Wikipedia talk:Vital articles

General Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Level 4 Level 5

Level 5 Subpages

People History and geography Society STEM

Introduction

The purpose of this talk page is for discussions on over-arching matters regarding vital articles, including making proposals or asking questions about procedures, policies, quotas, or other broad changes to any or all of the five levels. This page is not for proposing whether an article should be added or removed from any vital article lists, and such proposals should be posted on the following pages:

• For proposals regarding a specific individual Level 1 vital article, see Wikipedia talk:Vital articles/Level/1
• For proposals regarding a specific individual Level 2 vital article, see Wikipedia talk:Vital articles/Level/2
• For proposals regarding a specific individual Level 3 vital article, see Wikipedia talk:Vital articles/Level/3
• For proposals regarding a specific individual Level 4 vital article, see Wikipedia talk:Vital articles/Level/4
• For proposals regarding a specific individual Level 5 vital article, see the relevant sub-pages of Wikipedia talk:Vital articles/Level/5

Proposal: six-month no-revisit rule

I'd like to propose, at all five levels of VA, that if a proposal reaches consensus, you can't make a counterproposal against that for at least six months. For example, if consensus resulted in an article being added, you can't propose to remove that article for six months. If consensus resulted in an article being added, you can't propose to remove that article for six months. Etc. etc. swaps are a little more complicated though pbp 01:51, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Support

1. pbp 01:51, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

   I think this makes sense, and we should have a page of general guidelines for VA on a VA "homepage" (which I am going to try an construct when I have time). Aszx5000 (talk) 13:47, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

2. When I see a nomination that has recently been discussed, I usually ask if they would close the discussion so that we can focus on other stuff rather than rehashing what we have recently resolved. This makes complete sense.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 20:26, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Oppose

1. per Aurangzebra. It would just be an unnecessary bureaucratic hindrance for new members to engage in the project. Links or results of a previous disscusions can always be mentioned in the proposals and hopefully reflected, but mandating this as a rule feels needless. Respublik (talk) 17:57, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

   Just to illustrate the point, I would only support this if the period for auto and manual archiving in all the relevant levels would be extended to six months after a closure. Respublik (talk) 17:57, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

2. Per Respublik. We need fewer rules, not more. feminist🩸 (talk) 06:41, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
3. Having re-considered, it will be too cumbersome to police and probably not needed. Aszx5000 (talk) 17:08, 19 May 2024 (UTC)
4. I don't think adding and enforcing this rule would be useful. Mathwriter2718 (talk) 02:41, 3 August 2024 (UTC)
5. Oppose. If this rule went into effect, I would be to anxious to try and participate at all here. I tend to blunder through life as it is, and a rule like this would be broken by me on accident the day it was implemented. I'm sure this is true for other editors as well. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 20:50, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

Discussion

1. good idea in theory but in my experience (aka when I do this), it's primarily an accident and it's infeasible to expect that people search through the archives any time they want to post a proposal. Aurangzebra (talk) 19:46, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Proposal: Create AI generated summaries of each entity on the vital articles page explaining the importance of each individual.

I think it would be helpful for our readers that may question why a particular article is listed. I understand that AI has the potential to make mistakes so I would suggest doing it for a few articles and correct any errors it makes. Rather than directing to the article to figure it out themselves, it would be helpful to have a sentence or two explaining the importance of each one. Interstellarity (talk) 21:14, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

And how is AI supposed to know why something is considered vital, or why X2 is more vital than X1 in talk page consensus? Don't get me wrong, I see the viewpoint here, but it just sounds flawed. I think manual descriptions for V1-V4 listings are feasible, though V5 would certainly be a whole other beast. λ NegativeMP1 16:32, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

Since the selection of the articles were all made by users, it seems feasible for users to personally write a summation of the reasoning to annotate the vital articles list. isaacl (talk) 18:23, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

I would love to see an 'AI-sense check' on some of our Level 3 sub-sections. For example for Wikipedia:Vital Articles#Leaders and politicians, where I am sure that the AI would rank Constantine the Great  4 on a Level 3-type list of most influential leaders in history, and not some of our existing entries (per below). Aszx5000 (talk) 16:59, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

I am of the same view as User:NegativeMP1. How is any AI supposed to know what Wikipedia considers to be a vital article?! Human editors make that judgement call through discussion. Also, there are Wikipedia guidelines on the use of AI in Wikipedia which must be followed. I will try to find the link to the page. If this proposal is consistent with those guidelines, then I guess you should ignore my objections. Let me look for the link. I'll be back.--FeralOink (talk) 08:43, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

It doesn't, but as a took it would be a useful tool to sense-check against the sub-sections of Level 3 and Level 4. There might be topics that we have missed in these sub-sections that the AI would highlight, and which we could further look-into to see if the AI was right or not. thanks. 09:59, 16 July 2024 (UTC) Aszx5000 (talk) 09:59, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

VA4 articles no longer being recognised as such

Cewbot has been removing VA4 indications on VA5 pages (Special:Diff/1236359647, Special:Diff/1236541750) and setting the article counts to zero on the respective VA4 pages (Special:Diff/1236359537, Special:Diff/1236541485). Additionally, if you visit an affected VA4 article's talk page it shows up as a VA5 article.--LaukkuTheGreit (Talk•Contribs) 08:52, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

Yes, the reason is that the level 4 subpages uses “#invoke:Icon” and the bot can't recognize that format. The problem is that Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/4 doesn't show up completely, and User:Ahecht explains his solution here. A trouble is that changing to #invoke would require significant modifications to the robot's code, which could take some days, and I'd have to have some spare time to do it. This format would also interfere with manual editing. Also User:Interstellarity mentioned here about slow loading of Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/4.

My suggestion is to let Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/4 be like Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/5, with one directory and not all articles. After all, we have Wikipedia:Vital articles/List of all articles and Wikipedia:Vital articles/List of all level 1-4 vital articles to search. For level 4 subpages, back to the original syntax.

I have stopped the bot from generating lists. Kanashimi (talk) 01:15, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

Having Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/4 only be a directory seems fine to me if it would completely fix the issues. Flemmish Nietzsche (talk) 01:56, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

FWIW, before you stopped the bot, it edit-warred with me to again remove Lv 4 designations. Why exactly does ONLY Lv 4 use invoke? _pbp 03:14, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

@Purplebackpack89 looks like Jonesey95 manually switched the templates over to the module on the Level 4 subpages (I had tried it earlier as a test, but self reverted to avoid interfering with the bot). --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 04:13, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

Any editor is welcome to undo my conversion of those template calls to module calls if it is interfering with the bot. I was trying to solve a WP:PEIS problem. – Jonesey95 (talk) 13:28, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

Interstellarity has removed the lists from WP:VA4, so it is now a directory, and there won't be PEIS issues. Are Jonesey95's edits alright to be reverted? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 11:18, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

I say go ahead.--LaukkuTheGreit (Talk•Contribs) 09:19, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Kanashimi I have undone Jonesey95's edits. Cewbot should be safe to restart on this task. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 10:41, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

 Done Kanashimi (talk) 23:55, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Level 1 Proposal: Remove The arts, replace with Art

Currently proposed at Wikipedia talk:Vital articles/Level/1#Remove The arts, replace with Art. Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 22:28, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

More votes needed

Hello @JpTheNotSoSuperior, Kevinishere15, NegativeMP1, B3251, Flemmish Nietzsche, Iostn, 49p, GeogSage, and Mathwriter2718:, just a suggestion to take a look at the higher level vital article talk pages if you are free and willing, we have several proposals that need more votes to decide an outcome. Wikipedia talk:Vital articles/Level/1 ...... Wikipedia talk:Vital articles/Level/2 ...... Wikipedia talk:Vital articles/Level/3 ...... Wikipedia talk:Vital articles/Level/4. Thank you. starship.paint (RUN) 02:05, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping. I'll take a look. Mathwriter2718 (talk) 02:26, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

I have participated on VA4 before FYI, although I might check again Iostn (talk) 19:46, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

I've known about the existence of the other levels, and I've even browsed them before. The only reason I haven't contributed to them yet is that they are a lot harder to determine what is vital or not for said levels compared to V5, especially V3 and above. I'll try to take a look at V4 soon. JpTheNotSoSuperior (talk) 04:03, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

After looking at them, this is how I feel too. It seems nearly impossible to make some of these decisions. Mathwriter2718 (talk) 12:31, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

I concur Mathwriter's opinion here. Even V4 confuses me and I'm honestly too scared to make any major proposals for it, let alone V3 and above. λ NegativeMP1 21:21, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

Levels 1 and 2 have the broadest and most fundamental topics, related to very basics of life, humanity, and knowledge; levels 3 and 4 begin to have more examples of specific things like people, countries, events and (mostly on level 4) creative works - on level 3 especially the most famous/influential ones such as Shakespeare, United States, World War 2 and the Bible. Level 5 is the one I'm getting confused about, with subjects ranging from "would be on level 4 if there was more space" to "quite niche/recent but relatively influential" to countless obscurities thoughtlessly added during the level's WP:BRD era. It should develop more for me to get an intuition of where the boundary of the most important 50000 topics lies.--LaukkuTheGreit (Talk•Contribs) 07:00, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

Potential GA drive

I suggested this before but I think it would be possible to create a GA drive for the book article similar to the earlier failed one for land. It's specific enough that it wouldn't be as massive of an undertaking as most other level-3 articles. It's still in a state of disrepair but I think it has a much better structure than it used to. LarstonMarston (talk) 00:12, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

I've seen your work there, and I'd like to help out some if I can at the very least :) Remsense ‥ 论 00:13, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

That would be great! I think the biggest issue right now is sourcing. I linked some relevant books in the "further reading" section that I haven't had the time to properly go through. LarstonMarston (talk) 00:16, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

Broad-concept article

A Wikipedia:Broad-concept article is an article about a somewhat general concept, often with many potential related articles. Cleaning, Cobra, Deafness, and Diffusion are all broad-concept articles that are also tagged as vital articles.

An editor has suggested tagging more articles as BCAs at Wikipedia talk:Broad-concept article#Categorization of BCA. As there seems to be substantial overlap between vital articles and BCAs, I wanted to invite you all to join the discussion. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:18, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

Categories

Currently we are using lots of categories, many of which may be regarded as redundant. For example: the article 1 is in the following categories:

1. Category:Wikipedia level-4 vital articles
2. Category:Wikipedia vital articles in Mathematics
3. Category:GA-Class vital articles
4. Category:GA-Class level-4 vital articles
5. Category:Wikipedia level-4 vital articles in Mathematics
6. Category:GA-Class vital articles in Mathematics

Now 1 is parent category of 4 and 5. 2 is a parent category of 5 and 6. And 3 is a parent category of 4 and 6. So the question is: do we need to populate 1, 2, 3 or can these be left as container categories? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:21, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

If there are no opinions on this, then I propose to stop populating categories of type 1, 2 and 3 — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:26, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

 Done — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:43, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Articles which need attention

The following categories all contains articles which need attention from a bot or human editor. I am proposing to merge them all into Category:Wikipedia vital articles needing attention which will make it easier for people to monitor. The exact problem will be identified by the sort key (e.g. see how L is described at the top of that category page).

• Category:NA-Class vital articles (0) - indicates that the page is a redirect or disambiguation page  Done
• Category:Articles not listed in the vital article list (2) - missing from the list, so probably not actually a vital article#
• Category:Unassessed vital articles (0) - all vital articles should be assessed for quality  Done
• Category:Wikipedia level-unknown vital articles (0) - all vital articles should have a level number
• Category:Wikipedia vital articles in an unknown topic (0) - all vital articles should be identified with a valid topic

— Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:00, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

Two of the categories above have now been merged — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:58, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

New proposal: More vitality levels?

The English Wikipedia has six million articles, so why don't we have six levels of vitality? Also, maybe tweak level five to have 100,000 articles, and level six have 1,000,000, and the requirements to get into level six are similar to that of five. (10⁶=1,000,000, so about 1/6 of all articles). I believe a sixth level is important, and adjusting the 5th level continues the powers of ten. Hellow Hellow i am here 18:44, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Absolutely not. We are barely able to maintain the 50,000 vital articles we have now. And keep in mind, that's only 50,000. 1,000,000 vital articles is a completely unfathomable concept that should never be implemented. I wouldn't even support an expansion of Vital-5 from 50,000 to 100,000. Also keep in mind that the process of determining what a vital article is or isn't is determined by someone proposing the article, and then garnering enough support over the course of about a month (usually) at V5, maybe a bit longer at the higher levels. Doing that with 50,000 more articles, let alone 1,000,000, is quite literally impossible. λ NegativeMP1 18:54, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

I also agree that we struggle with Level 5 and the 50,000 articles in it. I could not see any scope that we could handle a 6th level, unless it was done by some kind of AI / Rule-based System? Sorry. Aszx5000 (talk) 10:22, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Yes, but it is effectively keeping up with the six million we already have. We have more than one-million editors, so I don't see why keeping up with one million articles is that hard. It is definitely hard, but we do have harder tasks already. Hellow Hellow i am here 18:49, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

There are maybe 15 (25 at most) editors that have any sort of involvement in vital articles. And this isn't "keeping up", and I don't see any way how this is "keeping up". Just because we are gaining more and more articles daily doesn't mean we need to expand vital articles to account for that. λ NegativeMP1 19:02, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

No, but we also have to account for the fact that there are an increasing amount of articles. It is important to realize that if you don't increase vital article count, then the amount of people who actually care about vital articles in Wikipedia, they are just 1% of all pages so you would expect few to care. Hellow Hellow i am here 19:06, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Vital article represent a small, hand selected assortment of articles that are among the most relevant subjects to an actual encyclopedia. Having 50,000 vital articles is already stretching it when you view it from that angle, and there's even been people who criticize Vital-4 (which is only 10,000). 1,000,000 (or even just 100,000) is, once again, completely unfeasible. And vital articles do not need to be expanded to accommodate for whatever articles are being made now. Vital articles should remain as the top 1% (if not less) of Wikipedia articles, not 15%.

Also keep in mind the other goal of vital articles: the maintenance part. There are already very few people who actually maintain and improve articles designated as "vital", and I am sadly part of those who don't (though I plan on changing that). And again, with flaws like this with only having 50,000 vital articles, then try to come up with any way that 1,000,000 vital articles is a feasible concept. λ NegativeMP1 19:13, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Alright, I'll help maintain. I am a new user, but I'll spot typos and find outdated data Hellow Hellow i am here 19:15, 24 October 2024 (UTC).

Besides, all articles should be maintained. It isn't like vital articles are the only articles that get outdated, any article can get outdated. Hellow Hellow i am here 19:20, 24 October 2024 (UTC) So, if we add more vital articles, more people will maintain because there are more vital articles to maintain. Hellow Hellow i am here 19:20, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Simply because you add more articles to the vital articles and improvements spill over to the vital articles as a result does not mean there will be more "vital article contributors." Widening the scope would only lead to less stability of the system as a whole, and more vital articles ≠ more vital contributions. Nub098765 (talk) 22:03, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

No you don't. Your idea would create an even bigger conceptual mess and make the idea of Vital articles even less tenable for editors who may not find it useful as is. Remsense ‥ 论 05:35, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

Really, vital articles are just articles that have a higher quality and are more important to Wikipedia, not articles that may be more useful. Usually, they are going to be equally good, because most people understand mathematics already, which means usefulness is out of the question. There is no mess by adding 950,000 vital articles to the 50000 we already have. There is no problem if these articles are organized, which level 2-5 vital articles are already organized. Hellow Hellow i am here 13:03, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

The entire point of this project is to create a roadmap for the site that is comprehensible and navigable by interested editors. Otherwise, there is literally no reason for it to exist. You may as well say "every article is important". Remsense ‥ 论 20:03, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm convinced that you're either not being serious at this point, or genuinely do not know how the vital articles process works. Nobody wants to manage (or even find and add) 950,000 more vital articles, do you hear yourself right now? λ NegativeMP1 16:28, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

I hear myself perfectly fine. Look, every article is important, but some are definitely more important than others. I said what I said, and I mean what I mean. 950,000 articles is less than the total amount of articles on even the Russian Wikipedia. Hellow Hellow i am here 16:03, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

Can't chat long, but can I make a compromise suggestion? And this would apply for anyone interested in expanding the VA lists further. If you really want to see more vitality levels, your best bet would probably be to draw up, on your User page, a plan for how to make a list of that size scale.

Come up with the most specific, granular points you can, in all aspects: policies, procedures, technology, etc. Then slowly introduce those points (no more than one open proposal at a time) at Level 5.

Like almost everyone else here, I don't see the value in a Level 6, and I'm also on the record that I'd personally like to see Level 5 cut down some. I do contribute on-and-off at Level 5 though, and I do believe there is a place for it. The real problem with Level 5 (and I suspect even Level 4 to a degree) is that things just don't work the same at that scale.

If you focus on specific solutions to the scaling problem though, you not only make a Level 6 more likely in time, but we also avoid retreading this discussion and you help out the bigger lists we already have. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 15:26, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

We need to spend more time actually writing/editing the articles we have as it is. Trying to argue over a list that big sounds like an absolute nightmare. Maybe if we have ten times the number of active Wikipedia editors in a century we can discuss it. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 02:25, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

What we should have is a 20,000, 30,000 and 40,000 list. And if 50,000 ever stabilizes, THEN AND ONLY THEN create a 60,000. _pbp 00:03, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

That actually sounds smart. However, the 20,000, 30,000, and 40,000 lists aren't necessary. Hellow Hellow i am here 13:04, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

When we get 50,000 articles to be at least rated C or better, and 10,000 B or better, then I'd agree. Until then, we should focus on making a really solid 50,000 "Vital" articles. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 02:30, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

Expanding the VA list would become a logistical nightmare for the reasons I and others explained in the Oppose section here.--LaukkuTheGreit (Talk•Contribs) 09:38, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

What is wrong with that? I just looked at the previous potential expansion and the support side had great reasoning. The oppose side also had good reasoning, but we will reach ten million articles within our lifetime, unlike what is said in the discussion.--13:08, 25 October 2024 (UTC) Hellow Hellow i am here 13:08, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

Is this pitched enough to be called a perennial proposal yet? Hyperbolick (talk) 06:58, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

Yes. The Blue Rider 22:47, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

Most Wikipedia editors already think this project is a joke, specially the level 5 level for being too broad and arbitrary so adding yet another level would worsen the project's perception. The Blue Rider 22:47, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

Has the VA target icon disappeared from articles

I think that the VA target icon has disappeared from articles (i.e. the one that appeared beside the GA/FA icon for logged in editors)? thanks. Aszx5000 (talk) 21:00, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Yes, it seems like it has. I looked at random level 2 and 3 vital articles to find that. Hellow Hellow i am here 16:26, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

Not sure I remember seeing it there. Was this some kind of gadget or script? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:37, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

It was a script, I believe, and yes it is not working anymore :( The Blue Rider 15:48, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps User:Nardog/VitalTopicon.js? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:46, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

That script would have been impacted by the changes in the Categories topic above. It uses the top level categories (such as Category:Wikipedia level-1 vital articles) that have been depopulated. -- JLaTondre (talk) 20:56, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

I have been informed by Nardo that this has been resolved. Can anyone confirm? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:36, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

Yes, it is working again, thanks! The Blue Rider 19:05, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

Bolding?

Can someone explain why some vital articles are bolded on Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/5 etc., and others are not? We avoid bolding in articles for a reason—it's not generally very clear what it indicates! It seems completely arbitrary: isn't the point of this that we have five tiers? The only thing I can imagine is there's this secret tier 4.5 that's been invented but not described somehow. — Remsense ‥ 论 05:34, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

The bolded articles are ones that are level 4 or lower; for some reason only some of them are actually marked as lower than level 5. Flemmish Nietzsche (talk) 06:09, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

See, I really should've intuited there were a lot fewer Level 4s than there should've been. Guh. Remsense ‥ 论 06:09, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

The bot handling the markings of higher-level articles for some reason began doing it inconsistently several days ago, removing most parenthetical such notes. I forgot to report it.--LaukkuTheGreit (Talk•Contribs) 06:39, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia talk:Article alerts § Vital articles bug?

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Article alerts § Vital articles bug?. Sdkb ^talk 18:26, 31 October 2024 (UTC)