits 23:16, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

I realized if we just omit Pollock for now, we'll still be improving the balance away from batsmen and also making a small trim (especially in case the quota changes). That said, I noticed you had Javed Miandad in your alternate list, and his article makes it sound like he's a notable batsman. If a 1-for-1 swap between Khan and Miandad sounds right to you, you can just spin up a subproposal for that and I'll support it. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 03:00, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

Replace Douglas Jardine with Bodyline

One particular change I've cordoned off from the rest: Jardine is not vital as a batsman; his vitality comes from his captaincy in this incident, which better deserves listing in my opinion.

Support

1. As nom. J947 ‡ ^edits 01:21, 22 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Support, assuming Bodyline would go under Cricket in the Everyday Life -> Sports section. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 17:59, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Discussion

Add Gertrude Bell

Alongside Tanni-Grey Thompson, another figure from Icons not in this list is Gertrude Bell, a traveller and writer who became "the first woman to map and travel across the Arabian Peninsula". Like Thompson, she is a runner up in her category, which is explorers, and I think it will be appropriate to add her in the Explorers section under Miscellaneous because of her importance.

Support

1. As nom. CrisBalboa1 (talk) 14:49, 22 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Strong support, actually surprised she's not already listed. I don't know about the Icons program, but Bell is a pretty big deal historically, arguably the civilian counterpart to T. E. Lawrence  4. Also related, we list both Faisal I of Iraq  5 and Abdullah I of Jordan  5. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 02:24, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Neutral

Weak oppose, I checked the talk page and the subject is currently rated at low importance in most WikiProjects. Sahaib (talk) 15:34, 22 January 2025 (UTC) Changed to neutral. Sahaib (talk) 23:28, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

Discussion

Add Dawn Staley

As a 6xWNBA All-Star, 3x Olympic Gold, 2x World Cup gold and 2xNaismith College Player of the Year, she is still a notch below vital as a player. However, as a coach she is also an Olympic Gold, World Cup Gold, 3x NCAA Division I women's basketball tournament champion and 4x coach of the year. Given the dozens of athletes that are being removed, we have a chance to get female basketball bios up to a reasonable proportion compared to the men.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 05:02, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

Support

1. as nom-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 05:02, 23 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Weak support, she has an established career, helps with bias towards men's sports, and we are trimming elsewhere. Let's go ahead and wrap this up. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 17:59, 23 January 2025 (UTC)
3. per nom Aurangzebra (talk) 03:26, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Oppose adds to sports people that don't have a specific swap in mind to avoid the category growing unchecked. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 17:08, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

   User:GeogSage, I do understand your efforts and intentions. However, even in areas that are over quota, we have not required swaps and I don't see any consensus for such a policy.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 23:28, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

   My vote is oppose, my rational is that I don't want additions to sports until we can get the category reduced dramatically. It doesn't have to be policy, that is my vote and reason for it. I also don't think winning a lot of awards makes someone vital to the course of humanity, this isn't a sports Hall of Fame list. If the athlete isn't the single GOAT, I'd want to see how they have impacted the sport or world outside of the sport. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 23:44, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

Neutral

Discussion

Swap Mongane Wally Serote for Alan Paton

Serote is relatively obscure compared to Paton. His main work, Cry, the Beloved Country  5 is listed but I think Paton deserves a spot too for his influence on apartheid literature.

Support

1. As nom. J947 ‡ ^edits 05:33, 23 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Per nom. I am very weak support on removing Serote but strong support for Paton who I'm surprised wasn't listed. In general, I believe if an author is good enough to have even a single work at VA5, they should be on here as well. Aurangzebra (talk) 07:48, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Mixed

1. Support add, oppose removal. Everyone did a great job of trimming Writers & Journalists, and we're now back within the cushion. Let's just add for now and we can revisit trimming Serote in the next round. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 17:59, 23 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Support add, oppose removal, partly to ensure Black South African representation. Although looking into South African literature  5, you could swap Serote for his predecessor as poet laureate, Keorapetse Kgositsile, or possibly Thomas Mofolo Iostn (talk) 23:45, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

   Kgositsile is listed. I think Mofolo, Sol Plaatje and (coloured) Peter Abrahams are better options than Serote. A possible Afrikaner inclusion is Olive Schreiner. J947 ‡ ^edits 00:19, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

Discussion

Swap Bocchus I for Jugurtha

Jugurtha gets more pageviews than his father-in-law Bocchus I and all other kings of Numidia before it was divided into Eastern and Western Numidia except for Masinissa who is already listed. The only reason to keep Bocchus I is to have a king of Mauretania included as opposed to having two kings of the neighbouring Numidia. Though Numidia is a level 5 vital article whereas Mauretania is not, so having two kings seems reasonable.

Support

1. As nom. Sahaib (talk) 09:29, 23 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Strong support for add, neutral on remove. Aurangzebra (talk) 04:36, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Mixed

1. Support add, oppose removal. I'm getting nervous about the cushion in Leaders, but for now, let's just keep this simple. We can start trimming in the next round. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 17:59, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

Discussion

Add some human geographers

I have a list of geographers I think are important. Here are some that have been brought up recently in another proposal, as well as a couple others I think are important.

Add Ernest Burgess

Actually a sociologist more then a geographer, originated the Concentric zone model

Support

1. As nom. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 17:58, 25 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Makkool (talk) 15:40, 26 January 2025 (UTC)
3. Sure, the section still has the room. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 21:00, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Neutral

Discuss

Add Paul Vidal de La Blache

Notable French Geographer, and founder of the French School of Geopolitics.

Support

1. As nom. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 17:58, 25 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Makkool (talk) 15:40, 26 January 2025 (UTC)
3. Sure, the section still has the room. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 21:00, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

1. I really disagree with the contention that just because we have space for something, we can relax our standards. I read through the article and there isn't anything particularly notable here. None of his ideas seem particularly notable. There are concerns on the talk page that most of the writing on the page is original research. It hasn't even been assessed by Wikiproject Geography, which you'd think they'd do if he was so notable to the field. Aurangzebra (talk) 03:58, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

   I'm mostly ambivalent about any of these as individual votes, but as someone that supports "add anything plausible if we're still brainstorming", I'm glad you brought it up. I saw you mentioned you work as a software engineer on the STEM page so I can keep it simple: it's exactly the same principle as rapid prototyping in agile development (not the management buzzword).

   Improving on something that concretely exists typically works better then mentally juggling hypothetical moving parts in advance. And the larger the group collaborating on a project, the truer it becomes. You mention relaxing our standards, but my PoV is until we've filled out the category or had a discussion to trim it comprehensively, it technically doesn't have a standard yet. All of the articles added during the WP:BRD era make that even more extreme; even weaker articles than this will likely be tolerated until we reach quota and need to trim.

   That's not to change your mind. If you have formed a mental model of what should & shouldn't be in the category, more power to you. I just want to defend rubber-stamping in never-finished categories as a practical measure. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 18:26, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

   You bring up good points. I just want to push back against ambivalence because I just know that if proposals like these pass, a few years down the line, someone with fresh eyes and no context on the history of the project is going to come in and suggest this as an easy removal. In my opinion, frothiness in our VA articles list erodes trust in the project. If we need to fill up sections for quota, there are better ways to do this. Behind the scenes, I've actually been working on a tool that uses LLMs to categorize our articles, rank them based on the VA criteria, and using the existing list of people, suggest others who are missing from this list. LLMs are still not perfect yet and are subject to numerous biases but it gives us a starting point and, arguably, the most consensus view of them all since it is returning answers based on an entire web's worth of training data. I'm still fine-tuning it but I've been running it on our Musicians section (since that is one of my personal trivia strong suits so I can quickly verify how accurate the results are). You can quickly see the outliers who don't belong on our lists and also the notable omissions. I had a whole slew of musician proposals a month or so ago that I gathered from my pipeline and they all passed with no opposes which seems to indicate this is a viable approach. Moral of the story, if we need to fill out sections, there are more clever ways to go about this. Aurangzebra (talk) 02:02, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

   Oh, you're absolutely right that a lot of things might wind up getting cut again; I'm just skeptical we can guess which in advance. For example, just on this nomination, the article itself has issues and I've never heard of de La Blache before. Yet out of thousands of potential suggestions, GeogSage pulled him and maybe a dozen others out of a hat.

   Maybe the article is very marginal and we'll cut it a year from now. Or maybe we're just underestimating it because we're not geography wonks (which applied to the average Wikipedia editor, could also explain why the article isn't better). Maybe by the time we revisit it, someone will have expanded it and skimming the article convinces several people to oppose removal.

   I have no problem with people using tools like your LLM for suggestions. That's actually quite neat, though I'm honestly still skeptical about them in most cases (it's not a general AI phobia; I'm all for embedding neural networks in lots of equipment).

   My primary concern is there seems to be lot of circular reasoning here at VA: we omit articles, despite adding coverage or balance, because of vibes or metrics (none of which have ever been validated AFAICT). Then we base our interpretation of vitality on what's already here. The only thing that seems to shock us out of it is when someone realizes basic concepts or an entire chunk of our knowledge graph is missing. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 15:06, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

Neutral

Discuss

Add Ellen Churchill Semple

She was the first female president of the American Association of Geographers. Her work was relevant to Environmental determinism  5, not the prettiest of topics in hindsight but important in understanding how we got where we are now.

Support

1. As nom. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 17:58, 25 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Makkool (talk) 15:40, 26 January 2025 (UTC)
3. Sure, the section still has the room. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 21:00, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

1. I really disagree with the contention that just because we have space for something, we can relax our standards. Main claim to fame seems to be that she was first female president of American Association of Geographers, but this isn't a particularly notable organization. Not VA5 and Low-important on Wikiproject Geography. You argue on another thread that being a president of FIFA  5, a truly global organization with massive geopolitical reach and influence, is not necessarily notable in and of itself so I find it extremely hard to see how you can justify this proposal. Aurangzebra (talk) 04:02, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

   To answer your question about FIFA, I don't really consider sports to be that vital compared to science, just popular. In short, every academic organization in my opinion is more vital then any sport organization in my opinion, I don't even consider them comparable. Las Vegas gets a lot of people to dump money in casinos, that doesn't mean the casinos are more vital then universities. That is what I view sports as, gambling spaces to separate the masses from their money. I understand that as a slice of society we will have a lot of sports fandom members here and that is why we have a huge amount of our article space dedicated to that, but it doesn't mean I see them as Apples to Apples with science. You might as well ask me why I think Nature (journal)  4 is more vital then Sports Illustrated  5. That said, I didn't nominate her because she was a president of the AAG, but because she was the first female president. It is an attempt to get an early example of a prominent female geographer to balance our gender representation a bit. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 17:43, 21 February 2025 (UTC)

Neutral

Discuss

Add Walter Christaller

German geographer and originator of Central place theory  5.

Support

1. As nom. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 17:58, 25 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Makkool (talk) 15:40, 26 January 2025 (UTC)
3. Sure, the section still has the room. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 21:00, 26 January 2025 (UTC)
4. I can support this one since Central place theory is VA5 and rightfully so. The people who can be concretely attributed to a VA5-level idea probably belong on here too. Aurangzebra (talk) 01:52, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Neutral

Discuss

Add Doreen Massey (geographer)

British Marxist, feminist, and cultural geographer. She is notable for her "spatial divisions of labour theory."

Support

1. As nom. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 17:58, 25 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Makkool (talk) 15:40, 26 January 2025 (UTC)
3. Sure, the section still has the room. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 21:00, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

1. I really disagree with the contention that just because we have space for something, we can relax our standards. I read through her article. She is a standard professor. Tens of thousands of professors have won awards in their fields, a decent subset of which have won more prolific awards than these. Tens of thousands of professors have proposed theories and ideas in their fields that are generally respected. "Spatial divisions of labour theory" has not seeped into the public conscience or even into the social sciences at large. There is no article for it and the link on the page redirects back to the same wiki. Aurangzebra (talk) 03:48, 8 February 2025 (UTC)
2. I agree with Aurangzebra. Sahaib (talk) 19:47, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

Neutral

Discuss

Proposal signature

GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 17:58, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

Remove Nastasen  5

Little is known about this guy except that he apparently fought off one invasion. He does not seem vital, and there are plenty of other leaders that could use the slot.

Support

1. As nom. QuicoleJR (talk) 21:44, 26 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Support as this source describes him as a "minor pharaoh". Sahaib (talk) 21:54, 26 January 2025 (UTC)
3. Per nom. Kevinishere15 (talk) 22:52, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Weak oppose, I had to look into this one, but if you go to the one citation for his regnal stele, it's actually pretty meaty. Archaeological excavations of his tomb are ongoing too. In short, the current stub page may not reflect how much sources know of him already. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 18:17, 1 February 2025 (UTC)
2. Per Zar and Geog _pbp 22:24, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

Neutral

1. I believe several of our leaders from Kush have been proposed lately. If a ruler survived in the historic record for thousands of years, they might be "vital," or it could be a coincidence that they happened to be kept while others were lost. That said, our leaders/people section definitely skew towards the past 500 to 1000 years in terms of coverage. Not saying I oppose this outright, but think there might be better groups to start with then ancient people. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 18:19, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

Discuss

Add Ernst Zermelo

Ernst Zermelo proposed (a precursor of) Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory  5, including the Axiom of choice  4. Thus he did more to shape Set theory  4 than anyone else except Georg Cantor  4. Lophotrochozoa (talk) 18:38, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

Support

1. Make nom's vote explicit. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 19:01, 26 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Support for myself too, under People -> Mathematicians, where we still have room anyways. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 19:01, 26 January 2025 (UTC)
3. SUpport for people section. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 20:22, 26 January 2025 (UTC)
4. Sure, why not. Tabu Makiadi (talk) 19:50, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

@Lophotrochozoa: Hi there and welcome to VA5. Just to give you a heads-up, voting on biographies of all types usually happens on the People talk page. You don't have to move this proposal though, we'll all know to place him there if this passes. If it doesn't wind up getting much input, it's not a boycott but people may just skip the proposal to avoid thinking about procedural hoops. In that case, your best bet probably is to cut-and-paste this proposal with all existing comments over to the People sub-page. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 19:01, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

I meant to start the discussion at the People subpage but forgot that this is the wrong place. Can we move it? Lophotrochozoa (talk) 20:19, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

You don't have to, especially if people vote on it and since it's pretty clear where it will go anyways. You can if you really want to, but it's the sort of mix-up that doesn't cause any problems as long as it's uncommon. Most of the longer discussions on where to put things happen when a topic could fit in several buckets. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 01:39, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

I have moved it. Lophotrochozoa (talk) 17:46, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

Add Nick Ut

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.

---

Took the famous Napalm Girl photograph in Vietnam. The photograph itself doesn't have a Wikipedia article, but the photographer who took it should definitely be considered vital enough to be added.

Support

1. As nom. Makkool (talk) 13:47, 28 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Everything else aside, I don't really see how any of the other photographers mentioned (except for possibly Horst Faas) are stronger than Ut. Iostn (talk) 21:38, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Per below. Kevinishere15 (talk) 21:19, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

Discuss

1. Neutral here, but worth noting that many other photojournalists are not listed including Horst Faas, Carol Guzy, Adnan Abidi, William Snyder, etc. who may have stronger credentials than Ut. GauchoDude (talk) 14:43, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

   Good point! Actually, Phan Thi Kim Phuc  5, the subject of the Napalm Girl photograph is already listed here. Maybe she is enough to represent this topic? Let's see if this gets support. Makkool (talk) 14:57, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

   I would imagine one/some could go under Journalists: General, but would require some culling of the section and between them and writers I'm not sure if I feel comfortable leading that charge. Again, I don't oppose this, however it feels like others should be put through first. GauchoDude (talk) 16:34, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

   I started a separate Photojournalists section, and all these would belong there. I still haven't checked if any photojournalists are in the Journalists: General section. Art photographers can stay in the Visual artists: Photographers section. Makkool (talk) 14:28, 29 January 2025 (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.

Add Álvaro Obregón

Obregón was the most successful general in the Mexican Revolution  4 (see, for example, the Battle of Celaya), leading the Constitutionalists to victory, and along with Plutarco Elías Calles  5, becoming their main leader. His two terms as president consolidated what would become the Institutional Revolutionary Party  5. He was assassinated at the height of the Cristero War  5. I think he’s the most vital Mexican person to be missing from the list.

Support

1. As nom. To politicians. Tabu Makiadi (talk) 19:16, 28 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Mexico is underrepresented in general Iostn (talk) 22:38, 30 January 2025 (UTC)
3. Support, very strong for the topic, very weak for procedural reasons. At the risk of being inconsistent, I'm going to consider the removal of Shanakdakhete a good swap. In general though, we probably need to pause Leader addition proposals for now. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 17:52, 1 February 2025 (UTC)
4. _pbp 21:57, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

Add Karl Kautsky

One of the leading Marxist theorists of the turn of the century, best remembered for his discussions with Marx and Lenin.

Support

1. As nom. To philosophers. Tabu Makiadi (talk) 19:16, 28 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Per nom. Makkool (talk) 14:28, 29 January 2025 (UTC)
3. Yes, to social scientists.--109.81.91.102 (talk) 19:59, 29 January 2025 (UTC)
4. to Political scientists, theorists, and writers. Also, he definitely already should have been listed by now... Iostn (talk)
5. Definitely, and we have the room. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 17:52, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

Move Bill Nye

Bill Nye  5 is listed as an inventor but his main claim to fame is his science education and advocacy work. Lophotrochozoa (talk) 20:23, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

Support, he definitely is most known for being on TV. Maybe "Broadcasts journalists and commentators" is the right section, along with David Attenborough? Makkool (talk) 14:28, 29 January 2025 (UTC)

Support. Broadcast journalists and commentators seems fine to me. Aurangzebra (talk) 22:47, 29 January 2025 (UTC)

If you're going to move him somewhere, it should be to hosts. I know that Fred Rogers  4, Bob Ross  5 and LeVar Burton  5 are not scientists, but they, like Nye, hosted children's television programs. _pbp 23:02, 29 January 2025 (UTC)

Bill Nye Saves the World was made for an adult audience, and he's also known for the debate against creationist Ken Ham. He's more than a children's entertainer and TV host. Makkool (talk) 12:24, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

Some addition proposals for Philosophers, historians, political and social scientists (under quota)

Forensic sciences

Add Alec Jeffreys

English geneticist who is very notable for his work in developing DNA profiling  4 techniques that are widely used in forensics.

Add Frances Glessner Lee

Nicknamed the "mother of forensic science". Notable for developing miniature crime scene dioramas for training homicide investigators (Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death).

Support

1. As nom. B3251_(talk) 21:37, 29 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Support both – clearly more vital than most of the other forensic scientists listed. A bit strange that these are listed as social scientists? J947 ‡ ^edits 23:04, 29 January 2025 (UTC)
3. Support both Makkool (talk) 21:17, 31 January 2025 (UTC)
4. Support, and either Scientist section has the room. I agree with J947 we may want to rethink how we organize Forensics experts, though I'm not sure which is the right answer. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 17:52, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

Human geographers and cartographers

Add John Speed

16th-17th century English cartographer and historian notable for his work in England and Wales at the time.

Add Fra Mauro

15th-century Venetian monk well-known for creating the Fra Mauro map.

Support

1. As nom. B3251_(talk) 21:37, 29 January 2025 (UTC)
2. As a geographer, love to see other people proposing geographers. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 03:28, 30 January 2025 (UTC)
3. Support both Makkool (talk) 21:17, 31 January 2025 (UTC)
4. Support both, why not? -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 17:52, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

1. Harvey's already proposed above. Listing Fra Mauro map would be significantly better than listing the man. Not sure about Speed. J947 ‡ ^edits 22:53, 29 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Suggest nominating Fra Maura map under geography. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 03:29, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

Add Philip Kotler

Under "Public relations, marketing and advertising theorists". Marketing theorist notable for popularizing the definition of marketing mix with an extensive publication list.

Support

1. As nom. B3251_(talk) 21:37, 29 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Per nom. Makkool (talk) 21:17, 31 January 2025 (UTC)
3. Sure, why not? -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 17:52, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

Add Carl Bildt

Whilst his term as prime minister was quite short, he was notably the first conservative prime minister of Sweden in 61 years (similar to Danish prime minister Poul Schlüter who is listed), and led the Moderate Party for 13 years in 4 elections. He was later the foreign minister under Fredrik Reinfeldt from 2006 to 2014 (and was offered the position again in 2022 but he declined). He also served as the first High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina. Excluding Sweden's three most recent prime ministers and Olof Palme (who is already listed), Bildt gets the most pageviews.

Support

1. As nom. Sahaib (talk) 23:48, 29 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Going to support here just to provide some kind of dissent even though it almost certainly won't pass with the current quota, as he is an important figure in European international relations, more than domestic politics. Iostn (talk) 00:57, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Oppose, he seems like a pretty mundane politician on a global scale when looking at all of human history. How many rulers of Kush have been nominated for removal recently? I think in 2,000 years, he is unlikely to be much more then a line in a table of a history book. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 07:37, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

   @GeogSage: I would dispute that, this article from 1995 states that "Although he is currently playing a backstage role in the peace process while his American counterpart steals the headlines, even his fiercest critics concede Bildt has put Sweden firmly on the diplomatic map. He could yet end up with a place in the history books as a key player in rebuilding the former Yugoslavia." Sahaib (talk) 14:37, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

2. I think one more Swedish politician should be listed, but I'd much, much rather it be Tage Erlander: His uninterrupted tenure of 23 years as head of the government is the longest ever in Sweden and in any modern Western democracy; He was considered one of the most popular leaders in the world by the end of the 1960s; During his premiership, Sweden developed into one of the world's most advanced welfare states, with the "Swedish Model" at the peak of its acclaim and notoriety; He has been compared to other notable Swedish "political giants" such as Palme and Dag Hammarskjöld. (the other two Swedish politicians listed). It's a no-brainer in my opinion. J947 ‡ ^edits 23:43, 31 January 2025 (UTC)
3. Oppose, purely on procedural grounds for now. We already have enough Leader additions in play, and we should probably stop treating the 2% cushion as an unofficial quota. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 17:52, 1 February 2025 (UTC)
4. Not sure Sweden needs more and there are better options _pbp 22:22, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

Discuss

If any leader from Sweden - how about the current King Carl XVI Gustaf? Been King for over 50 years, longest in Sweden's history, had 10 PMs under him.Article in, I think, 89 languages. Although his power is limited, so is the British Monarch, but Swedish even more so.  Carlwev  17:35, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

I wouldn't mind adding the other Carl. Sahaib (talk) 22:03, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

Swap Tony Benn with Jeremy Corbyn

Corbyn has 69 language links whereas Benn has 35 languages. Corbyn gets about 5.7x more daily pageviews than Benn. See also Google Trends, the related searches for Benn include his son Hilary Benn at 2 and 3 with Corbyn himself at 5, 8 and 10 which highlights that a lot of people only search him in relation to those people. The map shows that Corbyn gets over 90% of searches compared to Benn in all countries included. The only metric that Benn beats Corbyn is scholar results with Benn's 22,100 compared to Corbyn's 19,500 but this is can be explained by the fact that Corbyn is still an active politician, recently winning his seat as an independent (see also Template:Jeremy Corbyn sidebar, there is a whole page about his leadership of the party) and so his impact can not be fully assessed.

Support

1. As nom. Sahaib (talk) 09:07, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Weak oppose for now. I see a strong argument for adding Corbyn if we had the room, but all of the stats cited just suggest recency bias to me. With so many leader proposals still in play too, I don't have a clear sense of what our balance within and outside of British leaders is. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 20:27, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

   Corbyn has been a member of parliament since 1983 but I get what you mean. Sahaib (talk) 21:35, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

   Actually, while I still think the stats largely reflect recency, that's not my primary concern. Corbyn is clearly notable; I'm just more concerned about removing Benn. And unless contemporary British leaders are under-represented, a straight add isn't an option.

   I'm not British, but I've actually heard of Been before, and the impression I formed was that some consider him just a notch or two below say Aneurin Bevan  5 in terms of influence. If someone with a deeper knowledge of British politics comes by and says, "Nah, we can probably cut him," I'll change to support.

   Since this is a swap within a single heading, quota and representation isn't an issue. But it does show how things are probably going to take more deliberation here on out, which is one more reason I worry about us overloading proposals. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 03:14, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

Discuss

It's a funny thing to say about a 36-year MP with an Olympic medal and a Nobel Peace Prize, but Philip Noel-Baker is the clear weakness on our list of British politicians IMO (an opinion mostly based on his incredibly low pageviews). J947 ‡ ^edits 03:47, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

European politicians

From what I've seen, this is one area which has flown under the radar. Looking to propose a few changes here for some countries that are barely represented, or in Switzerland's case, completely unrepresented in the modern era. J947 ‡ ^edits 04:09, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

Austria: add Arthur Seyss-Inquart, Karl Renner, and Bruno Kreisky

Though the nation is very well covered in its time with the Holy Roman Empire and Austria-Hungary, the only contemporary Austrian on the list is UN secretary-general Kurt Waldheim. A country of 9 million commands perhaps 3 entries at this level, but there are four who stand out to me so that's what I've proposed.

• Arthur Seyss-Inquart – Nazi executed at Nuremberg. Not sure what our coverage of Nazis is like, but I think he makes any sizeable list.
• Karl Renner – often referred to as the "Father of the Republics" because he led the first government of the Republic of German-Austria and the First Austrian Republic in 1919 and 1920, and was once again decisive in establishing the present Second Republic after the fall of Nazi Germany in 1945, becoming its first President after World War II
• Bruno Kreisky – his article places him in the same vein as Willy Brandt  4 and Olof Palme  5.

Support all

1. Support all, but especially Renner and Kreisky, as nom. J947 ‡ ^edits 04:09, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

Mixed

1. See below comment. Oppose Seyss-Inquart; he wasn't the paramount leader of Austria for long at all. _pbp 05:43, 3 February 2025 (UTC)
2. Support for Renner and Kreisky.--109.81.90.69 (talk) 09:30, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose all

Discuss

On a slightly different note, Austromarxism, Otto Bauer, and Rudolf Hilferding are potential additions (though I think they're pushing it). J947 ‡ ^edits 04:09, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

To pre-empt any opposes for quota reasons, I think the fact that we have gaping holes in countries like Austria without there being many obvious removals is strongly suggestive that the quota for politicians and leaders is too low. As a matter of fact, the proportion of the pie that politicians/leaders occupy at VA5 is actually smaller than at VA4, despite the fact that we list a tremendous amount more people. It is a quarter of the VA4 people list, but between a sixth and a seventh of the VA5 people list. This area is an obvious place to add to and this proposal exemplifies why. J947 ‡ ^edits 04:28, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

• I'm not particularly bothered by a paucity of 20th and 21st century Austrians, as Austria is a) pretty well represented by the Habsburgs, b) is not particularly populous in its present form, and c) hasn't been much of a player on the world stage since WW2 and arguably since WW1. I would also suggest that, if any of these do pass, that we REMOVE Charles I of Austria, who was King (Emperor?) for just two years. _pbp 05:43, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

Iceland: remove Sveinn Björnsson and Davíð Oddsson

We list three Icelandic politicians, which is (pretty obviously) two too many. Keep Vigdís Finnbogadóttir  5, by far the most well-known.

Support

1. Support as nom. J947 ‡ ^edits 04:39, 3 February 2025 (UTC)
2. Makkool (talk) 16:53, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

Mixed

Oppose

Discuss

Czech politicians

The leaders sector is quite full, so I do not propose just an addition, but rather a replacement. In both cases, it is a replacement of a Czech for a Czech, so it should not be nationally sensitive. In the first case, it is the elimination of Bořivoj I, Duke of Bohemia and the addition of Ottokar II of Bohemia. Bořivoj is not a particularly important ruler. His importance lies in the fact that he is the first historically documented prince from the Přemyslid dynasty. However, this does not mean that he is the founder of the dynasty. It is just that the real existence of his predecessors is not documented in historiography. On the other hand, Ottokar is an important king (not just a prince) who influenced the history of all of Central Europe. He expanded the Czech territory to the Adriatic Sea. He ruled Austria, Slovenia and part of Italy. He had the ambition to create a Central European empire, but was stopped by the Habsburgs, who thus began their own implementation of this concept. Ottokar is also a character in Dante's Divine Comedy. The interwiki ratio is 27:47.

The second case is the removal of Klement Gottwald and addition of Edvard Beneš. Gottwald was the first communist president, Beneš the last non-communist. Beneš was president for 14 years (including the government in exile), Gottwald for 5 years. Beneš was the real founder of Czechoslovakia (Masaryk was only a symbolic figure), he negotiated its existence and borders at the Paris Conference. He directed its foreign policy for thirty years. He decided on matters that affected all of Central Europe (linkage to France and Britain, acceptance of the Munich Agreement, decision on Operation Anthropoid - the killing of Reynhard Heydrich, entry into the Soviet sphere of influence, expulsion of 3 million Germans from post-war Czechoslovakia, post-war nationalization of 70 percent of industry). Gottwald was a communist, but Stalin did not take him seriously and did not meet with him once during the entire war. He always dealt only with Beneš. Gottwald's significance is only in organizing the communist coup in 1948. But even in this coup, Beneš was actually a more important figure. Gottwald organized the coup by appointing new pro-communist ministers to the government. And he left it up to Beneš to decide whether he accepted this solution. Beneš gave the green light, and the whole "revolution" ended. What would have happened if he had decided differently is another question (there would probably have been a violent coup). The interwiki ratio is 53:61. If you don't want to vote for a replacement, please at least vote for an addition. It would be sad if really important people didn't make it to the list because of some tactic.

Swap Bořivoj I. with Ottokar II

Support

1. --109.81.90.46 (talk) 08:02, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
2. per nom. QuicoleJR (talk) 21:06, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
3. Makkool (talk) 16:53, 6 February 2025 (UTC)
4. Per well-argued nomination. Lophotrochozoa (talk) 22:17, 23 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Swap Klement Gottwald with Edvard Beneš

Support

1. --109.81.90.46 (talk) 08:02, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
2. per nom. QuicoleJR (talk) 21:06, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
3. Makkool (talk) 16:53, 6 February 2025 (UTC)
4. Per well-argued nomination. Lophotrochozoa (talk) 22:17, 23 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Remove Lizzy Yarnold  5

British skeleton racer. Most successful skeleton racer in history, but that only entails two Olympic gold medals. Considering the fact that Skeleton (sport)  5 is only VA5, I do not believe it warrants any racers on the list.

Support

1. As nom. QuicoleJR (talk) 21:15, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
2. Makkool (talk) 16:53, 6 February 2025 (UTC)
3. Per nom. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 21:08, 6 February 2025 (UTC)
4. Per nom. Tabu Makiadi (talk) 19:49, 8 February 2025 (UTC)
5. Per nom. GauchoDude (talk) 16:02, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Neutral

Discuss

Add Masahiro Sakurai

We currently list 19 video game developers. The page they are on has plenty of quota space, so I think we can add one more. Sakurai is the creator of two major franchises, Kirby (series) (almost vital but not quite) and Super Smash Bros.  5. The latter has led to Sakurai becoming a household name among video game fans. 25 interwikis, rated High-Importance by WikiProject Video games.

Support

1. As nom. QuicoleJR (talk) 21:48, 6 February 2025 (UTC)
2. Definitely one of the most important video game developers as being responsible for creating the most popular fighting game series. λ NegativeMP1 22:02, 6 February 2025 (UTC)
3. Surprised we have only 19 video game devs. Tabu Makiadi (talk) 19:49, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Neutral

Discuss

Remove Lys Assia

Winning the first Eurovision Song Contest is not enough to be included on this list. Johnny Logan (singer) and Loreen who won the competition twice are not listed. In terms of German or German speaking winners Conchita Wurst, Lena Meyer-Landrut, Nicole Seibert and Udo Jürgens are arguably more vital. Assia is currently listed on the talk page as "Low‑importance" in all WikiProjects. Sahaib (talk) 21:16, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

Support

1. As nom. Sahaib (talk) 21:17, 9 February 2025 (UTC)
2. Per nom. GauchoDude (talk) 20:24, 11 February 2025 (UTC)
3. Swap with Udo Jürgens due to relative German language under-representation currently Iostn (talk) 22:40, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

   I would support this swap as the German version of his article is longer. I also found this list which ranks him as the second most famous Austrian singer after Falco (musician), who is already listed. Sahaib (talk) 23:35, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Neutral

Discuss

Add Rachel Ruysch

Similarly vital as Judith Leyster  5. Painters are underrepresented IMO (and this is obviously magnified when looking at female painters in particular).

Support

1. As nom. J947 ‡ ^edits 02:10, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Neutral

Discussion

Add Sonia Delaunay

Her husband, Robert Delaunay  5, is of similar importance – if we could only list one of the two, I'd prefer Sonia.

Support

1. As nom. Would much prefer a straight add, but second choice swap with Robert. J947 ‡ ^edits 02:12, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Support swap

Discussion

Add Johann Wilhelm Ritter

Johann Wilhelm Ritter discovered Ultraviolet  4 radiation. Lophotrochozoa (talk) 20:39, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Remove Rudolf Wanderone  5

Solid article, but too much of a cult figure. "Never won a major pool tournament".

Support

1. Tabu Makiadi (talk) 20:56, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

Remove Oliver Lang  5

I'm not against the idea of having paintball players as vital, but I don't think he makes the cut.

Support

1. Tabu Makiadi (talk) 20:56, 14 February 2025 (UTC)
2. How the hell did this get added? Kevinishere15 (talk) 00:29, 16 February 2025 (UTC)
3. Yeah, this might be one of the worst inclusions I've ever seen. Aurangzebra (talk) 02:55, 16 February 2025 (UTC)
4. This guy does not seem vital. QuicoleJR (talk) 14:38, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

1. @Kevinishere15 This got added when the lists original intention was a wiki collaborative effort that included all wikiprojects like Wikipedia:WikiProject Paintball. The idea being that wikipedia should include every wikiproject in a article improvement drive. Wikiprojects for alot of more minor subjects have died down and this list is more popularity focused based on editors individual recognisability and openness to the field being included, so it is a understandable removal, but not a unreasonable list. 118.210.24.72 (talk) 03:08, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

Miscellaneous removals

Per an ongoing discussion on the general talk page. There are some slots remaining, but this section could benefit from more scrutiny.

• Théophile Obenga  5
• Robert Coates (actor)  5
• B. V. Raman  5
• Arif Heralić  5

Support

1. As nominator. Tabu Makiadi (talk) 01:45, 16 February 2025 (UTC)
2. J947 ‡ ^edits 02:44, 16 February 2025 (UTC)
3. Sahaib (talk) 08:13, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Oppose B. V. Raman, would be textbook systematic bias to include 7 Western astrologers but no Eastern, especially when Hindu astrology holds some religious significence. Raman is the number one name there or atleast someone else should be included from Eastern astrology when you have 7 in Western and Western is less respected in it's specific culture. 118.210.24.72 (talk) 03:08, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

   I would support removing most of the Western astrologers too – just that Raman appeared to stand out the most to me: he is nowhere near the most vital Hindu astrologer. Compare Shakuntala Devi, Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri, or Varāhamihira. Raman's article is a puffpiece. J947 ‡ ^edits 03:22, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

   Devi is primarily notable as a mental calculator , Giri is a Yogi and most notable as a guru of Paramahansa Yogananda and Varāhamihira should be added. Most people in the pseudoscience category are going to be primarily definied by puff pieces as that is the pseudoscience method of promotion. Astrology is one of the most far reaching culturally of pseudosciences like Chiropractic and it would not hurt to include a couple for Eastern astrology, one of the longest and most distinct forms of pseudoscience. Raman is the most notable modern Vedic astrologer and in India today the biggest association for Astrology lists him as the founder. [2]. It's all puff and not a proper science, but if we can list 14 internet personalities and 40 models then i don't see how Hindu astrology can't have multiple people (a couple ancient, one modern) and definitely not none as it's a millennium long system with probably tens of millions of believers today at a very low rough estimate. Even the westerners, if astrology is getting believability numbers like 27% [3] and the widespread newspaper prominence of things like horoscopes, a couple of names behind the system that built that movement should probably represent that (10 isn't bad). 118.210.24.72 (talk) 04:15, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

Discuss

How Miscellaneous are some of these guys anyway? Obenga seems better classified as a social scientist, Coates is an actor, etc. If any of these are kept, consider reclassification. _pbp 03:39, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

Remove Gary Richards (music executive)  5

Article is overly promotional.

Support

1. As nominator. Tabu Makiadi (talk) 01:45, 16 February 2025 (UTC)
2. No way in hell this guy is one of the most vital music producers _pbp 03:37, 16 February 2025 (UTC)
3. J947 ‡ ^edits 03:50, 16 February 2025 (UTC)
4. Probably added himself. λ NegativeMP1 17:01, 16 February 2025 (UTC)
5. Per everyone else. Kevinishere15 (talk) 21:12, 16 February 2025 (UTC)
6. Per nom. GauchoDude (talk) 15:58, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

Remove Richard Trethewey

We removed the hosts of This Old House here and here, why would we keep the plumber/HVAC guy? Only five interwikis. _pbp 02:17, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

Support

1. _pbp 02:17, 16 February 2025 (UTC)
2. J947 ‡ ^edits 03:08, 16 February 2025 (UTC)
3. Tabu Makiadi (talk) 19:02, 16 February 2025 (UTC)
4.  Carlwev  23:56, 16 February 2025 (UTC)
5. Per nom. GauchoDude (talk) 15:57, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Discussion

Add Frederick Banting and John Macleod (physiologist)

Medicine list. Banting's the co-discoverer of Insulin  4, youngest Nobel Prize in Medicine laureate, voted the fourth greatest Canadian – I don't think he'd be out of place at VA4 at all, to be honest. His lesser-known colleague Macleod should be listed too, according to our lede.

Support

1. As nom. J947 ‡ ^edits 04:00, 16 February 2025 (UTC)
2. Per nom. Makkool (talk) 12:57, 23 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Mixed

Discussion

Remove Carlos de Beistegui  5

Some 20th century dude who wore 17th century-style wigs and gave a big party. Only 4 interwikis. _pbp 16:30, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

Support

1. _pbp 16:30, 16 February 2025 (UTC)
2. How the hell did he get here? λ NegativeMP1 17:00, 16 February 2025 (UTC)
3. Yeah, these entries get me a bit cynical. Tabu Makiadi (talk) 19:02, 16 February 2025 (UTC)
4. Not vital. Kevinishere15 (talk) 21:14, 16 February 2025 (UTC)
5.  Carlwev  21:23, 16 February 2025 (UTC)
6. Support. Per above, this makes me cynical as well. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 16:18, 17 February 2025 (UTC)
7. Per nom. GauchoDude (talk) 15:57, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Discussion

Remove Nancy Spungen  5

Far from the weakest entry in Miscellaneous people, but I think this exemplifies how our standards in this section are less strict. Even if we consider her to have the same vitality as Sid Vicious, we don't list him individually, and with all the major-ish rock bands we've cut, I don't think Mr. Vicious is a particularly close call.

Support

1. Tabu Makiadi (talk) 20:56, 14 February 2025 (UTC)
2.  Carlwev  21:24, 16 February 2025 (UTC)
3. Per nom. J947 ‡ ^edits 22:35, 16 February 2025 (UTC)
4. Per nom. GauchoDude (talk) 15:56, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

Very odd article to include. We do not include any members of the Sex Pistols, so why we would list a person who is only notable for dating one of them, and may or may not have been killed by one of them is very strange. People who are mainly notable for being the partner of a more notable person. We do not list say, Meghan Markle, Kate Middleton, or Queen Camilla, who all seem more notable/vital than Nancy.  Carlwev  17:15, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

Markle, Middleton and Jackie Kennedy were all removed before Spungen, they were all listed together. Socialites as a history subject is pretty much all royalty or rich Beau Brummell and Porfirio Rubirosa types, Spungen could be seen as a prominent example of a different type of socialite (club scene) (just like Edie Sedgwick and the Nancy/Sid trope is pretty widely spread. Even modern teen shows like 13 Reasons Why keep current her cultural imagery. That's why she was added as a way to have the encyclopedia have more subjects covered in a more of a variety of things, but the way the winds are moving it's likely the whole socialite section will go, so it's fair to cut Spungen, but that's why she was added. 118.210.24.72 (talk) 07:29, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

If she qualified for the list, crime victims would be the right place, but she doesn't qualify. Lophotrochozoa (talk) 18:57, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

Remove Sable Starr  5

I'm not against the idea of having groupies as vital, but I don't think she makes the cut. I am also raising my eyebrows at her listing under "sex workers"?

Support

1. As nominator. Tabu Makiadi (talk) 22:18, 16 February 2025 (UTC)
2. Only four interwikis _pbp 22:35, 16 February 2025 (UTC)
3.  Carlwev  23:53, 16 February 2025 (UTC)
4. λ NegativeMP1 23:54, 16 February 2025 (UTC)
5. Per nom. GauchoDude (talk) 15:55, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

Remove Donald Eugene Chambers  5

Lesser known biker. Don't think he's among the most vital criminals or people in human history.

Support

1. As nominator. Tabu Makiadi (talk) 22:49, 16 February 2025 (UTC)
2.  Carlwev  23:55, 16 February 2025 (UTC)
3. Sure GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 16:16, 17 February 2025 (UTC)
4. Makkool (talk) 17:58, 21 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

To add something more than personal opinion: Chamber's assumed worth would be covered by founding the Bandidos Motorcycle Club; the second largest outlaw biker group. The lede says this gang has "303 chapters located in 22 countries", which would be more of a global reach than the one city located Chicago Outfit; which got Al Capone to level 4. On a list of 58 organized criminals, i don't think it's a reach to include two bikers with Sonny Barger being the obvious other. I don't think a good enyclopedia would only have all US mafia and not any variety in it's coverage. 118.210.24.72 (talk) 07:21, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

Add Danny DeVito

He has a 55 year career acting and directing in movies and TV, a household name. Starred in about 90 movies, has his own filmography article, which some of our listed actors do not. Has an article in 80 languages. Although it may be an unfair comparison, Comparing to a random actor/director we list, say Fred Niblo who appears in 23 languages, DeVito has had 27 million page views since 2015, compared with 116K of Niblo. 237 times more. [4]

Support

1. As nom.  Carlwev  16:13, 17 February 2025 (UTC)
2. Per nom. As to GeogSage's concerns, we definitely need to remove a lot of actors, and I would support some major cuts, but that doesn't mean that this actor shouldn't be listed, because he should. QuicoleJR (talk) 16:52, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

1. I hate to say this becasue I love Danny DeVito, but unless you can find 10 actors to remove in exchange for him I can't really support adding any actors/actresses. The section is horribly bloated and needs some pretty deep cuts. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 16:16, 17 February 2025 (UTC)
2. I'd like to see us cut actors, esp. American ones, to a reasonable size before Shortstuff is added. _pbp 03:54, 18 February 2025 (UTC)
3. Guy has 3 big things for him: a role in Taxi (and Andy Kaufman is the more important cast member there), a role in It's Always Sunny and he's not the standout lead and as the director of Matilda, but there's more important kid's films directors. He is just a popular actor and the tides are against that. TV Actors are covered well. Comparing a still active tv actor to a silent film director isn't the right comparison either. Niblo directed Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925 film) and The Mark of Zorro (1920 film) two defining silent drama films. I don't think Matilda is on either of those 2 films levels historically. We have 77 male TV show actors, there needs to be strong cuts rather than adds here. 118.210.24.72 (talk) 07:37, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

Neutral

1. DeVito is as vital as the currently most marginal inclusions. However, since we need to trim this subject area, being as vital as people who are included is not the right hurdle. -TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 21:36, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

Discussion

Remove Uncle Dave Macon  5

His article only has five interwikis and 2,200 page views in the past month. Furthermore, nothing in his article suggests that he was particularly influential beyond a couple of interesting claims, but even that still doesn't save him from the fact he has left practically zero global impact. Also, Country music is an inherently Ameri-centric music genre that, in my opinion, shouldn't have any more than 10-15 artists at this level. He's not one of those 10-15.

Support

1. As nom. λ NegativeMP1 03:54, 18 February 2025 (UTC)
2. Country probably needs to be half the size it is RN and this seems an easy cut _pbp 05:02, 18 February 2025 (UTC)
3. Per above, country music is weirdly getting popular in a few countries outside the U.S. but in much the same way K-Pop is popular in the U.S., as a niche exotic thing. We can trim it tremendously. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 05:05, 18 February 2025 (UTC)
4.  Carlwev  07:20, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Neutral

This guy isn't country, he is Old time music and either him or Fiddlin' John Carson should be on here to represent the evolution of country. With all of Billy Murray (singer), Ada Jones, Peerless Quartet and Rudy Vallée types being removed, i think this list skews too reactionary against the early era of recorded popular music. I don't think a good music encyclopedia would leave gaps in coverage or skip the early process in its coverage of music. These articles are not apart of popular music culture, they are history articles that display the evolution and development of recorded music. 118.210.24.72 (talk) 07:47, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

"I don't think a good music encyclopedia would leave gaps in coverage or skip the early process in its coverage of music." If the encyclopedia was only discussing music from an American worldview, then sure. But if a musician only has five interwikis and is only relevant to a niche part of the evolution of an inherently Ameri-centric music genre, then they clearly are not relevant enough to music history on a global scale and should not be here. And we list a ton of older music artists from that era, including most of the country and folk music sections. So I don't necessarily think there's any gaps that you claim there are.

And if anything, it being so long since those artists were relevant actually gives us more reason to want to clear out those sections because we've had almost a century worth of industry evolution to judge whether or not any impact can be traced back to them. And Macon might quite possibly be one of the weakest options for vitality when it comes to musicians. Maybe out of the bunch you listed, Billy Murray (singer) could be added if you're truly concerned about any gaps, because 300 million records is absolutely significant even today. But all of the other ones you mentioned seem near completely irrelevant to anyone outside of the United States. λ NegativeMP1 18:37, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

If he and others that have been removed, or may be soon, are considered Old time music, and it is thought that that genre needs representing. Is the genre itself not more worthy than the artists. In most cases genres are more vital than musicians. And we do not list the genre.  Carlwev  18:53, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Remove Zak Bagans  5 and Jon-Erik Beckjord  5

The way I see it, people we list as Pseudoscientists should be included for historical reasons, social influence, etc. Those who are fundamentally Entertainers should be measured against others in those categories, and I don't believe these two are more vital than DeVito.

Support

1. As nom. Tabu Makiadi (talk) 05:04, 18 February 2025 (UTC)
2.  Carlwev  10:29, 18 February 2025 (UTC)
3. These subjects are not of the top 15k-ish or so people who ever lived. GauchoDude (talk) 20:41, 18 February 2025 (UTC)
4. Makkool (talk) 17:58, 21 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

Beckjord is a cryptozoologist, which is one of the most popular pseudosciences, he's fundamentally not a entertainer. As for Bagans it might be a out there take if you account simple popularity for impact or vitality, but any TV researcher worth their salt with a interest at historical impact on American television, would pick the guy who's the most prominent figure in the modern proliferation of the Paranormal television genre that's been pretty popular as more important than a guy who's just a main cast actor of 2 shows (and Taxi is out of modern conscious, you wouldn't see Ozzie Nelson or Buddy Ebsen listed either so i don't think being a cast member of It's Always Sunny matters long term - also Sunny's biggest contemporary's sitcom rivals biggest stars Jim Parsons and Sofía Vergara are not listed either). As the modern face of Ghost hunting itself, he also fits into the paranormal section, which is under pseudoscience at the moment, so he does fit there. Ofcourse, paranormal television is not provably big enough to warrant a place on this list most likely but the reasoning of this list should go beyond superficial popularity and account for what actually impacts something, no matter how small that impact it is and be unique in a way that it's not just another someone that's popular. 118.210.24.72 (talk) 08:22, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

Xu Zhonglin

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.

---

Sorry, but Xu Zhonglin has a disambiguation link. Please correct it. I'm afraid of making a mistake. Mirvers (talk) 08:05, 18 February 2025 (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.

Remove Mark David Chapman  5

As noted above in this discussion, this guy is literally only notable for killing John Lennon  4. Sure, he's been canonized in media adaptations and pop culture as a result, but is killing one celebrity really enough to be among the most important people to ever live? Especially when it wasn't an event that changed the world like Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand  4?

Support

1. As nom. λ NegativeMP1 17:47, 18 February 2025 (UTC)
2. Textbook WP:BLP1E _pbp 18:07, 18 February 2025 (UTC)
3. Per nom. GauchoDude (talk) 18:34, 18 February 2025 (UTC)
4. Per nom. Tabu Makiadi (talk) 19:16, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Neutral

Discuss

Remove John Hinckley Jr.  5

Same reasoning as Chapman. Article describes him as an "attempted assassin". We voted to remove the assassins of Garfield and McKinley, so he probably should be cut as well

Support

1. As nom. Tabu Makiadi (talk) 19:01, 18 February 2025 (UTC)
2. λ NegativeMP1 19:52, 18 February 2025 (UTC)
3. Per nom. GauchoDude (talk) 20:38, 18 February 2025 (UTC)
4. Makkool (talk) 17:58, 21 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

Move Zelda Fitzgerald and Monica Lewinsky back to socialites

I get that these two aren't usually called socialites, but that section really does seem like the best place to put them. Their literary/activist careers are not even remotely large enough to warrant them being in the section they got moved to. Their main source of fame (which to be clear I do think is large enough to make them vital) is being the partner of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Bill Clinton respectively. (Marion Davies also got moved, but I personally feel like her acting career is largish enough to keep her in the acting section.)

Support move

1. Support moving Zelda and Monica. Neutral on Marion. Oppose removing all three. 64.124.92.4 (talk) 19:29, 18 February 2025 (UTC)
2. Support move per nom, oppose remove Makkool (talk) 12:57, 23 February 2025 (UTC)

Remove outright

Oppose

Comments

• As the person who made the change, moving them back boldly is fair game. I will try to propose an alternative grouping to "socialites," especially for people like Lewinsky, who are never referred to that way in their articles. Tabu Makiadi (talk) 23:51, 18 February 2025 (UTC)
• Tac nuke socialites. Most listed there should be removed or be moved to other categories _pbp 23:30, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

Remove Harry Knowles  5

There may be too many journalist critics (60) as we do not list any at VA4 (though Roger Ebert is close). This guy seems to be most remembered for sexual assault allegations.

Support

1. As nom. Tabu Makiadi (talk) 23:58, 18 February 2025 (UTC)
2.  Carlwev  14:25, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
3. Per nom. GauchoDude (talk) 15:16, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
4. --LaukkuTheGreit (Talk•Contribs) 15:30, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
5. Kevinishere15 (talk) 19:37, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
6. Per nom. J947 ‡ ^edits 04:41, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

1. He certainly has enough legacy as the founder of Ain't It Cool News. If we are to list just one web film critic, it should be him. Certainly as vital as Anthony Fantano, even counting the allegations. Makkool (talk) 17:58, 21 February 2025 (UTC)

Discuss

Remove Godefroy de Blonay  5

Known as an early member of the International Olympic Committee, but the article does not mention him. He was close to Pierre de Coubertin  4, but his article does not mention him either. He was unofficially acting president of the IOC during WWI.

Support

1. As nom. Tabu Makiadi (talk) 02:07, 20 February 2025 (UTC)
2. Per nom. GauchoDude (talk) 16:21, 20 February 2025 (UTC)
3. There are many many included and potential articles surrounding the competing and managing of the Olympics, this article seems like it is low down in the pecking order, and an easy remove.  Carlwev  16:58, 20 February 2025 (UTC)
4. Makkool (talk) 17:58, 21 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

Add James Bevel back to United States activists at level 5 (should actually be at least in 4)

James Bevel was the co-equal with Martin Luther King Jr. in the Civil Rights Movement, he was the movement's main strategist and architect, both as a student leader from 1960 to 1962 and then as the Director of Direct Action and Nonviolent Education of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) from 1963 to 1968. Bevel strategized and then directed the main movement events of the era, including the 1963 Birmingham Children's Crusade, the Selma Voting Rights Movement (and its Selma to Montgomery march), and the Chicago Open Housing Movement. Looking at the entries, Bevel could replace any number of the listed activists if one must be replaced to include him. His accomplishments and movement contributions place him, in my opinion, in the top level of people who shaped American and world history, along with Dr. King, Jefferson, Madison, etc.

Support

1. As nom. I think he was already listed as a vital article but seems to have been removed at some point. Randy Kryn (talk) 03:07, 20 February 2025 (UTC)
2. Weak support at level 5, probably oppose at level 4. I agree with the arguments below, especially on how "American" our list is, but we list several thousand people (many of them American) who I consider less impactful/vital then this. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 05:26, 21 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

1. He is barely mentioned in the actual Civil rights movement  4 article, and isn't part of the Big Six. Also, he only has seven interwikis, which suggests he has not left a significant enough actual global impact. He is not one of the 50,000 most important subjects of all time, or one of the 10,000 most important people to ever live. Furthermore, we list plenty of American activists already, including most significant other ones from the civil rights movement. In-fact, we should list less American figures. Not more. No way he qualifies for Level 4, let alone 5. As a side note, I managed to find the discussion where he was removed previously, and I pretty much agree with everything that was said in the removal. λ NegativeMP1 03:40, 20 February 2025 (UTC)
2. Per NegativeMP1 and per previous discussion. In particular, I dispute the claim that he was co-equal to MLK. I have a history degree _pbp 09:39, 20 February 2025 (UTC)
3. Oppose, sorry, I don't see it, agree with others' opposing comments.  Carlwev  17:23, 21 February 2025 (UTC)
4. You seem to have had several conflict of interest warnings and blocks and have been accused multiple times of using your own unpublished work on Bevel's article which seems to indicate that you may not be objective about this proposal. I commend your dedication to chronicling Bevel's life. But the vital articles project is driven on consensus and data as best as we can collect it, and the numbers, the votes, and even Bevel's own biography don't seem to achieve the baseline level of vitality we require of activists. What I would recommend is perhaps proposing a swap and arguing that a listed article is less vital to the project than Bevel, as opposed to a straight add. Aurangzebra (talk) 17:50, 21 February 2025 (UTC)

Discuss

To the comments of NegativeMP1, you just don't know Bevel's work. He and King were the top-tier of the Civil Rights Movement. As to one specific where you misunderstand topic criteria, the Big Six were the six individuals who chaired the organizations who organized one event, the March on Washington. Bevel did not chair SCLC, that was Dr. King's job. Bevel's actions in the Birmingham campaign and Birmingham Children's Crusade actually were what made SCLC call the March on Washington. I was not aware of the 2024 discusion you linked to, and would have refuted them. Yes, people haven't heard of James Bevel as a household name, he is the most "hidden" major figure in American history. Randy Kryn (talk) 03:53, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

"You just don't know Bevel's work." What work? If anything, his "work" amounts to nothing more than American history trivia. Again, allow me to reiterate: MLK Jr. has 175 "interwikis", which is a very major factor that allows users active here to roughly estimate how relevant a subject is on a global level. Bevel has 7. Pageviews are another aspect many people look at: in the past month, MLK Jr. has had 717,000~ page views. Bevel has had barely 7,000. And you're arguing that both of them are on the same level of impact and importance to all of human history. A subject being a niche figure (which you admit to) in American history is not enough to be listed on a project meant to represent the whole world. Bevel is not important enough to be one of the 10,000 most influential people to have ever lived. And at V4, which you say you want him to be at, that would imply he is one of the 1,000 or so most important people of all time. λ NegativeMP1 04:14, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

Bevel has not been focused on by major media as they focused on Dr. King. That doesn't mean that his contributions to American and world history are any less than Dr. King's. They were co-equals in the Civil Rights Movement. Bevel became the main strategist of the 1960-1962 student movement which was overtaking SCLC and the other organizations in accomplishments to complete their goal of removing legalizing segregation in the United States. In 1962 King called Bevel to meet him, and together they teamed up, with no restrictions on either's actions, for Bevel to move from strategizing and organizing within the student movement to run SCLC's nonviolent direct action activities. From then on King and Bevel went on to complete the task that they both agreed to work towards, resulting in the 1963, 1965, and 1968 Civil Rights Acts. Randy Kryn (talk) 04:42, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

Maybe, just maybe, could it be that the reason textbooks and articles don't cover him is that he's not as important as you make him out to be? You seem to be relatively alone in thinking he is a co-equal to King. _pbp 13:50, 21 February 2025 (UTC)

No, that's not the reason. To get into the reasons would be both original research and semi-guesswork, but, no. The sublime neglect of James Bevel in the media - his character wasn't even presented in a television or feature film until the 2014 film Selma - would be like asking why we are just now hearing about Thomas Jefferson, and is worthy itself of academic and cultural study. As for being alone in that opinion, although Thomas Ricks and David Garrow have hinted around and come close, that's why I haven't added it to the Civil Rights Movement article (but wouldn't remove it and would argue for its use there if someone else links the references). Randy Kryn (talk) 14:03, 21 February 2025 (UTC)

• Purplebackpack89, noticed it was you who initiated the discussion to remove Bevel from this list. May I ask why you did that, your initial reasoning? At the time did you realize that Bevel initiated, organized, directed, and taught nonviolence to the participants of SCLC's and the CRM's most successful and historically significant 1960s actions (the 1963 Birmingham Children's Crusade, the 1965 Selma Voting Rights Movement and its Selma to Montgomery march, the 1966 Chicago Open Housing Movement, in addition to his major work and accomplishments in the Nashville Student Movement, the Mississippi movement, and the anti-Vietnam war movement)? That you have a history degree should assist you in researching these and other facts about Bevel, then hopefully you may reconsider your opposition. As for the list, I see it includes Coretta Scott King. A wonderful woman, but far from the most important woman involved in the CRM (that would be Bevel's wife Diane Nash, followed by Ella Baker and Dorothy Cotton, and for early individual events, the duo of Claudette Colvin and the already included Rosa Parks). Thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 11:08, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

  You can read the entire discussion right here. As I said there, I don't think he's one of the most important leaders of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, certainly not an equal to MLK Jr. As Negative mentioned, he's not mentioned much in the Civil Rights Movement's Wikipedia article, nor the chapters devoted to civil rights in most textbooks. _pbp 13:49, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

  "I don't think he's one of the most important leaders of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s". Seriously Purplebackpack89? Then who do you think initiated, directed, and organized the main Civil Rights Movements of the 1960s? As for the prior discussion, I don't see a discussion, just a few words. Maybe people trusted you as the nominator, I don't edit or follow the topics here. But thinking that Bevel wasn't a major figure in the CRM ignores historical fact. As for being equal to Dr. King in the movement, that goes to their roles. Dr. King was the public face of the movement, James Bevel was its strategist, director, and organizer. After his major successes in the student movement (major work in the Nashville sit-in, co-organized the continuation of the Freedom Rides, initiated and directed his Nashville Open Theater Movement, co-initiated and directed most of the Mississippi movement, etc.) and in Birmingham (his Birmingham Children's Crusade) he became SCLC's Director of Direct Action, and moved its successes from place to place (Selma, Chicago, then he and King joined the anti-Vietnam war movement). This is just starting to be a real discussion, if you'd like to continue, unlike the couple of sentences and incorrect good faith reasonings that you link to that removed Bevel from a level-5 designation. Randy Kryn (talk) 13:42, 21 February 2025 (UTC) edited and re-pinged from an earlier post

  Who do I think directed the Civil Rights Movement? Martin Luther King Jr.  4, A. Philip Randolph  5, Bayard Rustin  5, the third of which survived removal because the Rustin movie came out around the time of the nomination. Randolph in particular I consider more significant than Bevel; he was leading the March on Washington Movement when Bevel was about six years old, and I credit the integration of war industries and the Armed Forces primarily to him. _pbp 13:56, 21 February 2025 (UTC)

  Randolph is a towering figure in movement history, and should have his own statue somewhere in a prominent location. Bevel and King agreed on the movement's activities after Bevel joined SCLC, although both had independent freedom of action within it even after Bevel's SCLC partnership. A quote that sums up much of their working relationship comes when Bevel tried to talk King out of going to Memphis in 1968: King is quoted in Taylor Branch's 2006 At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years, 1965–1968 (2006) "You don't like to work on anything that isn't your own idea," King said, "Bevel, I think you owe me one." Randolph wanted to do the March on Washington, but its actual timeline placement came after Bevel was all set to march the children of Birmingham down the highway to Washington to talk to John Kennedy about ending legalized segregation, and that was the straw that gave the U.S. the outline and promise of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and for King and SCLC to join others calling for doing Randolph's long-anticipated D.C. event. Thanks for asking, I haven't done many of these discussions, although some, on Wikipedia. Randy Kryn (talk) 14:13, 21 February 2025 (UTC)

• Aurangzebra, I'd ask you to consider striking much of your comment. I have never cited an unpublished work, have never been blocked for a COI, and as a subject matter expert on Bevel's 1960s history, there is no conflict of interest (a major difference on Wikipedia). I wouldn't have come to this page if I didn't know about Bevel's work and its importance to American history, the Civil Rights Movement, and his place as a nonviolent activist (equal to Gandhi, King, and I'd add Alice Paul). But I do know, and was quite surprised when finding out in 1983, for at the time I too had never heard of him. The reason I opened this discussion is that the article was at level 5, then removed by an editor who nommed the topic probably because they had not heard of James Bevel, followed by support for that nomination by editors who'd never heard of him. Fame is not a criteria of this list as far as I know. The public presence of Dr. King overshadows James Bevel's work - which is understandable and actually designed. King needed Bevel to initiate, direct, and organize the nonviolent direct actions of the movement that he was the public face of, and Bevel needed King as the public spokesperson of those events in order to achieve their agreed-upon goals. In any case, I think a striking of much of your comment is in order and, because of that misunderstanding, please consider doing a study of Bevel and his relationship to the Civil Rights Movement and maybe reconsider your oppose reasoning. As for substituting a name or six, pick any of them except for Dr. King and you'll be correct. But there is no need to strike any of them and I'd actually add Diane Nash, as the 1954-1968 Civil Rights Movement was important enough as a seismic societal shift to enable many individuals to be represented on such a listing. Thanks for bringing up your concerns, although please make sure they are accurate. (posted earlier but re-signed to edit and re-ping, thanks). Randy Kryn (talk) 12:10, 23 February 2025 (UTC)
• Carlwev, I'd ask that you please do a deeper dive into Bevel's history than a quick look at the discussion. Apparently adding and subtracting topics here require 60%, so you tipping the scales should at least, I would hope that you'd agree, come from a place of knowledge, study, and clarity about a subject. Maybe start with the Garrow quote linked just below. If you are uninterested in doing so, please reconsider commenting here? Those seem the fairest things to do, either way. Thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 11:48, 23 February 2025 (UTC)
• Another major quote. First, be aware that David Garrow is one of the two or three major Civil Rights Movement historians. Then read this 2015 statement by Garrow. In his statement he does not even mention Bevel's Birmingham Children's Crusade, which turned the Birmingham campaign from a running-out-of-gas protest into an iconic event in American and world history and in the history of activism (the topic of this discussion). Randy Kryn (talk) 11:48, 23 February 2025 (UTC)

  Do you mind not WP:BLUDGEONING both here and on other peoples talk pages? As I've already said on the latter page, my opinion on this matter is final, and I am almost certain the other editors who have voted oppose so far are in the same boat as I am. Thanks. λ NegativeMP1 17:29, 23 February 2025 (UTC)

  NegativeMP1, this is a discussion, and to have a full discussion of such an important issue means adding information and continuing to refute opposing editors reasoning. Your opinion being final seems very premature to me and contrary to the presented facts. Randy Kryn (talk) 03:13, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

  This goes back to something I said on my talk page: you are unwilling to take an oppose vote as a final answer, and you think that anybody who opposes lacks knowledge. I'm still very concerned that Bevel doesn't get much play in textbooks or even other Wikipedia articles (and a great deal of the play he DOES get was added by you yourself). And your comments haven't allayed my concerns.

  Furthermore, Randy, while you are the most knowledgeable about Bevel, you are the LEAST IMPARTIAL and MOST INVESTED.

  Finally, in regard to Garrow, I a) would not necessarily say that there are only three major Civil Rights historians, and b) didn't have to read his Wikipedia bio very far to find that one of the things he's most noted for is trying to discredit MLK Jr., something in part he did by crediting the movement to Bevel and not MLK. Garrow may be useful in certain ways, but the ONE area in which he seems to be the MOST problematic is weighing vitality of the various civil rights leaders. _pbp 04:26, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

  Had to read David Garrow's page to see what you meant, Bevel is not mentioned on it. Garrow's controversy seems to have occurred in the late 2010's, actually years after we last made contact (although he did suggest that Thomas Ricks use myself and my work as a Bevel source, which we worked on during his 2022 book). Garrow printed one of my 1983 papers in his 1989 series on the Civil Rights Movement, and allowed me to update it with an addendum, and then wrote that nice statement about Bevel in 2015. His expertise on the movement was unquestioned before he commented on the FBI report, which happened fairly recently.

Yes, I'm impartial as to Bevel's fitting the criteria as a level 5 activist who directly changed the course of world events. He did so. Am not as emotionally invested as it may look, just making a case for inclusion and will move on once this process ends (lots of Wikipedia discussions to choose from). No, Bevel is not in many textbooks (is he in any?) or even many older books which list prominent African-Americans. There are many ways to fall-through-the-cracks in coverage of American history, and one is to not self-promote. There are others, and he managed to go those routes too. A fascinating career from many angles (am still a bit amazed that his story is not better known, he could hide in plain sight like that exceptionally well). It takes more than a casual glance to appreciate the scope of Bevel's work and accomplishments, which is what I meant by "taking the time" above, but once you get it, and connect the dots of the events that Bevel initiated, directed, and led, his achievements become obvious. But it takes a bit of laying aside the general view that Dr. King did all the things he did plus has gotten credit, either consciously or unconsciously, for all of the things Bevel did. It was truly a top-tier partnership and collab, neither could have achieved what they did without the other but together they shaped, moved, and represented the Civil Rights Movement to its sought-for success: the end of legalized segregation in the United States. Randy Kryn (talk) 05:06, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

• Pinging editors who voted to remove James Bevel from the level 5 activists list in the January 2024, as to offer them a reasoned discussion for keeping the listing (which did not occur at that time). I hope you take the time to read much of this discussion and consider joining in with questions if need be. Thanks Grnrchst, TonyTheTiger, lostn, Piotrus. Randy Kryn (talk) 11:55, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

  Thanks for the ping, but I won't be getting involved in this discussion. I stopped regularly participating in the VA project in part because badgering was so endemic to the project culture, and that is the vibe I'm getting from this discussion as well. --Grnrchst (talk) 12:02, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

  Fair enough, but a loss to the topic. I may have crossed over into badgering while just intending to adequately discuss the nomination, my fault because I'm so sure that Bevel meets the main criteria: did his activism change the course of the world? He sometimes changed it from one day to the next. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:22, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

Quick question: Artists & Entertainers, short-term goal?

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.

---

Hi everyone, I'll keep this quick. I just wanted to check if there was a loose agreement on where we want to take these categories next. They're hanging out below quota but it seems most agree we should still be cutting overall.

Do we mostly just want these categories to refine at the current size? Do they need a major rethink in some other way? Or is there any interest in shrinking them further (I would personally support that)? Note: this does not imply a quota proposal and I personally wouldn't recommend one soon. It's purely a coordination thing. Zar2gar1 (talk) 04:19, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

I think that the current size is quote right for both "Artists, musicians, and composers" and for "Entertainers etc." There's a need to cut from both categories, because both of them have problems with a overtly broad scope and contain a few too many non-vital people from niche topics (visual artists and non-English popular music come to mind). Also the amount of actors and actresses seems disproportionally large and hasn't yet received enough trimming that it would need. On the other hand, the list lacks vital behind-the-scenes film people (I made proposals for cinematographers, but we lack still editors, sound designers, special effects and make-up people etc. that I would like to see represented) and also we lack a lot of vital non-Western actors and actresses from former Soviet Union, South and East Asian cinema. I would also believe that we can find enough visual artists or musicians that are omitted for any cuts we can do to those sections. Makkool (talk) 16:45, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

OK, since nobody else chimed in and what you said makes sense, we'll err on the side of caution for now. Thanks again for the update. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 19:39, 22 February 2025 (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.

Remove Max Yasgur  5

Not an organizer of Woodstock; he was a farmer who leased his land after other locations refused. Like Starr and Spungen, I would say he's too tangential to rock history. Some prominent Woodstock performers we don't list include The Band, Canned Heat, and Blood, Sweat & Tears. Neither do we have the organizers Artie Kornfeld and Michael Lang (producer).

Support

1. As nom. Tabu Makiadi (talk) 23:51, 20 February 2025 (UTC)
2. Trivia _pbp 01:26, 21 February 2025 (UTC)
3. Per nom. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 05:22, 21 February 2025 (UTC)
4. Per nom. GauchoDude (talk) 16:02, 21 February 2025 (UTC)
5. Support  Carlwev  02:01, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

Note that Woodstock  5 itself is VA5 _pbp 01:26, 21 February 2025 (UTC)

Remove Irwin Chusid  5

Probably too obscure for the list. Lacks assertions of legacy or influence. No major awards.

Support

1. As nom. Tabu Makiadi (talk) 23:51, 20 February 2025 (UTC)
2. Per nom. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 05:22, 21 February 2025 (UTC)
3. Per nom. GauchoDude (talk) 16:02, 21 February 2025 (UTC)
4. Makkool (talk) 17:58, 21 February 2025 (UTC)
5. Good afternoon, good evening and good night _pbp 13:34, 22 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

Remove Thomas Silverstein  5

American Neo-Nazi who held a record for solitary confinement at the time of his death. His prison gang leadership appears overstated; sounds more like the correctional officers really disliked him.

Support

1. As nom. Tabu Makiadi (talk) 15:30, 21 February 2025 (UTC)
2. Per nom. GauchoDude (talk) 16:01, 21 February 2025 (UTC)
3. Support  Carlwev  17:19, 21 February 2025 (UTC)
4. _pbp 17:41, 21 February 2025 (UTC)
5. No way this is one of the top 50,000 topics of all time. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 05:14, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

Not the most vital murderer or terrorist. Slightly notable for the record of solitary confinement, if that's true. However, the article on solitary confinement itself, would be better if that's important in itself.  Carlwev  17:19, 21 February 2025 (UTC)

Proposal: Add André 3000 to the Level 5 Vital Article section.

When I looked at the talk page for American rapper André 3000's page, I was in honest shock that this article wasn't already listed as a Level-5 Vital Article. He was a former member of the hip-hop supergroup Outkast  5 and was considered the 12th greatest rapper of all time via the list published by Billboard and Vibe back in 2022. Due to these reasons and that André 3000 is often considered a very influential artist by various hip-hip related music outlets, I believe that his article should be listed as a Level 5 Vital Article. Someone let me know what they think about this suggestion, thank you. Sincerely, JustTryingToBeSmart. JustTryingToBeSmart (talk) 23:15, 21 February 2025 (UTC)

Hi there, and welcome to VA5. We could definitely consider him for the list, though there are no guarantees he'll be added at this point in time (I think we're trying to rebalance away from Anglo-American popular music some, though I don't know if that includes hip-hop).

At Level 5 of VA though, to keep things manageable, we have article proposals on category sub-pages. I'll go ahead and move this one to the People section in a little bit. You're both welcome and encouraged to stick around and participate on other discussions too. There's a bit of a process here for certain things, but especially if you're new and just reviewing article proposals, you don't have to worry about the learning curve. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 18:15, 22 February 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for letting me know, I will try to participate in possible discussions over this topic. Thanks again. JustTryingToBeSmart (talk) 19:18, 22 February 2025 (UTC)

I've just moved this proposal in from the Lv 5 talk page. Personally, if we're looking to add to hip-hop, I'm all for listing Aloysius Possum Jenkins, but I don't know if hip-hop needs more people. I'm ramping-down from participating on the talk-pages here for the spring too so I won't be voting.

Support

1. Make nom's vote explicit. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 19:39, 22 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

1. His solo career is not at the vital level. I think the group's vitality is sufficient to represent him. He is less vital as an individual than Joseph Simmons and probably Darryl McDaniels, both of Run-DMC  4.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 20:21, 22 February 2025 (UTC)
2. Welcome to the project! Unfortunately, I agree with Tony that Andre 3000's accolades and career success seem to entirely derive from Outkast  5 that are already (justly) listed. Aurangzebra (talk) 01:17, 23 February 2025 (UTC)
3. Per above Makkool (talk) 12:57, 23 February 2025 (UTC)
4. Agree with the dissenters. Subject's career as part of the group outweighs their individual repertoire. GauchoDude (talk) 16:02, 24 February 2025 (UTC)
5. _pbp 18:43, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

Discuss

Add Cedric Gibbons

If we have a bazillion actors and directors, and are beginning to add cinematographers, shouldn't we have at least one art director/production designer? Bro won 11 Oscars (which he designed!) and was nominated for 38

Support

1. _pbp 18:35, 23 February 2025 (UTC)
2. Tabu Makiadi (talk) 13:48, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Discussion

Remove Abdalá Bucaram  5

President of Ecuador for six months. We have not added many people who served for one or more full terms. A bit of a footnote in South American history.

Support

1. As nominator. Tabu Makiadi (talk) 13:48, 24 February 2025 (UTC)
2. Per nom. GauchoDude (talk) 16:01, 24 February 2025 (UTC)
3. Swap with Javier Milei, who coincidentally is also nicknamed the madman. Sahaib (talk) 16:20, 24 February 2025 (UTC)
4. Support  Carlwev  16:22, 24 February 2025 (UTC)
5. Aye GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 03:20, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

FWIW, part of his vitality seems to stem from being removed from office by the legislature. _pbp 19:53, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

Swap Kevin Bacon with Mads Mikkelsen

Both about the same age (66/59) with a similar number of language links (62/61) and pageviews (22/19 million). The difference being Mikkelsen's high importance to Danish cinema and the over representation of American actors.

Support

1. As nominator. Sahaib (talk) 18:22, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Remove both (support rm, oppose add) _pbp 18:23, 24 February 2025 (UTC)
2. Oppose removal, neutral on addition, there's a reason why Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon exists. Kevinishere15 (talk) 21:02, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

   @Kevinishere15: the reason being a random interview he did in 1994 according to the article not because he is the most connected actor ever, this source from 2012 states that "the notion that Bacon can always be reached by six degrees or less as the most connected actor in Hollywood is resoundingly false. There are 196 other actors whose connection is greater than the six-degree mark, which is one reason why the site has Bacon currently ranked as the 444th most connected actor in Hollywood." Sahaib (talk) 21:19, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

   Huh, thanks for the info, I think I still oppose removal though. Kevinishere15 (talk) 22:14, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

3. Oppose add. This is EN WP and Mikkelsen hasn't won anything major in the US (Oscar, Emmy, Tony, GG) or UK (BAFTA, Olivier). I can't say he is a local interest, but his excellence has not been at the right level, IMO.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 17:36, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

Discuss

Reoganization of the scientists and inventor subpage

@Zar2gar1: has reorganized the subpage for scientists, inventors, and mathematicians so that people from the early modern period are listed by country instead of by field. I disagree, as most of them are most famous for specific fields of science. I especially disagree with lumping inventors with scientists, as it is a different claim to fame. Lophotrochozoa (talk) 23:53, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

Remove Jodie Marsh

Not vital. She is listed among TV personalities. Dabbled in several things, model, body building, reality TV, and writing, but is not vital in any of those fields alone, or added together. A British female TV personality, someone like Cilla Black would be more important and isn't listed. Or a model, reality TV star someone like Katie Price is more well known, and not listed, and I'm not nominating we do. (There's no way her writing or body building makes her vital either.) Black and Price appear in 30 and 29 other languages, almost double Marsh's 16. Then page view wise, since 2015 Marsh has had 1.5 million views, Cilla over triple at 5.8 million, considering she's been dead those 10 years, and Price over 6 times as many at 10.6M. [5] I don't think Marsh is vital, I am surprised the article was listed to start with.

Support

1. As nom.  Carlwev  01:07, 25 February 2025 (UTC)
2. Per nom. Kevinishere15 (talk) 01:15, 25 February 2025 (UTC)
3. Aye GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 03:19, 25 February 2025 (UTC)
4. Per nom. GauchoDude (talk) 13:28, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Discussion

Remove Peter Scott (thief)  5

A local figure. The claims that he stole from a lot of famous people are unreliable. The article's only references are from his obituaries: One in The Daily Telegraph and another in The Guardian.

Support

1. As nominator. Tabu Makiadi (talk) 01:46, 25 February 2025 (UTC)
2. sup  Carlwev  02:00, 25 February 2025 (UTC)
3. Aye GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 03:19, 25 February 2025 (UTC)
4. Per nom. Kevinishere15 (talk) 05:00, 25 February 2025 (UTC)
5. Per nom. GauchoDude (talk) 13:27, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

Remove Trevor Rees-Jones (bodyguard)  5

If we are about to remove Dodi Fayed, we should consider cutting him too.

Support

1. As nominator. Tabu Makiadi (talk) 01:46, 25 February 2025 (UTC)
2. sup  Carlwev  02:01, 25 February 2025 (UTC)
3. Sure. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 03:18, 25 February 2025 (UTC)
4. _pbp 03:38, 25 February 2025 (UTC)
5. Per nom. Kevinishere15 (talk) 05:01, 25 February 2025 (UTC)
6. Per nom. GauchoDude (talk) 13:26, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

Remove Fillmore Slim  5

None of his albums have articles, and his name is often understood to be a nod to Iceberg Slim  5. Unlike Iceberg, he was not a best-selling author, so he may be too derivative for this list.

Support

1. As nominator. Tabu Makiadi (talk) 03:16, 25 February 2025 (UTC)
2. Sure. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 03:18, 25 February 2025 (UTC)
3. _pbp 03:39, 25 February 2025 (UTC)
4. No clue how this got added. Kevinishere15 (talk) 05:02, 25 February 2025 (UTC)
5. I don't believe the subject was included for his musical acumen, but moreso for his "pimping" history. That said, I'm not sure that's enough for inclusion on this list. GauchoDude (talk) 13:26, 25 February 2025 (UTC)
6. TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 17:30, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

Remove Sergey Ivanovich Lomanov  5

He is the only Bandy player we list, but I reckon we could add someone else down the road. Even his Russian article is quite short.

Support

1. As nominator. Tabu Makiadi (talk) 20:36, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

Remove Otto Warmbier  5

While initially a flashpoint, his death did not halt diplomatic efforts between the U.S. and North Korea during Trump's first term. Hard to say if this will be viewed as significant 10-20 years from now.

Support

1. As nominator. Tabu Makiadi (talk) 20:36, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss