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Talk:List of articles every Wikipedia should have/Archives/2007

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Latest comment: 16 years ago by J. W. Love in topic Suggestions

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Singapore

Latest comment: 16 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion

...However, for the smaller Wikipedias, some of the more high-priority countries to have articles on are...
#31 Singapore

Singapore is important for small Wikipedias? How? What's the reason? Singapore Airlines is first to fly A380? Singapore is the smallest country of Asia? It is the country, that is developing in economic so dynamically? More, than for example, Russia, USA and Brazil? - Dmitry-spb 20:12, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

P.S. Don't worry, I didn't remove it. I just added New Zealand and placed Portugal to the correct place. - Dmitry-spb 20:16, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

good remark Dmitry! and just a quick question: suppose you have to choose between New Zeeland and Romania to be included in that list. Which one and why? and this is somehow tolerable but Tanzania, Algeria, Bangladesh, ... Vietnam. I haven't seen any of the Scandinavian countries.. Why Pakistan and Indonesia are bolded and Spain is not. Maybe somebody knows the criteria applied in selection because I really am curious to find out..

Yes I agree, the country list here is POV, Spain indeed, should be bolded, and so are Portugal Greece and Saudi Arabia, for their cultural contributions and spheres of influence. One criteria to consider is the country population size: Nigeria (8th) and the Philippines (12th) are worth listing here. Thailand and Dem. Rep of the Congo can be removed.
Surely the Vatican City should be placed - either in cities or countries. Considering 1/6th of the world population is Catholic, and if Mecca is in there...I'm adding it. Yohan euan o4
I don't agree with this. If Vatican City were to be added, why not Varanasi? --Meldor 08:17, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Botification

Latest comment: 17 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

There is no way that a few volunteers can create featured articles of all these topics. Also, it is a sheer waste of time to translate the articles line by line, esp about the entities of which a volunteer has not heard in his/her whole life, let alone the fact that there is always a risk of misinterpretation in such translations. Also, waiting for years to create a reasonable length of these articles can be a frustating experience. So, I was wondering if we could have a bot/ number of bots and a database cotaining basic information of these artilcles. This can increase the value of this page at the same time accelerate the creation of meaningful wikipediae and aid in dissmination of knowledge. Thank you. --Eukesh 18:52, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

So as to get correct translations of each topic or concept in every language, there is a good chance when they are linked to Omegawiki-Entries. This eleminates the possibility of misinterpretation, too. --Purodha Blissenbach 09:55, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Latest cuts eliminated Arabic presence

Latest comment: 17 years ago10 comments3 people in discussion

I have been working on translating the list into Arabic, I just noticed that the latest cuts to the Authors list eliminated Arabic presence in the list altogether. Before, I thought having two authors there (namely, Gibran and Mahfouz) was an under-representation, but it is better than no representation at all?! I am very interested to know the opinion of the person who made that cut (Akigka) as to why that happened? How should I go about putting them back,i.e. what are the candidate entries for replacement? --Shipmaster 08:47, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Probably because he expected me to include them. Which ones would you choose? Personally I think there are more important authors than Gibran and Mahfouz (maybe en:Abu Nuwas?). --Ecelan 22:53, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
You are right. The latest cuts were solely intended to get the list down to 200 entries and were mostly arbitrary. A further revision of the list is absolutely needed. It still stands, however, that to keep this list at a practical 1000 entries an addition should be accompanied by an elimination. If you suggest keeping the biographies of these two authors, could you also indicate which entries to eliminate instead? We still need to eliminate over 100 entries to get the entire list down to 1000, but I guess that 200 biographies is reasonable (although initially they were supposed to be only 100). --Akigka 15:59, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
Problem is Akigka, I have no clue as to how the English-language authors measure up (I dont know for instance whether Proust is more important or Poe :) ), I only know that right now there are no Arabic ones on that list. --Shipmaster 00:25, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
Ecelan, while I am no authority on the subject, I can confidently say that Mahfouz is the most famous and influential contemporary author, as for contemporary Poets, Nizar Qabbani and Gibran I think are the most well known. Abu Nuwas and AlMutanabbi are a tie I guess among middle ages poets. I am not suggesting adding all those by the way, I am just providing information that may help selection. and while I am at it, Umm Kulthum is considered a goddess in the Arab-speaking world :) . --Shipmaster 00:42, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
Have included Abu Nuwas and Mahfouz and eliminated Lucretius (leaves 2 latin authors) and Pushkin, Aleksandr (leaves also 2 russian authors). Also changed Borjes --> Rubén Darío. We can only include two authors max for the big literatures (maybe 3 fot the English one), that means we still have space in the French literature (4 authors) and in the English literature (7 authors). There are probably other literatures (georgian?, armenian?, telugu?, kannada?, corean?) who desrve a space on the list. --Ecelan 22:18, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
P.S. Two authors max is just a guess, of course, no rule intended
Good work. This list of authors is getting very interesting indeed :) Of course it should be possible to e.g. add an author and remove a film director, but the list of authors is currently one of the longest, so it is probably somewhat hard to justify. --Akigka 21:22, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
Wait wait wait, did somebody just remove Pushkin? Lol? In our highschool we learned about the most important authors of the, I don't remember, reneiscance (probably not), or whatever, and A. Pushkin was noted as one of the most famous and worldchanging authors. We read his books (the verses were translated into our language), read summaries about his work, biography, wrote essays on him, the whole deal. And now you say, that some XYW Arabian writer takes his place? OK, I can see, that I am biased and not objective. But maybe you should just be a tiny bit more careful. :(
Well, I studied during 6 months en:La Regenta from Clarín. That just tells me that people tend to study their culture and/or the pet author of their teacher and ignore all the rest. --Ecelan 12:04, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Um, I am suggesting putting back Averroes and Avicenna and removing Foucault and Fourier, objections/suggestions?

I think you should go ahead and add Avicenna instead of Foucault, but I'm thinking that maybe Averroes isn't a good candidate. At least the English article about him is not very good, if that is any criteria to consider... --Akigka 12:23, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
I've made the Avicenna change,and about Averroes, well, neither the Arabic nor the English language articles are that comprehensive on Averroes, but I think he is the Arabian equivalent of Thomas Aquinas. Is the quality of the English article a measure? --Shipmaster 07:24, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Back to the original point

Latest comment: 17 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

I’d like to expand on and clarify the point I made above, as this project seems to have strayed a long way from its original goal.

1: this is (I assume) a list of articles that we think ought to exist in every language version of Wikipedia 2: this is not a list of the “most important” articles 3: as all of the articles under consideration already exist in e.g. the English Wikipedia, we are quite specifically not concerned with that.

Now, if we want to make a list of the articles that we think most important, or that we think everyone ought to have read, then great; but that is not this list. I see two possible interpretations for the scope of this project:

1: articles that ought to exist in every Wikipedia 2: articles that ought to exist in every Wikipedia but might not otherwise (so no need to include articles that will naturally be written without guidance)

I favour the former, but accept a certain validity in the latter. However, that’s a long way from what I see this list to be. I’d like to encourage everyone to consider the needs of a minority language speaker, someone for whom their Wikipedia will be one of the only sources of online information. See my post above, “The Quechua Test” for suggestions. I’d contend that no article should be added to the list without consideration of the readership in this way.

Addendum: I feel that the list ought to contain a slight bias towards explanations of current events, as minority language speakers may have no access to anything approaching an informed and unbiased news source. Articles should also be included on issues where other information available may be prejudiced, e.g. women’s rights, medicine, other human rights, cases of minority languages attaining workable legal status, health risks common in less developed regions, justice, etc.

200.107.50.82 06:52, 20 January 2007 (UTC)swyves

Hmmm. Why is it not this list? I agree that in many ways the current list is somewhat arbitrary and will not likely ever be finished in any sense, but I contend that any list of this kind will necessarily be arbitrary. I don't think there is any surefire way of making an unbiased, universally useful list of 1000 articles that every language edition of Wikipedia should have. I think your point about taking the point of view of minority languages is very valid, as I believe the usefulness of this list lies mainly in how it can be a tool for helping along small wikipedia projects (and hence my stress on keeping it at only 1000 articles). It seems obvious to me that this list becomes useless once all of the entries on it have been created by a certain wikipedia, and hence, that it is hardly of any consequence for the larger wikipedias, such as the English one. I think you should maybe suggest what kind of changes you'd like to see done here. --Akigka 13:46, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

To rename section "Religion" into "World view"

Latest comment: 17 years ago9 comments3 people in discussion

I am sorry for bad English. IMHO section "Religion" need to rename into "World view". "Atheism" is very strange to placed in "Religion" section. If to speak about worldview, their list is necessary. I offer the following list:

  1. World view
  2. Worldview philosophies
    1. Atheism
    2. Materialism
    3. Monotheism
    4. Polytheism
    5. Fundamentalism

Word "Festival" in English language has religious interpretation probably. But in Russian and Ukrainian "Festival" does not associate in any way with religion. IMHO It is not necessary to include such individual interpretation for all languages and delete from this section. --Klip game 09:37, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

This is a very valid suggestion. However, I am compelled to remove six of your entries since they pushed the number of articles to 1006 (1007 actually, but someone was kind enough to remove en:Compact disc since then). Hence the list is six entries too long. I am very adamant about keeping the list at exactly 1000 entries, as it has a certain inbuilt tendency to grow out of every proportion and hence becoming useless for smaller wikipedias (for which it is intended) when the mere task of translating it becomes monumental (leaving aside the task of creating articles for all these entries). I therefore suggest that you remove six entries that you think are less important than the ones you added to round the list back to 1000 entries or (better) suggest deletions here that they may be discussed. --Akigka 15:51, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
I just removed en:Jesus Christ as there is already an entry for en:Christianity (and because I think we should limit religious articles to articles about the specific religions - and not include founders, creeds, temples, holy books etc.) Hence the list should be only five entries too long. --Akigka 15:55, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
I think en:Jesus Christ as thinker is more popular, than en:Rosa Luxemburg or en:Simone de Beauvoir. --Igrek 08:50, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
In the Christian world, yes. My reason is that the most basic article would be about the religion and from that article articles about important leaders, holy books, holy people, holy sites etc would naturally flow. I think that if we include Jesus Christ there is no reason not to include other important founders of religions such as Buddha and Mohammed, to name but two, and the end result will be a bloated section with way too many entries. --Akigka 09:56, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
I propose to include en:Jesus Christ instead of en:Paul of Tarsus or other christian thinker and include Buddha and Mohammed instead other religious thinkers. Who is greater, teacher or pupils? --Igrek 10:24, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
I am not sure this is a good idea, reason as stated above and as we already have an entry for Christianity. --Akigka 10:28, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
I have used your kind sanction and has removed some words that I think are less important than my added:
  • World view and religion
    1. Astrology (It is a pseudo-science, instead of world view or religion)
    2. Festival (I have proved above)
    3. Worldview (I have caused it, I shall kill it :)
  • Recreation
    1. Judo (This one of Martial arts. Let other Martial arts do not take offence.)
    2. Party (I do not think, that the Party is valid so is important.)
  • War and military
    1. Infantry (If to save Infantry, then is necessary artillery, military aircraft...)
  • Architecture and civil engineering
    1. Nail (Why do you need Nail, if you dont have hammer :)
  • Technology
    1. Coinage (Let manufacture of coins will be in a secret. If someone will begin it to make then the state does not like.)
I have removed more than it is necessary that there was a reserve :) --Klip game 10:51, 26 January 2007 (UTC)


Russian Revolution

Latest comment: 17 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

I have decided to offer one more important theme: Russian Revolution of 1917. I understand debatableness it, but this event in many respects has predetermined a history 20 centuries. I hope what is it mine last editing of the list. --Klip game 11:49, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Politicans, leaders and aristocrats

Latest comment: 17 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion

I just removed en:Merkel, Angela and en:Haile Selassie because I think they are not popular as other. --Igrek 09:32, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

It is fine to be bold in editing, just keep in mind that there are certain parts of this list (most notably the biographies and the countries/cities sections) that have a tendency to degenerate into "mine is better than yours" contests. When editing the list one should, I think, try to think whether the changes would make sense to someone from a totally different part of the world and whether they improve the list as a whole. --Akigka 10:06, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
You are right, I restored Haile Selassie. --Igrek 07:48, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Taxes

Latest comment: 17 years ago4 comments3 people in discussion

I think it would be easy to demonstrate that taxes are at least as important as many of the listed topics. They directly affect nearly every person and indirectly do affect everyone. This cannot be said for many other entries on the list, such as individuals, etc. I think Politics should also be renamed politics and government to be more general, and Taxes could be an entry there. We don't need to include all the detailed tax arcana, but as sub entries, income taxes, VAT, and property taxes would likely be able to meet any importance criteria to be added as well. The latter two might not be as important, as perhaps not as many jurisdictions levy them, but they still directly affect vast numbers of people. As above I think individuals are the lowest hanging fruit to remove if we need to keep the list at 1,000. So the proposed additions would be

1.en:Tax
1. en:Income tax
2. en:Value added tax
3. en:Property tax

I reallize with my interests, this could look self serving, but as above I think they meet objective criteria for inclusion. - Taxman 19:16, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

  • The same would apply to a very large number of entries on the list. Why would being linked from other articles be a criteria? By that we would just have a link to War for example, and no specific wars, and many similar examples. What we have to look at is impact and importance. - Taxman 23:16, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
IMHO The taxes are in any state. It is importance. But the taxes are be different from the country. On Ukraine there is no Property tax, and the Income tax has other importance than for USA. I support to add en:Tax only. --Klip game 09:35, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Languages

Latest comment: 16 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion

I am amazed that Interlingua is in this list. Its proponents are very good at publicity (on a shoestring, too) but its importance is minute compared with that of Malay language, Portuguese language, Swahili language, none of which is listed: all three have tens of millions of speakers in many countries.

Looking at the classic languages that are listed at present, there may perhaps be too many of them. I would squeeze out Hebrew language, I think; if adding (but there is probably no room to add), I would add Pali language.

Would anyone object if I took Interlingua out and added Malay? Andrew Dalby 18:01, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

As long as you don't increase the total number of articles, I would be happy ;-) Personally I would put Portuguese, Hebrew and Swahili ahead of Interlingua, Pali and Malay, but I'm no language expert. --Boivie 11:29, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
Hebrew deserves a place as the original language of most of the Bible.--Poetlister 18:51, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Suggestion: Kalevala

Latest comment: 16 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

I suggest Kalevala would be added to list. As the Finnish national epos it is the flagship of one of the richest oral traditions in the world - the Finnic mythology. About hundred thousand folk poems have been collected from Finnic peoples to the folk poem archive of Finland. Kalevala, even while it haves only a small portion of those poems, represents all that. It is written in a unique European language and unique metre. In Kalevala there are layers of mythology from all time perioids since stone age. It is translated in many languages. There is nothing else about Finland in this list of articles even though Finland is one of the leading countries in welfare, health care, fight against corruption, education, womens rights, democracy, technological achievements, journalist freedom, economic competitiveness and so on (look statistics at the Finland article). There is nothing about any Fenno-Ugric people in this list even though most scientist agree that Fenno-Ugric languages were spoken at Northern Europe before Indo-European languages and so Fenno-Ugrics are native European languages and an important part of what Europeans are composed of just like Christianity or Hellenic culture. If we don't have anything else about Fenno-Ugric world here lets have Kalevala to represent all that. 193.65.112.51 00:41, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't think that we should add anything just so that Finland or any other country gets its representation. The Kalevala is known in other countries, but it is not in the same league as Homer's Iliad. I have, however, added Sibelius as he undoubtedly deserves a place in any list of the World's greatest symphonists.--Poetlister 18:50, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

I made some changes

Latest comment: 17 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

I think Napoleon, Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar are important enough to be bold. Also I think Hong Kong is not more important than Moscow for example. Further. I cannot get why Freid is more important than Kant. And I think Cholmsky is not important any more than any other prominent linguist. There are some religions marked bold of which I never even heared. Probably Dostoevsky and Byron should be bolded. Added: George Byron, Alexander Pushkin, Yuri Gagarin, Leonard Euler. Thank you.--Nxx 12:05, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

I think city-countries, like Hong Kong, Singapoor etc. should no include in city specific list, them are already listed sub countries.--AlefZet 20:47, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Ernst Haeckel

Latest comment: 17 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

How about adding Ernst Haeckel to the list? Tomer T 10:45, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

The Beatles

Latest comment: 17 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion

Is there a reason they are not bolded under biographies of composers and musicians? They are likely the most popular band of all time in terms of popular music; I see no reason why Western art music should hold a monopoly on bolded titles (and I say this being a classical music student myself). Cielomobile 00:09, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Speaking for myself, I think they should not be included at all. Aside inded popular, they are too specific for Anglo-Saxon culture and their genre. If to include them, then why not Spice Girls, ABBA, Elton John or Tatu?--Nxx 20:17, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
Oh no, man! The Beatles is very important for both sides of contemporary world. For example for me, being ethnic Kazakh.--AlefZet 20:50, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Cannes Film Festival

Latest comment: 17 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

And the en:Cannes Film Festival ? On fr, fr:Festival de Cannes, there is an excellent article. More, this festival is the biggest of the world, for cinema. I think every wikipedia will be included in this list. What do you think ? Thank you, 82.253.16.202 12:40, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Michel Foucault

Latest comment: 17 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Michel Foucault is on the English Wikipedia's "expanded vital" list and is probably the single most influential figure of Continental/postmodern/poststructuralist philosophy after 1960, which I have noticed does not have any representatives on the "social scientists" list. He's rather important in that world, and through that world, literary criticism. en:User:Lockesdonkey 04:35, 28 May 2007 (UTC).

Over 230 biographical articles and growing!

Latest comment: 17 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Funny how this section has a tendency to grow spontaneously. I think it would be beneficial if it were moved in its entirety to the bottom of the list. The whole list has grown to 1070: nothing serious yet, but a sure sign that the true challenge of a list of this kind is not coming up with the 1000 topics that every wikipedia should have, but coming up with the 1000 topics that every wikipedia should have. I mean that the main challenge here is keeping the list at 1000, not thinking of topics that it should contain. It's a triviality to add a topic - and much more difficult to remove one. --Akigka 01:13, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Western Slant

Latest comment: 16 years ago4 comments4 people in discussion

There seems to be a significant tendency towards articles which are significant primarily to the West. Please be sure to consider worldwide relevancy when editing this page.

An example from the very first section (Actors, etc.): 2 French 2 Americans 1 English 4 Germans

As a rural Canadian, I am sufficiently knowledgeable to judge the relative merit of all these cases, but the current bias is blatant. I think the list needs to be "globalized".

C.anguschandler 08:02, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

  • Agreed a lot. If we cannot make this list global and balanced, it is, imho, pretty useless to non-western languages. It may even become another sort colonialist attempt. (if you know a better word, please feel free to replace "sort of colonialist")
  • Also, it is western-science, western-culture/entertainment biased. I am very certain, being a Westener myself, that our more central interests in our lifes are only parially shared outside our world. Though I'm not knowledgeable enough to voice more than faint guesses, I must assume that in comparison with anglo-european religious philosphers, technical scrientists, reigns, and actors, the subject matters of hygiene, family, household, basic water and food supply, growing crops and livestock, raising children, family economics, environment and nature, etc. are of much higher interest elsewhere.
--Purodha Blissenbach 10:34, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
What if the Western contribution to global civilisation has simply been the most substantial or at least the most influential one? Similar to what happened to the UNESCO World Heritage list, a 'more global' approach may lead to the inclusion of entries of very different relevance for the sake of achieving 'balance'. If the US has produced 2 or more film directors worth mentioning among the '1000' and, say, Indonesia not a single one, this may just be a fact to be accepted rather than an instance of pro-Western bias. The whole trouble is that aesthetic judgements (Goethe is a better writer than Schiller) have been made taboo unless they represent some poorly reflected, but universally accepted 'canon of importance'.--84.190.16.42 09:38, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
And what if it hasn't? For example, the list of Music Genres includes New Age (hardly a great contribution to global civilisation, in my opinion), but (with the possible exception of Reggaae) includes no non-western genres. I suppose Folk could be a catch-all that includes some non-western music, but it wouldn't include major genres such as Indian Classical music. And that's just one example out of many. Klausness 12:45, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Formatting issues

Numbering

Can we have a list format, that adds an index to entries running from 1 to 1000?
Of course, that had to be automatic somehow. I would neither suggest giving up headings of various levels, nor individual counts under them.

Counting

If we had a macro for this list, we could use {{#ifexist:...}} inside, so as to count the translated articles, and create a "nn.n% done." - footer automatically. This might be a nice incentive for striving new Wikipedias.

Suggestions

Latest comment: 16 years ago7 comments5 people in discussion

Actors, dancers and models

Artists and architects

...

Authors, playwrights and poets

Composers and musicians

...

The list as it stands—J. S. Bach, Beatles, Beethoven, Berlioz, Bruckner, Brahms, Chopin, Dvorak, Handel, Hendrix, Mahler, Mozart, Puccini, Presley, Rolling Stones, Schubert, Sibelius, Smetana, Schumann, Stravinsky, Tchaikovski, Verdi, Vivaldi, Wagner—is a congeries of items having vastly variable historical value: some were more important than others, and some were less important than omitted composers. Perhaps the list was compiled by contributors who learned their music from concerts & recordings (which of course reflect particular markets), or who may have been pushing certain parochial favorites; but whatever the cause, its historical perspective is skewed: it overweights recent centuries, and thereby doesn't comprehend the full range of the field. It's exclusively a list of Western (mostly European) composers & entertainers, none of them prominent more than 300 years ago. For a universal encyclopedia, the list has at least two basic problems: (1) it lacks personages from all the important traditions of the world; (2) it omits known composers who've proved exceedingly important in influencing the evolution of music (and it includes some who fall short of that criterion). In other words, it's unbalanced with regard to space (problem 1) and with regard to time (problem 2). I can't address the first problem at the moment, but let's work at solving the second.

First, remove the popular entertainers (Presley, Elvis, born 1935; Beatles, The, ca. 1941; Hendrix, Jimi, 1942; Rolling Stones, The, ca. 1943). Of these, the Beatles may have the best claim to be on this list, as perhaps composers at the tertiary level (see below), but these entries belong in another category altogether—one that might include en:Louis Armstrong, en:Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra, en:Édith Piaf, en:Christy's Minstrels, and any of numerous other popular entertainers (like en:Fred Astaire and en:Ginger Rogers and en:Harry Houdini, en:Charles Sherwood Stratton, and so on). Rename the category as Composers.

Now let's put the composers who've influenced the evolution of (Western) music in better historical perspective. Let's arbitrarily limit the list to twenty. I offer twenty such suggestions below, embedded in a much longer—but still exceedingly incomplete!—list, with the names of additional potentially important composers, all ranked in four classes: the ten‡ most important for the history of Western music (flushleft, in boldface), first-rank composers (flushleft), secondary composers (one tab to the right), and tertiary composers (two tabs to the right). I've put the names in birth-order. This ranking is highly tentative (I might tweak it from hour to hour!), and others will disagree in many particulars, but I'd expect a consensus on at least half of the twenty. If you sample a hundred well-qualified professors of music history, it's unlikely that they'll agree that, for example, as the current list implies, Bedřich Smetana was one of The Twenty Most Important Composers Of All Time. It may also be unlikely that such a sample of experts would move the other third-ranked composers into the boldfaced first rank and vice versa. The list omits composers under the age of 80 only because they're too close to our time, and sorting out the evolution of (Western) music after the Second World War may be premature; for a similar and even more conservative reason, nobody is boldfaced after Verdi & Wagner.

Adam of St. Victor, d. 1146
Leoninus, fl. mid-to-late 12th century

Perotinus, fl. late 12th century

Wolfram von Eschenbach, ca. 1170
Vogelweide, Walther von der, ca. 1170
Halle, Adam de la, ca. 1237

Vitry, Philippe de, 1291
Machaut, Guillaume de, ca. 1300

Bologna, Jacopo da, early 14th century
Landini, Francesco, ca. 1325
Ciconia, Johannes, ca. 1335
Power, Leonel, 1370-85
Cordier, Baude, ca. 1380
Dunstaple, John, ca. 1390

Dufay, Guillaume, 1397

Binchois, Gilles, ca. 1400

Ockeghem, Johannes, ca. 1410

Busnois, Antoine, ca. 1430

Josquin des Prez, ca. 1450

Isaac, Heinrich, 1450-55
Obrecht, Jacob, ca. 1457
Willaert, Adrian, ca. 1490
Tallis, Thomas, ca. 1505
Galilei, Vincenzo, ca. 1520

Palestrina, Giovanni Pierluigi, 1525

Lassus, Orlande de, ca. 1532
Byrd, William, 1534-43
Victoria, Tomás Luis de, 1548
Peri, Jacopo, 1561
Sweelinck, Jan Pieterszoon, 1562
Gesualdo, Carlo, ca. 1566

Monteverdi, Claudio, 1567

Frescobaldi, Girolamo, 1583

Schütz, Heinrich, 1585

Scheidt, Samuel, 1587
Froberger, Johann Jakob, 1616
Lully, Jean-Baptiste de, 1632
Buxtehude, Dieterich, ca. 1637
Charpentier, Marc-Antoine, 1643
Biber, Heinrich Ignaz Franz von, 1644
Corelli, Arcangelo, 1653
Pachelbel, Johann, 1653
Purcell, Henry, 1659
Scarlatti, Alessandro, 1660
Couperin, François, 1668
Albinoni, Tomaso Giovanni, 1671
Vivaldi, Antonio, 1678
Telemann, Georg Philipp, 1681
Rameau, Jean-Philippe, 1683

Bach, Johann Sebastian, 1685

Handel, Georg Frideric, 1685
Scarlatti, Giuseppe Domenico, 1685
Johann Adolph Hasse, 1699
Stamitz, Johann Wenzel Anton, 1713
Bach, Carl Philipp Emanuel, 1714
Gluck, Christoph Willibald, 1714
Haydn, Franz Joseph, 1732
Bach, Johann Christian, 1735

Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 1756
Beethoven, Ludwig van, 1770

Weber, Carl Maria von, 1786
Rossini, Gioacchino, 1792
Schubert, Franz, 1797
Bellini, Vincenzo Salvatore Carmelo Francesco, 1801
Berlioz, Hector, 1803
Glinka, Mikhail Ivanovich, 1804
Mendelssohn, Felix, 1809
Chopin, Frédéric, 1810
Schumann, Robert, 1810

Verdi, Giuseppe, 1813
Wagner, Richard, 1813

Bruckner, Anton, 1824
Smetana, Bedřich, 1824
Gottschalk, Louis Moreau, 1829

Brahms, Johannes, 1833

Saint-Saëns, Charles Camille, 1835

Tchaikovsky, Petr, 1840

Dvořák, Antonín, 1841
Sullivan, Arthur Seymour, 1842
Rimsky-Korsakov, Nikolai Andreyevich, 1844
Widor, Charles-Marie Jean Albert, 1844
Fauré, Gabriel Urbain, 1845
Sousa, John Philip, 1854
Elgar, Edward, 1857
Puccini, Giacomo, 1858
Mahler, Gustav, 1860

Debussy, Achille-Claude, 1862

Strauss, Richard Georg, 1864
Sibelius, Jean, 1865
Joplin, Scott, 1867-68
Vaughan Williams, Ralph, 1872
Rachmaninoff, Sergei Vasilievich, 1873
Ives, Charles Edward, 1874

Schoenberg, Arnold, 1874

Ravel, Joseph-Maurice, 1875

Bartók, Béla Viktor János, 1881
Stravinsky, Igor, 1882

Varèse, Edgard Victor Achille Charles, 1883
Webern, Anton, 1883
Berg, Alban, 1885
Villa-Lobos, Heitor, 1887
Prokofiev, Sergei Sergeyevich, 1891
Hindemith, Paul, 1895
Thomson, Virgil, 1896
Poulenc, Francis Jean Marcel, 1899
Copland, Aaron, 1900
Shostakovich, Dmitri Dmitriyevich, 1906
Messiaen, Olivier, 1908
Boulez, Pierre, 1925
Stockhausen, Karlheinz, 1928

N.B. I've tried to be evenhanded here: I've put some of these composers at levels that don't correspond with the degrees of pleasure I get from their art: for example, I'm usually not all that fond of Debussy (to whom I might prefer Mahler), and though I like Bartók, he may be slipping into the second rank as history moves on; further, though Mozart is sometimes my favorite composer, he was probably not so historically influential as Beethoven, or perhaps even as some of those here ranked at the second level (e.g., Leoninus & Landini): doubts on all sides arise! If I had to demote one of the top twenty, it might have to be Ockeghem. If I had to promote one from the second to the first rank, it might have to be—if not Leoninus or Landini—Lully, mainly because he was so important in setting the style of French music at the court of Louis XIV (a style that lasted long after he died and had influence well beyond France). One could similarly quibble against or in favor of many of the other nonprimary names.

‡Ten? Better forty or fifty?! Anyone competent in the history of Western music should be able to say something pertinent about each name on the list above. J. W. Love 14:51, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Film directors and screenwriters

...

Film, radio and television

... If you have any suggestions - give more proposals. Przykuta 20:47, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh, wow Przykuta, nice to see you here! :)
Anyway, I wanted to propose some movement in musicians and composers, because today this list is quite ridiculous. We have a not really notable person - Mr. Smetana (never heard of - have you, guys?) while we don't have neither Gershwin nor Mendelssohn-Bartholdy nor Palestrina! I don't even demand Polish Szymanowski or Lutosławski (pretty notable people), Estonian Pärt, world famous Schönberg or Cage... but that's some obvious POV Push and scandal. :)
What is more, personally I do believe contemporary music is important and should be present in bigger quota. Today, we lack on the list icons like Miles Davis, Bob Dylan, Kurt Cobain, Metallica and many more, who gained popularity and influence all around the world. Is U2 really more popular or influencial?
All the positions on the today list (except already mentioned Mr. Smetana) seem to be valid - we just need to expand this list. :)
Greetings, aegis maelstrom δ 16:15, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
P.S. One more thing - we have Chomsky, while not having even J.S. Mill or A.Comte... aegis maelstrom δ 16:24, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
You should go ahead I think and be bold in editing although the examples you mention are all extremely notable persons ;) though not contemporary - One could argue that a contemporary bias is as bad as e.g. the western bias pointed out above... I would like to stress the condition of removing one entry for each entry you add - for keeping the list at a 1000 entries and not growing it indefinitely. If it grows to - say 2000 entries - it will mean double the work translating it for small wikipedias - and it is a tool for small wikipedias - not some supreme judgement on what the most important topics are in wikipedia. This is not the UNESCO World Heritage list for Wikipedia articles. --Akigka 15:54, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
Thx :) I think, that it will be good not only for small wikis, but for bigger too. These articles should be good, featured. We start on pl wiki process of translation FA articles from other wikis: look here. Wikireader with 1000 most important and featured articles will be the best, what we can do. Look at Featured articles too ;) Przykuta 07:46, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

en:Emotions

--Purodha Blissenbach 11:00, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Energy

Latest comment: 17 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

The English language article on energy has recently been changed to focus on the scientific usage of the term. The use and exploitation of energy resources is now covered by the separate article energy (technology). I've now added this additional article to this list to try to ensure that both the scientific and technological uses of the term 'energy' remain covered. Gralo 23:18, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Another Proposal

Latest comment: 17 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

I'd like to propose another addition:

Politicians

en:Mikhail Gorbachev

Rationale: Gorbatchev was instumential in the fall of the iron curtain, one of the major historical developmets of the 20th century. I personally would even say he was the one person who ultimatively initiated it. --Funkysapien 00:34, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Proposal

Latest comment: 17 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Maybe en:Emergency and en:9-1-1 emergency should be added. -- Nathannoblet 05:14, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Suggestions

Latest comment: 16 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Where are Confucius and Laozi? --41.240.113.176 11:21, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh there aren't? If so, I think Confucius should be featured as one of most influential thinker in the Chinese and hence East Asian history, while I am dubious about Laozi from two reasons (we are not sure of his historical existence - it is more obscure of Homer) and it may be better to have an article about his book or Taoism rather than the historically assumed its writer/originator under the number restriction we obtain (within 1000!). This list is not "list of all must articles" but the starter set for all (small) Wikipedias which have not yet 1000 articles. --Aphaia 06:54, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Religious figures

Latest comment: 16 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion

I find it very strange that Buddha is listed here instead of Gautama Buddha, seeing that the rest of the rather limited selection refers to what many would think of as actual persons/founders of religions. Any reason not to change?--Bero 20:44, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Since no one seems to object I change as proposed.--Bero 09:35, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
A bit late, but I disagree. While I think Guatama Buddha is a theme worthy to remark, the concept of Buddha in general and the historical figure of Gautama Buddha are not identical. Your reasoning seems to me "replace God with Jesus of Nazareth" and need to have a careful review. --Aphaia 06:58, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Current Year

Latest comment: 17 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

The current CE year (2007 as of now) should be included in this list. In January 2008, the year-article 2008 should replace 2007.

Asnatu wiki 18:00, 14 November 2007 (UTC)


Minor languages

Latest comment: 17 years ago4 comments4 people in discussion

This list is about minority languages. All of these articles will appear on the English-language and Spanish-language wikipedias in time; as i understand it, the aim of this list is to put together 1000 articles that should appear in all those little wikipedias, that maybe don't even have 1000 articles yet.

Now, there are two classes of minority language speaker -- those who are also fluent in a majority language (say, Hawaiian-speakers or Welsh-speakers who also speak English) and those who are not, such as speakers of languages peculiar to small regions, often in the developing world. In the first case, the minor language Wikipedia is a project to keep the language alive, and that is a noble goal; but I suggest that it is those who have no other recourse to information to whom we owe the greatest consideration.

The people who speak minority languages are often looked down on as uneducated fools, and their rights are not respected by employers, landowners, government workers, etc. They have very little access to information, as even though they may be able to use the internet (cybercafes are ubiquitous in the andean highlands), there are very few pages that they are capable of understanding; an employer, knowing that a worker is unaware of her rights, is often not quick to inform her. In the regions where I have been active, literacy is not uncommon but any education beyond primary level is very rare.

Having spent over 7 years working with people who speak minor Andean and Amazonian languages such as Quechua, Aymara and Yagua, there are certain questions that I am asked all the time, things that a very large number of people are interested in. These might include questions about the country they live in, the government and government systems, modern technology, agriculture (the occupation of the overwhelming majority), the law, childcare, and, most of all, health and medicine. "What is this drug that I have been given?" "Should my kid be able to talk by his age?" "What is the internet and what can it do for me?" "What is the Free Trade Agreement, and will it mean that I can no longer sell my crops?"

In seven years, I can safely say that I have never been asked about Urdu, Fencing, or Ernst Haeckel.

This list is a beautiful thing. It might be, for instance, a list of articles that all Wikipedians should read, a kind of culturally universal education. However, it smacks of educational imperialism to say that these are the articles that must be available to minority language speakers.

Of course, in a sense, any list compiled in English but for minority language speakers will suffer the same criticism. The ideal would be to go to those people and ask them what they would like to know. Had we a little funding, we could put together a proper survey.

However, without investing any money, I have put together a starter list here, based largely on personal experience and follow-on logic. I was considering deleting the entire current list and substituting in this one (be bold!). However, for the moment, I haven't: I don't mean disrespect to the many users who have joined forces to make a very valuable list, albeit one that is misnamed and misplaced. Later, I (or rather, we) should -- based on criteria of interest (are people actually going to access the article) and utility (will they learn something important from it).

The list that I'm putting forward might seem biased towards medicine. That's partially because it is important and of interest to the people we are working for, but also because of the way that the articles seemed to fit. An article on Human Rights ought to be long, highly considered, well-informed and well-written; an article on amoxicillin might be stub-class, just a few links to antibiotic, rheumatic fever, medicine, and conditions for which it is or is not indicated. I think that there is much room for improvement and expansion, particularly in sections regarding law, human rights, agriculture, NGOs, international organizations, etc.

Here, then, is my suggestion for a new start.

swyves 190.21.185.49 01:30, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

  • Disease
  • Healthcare
  • Infection
  • Bacterium
  • Virus
  • Autoimmune disease
  • Injury
  • Fracture (bone)
  • Sprain
  • Torn ligament
  • Dislocation
  • Head injury
  • Stroke
  • Heart attack
  • Parasite
  • Fungal infection
  • Malaria
  • Cholera
  • Black plague
  • AIDS
  • Syphilis
  • Gonorrhea
  • Hepatitis A
  • Hepatitis B
  • Measles
  • Chicken pox
  • Cold
  • Influenza
  • Dehydration
  • Malnutrition
  • Psychology
  • Mental health
  • Depression
  • Schizophrenia
  • Personality disorder
  • Anxiety disorder
  • Psychosis
  • Mononucleosis
  • Tonsillitis
  • Pharyngitis
  • Gum disease
  • Tooth decay
  • Tuberculosis
  • Pneumonia
  • Diabetes
  • Rheumatic fever
  • Food poisoning
  • Diarrhea
  • Poison
  • Pain
  • Blindness
  • Deafness
  • Heart disease
  • Dysentery
  • Leprosy
  • Smallpox
  • Vaccination
  • Appendicitis
  • Peritonitis
  • Cancer
  • Infectious diseases common in the region, e.g. Dengue Fever Yellow Fever, etc
  • Other health hazards common in the region, e.g. altitude illness, heatstroke, frostbite
  • Blood
  • Muscle
  • Bone
  • Nerve
  • Brain
  • Heart
  • Liver
  • Skin
  • Musculoskeletal system
  • Digestive system
  • Stomach
  • Spleen
  • Intestine
  • Lungs
  • Eye
  • Mouth
  • Ear
  • Penis
  • Testicles
  • Vagina
  • Uterus
  • Fallopian Tubes
  • Ovaries
  • Pregnancy
  • Ectopic pregnancy
  • Miscarriage
  • Abortion
  • Childbirth
  • Midwife
  • Genetics
  • Caesarian section
  • Baby
  • Childcare
  • Smoke inhalation
  • Smoking
  • Radioactivity
  • Medical doctor
  • Hospital
  • Nurse
  • Specialist medical doctor
  • Surgeon
  • Surgery
  • Second opinion
  • Amputation
  • Sutures
  • Antidepressant
  • Antibiotic
  • Painkiller
  • Dental hygiene
  • Penicillin
  • Amoxicillin
  • Acetaminophen
  • Paracetamol
  • Other drugs often prescribed in the region
  • Oral rehydration
  • Epidemic
  • Hygiene
  • Nutrition
  • Protein
  • Carbohydrate
  • Fat
  • Salt (NaCl)
  • Water
  • Mineral micronutrients
  • Vitamins
  • Dietary fiber
  • Alcohol
  • Alcoholism
  • Recreational drugs
  • Addiction
  • Sex
  • Sexual health
  • Homosexuality
  • Contraception
  • Condom
  • Birth control pill
  • Marriage
  • Women’s rights
  • Rape
  • Discrimination
  • Racial equality
  • Human rights
  • Indigenous rights
  • Native Americans
  • Indigenous reservation
  • Civil rights
  • Apartheid
  • Animal rights
  • Education
  • School
  • University
  • Postgraduate education
  • Research
  • Engineering
  • Privacy
  • Freedom
  • Slavery
  • Indentured labor
  • Law
  • Punishment
  • Capital punishment
  • Civil law
  • Land law
  • Labor law
  • Employment
  • Theft
  • Fraud
  • Police
  • Judicial system
  • Assault
  • Sexual assault
  • Ethics
  • Politics
  • Capitalism
  • Economics
  • Communism
  • Socialism
  • Nationalism
  • Globalization
  • Anarchism
  • Imperialism
  • Other current political movements in the region
  • Protest
  • Riot
  • Police riot control
  • Terrorism
  • Dictatorship
  • Democracy
  • Coup d’état
  • Election
  • Language
  • The language in question
  • The mainstream languages of the region and nearby regions (e.g. for Quechua, Spanish only)
  • English
  • The internet
  • Telephone
  • Cell phone
  • Satellite phone
  • GPS
  • Postal mail
  • Email
  • Wikipedia
  • Blog
  • Newspaper
  • Television
  • Radio
  • Computer
  • RAM
  • CPU
  • Hard drive
  • Motherboard
  • CD
  • DVD
  • Software
  • Computer Program
  • Operating system
  • Linux
  • Microsoft
  • Piracy (IP)
  • Internal combustion engine
  • Car
  • Bicycle
  • Motorbike
  • Truck
  • Road
  • Road safety
  • Fuel
  • Airplane
  • Helicopter
  • Agricultural tractor
  • Fertilizer
  • Pesticide
  • Herbicide
  • Soil
  • Irrigation
  • Local crop and livestock types
  • Local agricultural pests and crop/livestock diseases
  • Local agricultural methods, fertilizers, pesticides, etc
  • Veterinary medicine
  • Workplace safety
  • Earthquake
  • Flood
  • Drought
  • Climate change
  • Storm
  • Lightning
  • Tsunami
  • Other locally possible natural disasters (tornado, hurricane, El Niño, etc)
  • Pollution
  • Toxic waste
  • pH
  • Heavy metal
  • Greenhouse effect
  • Mining industry
  • Oil industry
  • Electricity
  • Power generation
  • Electricity transmission (e.g. HT cables)
  • Nuclear power
  • Nuclear weapon
  • Generator
  • Religion
  • Atheism
  • Christianity
  • The Catholic Church
  • Islam
  • Judaism
  • Al Qaeda
  • Country
  • USA
  • The country or countries where the language is spoken, and all bordering countries, significant trade partners,
  • Japan
  • China
  • Israel
  • Palestine
  • Iraq
  • Europe
  • North America
  • Central America
  • South America
  • Asia
  • Africa
  • International Organization
  • European Union
  • United Nations
  • International Monetary Fund
  • International Court of Justice
  • International Criminal Court
  • World Health Organization
  • World Trade Organization
  • UNICEF
  • UNESCO
  • Universal Declaration of Human Rights
  • World Bank Group
  • Geneva Conventions
  • International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement
  • Immigration
  • International trade
  • International law
  • Money
  • Bank
  • Inflation
  • Loan
  • Interest
  • Loan shark
  • War
  • Armed Forces
  • Firearm
  • Bomb
  • Tank (military)
  • Grenade
  • Non-lethal weapon
  • Land mine
  • Government
  • Tax
  • Income tax
  • Sales tax
  • Civil service
  • Identity card
  • Passport
  • Census
  • President
  • Minister
  • Cabinet
  • King
  • Chief
  • Head of State
  • Heads of state of the country/countries involved, significant partners, the USA
  • Celebrities, political leaders, intellectuals, etc who speak the language
  • Ecology
  • Biodiversity
  • Biopiracy

Ah, that has kind of not worked; how do I make it into a list, with a new line for each entry?

You need to start each line with an asterisk (*), or a pound sign (#) if you want the list numbered. – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 19:09, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Ah, thank you very much indeed. swyves 190.21.179.123 19:55, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Most of those articles should be in the list, not celebs though. Thanks Jaranda | wat's sup 23:40, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Suggestion to add "pendulum" and remove "George W. Bush"

Latest comment: 16 years ago11 comments7 people in discussion

I can't believe Pendulum is not on the list. That would seem like a fundamental idea.

Also, it seems a bit strange the George W. Bush is in the list, sandwiched between Napoleon and Caesar. (singing: "One of these things is not like the other...") Is GWB truly one of the top 38 leaders of all time???

-- Yekrats 23:38, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

I would have thought of Bush as of infinitely more relevance to the "target audience" than Napoleon, Caesar, or a pendulum, as he has a far greater effect on their lives. Whoever said anything about the greatest leaders of all time?

swyves 190.21.139.160 21:08, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

What is this "target audience"? Are there any other current world leaders in the mix? To me it seems inappropriate to say that one country's president is more important than any other president or world leader. -- Yekrats 18:29, 27 November 2007 (UTC)


Wouldn't the target audience be readers of smaller wikipedias, that currently have very few articles and whose editors are advised to use this list as a guide to what to translate?
I would certainly say that it's fair to assume that the president of one country (say, Fiji) is less globally important that the president of another country (say, China). A person who can have an immediate effect on the life of anyone in the world, by being the leader of a country with great economic and military power, would seem extremely relevant. In terms of that, if there is only to be one, it should probably be the current US president. I would suggest having him on the list as such, rather than as an individual. Apart from being president of the USA, George W Bush is almost certainly not "top 1000 articles" grade.

swyves 190.21.140.237 21:53, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't consider this list to be a "these are the best whatevers of all time"-type list, merely documentation of what's really important. GWB, as much as I may dislike him politically, is an extremely important figure in politics. I think we're quite justified in saying he's more notable than, say, Robert Mugabe (which isn't a slight to Mugabe, but a statement about Bush's position on the world stage). EVula // talk // ☯ // 22:25, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
We can also think about how articles will fit together into a wikipedia that provides a good user experience. There are plenty of articles that could link to and from a US president, and it might help encourage people to add their own articles on other politicians to a nascent wikipedia.

swyves190.21.153.140 01:36, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

So are you saying that this should be a floating link to the current US President? -- Yekrats 14:27, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Not exactly. I'm suggesting that people who are important on the world stage should be all the list; that requirement just happens to intersect with whoever is the US President. EVula // talk // ☯ // 20:30, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
I'd agree; it's not an article on the concept of the US President that's relevant, but rather whoever happens to be US Pres at the moment -- currently, W. When (alas) he ceases to be president, he probably won't be relevant to this list any more, or at least not for long. swyves190.21.173.148 12:57, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
I would say that he's more deserving of a listing here than some other past presidents, due to his involvement in 9/11 (it happening during his Presidency, that is) and his initiation of conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq (note: not looking to debate the validity of the conflicts, just mentioning them) would put him on the list semi-permanently, but it does remain to be seen. EVula // talk // ☯ // 16:52, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
I think the difference between "not for long" and "semi-permanently" might be very little indeed. The day after he finishes as president, he'll still be there; a hundred years later, probably not. As for when the change comes, that's entirely up to the future to bring us someone more relevent. swyves190.21.159.214 00:14, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Current state

Latest comment: 16 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

"(This feature, and the page in general, is currently being discussed on the Talk page. If you support this effort, please contribute to the list and participate in the discussion.)"

This remark dates back to April 2006. How is the progress of the list? Is it somewhat reliable?

At the moment we are discussing at the German article whether we should translate this page to the German article. We have currently defined the article as a list of the 1000 articles, an encyclopedia should contain. Every list entry is already an article that exists. Our goal is that most of them should be at least a good article. Currently 55 of them are featured and 103 are good articles. Unfortunately, we have some problems. Some categories contain too many articles, some contain too few.

So I just wanted to look how the state of the list is here on meta and compare it with the German WP. Best regards, --Tantalos 18:56, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Oscar Wilde

Latest comment: 16 years ago4 comments3 people in discussion

Much as I love to see an Irishman on the list, is Wilde really so important to literature that he should be one of the first articles an encyclopedia must have? Might I suggest replacing Wilde with a woman, which are wholly under-represented (Virginia Woolf, perhaps?), or an American, which are lacking a bit, as well (Hemingway, Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Frost)? Gaillimh 11:12, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't think Oscar Wilde is one of 1000 theme every Wikipedia should have. If it is for Wikiquote, my answer would be different <g>
I love Woolf, but say, either Virginia Woolf. She is not the best person who represent early 20th C English literature, either Broomsbury or "current of consciousness". For the former, I would say Russel, and for the latter, Joyce. And we have already Yeats for this period.
Generally I don't think it a good way to use this list as promoting someone or something "under-represented". Whether something is under-represented or not is highly a POV matter or not? So it is my POV but on the current list English authors are too over-represented. We have only three Roman poets, two German speaking authors (Goethe and Kafka), three French authors. Honestly I love Frost as a poet, but regarding the influence to the literature, I think he has no precedence before other language great authors like Schiller, Rablais or Petrarca ... --Aphaia 11:43, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
For the reasons I mentioned above, I'd be against putting any authors on the list. swyves 190.21.132.138 05:13, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
OK, I understand what you mean about not adhering to some sort of pre-supposed demographical criteria in such a list. As such, I'll not add any of my suggestions in place of Wilde, but will simply remove Wilde from the list. Thanks for all of you help Aphaia and swyves! Gaillimh 06:27, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Come back to 1000

Latest comment: 16 years ago7 comments4 people in discussion

In an efford, to bring this list from about 1100 back to 1000 articles, I suggest to:

More suggestions welcome. --Purodha Blissenbach 03:56, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

First off, I think we should keep pi, infinity, calculus, artihmetic and square. All of those seem like really basic concepts that should be kept. Axe, I agree, is questionable. I definitely agree about keyboard, monitor, mouse, and browser.

Some odd points I've seen:

-- Yekrats 15:15, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Other things I might drop:

-- Yekrats 11:34, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

If there's no objections, I'll probably try to start trimming some of these back, maybe starting with the contributions of Johnny Au, since he didn't come to the discussion first. -- Yekrats 19:11, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
I agree with most of your comments, but I'd like it to be a stable version after dropping these items. I'll probably also drop en:Nuclear force, I think it's not what people thought it had to be (this article refers to residual strong force, not even strong interaction, which would be more basic). --Meldor 09:37, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
It could be replaced with en:Radioactivity. --Meldor 14:08, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
en:Verner Geisenberg is probably supposed to be en:Werner Heisenberg --140.180.2.62 19:47, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Moving goal posts?

Latest comment: 16 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Hi there. I'd like to register a bit of a complaint. Back in October, I went through the exhaustive process of translating this list to the Esperanto Wikipedia, so we could fill in the few gaps we had left. Now that were pretty much done, I notice that User:Johnny Au has added Canadian Prime Ministers and Canadian Cities, and other questionably important features of Canada, which probably should have been discussed first. Normally I thought list items should be brought up on the discussion page first, but these people just made edits without consulting the community on the talk page. Also brought up without discussion were en:El Greco, en:Johannes Vermeer, en:M. C. Escher, en:Chicken, en:Saint-Petersburg, en:Chicago, and the list goes on. No doubt all of these are important, but the folks adding them should have brought them up here to figure out something to replace them with, since we are way over our budget of 1000 articles. Also I found en:Verner Geisenberg was added, and I can't find anything on that name in Google except for chatter on Wikipedia wondering who it is?! (We at the Esperanto Wikipedia actually had most of these, but it's a pain for me to constantly update our list of articles to the most recent version!)

If this list is a goal that Wikipedias are going to shoot for (especially the smaller Wikis) then there needs to be some versioning system or protection, so the goal doesn't keep changing. Is there some way we can say SOME VERSION IS THE LATEST VERSION with a lock against editing, and then we can work on a fresh version, so wikis can try to keep up with the latest "wet paint" version, or just try to stay with the stable version. Also it might be worthwhile to make a second list of 1000 (somewhat like the English expanded list) which shows the SECOND one thousand articles which should be done. That would be particularly helpful for us small Wikis that are just completing the first batch. -- Yekrats 12:42, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Delete Verner Geisenberg

Latest comment: 16 years ago4 comments3 people in discussion

I suggest deleting Verner Geisenberg, as nobody seems to know who he is. Furthermore, it has not been taken into account in List of Wikipedias by sample of articles. --Meldor 01:20, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree, and removed him. -- Yekrats 13:48, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
Maybe en:Werner Heisenberg? --Ecelan 22:51, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
...Yes, that must be him ¬¬' --Meldor 23:34, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

trimming to 1000; now with more suggestions.

Latest comment: 16 years ago9 comments6 people in discussion

OK, I just got done doing some of the trimming from the previous suggestion. How many more do we need to trim to get down to 1000?

If necessary, here's some more suggestions:

I agree with you; I would probably keep electronic music, though. Some countries could be removed as non imprescindible. Obviously, any people from these countries will feel it is absolutely necessary to include his country, but being a citizen from a country which doesn't appear on the list, and trying to make some balance between continents, I may suggest to delete: China (keep People's Republic of China), Bangladesh, Poland, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Singapore, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates... (why is Pakistan on bold?), and I would add Chile. There would be 40 countries then (now there are 46/47). I'm unsure about some (like United Arab Emirates, but note there is OPEP). Of course, this is just an opinion, but the whole selection of countries is doubtful: I can't understand, for example, why Algeria is on the list and not Morocco. The african part seems to have been chosen only to show famine and aids problems: apart from South Africa, there is Congo, Ethiopia, Sudan, Tanzania :'( --Meldor 21:16, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
20% is not "extremely biased". English speakers including ESL make up 15% of the world population. Also, is there that same percent of authors in poorer countries? MarsRover 07:39, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
The current biographies list is now at 242 entries. I suggest trimming it back to 200. That would take care of more than half the overflow. I also repeat my suggestion of moving the Biographies section in its entirety to the bottom of the list as it seems to be the section most susceptible to endless additions. Maybe it should also be done with the Geography section. --Akigka 14:32, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
I would therefore like to suggest the following be removed: Botticelli, Sandro | Bruegel, Pieter the Elder | Marx Brothers | Donatello | Escher, Maurits Cornelis | Pei, I. M. | Raphael | Rubens, Peter Paul | Vermeer, Johannes | Daniel, Arnaut | Horace | Hugo, Victor | Nabokov, Vladimir | Ovid | Pushkin, Alexander | Rimbaud, Arthur | Berlioz, Hector | Bruckner, Anton | Händel, Georg Frideric | Hendrix, Jimi | Mahler, Gustav | Puccini, Giacomo | Schumann, Robert | Vivaldi, Antonio | von Humboldt, Alexander | Bell, Alexander Graham or Meucci, Antonio (or should we simply eliminate both and have an article on Telephone?...) | Fermi, Enrico | Fibonacci | Haeckel, Ernst | Pythagoras | Bruno, Giordano | Francis of Assisi, Saint | Paul of Tarsus (we already have Christianity) | Rousseau, Jean-Jacques | Ben-Gurion, David | De Gaulle, Charles | Merkel, Angela | Abraham | Moses | Jesus | Muhammad | Buddha (all five: we have articles on the respective religions - that should be enough). Anyway - I have refrained from suggesting women and non-westerners as the list is clearly biased (even with these 42 names removed) and that issue should be addressed. --Akigka 15:20, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
And (food for thought) the artists section (as just an example) contains 11 (out of 22) European early modern painters. Only three of those 22 are not European (Frank Lloyd Wright, Frida Kahlo and L. M. Pei - all North-American). Only 21 of the 46 writers, playwrights and poets mentioned are not European... and so on. --Akigka 15:35, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
I also would like to suggest flattening the list, i.e. to have every section like the Biographies section and not nested like in Language and literature or Organisms. I think that would make it easier to track additions and also help in maintaining a broad focus.--Akigka 15:52, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
I think these are good suggestions that Akigka is making. I also think Yekrats' suggestions are good and sensible. There's no need to have both Rock and roll and Hard rock but I would keep electronic music. Regarding the countries that Meldor suggest we delete I would keep The Netherlands (no, I'm not from there :)) but the rest I agree with. --140.180.2.62 19:40, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Euro-centric

Latest comment: 16 years ago6 comments6 people in discussion

This page says "If you want to know which Wikipedias are better and which are worse, article number is not what you should look at. Please use e.g. the List of Wikipedias by sample of articles, or then please come up with a new measure of quality and present it to others." pointing to this page where the Japanese wikipedia is rated very low. I wondered why and came here. This artice list is very very very euro-centric. I suggest you get input from non-European communities and create a base list of 10,000 with lists of 1000 necessarily specialized according to some viewpoint such as euro-centric or liberal arts or hard science or history. - 4.250.138.182 23:53, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

It is Eurocentric. Could you please make some suggestions of some important topics outside of the Western world? We'll try to work them in. -- Yekrats 13:44, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Apart from the selection of articles, japanese gets a low rating because it uses less characters. If you go to the discussion page, you'll see it is being discussed to multiply the number of characters by a coefficient, to make it even with the rest of languages. --Meldor 19:05, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

I came to this talk page to make the same point as 4.250.138.182. The Eurocentrism is striking. That would be merely regrettable if it were just a list of suggestions; however, it says "should have", and the English Wikipedia article on Wikipedia contains that wording and links here -- and if people are saying that the quality of Wikipedias should be judged by this list (see above), that's a serious problem, and I think the appropriate thing to do would be to put an explicit disclaimer at the top of the page saying that that's not what this page is for and that the authors are aware of the Eurocentrism and encourage suggestions on non-European topics -- and preferably rename the page to something like "suggestions for a common set of articles in all Wikipedias". This problem is not going to be solved by asking individual people who point it out to please make some suggestions. Joriki 22:05, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
I support Joriki's idea. I am rechecking this list for [sw.wikipedia.com Swhili wikipedia] and it is awfully US-Eurocentric. Lots and lots of infos in some areas with little relevance to an African reader. Instead of going to a 10.000 - base - maybe some proportional shares for continents in social topics/arts ? Something like dividing up science - arts numerically and then the culturally related part proportionally? sw:user:kipala --78.48.136.233 21:36, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
Disclaimer and name change as suggested is probably a good idea. Setting up a quota system to counter the Eurocentrism of the list is (IMHO) a bad idea. I think it is much better to reach a consensus on removals/additions by discussion. --Akigka 13:10, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

wikimedia?

Latest comment: 16 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

67.80.30.201 17:53, 27 December 2007 (UTC)there is nothing on wikimedia(or wikipedia).huh

Wikiquote list

Latest comment: 16 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Is there a similar list for articles that every Wikiquote project should have? --Steinninn 16:10, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

That's a very difficult list to construct, because the notability of quotes varies between languages far more than the notability of people. Nobody would deny that William Wordsworth is notable enough in France and Germany to be worth an entry in the French or German Wikipedias, but how many of his quotes are worth putting in their Wikiquotes? I bet that plenty of people would be horrified to find that their favourite quote in Turkish or Portuguese is scarcely known in the English-speaking world. --Poetlister 18:43, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
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