Wikipedia talk:List of articles all languages should have

Dino history

History is about humans after the invention of writing (excuse me my bad english)... Why dinosaur? Manuel Anastácio 01:49, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

No, "History is the study of the past." Dinosaurs happened in the past, and are therefore part of history. There is an English word "prehistory", but it is generally thought of as part of the history of the world (and Universe) as a whole, rather than distinct from it. Similarly natural history, which would probably include dinosaurs. That is how it is generally used in common English, anyway - for example "the history of this planet", "the history of life on Earth", etc. There is no other word which I know which can cover human history and pre-human (or just non-human) history. - IMSoP 16:00, 20 Jun 2004 (UTC)

No way... It is not true... May be in English (but I doubt it). There are two uses to the same word: the scientific and the vernacular... History of the Planet, etc is vernacular, not scientific... I will modify the portuguese version (where I belong mainly)... There are other errors in this list but... OK. It is your list... Manuel Anastácio 18:55, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

---

I have tried to fill this list out, systematize it a bit more, and, in particular, make it less Euro/Anglo/Americocentric. I hope this is an improvement. -- Anon. 25 August 2004

EUROCENTRISM!

This list is extraordinarily eurocentric. Take a look at the artists and architects: they are all European/American! (OK, Frida Kahlo is Mexican) So much to add to this list, and so much to remove! Granted, this list will be Eurocentric to some degree; the world is eurocentric, it's the way most people think, and it's the information most people want, even those speaking obscure languages that do not yet have wikipedia.... However, it would be worthwhile to still include a large minority of non-Western figures. Some examples...

-Arts/Architecture: Sinan (Ottoman architect of Istanbul) -Writers: This list is better, but I might add... Lu Xun (creator of modern Chinese prose), Firdowsi (10th c. national poet of Iran), others -Social Scientists: Muhammad Iqbal, Ibn Khaldun (14th c. muslim sociologist), Zhu Xi (theorist of yin/yang, state ideologist) -Political leaders: How can politics be so Eurocentric! And the few non-Western leaders are lame, only present because they're famous in the West (eg, Saladin). Some better figures: Harun al-Rashid (caliph), Kangxi, Suleiman the Magnificent, Justinian, Taizong. -Activists: Helen Keller and Emma Goldman? I'm a fan of the latter, but she's only there because she's American- Helen Keller likewise. Some better ones: Garibaldi, Saad Zaghlul (Egyptian nationalist), Hong Xuiqan (leader of the incredible Taiping rebellion)

I take your point and was thinking some of the same things. On the other hand, there may be an argument that for learners of English it might be desirable for the topics to correspond the the sphere of influence of the English language. On the third hand, since India is the home of so many fluent speakers and students of English, maybe topics relevant to Indian culture and history deserve extra attention. Thoughts anyone?

Peatswift (talk) 04:07, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

Simple or Meta?

Just wondering, this list and the one at meta seems to have diverge quite a lot. Which one am I supposed to follow? Aurora 06:57, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

All of the lists on every language that has them have diverged quite a lot, because it was discovered that there is no possible way any group of people can dictate to every language in the world what it "should" have. The speakers of that language are the only ones who will ultimately make the decision on what their wikipedia "should" have, and not all of the lists are going to end up being Hollywood-centric like the one at meta, which is only used as a starting point, if at all.

On a related note, the list at meta used to link all of the articles on it to the simple English articles, even though a good many of them don't exist here yet. I spent months working on those specific articles here, to get them useable to speakers of foreign languages as starting points, in case anyone was using the meta list. Unfortunately, a certain user recently declared that Simple English Wikipedia was "mediocre" and changed all of the redirects to Main English, making all the months work I'd spent here seem almost a waste at one stroke... I tried to revert him over this and some other contentious neutrality issues about changes he made to the content, unfortunately he had been in chat discussions with an admin at meta who supported him and actually had me blocked for a week from meta for revert warring. He did not seek any consensus or discussion, his philosophy regarding major disputed changes, like what wikipedia to link, is apparently "change first, discuss later". In fact not long after calling Simple English "mediocre", he even signed up for an account here and began editing... Blockinblox 00:06, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

presidents and prime ministers

I think that an article for every president of the U.S and prime ministers or presidents of other countries should also be a must for any wikipedia. -Redfalcon

Adam Donaldson Powell?

Who is Adam Donaldson Powell? It was added by an anonymous user and English Wikipedia doesn't have anything on him. Archer7 16:46, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

short

While it claims a thousand topics, this list is a couple hundred short. Does this same kind of list exist on another part of Wikimedia? Rmhermen 22:49, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

I followed the above link - and found the other list - which seems to be a couple hundred past a thousand. Rmhermen 22:51, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

What about: Politicians: Henry VIII, Margaret Thatcher, Chairman Mao. Music: Elvis, Bob Dylan, Rolling Stones. --Kingboyk 09:09, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

Just now I counted 975 items on this list. --Hoziron 08:58, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Protection

Please say if you agree with the protection or semi-protection of this page. It will avoid nonsense/useful changes on the list. If we protect it, any further changes should be asked here. -- aflm (talk) 20:51, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Support

1. Some deliberation before making changes is probably worth encouraging. Freshstart 23:29, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
2. Agree with Freshstart. A change to a Wikipedia: page like this should probably be discussed, and protection might encourage that. --Keitei 23:38, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
3. Agree, per above.-- Tdxiang 08:21, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
4. Support -- Spiderpig0001 Does whatever a spiderpig can! 08:02, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Oppose

1. This will go against what this page is about and will do no good. Clanz82 20:30, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Neutral

I agree with whatever they say at en:Wikipedia:Vital articles, which at the moment doesn't have any protection on it. But isn't the definete list at meta? --User:LBMixPro^<talk|to|me> 23:45, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

In theory the meta list should be definitive, but given that it was protected over a month ago, apparently more over a content dispute/edit war than any other concern, plus that protection (IMHO) has been seriously abused by one editor that continues to make edits to it because they technically can (despite it not being kosher per policy/guidelines), it seems seriously compromised to me. (I hadn't even checked before voting above, but a quick scan of recent events over there gives me the willies.) Freshstart 00:25, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

1. I don't know whether the above is neutral or just a comment. Mine is neutral. I think protecting the page to make sure people talk about changes here first is not a bad idea, but it does kind of go against the thing that is/was at the bottom about adding what seemed important. Besides, I would guess that vandals of this page are not very common, and can be easily dealt with by our butt-kicking, Wiki-blackbelted admin vandal fighters. You guys are great! :D So I'm okay with it either way. --Cromwellt|talk 05:40, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

Over

We have almost created all the pages. Only few are left. I am sure that we shall complete them very soon. Now, we should improve all these pages. --Bhadani 15:33, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Wow!

We have done this - all the pages are now there. Few minutes before, I wrote six pages: Counter-Reformation - Decolonization - Dissolution of the Soviet Union - Meiji Restoration - European Convention on Human Rights - European Court of Human Rights. With this first part of our work is over. Now we should improve all these 1000 pages. --Bhadani 16:06, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I see that all the links are blue now. Congratulations, everyone! --DavidCary (talk) 02:54, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Kofi Annan

Kofi Annan has handed the job of UN general secretary to Ban Ki-moon, so that reference needs to change. Totnesmartin 21:05, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Done. --DizFreak 17:03, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Synchronizing with Meta again?

We finally managed to trim the list at Meta down to 1000 articles, and the list is now quite stable (without edit wars and such nonsense) at version 1.1. How do you feel about copying it here? --Yerpo (talk) 15:00, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Bold articles

Meta has a couple hundred of its articles in bold, indicating that those articles are very important to be written and be written well and throughly. Should we have bold here as well? (There's probably some good reason why we don't that I'm completely missing). Also, we're probably due for another re-sync with the Meta list, as there have been a couple of changes recently. Purplebackpack89 (talk) 18:00, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Current version

I think this list should reflect the current revision of meta:List of articles every Wikipedia should have, instead of some historic revisions that happened to recieve a "version number". Boivie (talk) 15:16, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

We do it to make sure that people aren't constantly changing it and so that we have a stable single version to refer to. Otherwise things get messy as people are constantly changing things. -DJSasso (talk) 15:23, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

All changes of the list at meta are immediately undone, unless they first are motivated and approved at the discussion page. I think the process of improving the list there has been working pretty well the last years. It' not as messy at it used to be. So I see no reason to not implement the changes until someone thinks it's time to call a version "stable". It is still the same changes that have to be done. Boivie (talk) 06:56, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

New real time list of missing articles

I suggest that you give a look to the Mix'n'match tool by Magnus Manske, and that you recommend it from this page. Thanks to Wikidata, it's able to tell you in real time what articles you're missing out of several reliable lists of relevant persons. --Nemo 17:06, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

Norman Borlaug

If you are talking about people / scientists that have made an impact on the world including the person responsible for saving over a billion lives from starvation should diffidently be grounds for inclusion on the list. Given the sheer amount of people involved and how his impact is world wide should make him notable and important enough to be included. Norman Borlaug should be on the list. Further input on the matter is encouraged.

Note where the page says "This page should include the same articles as meta:List of articles every Wikipedia should have/Version 1.3." You might want to bring this up at m:Talk:List of articles every Wikipedia should have. --Auntof6 (talk) 09:38, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Divergence from the Meta list

Since the Simple English Wikipedia has all of the articles that "every Wikipedia should have", this list doesn't have much purpose as is. I suggest that the Simple English Wikipedia should do what the English Wikipedia does with its Vital Articles lists and make this list specifically tailored to the Simple English Wikipedia and include the article quality symbols with each article so that it's possible to see what articles and areas need the most improvement. Rreagan007 (talk) 19:23, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

We actually moved on to working on Wikipedia:List of articles all languages should have/Expanded which is based on meta's list. -DJSasso (talk) 18:35, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

Changes to redirects

I added WP:VA as a redirect to go here and changed WP:H to go to Help:Contents to be consistent with the regular Wikipedia. Consider changing existing templates as needed if you wish, and suggest linking to WP:Vandalism if someone thinks that WP:VA should link there. Thank you. 209.232.149.23 (talk) 16:03, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

Replace the template

{{shortcut|WP:LOAALSH|WP:VITAL|WP:LIST--DUP|WP:HAVE}}

with {{shortcut|WP:VA|WP:LOAALSH|WP:VITAL|WP:LIST--DUP|WP:HAVE}}

I created the new redirect and an administrator removed the WP:H link, but I believe that WP:VA should be added to replace it. 209.232.149.23 (talk) 17:29, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

Article quality badges

I was reading a related list at the English Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Vital_articles/Level/2 and they have their articles badged with quality status. I think it would be very valuable here. Does anyone with more code knowledge than me know how that was done? Or have any references I could follow to take on that project myself? Peatswift (talk) 04:16, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

Our pages already are, we don't have as many levels as they do but our WP:Good articles and WP:Very good articles have badges. -Djsasso (talk) 17:17, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

Needs attention from a feminist perspective

Perhaps a bit of a review of this article is in order, for instance menstruation isn't bolded, which strikes me as a bit odd, since it regularly affects roughly 40% of the global population (excluding those past menopause that is). Perhaps other oversights exist too. Mako001 (C)  (T)  22:06, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

That's a list we've taken form somewhere. It is not on us to change it. Eptalon (talk) 15:52, 11 April 2023 (UTC)