Wikipedia talk:Vital articles/Expanded/Archive 46

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Possible rearrange?

This may or may not be a good idea. Overtime the geography section has become more locations/regions than topics. What I mean is lists of individual examples of political and physical locations/regions/things on Earth are there, but the articles about the type of thing itself is elsewhere. Nile Mississippi Ganges and Amazon are in Geography but river itself is in Earth science. Same goes for mountains deserts etc. Country, state, city-state, are in social sciences, while individual countries themselves are of course in geography. Looking at basics and urban planning they contain many non place articles like cartography, Remote sensing are more arts or science. Urban planning contains city town slum urban planning, urbanization, urban design and zoning and more. These are not places, but are kind of geography topics, but so are river mountain and country, but we moved them. Urban planning stuff could be moved to social science along with country, city state, do people think this is a good idea? Also why is Central Park the only actual place in urban planning, although not a wildlife thing it could go with the other parks, no? And, we still have continent in geography after the move thread was closed as passed. Was it forgotten or moved back?

Basically do we want non places in geography? if so which ones and why? and which ones are we going to have elsewhere and why?  Carlwev  00:04, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

Oops, I moved continent out of earth science when that section was above quota, not remembering the consensus we had. I'll move it back. Cobblet (talk) 00:36, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

I don't care whether we move urban planning topics to Social Sciences or cartography topics to Earth Sciences as long as we adjust the quotas accordingly, since both sections are basically full. I'm also indifferent to where you put Central Park - I personally have no problem with park and national park being in different sections. Cobblet (talk) 00:47, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

By the way, I think that Hainan should be moved to the section "Regions and country subdivisions", since Hainan not only refers to Hainan Island, but also refers to the Hainan Province, and this province has more than one island.--RekishiEJ (talk) 14:57, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Video Wikipedia talk:Vital articles/Expanded/Archive 46

Women on the list

Now that Sojourner Truth's been nominated again for removal, this seems as good a time as any to ask a question that's been on my mind a lot lately: how many women should we have on the list? If that's too loaded a question or too hard to answer, how about this: is there a minimum number of women we should be including? Cobblet (talk) 19:48, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

Maybe the first question we should ask is how many women and men are currently on the list (and other classifications like nationality and historical era). It will take a long time to count though. Apart from actors and actresses, no other section is divided by sex. That aside, if we do not have a target or quota for women, there are obviously many vital women due to their contributions and actions in a particular field. The fact that they're women doesn't come into it. Curie, Austen and Thatcher to name a few.

Deciding on a specific number of women is difficult because the number is shaped by the number of people we have on different categories. The gender split in acting and musicians will be closer to 50-50 than in areas like sports and military leaders. Therefore if we increase the sizes of the former at the expense of the latter, we will end up with more women on the list but that isn't the best way to go about it.

When a man and woman are roughly equal in vitality in terms of "objective" criteria, I favour adding the woman to reduce the monotony in the list. Same with nationality. I support diversity in the sense of adding variety to the people section (and other section) since this vital list is aiming to summarize all human knowledge. For this reason, I don't necessarily believe a non-political leader needs to change the world to the same extent as a political leader to be vital. On the other hand, you do have the draw the line somewhere and can't add people who have made no real long-term impact in their field just because they're female, non-white, LGBT, disabled or some other minority group. Gizza ^(t)(c) 10:03, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

I basically agree with what you said. If there are men and women of similar vitality then it should be at least be 50/50 as to the gender of the person we pick - you seem to be suggesting we go even further. Cobblet (talk) 17:14, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

By my count, there are 191.5 women on the list - I'm counting the Williams sisters as one because only Serena has any business being on the list anyway, and the half is because of Kenneth and Mamie Clark. (I did not count mixed-gender music groups like ABBA.) In other words, women make up less than 10% of the list. Cobblet (talk) 15:55, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

For comparison, it's been found that around 15% of the biographies on the English Wikipedia are about women. Cobblet (talk) 07:41, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for doing the research Cobblet. Did you make a note of other information like whether the percentage of women is lower in ancient history than modern (which is what one would expect) and possibly lower in non-Western countries than Western? Anyway there are vital women from many areas still missing from the list. I've thought of proposing some but am unsure about when and how to propose them (swaps or straight adds).

We generally guard against recentism though we do list people that only became prominent since the mid-2000s like Lionel Messi, Rafael Nadal, Manmohan Singh, Usain Bolt and Barack Obama (while Kofi Annan, the Williams sisters and Vladimir Putin became notable only a little bit earlier). I think you can put forward a strong case for adding Angela Merkel. Chancellor of Germany since 2005 and regarded as de facto leader of the European Union for most of this time. Credited as being a stabilizing force for the continent during tumultuous economic period. Merkel has been ranked as the most powerful woman for nine of the past ten years by Forbes. And the only people consistently above her in the Forbes list of The World's Most Powerful People over the past five years are Obama and Putin who are listed. Gizza ^(t)(c) 13:00, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

IMO Merkel is clearly vital - that her name has never even been mentioned once on this talk page until now says a lot about our priorities. Other women from the 2000s I'd point to are Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, J. K. Rowling and Marit Bjørgen. From the 1990s I think Anna Wintour, Diana, Princess of Wales and Anggun have cases to be made for them. Only Marit's been proposed before.

I have a list of about 60 women for whom I believe I can make a decent case (and have already made it for Maria Montessori), and for whom I can find swaps to keep us at 2000 people. That would bring us up to 250 women, or in other words one in eight people on the list would be female. That's not asking for a lot, is it? It's not hard to find another 50 women beyond that who would also make interesting choices, but finding swaps for them is harder, and it's not like we've included all the deserving men on the list either. Cobblet (talk) 17:14, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

250 women seems reasonable. Do you think the reason we're low on women compared to Wikipedia as a whole is because this has a different distribution by vocation than the whole project? (not that I'm saying change the distribution of the VA/E/P, I think it's pretty good as is). pbp 21:48, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

Really good question, and frankly I have no idea if that's the reason or not. I don't know if Wikidata analysis has been done on the distribution of biographies by vocation yet. Cobblet (talk) 21:59, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

It would be fascinating to find out how many modern biographies (1800-present) listed are of a particular nationality. I'm too lazy or busy to do this right now. My guess for the top five would be the US, UK, France, Germany and Russia (not sure of the precise order apart from the US and UK leading). Then probably Japan, Spain, Italy, China and India for the top ten though the Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden and Norway might make it in the top ten too. It is difficult to look at nationality specifically for earlier periods of history though we can still classify people by empire or well-defined parts of continents. Gizza ^(t)(c) 13:46, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

I don't have that information although I do know that the most populous country without a political leader listed is Kenya (Jomo Kenyatta has a good case) and the most populous country not represented by anyone at all is Cameroon (I couldn't find a Cameroonian biography I considered vital). Cobblet (talk) 17:14, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

I disagree with having a specific quota for men and women. That will just cause controversy as we are forced to eliminate important male articles for less important female articles. Instead, I prefer to take a case by case basis, looking into sections where there could be a few important women, but those women must be equal in importance to the men in that section. Adding women just to reach a quota amounts to a watering-down of the list. I do believe there should be more women on the list, such as J.K. Rowling. I will simply decide based on which woman is nominated. PointsofNoReturn (talk) 19:08, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for replying. I agree with your points and have no wish to propose a hard quota. The point of the numbers was to illustrate how this list is more biased towards men than Wikipedia is as a whole. Before I propose adding a large number of women to the list I wanted to explain why I think this is necessary and see what others thought about this. I consider Sojourner Truth a rather marginal choice but nevertheless people are willing to defend her. I think there are plenty of women who have even stronger cases to be made for them. Cobblet (talk) 20:38, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

I agree with your logic. The list does have too few women. We just have to add some one by one, perhaps swapping women for less important male articles. Perhaps some famous female world leaders could be added. PointsofNoReturn (talk) 00:05, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, women are still underrepresented on an objective basis. Well as objective as you can get. Everyone has biases. I don't know how far we can go until we will be adding woman because they're women and not purely because of their accomplishments but we're not there yet. Gizza ^(t)(c) 11:20, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

User:Cobblet and User:DaGizza What do you guys think of Jane Jacobs? She's one of the top figures in urban planning and urban studies and we don't have a figure for it which can diversify the occupations and add a woman as-well. GuzzyG (talk) 18:39, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

Never thought of her. I looked at several women social scientists (Ruth Benedict, Harriet Martineau, Marija Gimbutas, Mary Leakey) and ultimately felt Melanie Klein, Karen Horney and Zora Neale Hurston were the three with the best cases; YMMV. And surely there are many female activists more influential and better known in the English-speaking world than Jacobs - Alice Paul and Millicent Fawcett for starters; and from the rest of the world one could look at some of the Nobel Peace Prize winners from the last 25 years, Rigoberta Menchú, Shirin Ebadi, Wangari Maathai, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Malala Yousafzai - I think Sirleaf has the best case among all of them. I also think there's a better example of a well-known woman who's prominent in a so-far-unrepresented field: Julia Child. Cobblet (talk) 19:31, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

Harriet, Mary and Zora were on my potential list in my head. I'm not too sure about Alice or Millicent (Alice out of the two), Malala's too recent (maybe), i thought Sirleaf was on the list and i'd definitely vote her in a instant, first elected female head of state of a continent and if we have recent women like J. K. Rowling on the list then recentism should not apply to Ellen, not so sure about Rigoberta/Shirin/Wangari though, may be too regional. I was in favour of adding a chef and Julia i feel would be a good representative if we go that route. The biggest omission on this list though is Diana, Princess of Wales, by faaaaaaaar. Hugely popular activist, historically important, song commemorating her is the highest selling single or second behind White Christmas, the only non 21st century household name not on this list that's not a entertainer in my opinion. GuzzyG (talk) 20:26, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

I agree Princess Diana's vital; other female humanitarians I'd support adding are Elizabeth Fry and Clara Barton (but we should also add Henri Dunant). Cobblet (talk) 18:41, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

Speaking of politics, there are some vital female political figures currently not on the list: Empress Suiko, Queen Seondeok of Silla, Soong Ching-ling and Soong Mei-ling. Empress Suiko is quite well-known in Greater China, Queen Seondeok was the most famous queen regnant in the history of Korea, Soong Ching-ling was the Mother of China, Soong Mei-ling was the Mother of the ROC Air Force.--RekishiEJ (talk) 13:39, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

I have no problem supporting the addition of a pre-Shogunate Japanese leader but am not sure Suiko is the best choice (and I would not call her well known outside Japan). I did consider Seondeok but again I question how well known she is outside of Korea. Ultimately I think the most culturally significant female royal from East Asia not on the list is Yang Guifei. Song Qingling should not be the next political figure from 20th-century China to be added and her other sisters are not vital. Cobblet (talk) 20:28, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

Maps Wikipedia talk:Vital articles/Expanded/Archive 46

People from the Islamic Golden Age: a case study on the completeness of the list

Some people seem surprised that I'm very picky when it comes to proposals adding more people to the list, even though we're still below the quota by 17. I want to show how there are many people who are very significant in their discipline or time period that we haven't yet included, and as an example of that, I've decided to examine how well we cover the Islamic Golden Age. This used to be a weak spot on the list, especially in terms of people who were not political or military leaders, but we've made significant progress, having added Al-Biruni, Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi, Geber, Khadija bint Khuwaylid and Aisha over the last couple of years.

Have we done enough? Look at the following people (just intellectuals for now - I'll discuss political and military leaders further down) who aren't on the list, sorted by number of page views over the past 90 days. I don't use page views as an absolute measure of vitality (any two-bit celebrity today will beat these page views easily), but when comparing people belonging to the same culture and historical period, I find it a useful way of seeing at a glance whose importance stands out.

• Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi, also known as Rhazes (20,176 page views): polymath especially known for his contributions to medicine. Britannica flat-out calls him "the greatest physician of the Islamic world" which is a bold claim with Avicenna, Geber and al-Zahrawi to contend with, but perhaps not unjustifiable - for example, he was the first person to note the difference between smallpox and measles. I'm not surprised he's missing since we got around to adding two terribly important physicians only recently.

• Al-Farabi (19,163 views) and Al-Kindi (17,692 views): the two most distinguished figures of Islamic philosophy before Avicenna - the Arabs considered Al-Farabi the greatest philosopher after Aristotle and Al-Kindi the father of Arab philosophy. Both wrote on a wide variety of subjects and played an important in preserving, disseminating and building upon the work of the ancient Greeks.

• Al-Jazari (14,509 views): the most famous of Arab inventors (next in line would probably be the Ban? M?s? brothers with only 3214 views), noted for his intricate designs of machines and automata.

• Maria al-Qibtiyya (13,102 views): the only one of Muhammad's wives besides Khadija bint Khuwaylid to bear him a child.

• Muhammad al-Idrisi (13,053 views): geographer responsible for the Tabula Rogeriana, one of the great achievements of medieval geography.

• Rabia Basri (12,908 views): the first of the Sufi mystics, and the only one of four women listed in The Muslim 100 not on our list. The only other notable women of the period who weren't wives or daughters of Muhammad I could find were Al-Khansa (3953 views), one of the greatest Arab poets, and Arwa al-Sulayhi (3276 views), Queen of Yemen for over 60 years (known as the "little Queen of Sheba") and the only significant example of a female Arab ruler in Islamic times.

• Abu Hurairah (12,447 views): one of the most important narrators of hadith, #10 on The Muslim 100 and the only one in the top ten not to appear on our list.

These are all the people I could find with over 9000 page views during the last 90 days. Other people that nearly met this threshold of 100 views/day were Ibn al-Nafis (8981 views), Al-Jahiz (8604 views) and Attar of Nishapur (8381 views). There are still a number of interesting figures whose biographies get even less attention, e.g. Yunus Emre (6934 views), the first great figure in Turkish literature; Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi (4092 views), the first astronomer to record observing the Andromeda galaxy and Large Magellanic Cloud; Imru' al-Qais (3807 views), the most distinguished of pre-Islamic Arab poets; Kam?l ud-D?n Behz?d (3267 views), the best-known of Persian miniature painters and one of the few plausible choices to represent Islamic art, and Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi (2570 views), pioneer of the study of the Arabic language and compiler of the first Arabic dictionary.

I'll let everyone decide for themselves how many of these figures they deem vital. Personally I'm only strongly inclined to add Rhazes and al-Farabi.

That was intellectual history. While our coverage of Muslim political and military leaders of this period is better, there are still some notable omissions:

• Mahmud of Ghazni (48,136 views): the first of Muslim invaders of India, and as brilliant a patron of the arts and literature as he was a warrior. His court entertained such luminaries as Al-Biruni and Ferdowsi, author of Shahnameh which is even on our level 3 list.

• Muhammad of Ghor (23,909 views): another key figure in the Muslim conquest of India, whose victory over Prithviraj Chauhan (added to our list not so long ago) at the Second Battle of Tarain marks a turning point in the history of India. Gizza has mentioned this omission before.

• Alp Arslan (17,476 views): second Seljuk sultan whose victory over Romanos IV signaled the decline of the Byzantine Empire, and whose vizier Nizam al-Mulk (6571 views) was one of the most capable political administrators in Islamic history.

• Tariq ibn Ziyad (16,151 views): Moorish conqueror of Spain - Muslim rule there would endure for another 500 years.

• Abu Sufyan ibn Harb (12,022 views): early opponent of Muhammad's, then converted to Islam. Father of Muawiyah I, founder of the Umayyad Caliphate, who is listed.

I also came across figures like Al-Mansur (10,809 views) and Al-Ma'mun (10,418 views) who I don't think are particularly vital. The Barmakids (3755 views), the great viziers of the Abbasid Caliphate mentioned in the Arabian Nights, seem more interesting to me but the page views would suggest others don't share this opinion. Of the list above, I think the first two definitely make good additions, while Alp Arslan could be swapped with Tughril (3575 views) and Tariq with 'Abd al-Rahman I (6143 views).

So this is how our coverage of the Islamic Golden Age looks: we have many key people but are still missing quite a few, and there is no way we could include every person that has the slightest claim to being vital. I personally think we should consider a net addition of four people and they're all from this one cultural region 800-1400 years ago. Who knows how many people closer to our time we still don't have? Cobblet (talk) 05:05, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

I briefly mentioned Al-Kindi once too. This will take time to research and discuss. Hopefully I'll get the time in the next couple of days. Gizza ^(t)(c) 13:09, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

I'm fine with adding some of these guys. If we go over 2,000, we can just cut some more sportspeople. pbp 13:21, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

Out of all pop culture sections in People, modern music has taken the smallest hit. There are 27 Rock musicians, nearly all from only two decades (60s and 70s) and two countries. For comparison there are 15 soccer players spread from the 1940s to 2015 and from all over the world. Gizza ^(t)(c) 01:17, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

If I had to pick four, I would choose Rabia, Al-Razi or Al-Kindi (hard to decide), Muhammad of Ghor and Tariq. I'm less certain with the intellectuals than political and military leaders. Muhammad of Ghor is the foremost symbol of early Islam in South Asia and is revered as a hero in Pakistan and to a lesser extent Afghanistan. Assuming there are no other Islamic conquerors of Iberia listed, Tariq should be listed as his conquests lead to the only instance of long-term Muslim rule in Western Europe. I'm guessing he gets low views because Spain and Portugal are no longer Muslim so nobody really reveres him in a patriotic sense but 500 years of history and influence is enough IMO. Gizza ^(t)(c) 10:28, 8 August 2015 (UTC)+

Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari is currently not included in the list, despite the fact that he was a Persian polymath who wrote all of his works in Arabic and contributed to tafsir and fiqh a lot.--RekishiEJ (talk) 15:28, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

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