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Archive 20

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Hello everyone, I have opened a peer review for human history. I have been prepping it for GA for a while and would love your feedback. Cerebellum ( talk) 09:39, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

That's great, thank you for your initiative. I will take a look when I have the chance. — The Blue Rider 10:16, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

Why did so much stuff get archived to level 5 archive 13 today when archive 14 and 15 exist already?- TonyTheTiger ( T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 04:26, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

Could you please post level 5-specific queries to the talk page there? Better yet, take the matter up directly with whoever did the archiving. Thank you, Cobblet ( talk) 04:50, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

There was both a bot and a user involved. I will post to level 5.- TonyTheTiger ( T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 04:54, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

I have made changes that sort the African and European countries by region until I was reverted. As a regular member of vital articles, I always try to think of better ways to organize the list better. I sorted the Asian countries by region since Asia is the continent where a lot of countries on our list are. It is also the largest and most populated continent containing the majority of the world's population. I wasn't too keen on sorting the other continents, but I think sorting the African and European countries since they are the second and third most populous continents would help organize things better. I think it would help us regarding the regions of the world are overrepresented and underrepresented for future country nominations. I don't think it is necessary to sort the North American, South American, and Oceanian countries by region, since we don't list that many countries in that region. I hope we can have a civil discussion on whether this change would be beneficial to the vital articles project. Looking forward to your comments. Interstellarity ( talk) 13:24, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

The more we fuss over sorting the articles on the list, the more potential for controversy there is (e.g., the UK can be considered part of Western or Northern Europe, and Germany and Poland are often both regarded as Central European countries, not Western/Eastern), and the more we distract people from the content of the list, which is our only actual mandate. It has been over two years since we last added a country to the list, and at that time it was clear that there was no consensus to add more countries beyond the ones we now have. I see no evidence whatsoever that the consensus has changed, so the idea that this sort of overclassification will aid future country nominations is farfetched. Please leave well enough alone. You're welcome to use your own userspace to reformat the lists to your heart's content, but this page is highly visible and treating it like your own sandbox is inappropriate and unproductive. Cobblet ( talk) 15:12, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

Both Europe and Africa have 9 or less articles currently. Under the 7 ± 2 rule, the sublists are of a manageable size and further divisions are not necessary. Also agree with Cobblet. Very different to VA4 because of the 10x higher number of articles on average there. Gizza ( talk) 04:41, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

I can not find that.... Was disussion about it? Dawid2009 ( talk) 14:50, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

There may not have been a discussion on adding Wikipedia, but removing it was discussed and rejected: Wikipedia talk:Vital articles/Level/4/Archive 27#Remove Wikipedia. Cobblet ( talk) 15:10, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

Do other languages have Vital article lists?- TonyTheTiger ( T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 15:46, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

Please see d:Q43375360 and d:Q5460604. Cobblet ( talk) 17:38, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

User:Cobblet, that is kind of helpful, but I don't read some of those languages. It seems some languages have 1000 core articles and others have a level-based system of vital articles like ours. I am really just concerned about how many languages have level based systems that extend to at least level 4 with 10,000.- TonyTheTiger ( T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 18:23, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

d:Q6173448 and d:Q50087590. Cobblet ( talk) 19:02, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Vital articles/Level/5 § Split talk page. -- Grnrchst ( talk) 15:13, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

The number of articles by quality ranking is listed as: GA, C, DGA, B, FFA, FA, FGAN, Start, A, FFAC, FFLC. This is completely random. It should be ranked by quality, or otherwise by number at each level. Kk.urban ( talk) 22:28, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

Which page are you talking about? — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 13:50, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

@ MSGJ The table in the summary section Kk.urban ( talk) 16:33, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

I don't even know what FFAC and FFLC mean. That is produced by bot, so will need the attention of @ Kanashimi — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 18:47, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

I added the order of the icons to the settings page and that should solve the problem. Kanashimi ( talk) 00:17, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing this! Kk.urban ( talk) 20:44, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

In my opinion, no proposal voting should be closed until at least 7 days have passed since the last comment. This enables all discussants to react to other discussants and be reacted to by all other discussants. This will ensure that no important comments get swept under the rug. Do I need to bring this to a vote or can we come to a simple agreement on this.- TonyTheTiger ( T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 22:09, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

Maybe I should restrict this discussion to level 5, where are closing rules are being re-evaluated along several dimensions. I am going to move this discussion to WT:VA5. Sorry for the bother.-04:58, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

I know the vital articles list has been around for over 15 years, almost 20 years now. I think it would be nice to compare the lists from 5 years ago, 10 years ago, and 15 years ago, and now so we can see how the list has evolved over time.

• 2008 list: https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Wikipedia:Vital_articles&oldid=246731795
• 2013 list: https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Wikipedia:Vital_articles&oldid=579410055
• 2018 list: https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Wikipedia:Vital_articles&oldid=864860903
• 2023 list: https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Wikipedia:Vital_articles&oldid=1181476611

I think comparing these lists with one another will help with whether our current system of getting consensus for new additions and removals is working. Do you think the list has gotten better with time or do you think it has gotten worse with time? I look forward to your feedback. Interstellarity ( talk) 12:21, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

BTW, I think there is mistake at FAQ as name level 4 has been introduced in 2017 meanwhile for ears the level 4 was named colloqiually "expanded list" (or wp:vital articles/expanded).

I would also add more info to th FAQ as wp:VA raised attention in various places. Somone at talk page on level 4 said about gamr called "Regardle" (version of worldle) based on wp:vital. Vital rticles appeared at least once in signpost, (Sdkb said that somewhere, not remember when), same with pantheon.world. In 2017 one user from University of Minosetta (former meta member, and along with operator of Suggest Bot) started projet about automatic importance clarification and in 2022 university of Minosetta created also Paper articl whch was also used in refference here, and which we discuss above. Dawid2009 ( talk) 20:37, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Vital articles/Level/2 § Remove Country, Add State. Interstellarity ( talk) 00:50, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

I'm not aware of any previous discussion about this paper on this talk page or anywhere else on Wikipedia, but this was just too interesting to not share: there was a 28-page, WMF-sanctioned paper on this Vital Articles project published late last year in the ACM journal Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction. The paper is titled "We Need a Woman in Music": Exploring Wikipedia's Values on Article Priority and is authored by researchers from the University of Minnesota, including Loren Terveen. It can be read on arXiv. I believe this is the first and only academic paper about this project. (I have absolutely no affiliation with this paper; I only stumbled upon it by chance.)

The paper uses the lists of articles produced by this project as well as these very talk page discussions as proxies for what the Wikipedia community in general considers important: Through examination of VA participant demographics, we find that the vast majority of editors who engage in VA talk page discussions are highly experienced, and thus likely to be concerned with the needs of the encyclopedia as a whole. The authors qualitatively classify the criteria that editors use for curating these lists, quantitatively analyze how balanced these lists are in terms of gender and geography, and discuss what biases the authors of these lists may or may not have.

Notably, the paper also anonymously quotes many members of this project, including a choice quote from GuzzyG right in the title.

Although the paper was published in 2022, most of the analysis appears to have been based on this project's status as of July 2020. I've summarized some of the paper's findings as they relate to this project below. (There are some other parts of the paper about recommender systems that I haven't included.)

They find that participants are highly experienced and skew male:

While VA is a convenient source of focused discussions between Wikipedians on how articles should be prioritized according to the encyclopedia's values, its participants are not a representative cross-section of all English Wikipedia editors, so it is worth going over their general demographics. Of the 794 editors we identify as ever having participated in VA talk page discussions, 79 have administrator privileges. For reference, only 1,119 accounts total have administrator privileges on English Wikipedia. Even the non-administrators on VA are highly active and involved, however; VA participants have a median edit count of 6,419 on English Wikipedia—significantly higher than the median edit count of 2 for all registered accounts. While this highly-experienced editor population is more likely to espouse the encyclopedia's current values, it is certainly not representative.

...

This more experienced editor population, perhaps unsurprisingly, skews heavily male. Of those who report a gender on their profile, only 7.1% report they are women, compared to the 12.9% who so identify on Wikipedia as a whole. This belies what is likely to be the actual gender distribution on VA, however, as men may be more likely to report gender on Wikipedia than women. 40% of VA participants report their gender as compared with only 2% of Wikipedians overall, so the true difference in editor gender balance between VA and English Wikipedia as a whole is likely to be even more pronounced than our figures suggest.

They categorize criteria that participants use for determining an article's vitality into importance criteria (an article's importance based on its inherent characteristics) and global criteria (an article's ability to promote or impede the encyclopedia's values with regards to the global composition of high-quality content), but find that these criteria sometimes conflict with each other. The below table is copied from Meta-Wiki:

Criteria used by Vital articles contributors to justify an article's priority.

Importance Criterion	Example Quote
Everyday Significance	"An activity [sleep] that takes up 1/3 of your lifetime seems to be pretty vital to me."
Cultural Significance	"Sports have in some form been a part of the vast majority of cultures for much of there history."
Historical Significance	"The concept [bourgeoisie] has had a massive role in human history."
Enduring Significance	"The repercussions [of the 2019-20 coronavirus pandemic] will be felt for many decades, at the very least."
Breadth	"Folklore is the broader and more fundamental article [compared to Myth]."
Global Criterion	Example Quote
Balance	"If sport receives enough support then I think we should add an almost equivalent female dominated activity to balance things out (maybe dance)."
Non-redundancy	"Everything on Earth is covered by Earth, and everything beyond Earth is of interest pretty much only for astronomy, which is covered by Science."
Completeness	"The only type of activism we lack is women's rights - of which i would support Emmeline Pankhurst."

They find a relatively low representation of women, and that prioritizing articles according to this project would lower the percentage of featured articles about women:

16.5% of VA's biographies are about women, which initially seems fairly close to the 18.5% figure on English Wikipedia as a whole. Breaking it down further, however, reveals very low representation of women among biographies at higher levels. At level 3, we find that a mere 8.9% of VA's biographies are about women, and level 4 is only slightly higher at 10.8%.

...

VA, meanwhile, has the strongest negative effect on women's representation, bringing it down to 14.7% of FA biographies. VA’s effect on the representation of women would begin to reverse once editors reached level 5 but, at the current rate, reaching level 5 would take approximately 4 decades. Given that Wikipedia has a constant stream of important new information to document at high quality—e.g., as previously mentioned, 2019-20 coronavirus pandemic was added to level 4 in 2020—we find it unlikely that the higher levels would stay static for long enough to ever necessitate that editors use level 5 to prioritize.

They find that this project does quite well when it comes to geography:

VA participants see the inclusion of broader articles at higher VA levels as more consistent with the encyclopedia's values.

...

[A]mong articles that are not region-neutral, VA also far outperforms all our metric-based rankings in representation of the Global South.

They find that the low representation of women may be due to editors' self-focus bias and the effort to create a compelling proposal:

We were surprised to find such a sharp drop in the representation of women among VA's higher level biographies, especially given our discovery of gender balance as one of the encyclopedia's values in our qualitative study of VA.

...

[F]or an article to be included in VA, an editor must take the initiative to create a decently compelling proposal for it. This barrier to entry may exacerbate self-focus bias in the context of VA because editors are more likely to go through the trouble of introducing proposals for articles relating to topics they pay closer attention to, despite their ideological support for gender balance in the abstract.

They allow that history may account for the discrepancy between representation of gender and geography:

Alternatively, [the discrepancy] could be due to the focus on enduring significance and differences in the degrees to which power has historically varied along geopolitical versus along gender lines. While places in the Global North do currently have more power—and therefore perceived importance—than those in the Global South, the geopolitical landscape has varied substantially throughout history. Egypt, for example, is classified as Global South irrespective of Ancient Egypt's substantial political and cultural power many centuries ago. By contrast, women have consistently been underrepresented among those in power throughout all of history and all or most civilizations. Thus, when looking at long-term/enduring significance, historical power dynamics may create stronger filters along the lines of gender than of geography. While we find this plausible as a partial explanation, however, more specific study of this is necessary to draw any firm conclusions.

They conclude with the following:

[W]e demonstrate that the community's gender demographics can prevent it from actualizing the encyclopedia's values, lending further credibility to feminist critiques of Wikipedia.

I'm not sure if I totally agree with the conclusion, but I thought that this paper was intriguing enough to bring up. It's also pretty neat that this project has enough external visibility to be the subject of a whole paper. Malerisch ( talk) 22:27, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

I think they were on the right track when they were talking about power. For most of human history, men have held a disproportionate number of positions of power. Most political rulers and military leaders have been men. As well as most skilled professionals such as scientists, philosophers, doctors, etc. When you are constructing a list of biographical articles that covers all of human history, then men will be disproportionately represented. Rreagan007 ( talk) 23:02, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Careful with the "most skilled professionals" part... the number of women who have been shut out of Nobel Prizes their male counterparts received, for example, suggests that it's less "who did the work and knew things" and more who was recorded as getting credit. Which, still entirely goes to the point of Wikipedia articles skewing male because history has skewed male. But the way we talk about how that happens does shape what we consider important to pay attention to going forward. - Darker Dreams ( talk) 01:17, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

I was mainly referring to pre-1900. There just weren't very many women in the highly skilled professions back then. Even in the 1950s, female doctors were relatively rare. Rreagan007 ( talk) 02:01, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

@ Malerisch: Thanks for posting this here! I actually recently did a similar analysis of VA women's representation for the Women in Green project and found similar results (only off by a single decimal, really). This actually spurred me to add a number of women (including what I thought were some glaring omissions) to our list of scientists, which helped bring women's representation in the category up from 6.1% to 8.3%. And that category's not even at quota yet!

It's fantastic to hear that VA actually does relatively well on geographic distribution. While I have found that the United States places the highest in every single category of VAs, even outweighing entire continents in some sections, I think this is something that can be refined over time.

I do agree with its conclusion that community demographics can influence content demographics, so think we should always be attempting to bring more people with different perspectives into this project. Hell, it's part of why I'm here in the first place. While I don't think we'll ever achieve "perfect" representation, to be set by some target or quota (which is hard to judge, per the above comments on historical factors), we should certainly be striving towards better representation. Basically, I think we should see it as a direction to move in, rather than a rigidly-defined end goal. -- Grnrchst ( talk) 21:24, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for linking to your analysis! If anything, your percentages are more accurate since they're more recent—their numbers are probably over three years old at this point.

I also agree that there's room for improvement on geography, though I'll say that there's less US bias on level 4 than there was years ago. (I can't speak for level 5.) I've nominated a decent share of Americans and supported others for removal in the past.

I don't think the authors of this paper have published the lists of articles generated using their own methods ( PageRank, page views, and edit count) that they used to compare, but IMO previous attempts at algorithmically creating lists of significant people using Wikipedia data, such as Who's Bigger? and Pantheon, produced lists that were much worse than the vital article lists not just geographically, but also in general. For example, the former has George W. Bush as the 36th most important person of all time, while the latter considers Jimmy Carter as the second most important US president and 93rd most important person overall. It's very possible that the authors came to their conclusion about geography just because their own lists were not very good and not because the vital article lists are particularly balanced. Malerisch ( talk) 13:29, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

Good to see you around User:Malerisch, and thanks for alerting us to this article. It's interesting that people find this project worthy of academic study. Cobblet ( talk) 01:05, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

I found that quote in the article interesing We therefore support Menking and Rosenberg’s revised version of the third pillar—“The integrity of Wikipedia is a function of the size and breadth of its community.”. To compare Wikipedia with something other (start of the article is Wikipedia—like most peer production communities—suffers from a basic problem: the amount of work that needs to be done); Regarding Britannica's perspective; they put in their 2019's top 100 women list: 13 vistioners/religious figures and just 9 performers/musicians and 8 artists (It is also noteworthy regarding their/our "completness as part of global crterias" Channel in the same category what Khalo on Britannica - both are considered artist). It is also ńoteworthy that top 100 Britannica has as many more visionaries women asthan women writers (14 vistionaries and respectively 13 writers) what is rigth with original @ Zelkia1101: philosophies in the past that balance beetwen writers and religious figures (men or women) should be quite comparable/stable. Dawid2009 ( talk) 21:27, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

What's up with that category? There is some stuff there that should be vital, but is it? Are those artifacts of some improper additions/removal from the lists? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 08:19, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

• Every time I have seen it, it has been an artifact of improper remval.- TonyTheTiger ( T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 06:43, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

  @ TonyTheTiger Should we restore all of them? Or vote on them for V5 at least? There were a few items there that I wanted to suggest to add to V5, but I did not as I was puzzled by this category ( Freddy Krueger, Popeye, and looking at the list, I certainly see some other stuff that looks V5 to me). _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 06:49, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

  User:Piotrus, I assumed that they were properly demoted from VA based on vitality although not closed properly. I'll get back to you with a list. The only one I remember was Aquaman. The others were mostly movies that are not vital, IMO.- TonyTheTiger ( T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 02:54, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

  here are the others.- TonyTheTiger ( T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 03:00, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

  @ TonyTheTiger Thanks, but I am not sure what the link above proves? Where they added improperly (a template was added ot the talkpage with no discussion and nobody editing the Vital list)? If not, shouldn't we link to the removal discussions? Personally I think Ghostbusters, RoboCop and The Thing are likely at V5 level. Where were they discussed (if anywhere)? Constructively, we should have a talk page notice template that an article was added/removed from Vital list, just like for GA/FA. And the Vital list for each entry should link the relevant discussion. Yes, I know, it is a major undertaking to implement this, but we should seriously consider this. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:10, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

  I was just cleaning up. Feel free to initiate any appropriate corrective action.- TonyTheTiger ( T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 05:18, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

  I concur. Even if something is moved down a level it should have a former designation. I think VA should be included in {{ Article history}}.- TonyTheTiger ( T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 05:21, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

• User:Piotrus, I have done some digging. It seems that when User:Cewbot discovers a talk page that has {{Vital article}} for an article that is no longer listed, it erases the level rather than erases the template from the talk page. If we could get User:Cewbot to erase the template from such pages, this category might suddenly become vacant or almost so.- TonyTheTiger ( T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 04:12, 11 December 2023 (UTC)
  • E.g. with this edit, Thor (Marvel Comics), Daredevil (Marvel Comics character), Wolverine (character) and Aquaman all were delisted from VA5 on February 13, 2020. Cewbot noticed this on all four pages on March 24, 2020 and removed the level parameter number. I have since removed the template from Aquaman, but the others remain in this category.- TonyTheTiger ( T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 04:20, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

    @ TonyTheTiger Good find. Ping bot operator @ User:Kanashimi. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 08:03, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

    We could just edit the template so it that doesn't appear unless level is specified. But all this will be resolved when we merge the template into the banner shell anyway. — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 08:11, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

    Maybe the code wasn't good enough at that time. The whole template should be deleted later, like here. Kanashimi ( talk) 09:45, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

    • User:Kanashimi can the bot go back around remove the whole template from any article that is not listed at VA.- TonyTheTiger ( T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 15:03, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

      Of course. But the task is pending approval. Kanashimi ( talk) 21:32, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

      User:Kanashimi, how long do these approvals take?- TonyTheTiger ( T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 18:51, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

      It depends on the processing of the BAG. Usually it takes a few months... Kanashimi ( talk) 21:38, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

As part of the merge of Template:Vital article into Template:WikiProject banner shell (discussed here and here) I propose to create a machine-readable list of all vital articles, possibly in JSON format. Module:Banner shell will then be able to read this list and provide the relevant details on the article's talk page. I've started a list at Wikipedia:Vital articles/list but if this is to contain all vital articles then it will be a big task. Is there a similar list somewhere else that could be adapted? — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 08:19, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

@ Kanashimi — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 08:20, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

I think maybe I can do that. But I need a proper JSON template. Kanashimi ( talk) 23:30, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

Hi Kanashimi:

1. Does your bot use the "topic" parameter at all? What is the purpose of that parameter?
2. Does your bot use the "subpage" parameter at all?
3. What do you mean by a JSON template?

— Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 13:02, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

These two parameters are the ones that the template originally needed to display the exact link. You can refer to the source code of the template. The robot traverses all pages without using these two parameters.

JSON template means for example to use {"title 1":"data 1","title 2":"data 2"} or {"create date":"","articles":[null,["article of leval 1"],["article of leval 2"]]} or others. It depends on the lua code. Kanashimi ( talk) 22:56, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

Is the list I've started at Wikipedia:Vital articles/list suitable? We can add the "subpage" too, if it's needed. — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 08:40, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

I suggest writing out the lua code first, so that we know how to do it better. Kanashimi ( talk) 09:57, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

The list that bot is now creating can be seen Wikipedia:Vital articles/List of all articles and Wikipedia:Vital articles/List of all level 1–4 vital articles. Kanashimi ( talk) 00:26, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

If the JSON page is updated then we could create all the other lists automatically with Lua — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 13:02, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

Sure. I suggest writing the lua code first. Kanashimi ( talk) 22:57, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

Please see Template talk:WikiProject banner shell § Embedding the vital article template and Template:WikiProject banner shell/testcases for some examples — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 12:34, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

Some discussion on technicalities is continuing at User talk:CX Zoom#User:CX Zoom/Vital.json — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 12:55, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

@ MSGJ: Got some of it at User:CX Zoom/Vital. Article titles with characters preceding "A" and "A" itself are currently uploaded. Would you like to run any testcase on the jsons/article talk page before I upload the rest? — CX Zoom[he/him] ^{( let's talk • { C• X})} 20:49, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

Great, thanks for your work on this. Do you mind if I move into project space and then I will start some testing? I guess "0" is for any non-alphabetic character. — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 20:53, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

Sure, you can move it where you'd like to. I'll upload the rest there. "0" is for characters which comes before "A" in Unicode. For characters after "Z", I'll use, maybe, "Post-Z"? — CX Zoom[he/him] ^{( let's talk • { C• X})} 21:23, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

This would need some bot assistance for maintenance though. Especially when pages are moved around from one location to another. I assume, we can add PageID to the details of each article, so that bots have an easier time tracking the article during swap moves, etc. — CX Zoom[he/him] ^{( let's talk • { C• X})} 21:32, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

I suggest Wikipedia:Vital articles/list/A.json, etc. Tests working on Template:WikiProject banner shell/testcases, except for the link to Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/5/Arts/Literature which doesn't exist. — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 22:10, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

All level 4 topics and 5 of the level 5 topics (Arts, History, Philosophy and religion, Technology, Mathematics) don't have any subpages. I'll incline towards removing the "subpage" data for these articles if it is not needed. — CX Zoom[he/him] ^{( let's talk • { C• X})} 22:15, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

If there is no subpage then there shouldn't be a subpage parameter - or am I missing something? — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 22:27, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

I have moved those first two lists into project space. Are the others ready yet? Can I ask how you compiled the subpage field? For example, on Talk:A Confederacy of Dunces there is no |subpage= but on Wikipedia:Vital articles/list/A.json there is "subpage": "Literature". Is it based on the layout of Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/5/Arts? If so, perhaps section or subsection would be better? It would be useful to have some comments from Kanashimi about how the layout is encoded for the bot. — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 21:44, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

I have the entire list ready on the laptop, but I don't have access to it right now. I'll upload all of it in 10-12 hours time. For "subpage" field, I used the subpage name for the L5 topics that are split into multiple pages; for other L4/5 articles, I just used the first subtopic name. — CX Zoom[he/him] ^{( let's talk • { C• X})} 21:49, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. Maybe use "subtopic" then, unless there actually is a subpage — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 21:51, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

Sure. — CX Zoom[he/him] ^{( let's talk • { C• X})} 21:52, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

I create some test cases, Wikipedia:Vital articles/data/A.json, Wikipedia:Vital articles/data/Topic hierarchy.json Kanashimi ( talk) 13:34, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

Why are the level 2 articles also in level 3, level 4 and level 5? — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 15:16, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

Yes, like Ang Lee is listed Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/4/People as well as Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/5/People/Entertainers, directors, producers, and screenwriters. Of course, I could have listed only the highest grades. But listing them all has the advantage of knowing exactly how many levels the article is listed in. Kanashimi ( talk) 22:29, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

Surely each article should only be listed at one level? If it is listed at level 3, then it is redundant in the extreme to also list it at level 4 ... — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 23:24, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

It's not a problem. I can change the program code if necessary. Kanashimi ( talk) 23:34, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

Yes please, I think this should be changed. I have been waiting for @ CX Zoom to return to the discussion but he/she seems to be AWOL so I will recode the template to use your lists instead. — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 20:21, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

Is it possible to combine the non-Roman charcters like Wikipedia:Vital articles/data/Ō.json, Wikipedia:Vital articles/data/Ğ.json and Wikipedia:Vital articles/data/".json? CX Zoom was planning to group them into a "pre-0" and a "post-z" group, or maybe just one "other" group if there are not too many of them. — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 20:27, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

'other' or 'others'? Kanashimi ( talk) 23:14, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

 Fixed Temporary use Wikipedia:Vital articles/data/others.json. Kanashimi ( talk) 23:13, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

I think it would be still helpful to have all levels listed, for example, for the new template {{ Vital article link}} (see discussion below). For example, if the article is of level 3, then one might still want to see its context among level 4 articles, or to see which page/section it belongs over there. I do not think this would affect the Banner shell code that much, since then you would just need to take the first element of the list. This would also not increase the file size significantly, since most articles are only listed on level 5. — Kammerer55 ( talk) 13:19, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

What are you using detailed_level for? In most cases it matches to LEVEL/TOPIC/SUBPAGE but not always. For Ang Lee, it is 5/People/Entertainers, directors, producers, and screenwriters but subpage is Entertainers — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 15:18, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

The detailed_level parameter is to link to the list page accurately. The way I'm using now is to read the list page and then get the page name and chapter name to categorize it. topic and subpage are actually converted from User:Cewbot/log/20200122/configuration#Topics instead of relying on reading the talk page of the article one by one. In fact, I've been wondering why something like 5/People/Entertainers, directors, producers, and screenwriters can't be set to subpage=Entertainers, directors, producers, and screenwriters, so that there is less conversion process. Kanashimi ( talk) 22:46, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

I agree - that would be simpler and perhaps slightly more efficient — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 23:25, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

Break

I have coded Module:Banner shell/sandbox to use subpages of Wikipedia:Vital articles/data and it seems to be working well. — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 15:43, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

• The following aliases have been hard-coded into the module. Am I missing any? I think it would be preferable if these could be changed in the data files. — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 15:45, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

topic = {
	Science = 'Physical sciences',
	Society = 'Society and social sciences',
	Biology = 'Biological and health sciences',
	Philosophy = 'Philosophy and religion'
},
subpage = {
	Sports = 'Sports, games and recreation',
	Artists = 'Artists, musicians, and composers',
	Entertainers = 'Entertainers, directors, producers, and screenwriters',
	['Military leaders'] = 'Military personnel, revolutionaries, and activists',
	Activists = 'Military personnel, revolutionaries, and activists',
	Philosophers = 'Philosophers, historians, political and social scientists',
	Politicians = 'Politicians and leaders',
	Scientists = 'Scientists, inventors, and mathematicians',
	Writers = 'Writers and journalists',
	Journalists = 'Writers and journalists',
	Entertainers = 'Entertainers, directors, producers, and screenwriters',
	Basics = 'Basics and measurement'
}

• A lot of articles have level 5, topic="Technology", but no subpage. Is that correct? — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 15:48, 23 November 2023 (UTC)
• 1 is marked level 4 but there is no topic — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 15:55, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

  See Wikipedia:Database reports/Vital articles update report Kanashimi ( talk) 15:56, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

  Article 1 is not listed there? — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 16:00, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

  Search "Please set the topic in User:Cewbot/log/20200122/configuration#Topics", they are all missed. Kanashimi ( talk) 22:51, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

  I would suggest to just use the section name of the article in the VA list and eliminate the topic/subpage. Kanashimi ( talk) 15:58, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

  Okay, how would that work exactly? — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 15:59, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

  e.g.,

topic = {
	['Physical sciences'] = 'Physical sciences',
	['Society and social sciences'] = 'Society and social sciences',
	...
},
subpage = {
	['Sports, games and recreation'] = 'Sports, games and recreation',
	['Artists, musicians, and composers'] = 'Artists, musicians, and composers',
	...
}

If we do a map conversion, we'll have to maintain the conversion table forever. We might as well not convert at all. Kanashimi ( talk) 22:54, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

I agree the above map is totally pointless! So can you change all the subpage parameters in the JSON pages to match the actual pages? Then I can remove the alias map. — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 09:14, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

Sure. I reorganized the lists. Kanashimi ( talk) 11:10, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

You've confused me again.

• Autonomic nervous system has level 5, topic "Biology" and also sublist "Biology". Shouldn't the topic be "Biological and health sciences"?
• Agriculture has level 2, but no topic. Is that correct - currently it has topic "Society"?

— Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 13:20, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

Yes, there was a problem. I changed it, and now it works like "level/topic/sublist#section". Kanashimi ( talk) 15:16, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

Looks good. I'll add this new structure to the module code. — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 15:59, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

It is great to have the section anchors. However they don't seem to be working. For example Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/5/Arts#Literary fiction doesn't take me to the literary fiction section, do you know why? — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 23:12, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

Okay the reason is that the correct link would be Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/5/Arts#Literary fiction (134 articles). So I think the number of articles could be removed from the heading. — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 23:17, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

I think `.trimmed_link` will meet your needs. Kanashimi ( talk) 00:45, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

That's nice but I would prefer a stable link that would be easier to maintain. As soon as the number of articles changes, the link will need updating again. So I would suggest (a) remove the number of articles from the heading - we can display this information somewhere else, or (b) use an anchor as Kammerer55 suggests below. I will start a separate discussion on this to see what people think — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 09:37, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

Basically the title will now be changed by the bot, and the bot will change the json data immediately. So the trimmed_link should be up to date. The bot should also be able to add anchors automatically... Kanashimi ( talk) 10:00, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

Eventually, when {{ Vital article}} has been merged into {{ WikiProject banner shell}} these lists will become the master list, so curated by humans not bot. Therefore we should keep the structure as simple as possible. — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 10:45, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

Yes, it would be great to have more stable anchors in the VA lists, so that we could link to the proper headers from the discussions as well. (Maybe {{ Anchor}} might also help?) Kammerer55 ( talk) 01:47, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

At levels 1 and 2, the topic is not needed to make the link, but it is needed to populate categories such as Category:Wikipedia vital articles in Philosophy. So please can you put it back? I will recode the module to only use it for the link when needed — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 10:43, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

Please check to see if the current listing is what you are looking for. Kanashimi ( talk) 11:14, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

Break 2

Few final comments from me:

• Level 1: I think section "Level 1 vital articles" is superfluous, could easily be removed
• Level 1: we do need the topic though, for categorisation purposes
• Level 2: looks good. I think eventually we should synchonise topic and section for simplicity. This would mean moving a few categories.
• Trimmed link: I still prefer not to use these. My post at #Number of articles in headings has not received any comment yet, so perhaps if no one minds we can remove the number of articles so we can have a stable link? I am also a bit concerned about the size of some of these json pages.

— Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 08:18, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

 Fixed Kanashimi ( talk) 11:21, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

You're quick, thanks! — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 12:29, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Just to clarify, what's the main purpose of section? Is it just to generate the link, or is it needed for categorization as well? Kammerer55 ( talk) 18:43, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

The "section" temporarily points to the section of the article in the list of vital articles. Now I'm using trimmed_link to point to the detailed location, but MSGJ has a different plan and is still discussing it. Kanashimi ( talk) 20:15, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

I see. If we need it just to make a link, then IMHO it would make sense to just use the "trimmed link" instead of sublist and section to avoid duplications. So we would basically have topic for categorization purposes and trimmed link or just link for linking purposes. Kammerer55 ( talk) 20:48, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

One way to save on json file sizes would be, for example, to use redirect pages for main subtopics, for example "/Level/5/Entertainers" --> "/Level/5/People/Entertainers, directors, producers, and screenwriters" etc. Kammerer55 ( talk) 20:57, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

If it's really necessary to reduce the size of the json file, we can simply generate a list: link_enum:[...]. plus trimmed_link:123 or something like that. But that would increase the conversion process. Kanashimi ( talk) 21:20, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Are there any performance issues related to the current page sizes? What about splitting into several groups by using a second letter as well then? For example, if splitting into 3 groups, then we would have AA.json for "AA-AJ", AK.json for "AK-AR" and AS.json for "AS-AZ". (If the second letter is other, then we can add it to the last group, for example.) Kammerer55 ( talk) 21:24, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

This is technically not a problem. As for the performance, perhaps larger scale tests are needed. Kanashimi ( talk) 21:28, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

I believe json pages up to 2MB can be accessed, so not an immediate problem. But I would be interested in seeing some analysis of performance. — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 13:00, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

 Code deployed on Module:Banner shell and first example can be seen at Talk:Al-ʻIjliyyah. Now we need a bot to implement this. Kanashimi: are you interested? It will require edits like this to about 50,000 articles. I will provide more details shortly. — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 20:19, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Maybe User:Qwerfjkl can add this to task 26 to reduce bot edits on the same articles. Is that possible? Gonnym ( talk) 21:11, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Gonnym, I probably could without too much difficulty. From what I can tell this would just be adding a single parameter to the WPBS. One problem would be merging quality ratings - if the vital article rating conflicts with the other ratings then it'd be hard to say what to do with it - we can't leave it for editors to manually sort out, because the template is being merged so it seems impractical to leave it there.
That said, there seems to be a similar problem regardless - in Martin's edit he moved the class to the WPBS, which creates complications if there are conflicting ratings. —  Qwerfjkl talk 21:19, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Actually looking at the code, @ MSGJ, if the only thing we are doing is setting |vital=yes (and not any level, or topic) and then at Module:Banner shell#L-88 checking if the entry does not exist, can we just skip using |vital=yes and just check all talk pages if they are on the vital list? Gonnym ( talk) 21:27, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

If it's not too much trouble to implement, I think this is the simplest option as you would only have to remove the vital template and no further action required, perhaps reducing the chance someone might accidentally tamper with the "vital" parameter. I don't know the code so maybe having the "vital=yes" parameter is more economical. Wandering Morpheme 22:43, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Interesting idea, and it did cross my mind. I would be wary about accessing a large json file on every talk page when it is only needed on a small fraction of them. Some analysis of performance might be helpful. Other comments:

• We would need to fully protect all the subpages of Wikipedia:Vital articles/data, which would hinder maintenance.
• We would temporarily have two templates saying the same thing, until {{ Vital article}} is removed.
• We already have to edit the talk page to remove {{ Vital article}} (and possibly add |class= so adding |vital=yes at the same time doesn't seem difficult.

Overall I think task 26 is already complicated enough, and it might be better to let Kanashimi to code his/her bot to do this, as they are familiar with the subtleties of vital articles. — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 10:38, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Since cewbot also maintains the talk pages for vital articles, I am wondering if I could try this out first. Because after this extensive work, future editing of differences will be handled by cewbot. If there is any inappropriate robot editing, we will be able to detect it during the transfer operation, not later. Also, this job requires new code to be written, so it will take some time. Kanashimi ( talk) 22:06, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

If there's a conflict in the ratings of the templates, I'll keep {{ Vital article}} first. Kanashimi ( talk) 22:10, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

If {{ WikiProject banner shell}} does not have a rating, I will use this rating of {{ Vital article}}. If the {{ WikiProject banner shell}} does not exist, I will create one. Kanashimi ( talk) 22:14, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Please provide feedback on [1] [2] [3] [4] Kanashimi ( talk) 14:13, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

1, 3, 4: Perfect. (The suppress categories template will not usually be there.)

2: Okay, but the banner shell is supposed to be under the article history.

I think this task will need to follow the bot approval process? — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 22:53, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Is {{ ArticleHistory}} listed in Wikipedia:Talk page layout#Lead (bannerspace)? Kanashimi ( talk) 23:13, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Oh yes, I see it. Kanashimi ( talk) 23:14, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

@ MSGJ:  Fixed Kanashimi ( talk) 12:50, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

@ MSGJ I think I'm ready to start this batch merger. May I begin? Kanashimi ( talk) 07:38, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

As I said earlier, I think you will need authorisation via WP:BRFA. Unless you believe that an existing task covers this? — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 08:27, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

BRFA filed Kanashimi ( talk) 03:04, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

@ Sdkb, Headbomb, Unlimitedlead, Frostly, Gog the Mild, SandyGeorgia, SWinxy, DFlhb, Justlettersandnumbers, Aszx5000, Bilorv, Dpleibovitz, SMcCandlish, PerfectSoundWhatever, Tcr25, Ajpolino, Skarmory, JML1148, Nathanielcwm, SilverTiger12, ThatRandomEditor101, The wub, Aaron Liu, and CactiStaccingCrane: I thought you might be interested to hear about this development. Typing |vital=yes in {{ WPBS}} on the talk page of a vital article will produce a message and link to the list of vital articles. I'm sure the design could be improved and I would love to see a different icon used dependent on the level of vitality (1-5) — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 20:33, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

+1 That looks pretty good to me. Well done and nice job. Aszx5000 ( talk) 21:35, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Looks great, thank you! the wub "?!" 23:23, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Great! 1) Please document that new option on {{ WikiProject banner shell}}. 2) I tried it on Talk:Language family (I assume I could remove the obsolete? {{ vital article}} template), but it appears to add numerous redlinked categories (some previously deleted by this vital improvement project I think). Perhaps their names are wrong, or perhaps a lot of new categories need to be created. Dpleibovitz ( talk) 01:07, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

I will check, thanks for letting me know — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 07:31, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

I have opened a new thread at #Society vs Society and social_sciences below — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 08:14, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

+1, maybe this could be helpful. ThatRandomEditor101 ( talk) 18:15, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Well done! CactiStaccingCrane ( talk) 13:13, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

This   level-5 vital article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.

Fantastic work by both you and Kanashimi in implementing this. DFlhb ( talk) 20:52, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Beautiful! Props to everyone involved! SWinxy ( talk) 21:33, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Looks good to me! Skarmory (talk • contribs) 21:36, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Fantastic! Thanks for carrying this through to completion! {{u| Sdkb}}  ^talk 22:05, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Looks very clean. Great work! — PerfectSoundWhatever ( t; c) 23:22, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

@ Kanashimi: what is the _3 for in "General _3", the topic for Algorithm?

This section originates from duplicated chapter titles. As you can see, there are several occurrences of ‘General’ on this page. @ MSGJ: This reminds me of something. When we want to directly link to the correct section, perhaps we should consider using something like ‘trimmed_link’? -- Kanashimi ( talk) 23:09, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Sounds like a great idea! I've also just implemented it in {{ VA link}} and it seems to work fine: Nikola Tesla    3, Household    4, Brooklyn    5 (note that all numbers link to the correct sections). This seems like the easiest way to link to the right section rather than making extra-computations with multiple parameters. (Though, it might be still better to add anchors for creating more stable links to sections independent of individual articles.) Kammerer55 ( talk) 18:31, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Return info about all levels

@ Kanashimi: I think it would be helpful to have info for all levels on which the article is present, not just the top one. For example, if someone wants to check the article's context among the lower-level articles and to verify that it's really considerably more important than the rest. I also wanted to use this info in the new template {{ VA link}} (see discussion below). Would it be possible to add this info back to the json-files? I think it would not make that crucial difference, since the size increase would be around 20% (it would have 61110 full data items instead of 50000), and in the {{ WikiProject banner shell}} code it would cause just a change of one line (take the first element of the list). However, even if this info would be available from some other file(s) instead, that would be also great. -- Kammerer55 ( talk) 08:01, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

This is not a technical problem. However, it was at the request of MSGJ that the format was changed to the current one. If we want to change it back, we have to modify the lua code, maybe we should listen to Martin's opinion. Kanashimi ( talk) 08:21, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Got it. I guess it makes sense to signify the top-level as the primary value. But then can we just add links to sublevel pages/sections as additional fields? Like in the following: "Aristotle":
{ "level": 3, "topic": "...", "section": "...", "trimmed_link": "...", "trimmed_link4" : "...", "trimmed_link5" : "..." } . I believe this should not break existing banner shell template code. @ MSGJ: is that right? Kammerer55 ( talk) 21:04, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

From my point of view, each level of data has a full data structure. So it's better to make a complete list and just keep the trimmed_link attribute. Kanashimi ( talk) 21:25, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

I fully agree, I was just trying to provide an alternate solution that does not require any code modifications, but if @ MSGJ does not mind, I can help making necessary updates. (I don't have much Lua experience yet, but I have a lot of Python and C++, so minor modifications should be easy to make.) However, for the outside user, it might be indeed confusing why there are multiple levels mentioned, so maybe the level can be kept as a separate field, and the format can be for example: {"level": 3, 3: <level-3 data>, 4: <level-4 data>, 5: <level-5 data>}. What do you think? Kammerer55 ( talk) 22:03, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

There is a problem with this. Some of the articles are listed on several levels 4 and 5, which you can see on Wikipedia:Database reports/Vital articles update report. So my approach is to just give a list, where each element has complete information. Kanashimi ( talk) 22:42, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Oh, I see, thanks for pointing that out! I am not sure we have to account for a handful of duplicates in json-files right now, since I guess your bot is tracking those entries separately, and we can probably just choose one of the duplicate values at random at each level (which I believe you are already doing right now). However, if you think this data might be useful in the future, then maybe we can just add it as a separate attribute? For example, in the format I suggested, we could just choose one of the duplicate values at random for each level and then put the other one into some other field: {"level": 3, 3: <level-3 data>, 4: <level-4 data>, 5: <level-5 data>, 'duplicates': <the list of duplicate entries>}. In any case, I would be happy with your original suggestion as well (as the full list, including all duplicates), if we include lower level data. PS. I removed the duplicates from the corresponding lists ( Three-dimensional space got duplicated because of redirection, and the other 2 were due to manual addition). Kammerer55 ( talk) 23:43, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Well, I don't have any special opinion about the data structure, I have to respect lua code editors like you. You can provide your most convenient data structure and see what everyone thinks about it. Kanashimi ( talk) 00:55, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

I believe it would be confusing and unnecessary to say that Geometry was in level 2, level 3, level 4 and level 5. And linking Geometry 2 3 4 5 is too many links to be helpful. The fact is that Geometry is a level 2 vital article. It is not a level 3, level 4 or level 5, even though it may currently be listed on those pages. I understand that having a list of all vital articles in a particular topic would be useful, so perhaps that is a project for the future. Perhaps, the level 5 lists could be repurposed as a list of all vital articles by topic? Then we could have one link to the level page and one link to the topic page. Then the link could look something like Geometry ( 2 / mathematics). These are my thoughts anyway — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 12:56, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Please see my comment in the main template discussion topic. TL;DR. Agree the default should be showing only number 2. Optional functionality might be useful to show 2 3 4 5. Kammerer55 ( talk) 19:25, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Interesting idea regarding the topic pages, but it probably deserves a separate discussion. I think many optional functionalities could be added to this particular template, but it's probably better to keep the default version as it is now: only one number and no extra-words (the virtue of simplicity). Kammerer55 ( talk) 19:29, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Minor question/suggestion: can we rename trimmed_link into just link (or maybe path)? It should be more or less clear that all links should refer to the WP:VA namespace, since the json-files are already there, and the detailed documentation can be added to the data-page. Kammerer55 ( talk) 22:11, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Of course. These attribute names can be changed. Kanashimi ( talk) 22:37, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

If you go back through the VA5 archives (haven't looked at other levels) you will find discussions that achieved a quorum without closure that were archived. Should we effect the voice of these quorums?- TonyTheTiger ( T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 04:54, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

• E.g., archive 12 has at least 2.- TonyTheTiger ( T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 04:56, 16 November 2023 (UTC)
• All proposed changes should really be closed (although the sheer page size of VA5 atm does restrict that to a degree). I'd be fine with backdating closes, both successful and unsuccessful, but they should probably be logged on VA5 so page watchers can see. J947 † ^edits 07:34, 16 November 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes all proposals should be closed. However, there is nothing wrong with a nomination sitting unclosed in an archive if it never achieved quorum. However those that achieved quorum should be closed and enacted. I am not a closer. Are there closure procedures? Should we just make a list of nominations that achieved quorum that are sitting in the archives?- TonyTheTiger ( T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 13:21, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

• The following are discussions from archives 9-16 (I'll add others later) that met quorum, yet were archived without action to the best of my understanding. Please add some sort of tick mark next to each one that you have decided to enact.- TonyTheTiger ( T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 04:44, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

1. Wikipedia_talk:Vital_articles/Level/5/Archive_12#Add_Goalpost
2. Wikipedia_talk:Vital_articles/Level/5/Archive_12#Add_Synthetic_media
3. Wikipedia talk:Vital articles/Level/5/Archive 12#Remove_Thalassocnus,_Doedicurus,_Tamandua,_Add_Glyptodon,_Two-toed_sloth,_Megalonyx
4. Wikipedia_talk:Vital_articles/Level/5/Archive_10#Generations
5. Wikipedia_talk:Vital_articles/Level/5/Archive_10#Remove_3dfx_Interactive,_Creative_Technology,_NortonLifeLock,_and_Unisys
6. Wikipedia_talk:Vital_articles/Level/5/Archive_10#Swap:_reorganisation_of_dogs
7. Wikipedia_talk:Vital_articles/Level/5/Archive_10#Remove_Jane_Seymour,_Anne_of_Cleves,_Catherine_Howard_and_Catherine_Parr
8. Wikipedia_talk:Vital_articles/Level/5/Archive_9#Add_Counterculture_of_the_1960s
9. Wikipedia_talk:Vital_articles/Level/5/Archive_9#Board_games
10. Wikipedia_talk:Vital_articles/Level/5/Archive_9#FAQ

• I'm also wondering what to do with mine, Wikipedia talk:Vital articles/Archive 23#Swap: remove Abstract algebra, add Algebraic structure, it was at 4-1 or so but got archived. Should I re-post it? Mathnerd314159 ( talk) 04:49, 18 November 2023 (UTC)
  • User:Mathnerd314159, level 4 requires 5 support votes. I don't see five.-- TonyTheTiger ( T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 13:48, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

• I think all of them should be enacted per normal closure procedure. I don't think it should be necessary to renominate them.- TonyTheTiger ( T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 23:21, 18 November 2023 (UTC)
• Here are the rest of level 5.-- TonyTheTiger ( T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 13:17, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

1. Wikipedia_talk:Vital_articles/Level/5/Archive_7#Add_Edmund_Muskie (not sure he would survive a removal in the current climate with current quotas).
2. Wikipedia talk:Vital articles/Level/5/Archive 4#Remove_Espoo_and_Vantaa (Espoo still listed despite this 4-2 consensus)
3. Wikipedia talk:Vital articles/Level/5/Archive 3#Remove_Simmias_(explorer)
4. Wikipedia talk:Vital articles/Level/5/Archive 3#Remove_aXXo
5. Wikipedia_talk:Vital_articles/Level/5/Archive_3#Remove_Masami_Hirosaka
6. Wikipedia_talk:Vital_articles/Level/5/Archive_3#Remove_William_Heffelfinger
7. Wikipedia_talk:Vital_articles/Level/5/Archive_3#Remove_Bear_Bryant

• On to level 4

1. Wikipedia_talk:Vital_articles/Level/4/Archive_72#Swap:_Remove_Arm_wrestling,_add_Powerlifting(add was 6-1)

• Since it turns out that there are 17 cases at level 5, 1 case at level 4 and no level 1-3 instances, I am going to move this discussion to level 5 (and 4).- TonyTheTiger ( T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 14:37, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

Carbohydrate is listed under Science > Chemistry. But its talk page mentions the topic to be "Biology". Which should be regarded as correct in these cases? — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 12:45, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

Technically, since it is listed at level 3 there shouldn't be a subpage designation. The template should just say "Science". Rreagan007 ( talk) 17:10, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

In Carbohydrate's case "Biology" has been marked as topic, not a subpage. Hence the doubt. — CX Zoom[he/him] ^{( let's talk • { C• X})} 17:13, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

All the articles listed in the Level 3 science section should just say "Science". Rreagan007 ( talk) 17:14, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

• I have another doubt. When we enter VIT-5, (let's take an example) People > Writers and journalists > Writers > Ancient > Europe > Aesop. It uses "People" as topic marker, and "Writers" as subpage marker (which is one sub-entry away from the Topic). But this scheme is not always maintained, (for example) Geography > Physical > Basics > General > Geographic Information System. It uses "Geography" as topic marker, and "Physical" as subpage marker (which is the very next sub-entry from the Topic). So, when creating a machine readable list from the master list provided here, how can we understand which one to use as subpage marker for the articles? Thanks! — CX Zoom[he/him] ^{( let's talk • { C• X})} 17:26, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

  I believe the subpage should be Writers and journalists (and Writers is an alias for this). I have no idea how the bot categorises into Ancient > Europe though. — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 17:37, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

  If you look at the Level 5 subpage indicators at Template:Vital article, you will see that the subpage indicator "Writers" is actually just a shorthand for the Writers and journalists subpage on Level 5. Rreagan007 ( talk) 17:40, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

  So, can I use the full "Writers and journalists" as the subpage marker in the json, and use the same scheme for all level 4/5 articles? Also, a suggestion. Currently the template reads "Topic, Subpage". It would be read better as "Topic (Subpage)", since comma is more usually used to mean "and". — CX Zoom[he/him] ^{( let's talk • { C• X})} 17:47, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

  I think it only works properly if you put in "Writers". Rreagan007 ( talk) 21:13, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

  @ MSGJ: Do you think it would cause any issues once the merge is over, considering that all fields will be pulled from the json itself? — CX Zoom[he/him] ^{( let's talk • { C• X})} 22:14, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

  We could use the actual page name in the master list, and then we could keep a separate list of aliases — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 22:20, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

• Since we're talking about the template subpage indicators, when the Level 5 Society and social sciences list was split into 3 different subpages a while ago, the template was never updated to include an indicator for those 3 sublists. It would be nice if someone with the ability to do it could update the template for these 3 new subpages. Rreagan007 ( talk) 17:47, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

  I did it this morning after your request on my talk page — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 18:11, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

  Thanks! Rreagan007 ( talk) 18:56, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

• Oh, and one more thing, Level-1 articles don't belong to any topic in the master list. Yet, each of them has a "Topic" mentioned in their talk pages. Do we retain this topic, or remove it entirely? — CX Zoom[he/him] ^{( let's talk • { C• X})} 18:23, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

  Every vital article, including the Level 1 articles, should have a topic specified in the talk page template for the maintenance categories to work properly. So please leave the topics in the template. Rreagan007 ( talk) 18:59, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

• I have been trying to clean up the inconsistencies in the talk page templates manually. But at level 5 there are a lot of templates that need to be fixed and doing it manually is going to take a lot of time. If there is anyone that is good with bots maybe a bot can be used to fix these. Some Level 5 templates are tagged as "Art" and others "Arts", some "Life" and others "Everyday life", and some "Philosophy" and others "Religion". See here. At the other levels we just use "Art", "Life", and "Philosophy" tags for everything in those categories. Rreagan007 ( talk) 00:26, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

  I wouldn't spend too much time on this because when the template is merged with the banner shell, all these parameters will be removed. Instead the template will read a master list, which CX Zoom has offered to help with. — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 07:25, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

  The category parameter is being removed entirely? So the Vital Articles maintenance categories by topic won't work anymore after that is done. That seems unfortunate, as they are helpful for auditing purposes. Is there no way to preserve the category parameter after the merger? Rreagan007 ( talk) 18:17, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

  The parameter will be removed, but categorisation will be preserved. Which category to put it in will be determined by a json list. — CX Zoom[he/him] ^{( let's talk • { C• X})} 19:34, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

  Oh, okay. Rreagan007 ( talk) 23:48, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

• So, I have completed an alphabetical json list to the best of my abilities. Then, I found the number of articles in each category upto level-3 is the same as mentioned here. But level-4 onwards the numbers mismatch. So, I tried manually counting, and realised that in some cases the Level 1-3 articles are counted in higher lists, and at other times it doesn't. For example, Level 1+2+3 Arts has 45 articles: 43 of them are listed and counted at L4/Arts, while 2 aren't, leading to a mismatch of numbers with my list. Similarly, "L4/Philosophy and religion" lists 58 articles from L1-3, but the P&R category at L3 only lists 55. While I haven't checked the rest, I assume same is the case with the other categories. — CX Zoom[he/him] ^{( let's talk • { C• X})} 16:05, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

  I would suggest if an article is listed at a lower level then it should be removed from any higher levels. Is this on-wiki yet? — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 20:05, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

After Interstellarity's recent edits, it's not apparent at all how many countries or cities we list. Is this a good idea? Why were these edits not discussed beforehand? Cobblet ( talk) 14:36, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

Hi @ Cobblet, I thought it would be a good idea to do a hierarchy of continents, countries, and cities so that it would be more organized. I didn’t think the change would be controversial, so I went ahead and did it. We have WP:BRD for a reason and it would be a good process to follow so that constructive changes and consensus can be made. If you have different opinions on how the page is structured, I welcome them with open arms. Thank you. Interstellarity ( talk) 17:00, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

I'm trying to keep an open mind about this reorganization, but my initial reaction is I don't really like it. I especially don't like the continents, which are physical geography, being combined with cities and countries, which are political geography. There is a current discussion about this type of reorganization at Levels 4 and 5 here. I think the Level 3 geography section reorganization should be discussed there too before this is implemented. Rreagan007 ( talk) 18:13, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

I'm agnostic as to whether this change should apply to VA3, supporting it for the lower two levels, but the point that country numbers and city numbers are no longer apparent is a good one. I guess that could be resolved by putting those numbers in another spot, but not ideal. J947 † ^edits 02:58, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose: And once again, @ Interstellarity:, should've DISCUSSED before a big change p b p 07:13, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

  As noted on V5, that edit also resulted in presumably accidental removal of many entries at V5. Please self-revert or fix. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 07:31, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

• Where are the diffs for User:Interstellarity's geography offensive? He has also screwed up the history section.- TonyTheTiger ( T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 15:56, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
  • User:Interstellarity what is the current state of these two rearrangements?- TonyTheTiger ( T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 17:28, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

    They have been reverted and they are being discussed on the respective talk pages. I welcome your comments there if you have any. That’s how it is in brief. Interstellarity ( talk) 17:49, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Above (see #List of vital articles) we are discussing how to improve the link in the template so it links to the specific section on a page. For example, Arctic Ocean is listed on Wikipedia:Vital articles under "Hydrological features". However the current heading is

Hydrological features (19 articles)

However this is not a stable link as it will change if the number of articles changes. I am wondering how people would feel if we remove the number of articles, i.e. use

Hydrological features

The number of articles could be displayed somewhere else, perhaps in a table. — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 10:54, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

The numbers seem to be useful, especially when there are section-specific quotas, and probably it's better to have the numbers close to the headers. Maybe, the bot could put the counts in the next line after the header? However, this does not seem to fully solve the problem of stable links, since there might be duplicate headers within a page. For example, Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/5/History has 9 sections called Europe. So maybe, anchors would be a more reliable way to deal with this. -- Kammerer55 ( talk) 12:26, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Arghh, good point. What if we linked to the level 2 section header - there wouldn't be any duplication then I suppose — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 12:29, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/5/People/Philosophers, historians, political and social scientists has a few repetitive level 2 headers as well, e.g. two "Ancient" subsections in Philosophers and in Historians, though those can be probably renamed into Ancient philosophers and Ancient historians. However, sometimes level 2 sections are still too big, like WP:Vital articles/Level/5/People/Writers and journalists#Prose writers (949/905 articles). Also, I see that the latter page already has something like <span id="Writers"></span> in a few top headers which seem to work well as anchors. Maybe, we can just let people add such code to sections whenever needed, and then let the bot extract the id from the nearest subheader with the custom id? Then we could keep the numbers intact. Kammerer55 ( talk) 12:43, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

I would still prefer all the numbers to go into a separate list/table as they are mainly for the curators of the list, and not relevant for a casual visitor. Regarding sections, I suppose anchors is the way to go. But it would be nice to encode them in a systematic way, for example Historians/Ancient or Philosophers/Late modern/Asia — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 23:04, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

I like the "Philosophers/Late modern/Asia" format as the most natural and probably relatively easy to implement by the bot. However, I think the numbers are still important, especially on levels 4 and 5, since they are used by the project participants to gauge relative importance of different sections, and it's good when they are easily accessible. The casual visitors might also benefit from the numbers, since they would know how unique is the article among its kind. Also, on level 5 the current policy is that anyone can add items to under-quota sections, so people should see the numbers for that. Kammerer55 ( talk) 06:00, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

@ TonyTheTiger, Piotrus, Interstellarity, J947, Starship.paint, Purplebackpack89, The Blue Rider, Grnrchst, LaukkuTheGreit, and Zar2gar1: Pinging some recently active editors from level 5, since the discussion is much more active there nowadays and people could have missed this discussion. What do you think about the article numbers in the headers? -- Kammerer55 ( talk) 20:32, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

I don’t care either way. Interstellarity ( talk) 20:34, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

I agree that listing this in the heading is a bad idea. Support changing this practice. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:26, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

• Something needs to be done with the numbering. Last week was my first time closing discussions. It was an ordeal. Some articles are nested 4 or 5 levels deep. Some pages have numbers that disagree with each other. A separate table would make nesting clearer.- TonyTheTiger ( T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 02:34, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

• Remove numbers in the headers. They can go in a table or somewhere else. starship .paint ( RUN) 07:36, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for all your comments. It seems we have consensus to remove the numbers from the headings. I will look at how these can be replaced with a table, or a line of text underneath, or both. I notice that there are already tables at Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/5, etc. which could probably be expanded further. I asked for advice at WP:VPT and was told that "section headings should be unique within a page, so that section links lead to the right place". This is from the manual of style, so not directly relevant to project space, but probably good advice to follow nonetheless. There was a suggestion to replace "General" with something like "Mathematics: general" or "Technology: general", which seems like a good idea. — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 21:57, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

I think it would be helpful to have a discussion every year or two regarding how we are doing with the vital articles. Some questions we could ponder include: have the lists gotten better or worse with time? What are some ways the lists have improved and ways the list has worsened with time? How is the current process of adding and removing articles? Do you think there should be stricter or more lenient requirements or keep the requirements as is? This list has been around since 2004 which is a long time (almost 20 years) and it has gone through many changes since its inception. Levels 1-3 have been pretty stable and haven't seen a lot of proposals for addition or removal recently. I've seen it more frequently in years past, but the discussion nowadays seems to be about the list itself. Levels 4 and 5 have seen more rapid changes throughout the years due to the large number of articles within it. You can always go back to the history section and see how the list evolved. I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts. What do you think? Interstellarity ( talk) 00:29, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

On levels 1-3 we are using topic=Society but at level 4-5 we are using topic=Society and social sciences. I think these should be unified? @ Kanashimi: what do you think?

That might mean that:

• Category:Wikipedia vital articles in Society is renamed to Category:Wikipedia vital articles in Society and social sciences; or
• Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/5/Society and social sciences/Culture is renamed to Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/5/Society/Culture.

There might be other topics that need looking at too. — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 08:13, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

I suggest that we just use the section name as the name of the category so that we don't have to maintain a comparison table. Of course, anyone else is welcome to offer different considerations. Kanashimi ( talk) 11:52, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Do you mean the topic name? I think there are too many sections and the granularity is different depending on the level — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 12:03, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

The topic names are roughly the same at all levels, so I thought it would be a good idea to just use the page and section names as the topic names. Kanashimi ( talk) 01:02, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

FYI. One of the classic definitions of sociology is 'the study of society'. Sociology is just one of the social sciences. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:28, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

So should we use "social sciences" as the topic for all these? That would mean renaming the lists and the categories — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 08:30, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

We list languages, holidays, among other, within this category, thus the society naming. The Blue Rider 14:53, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Topics

All vital articles are given a topic. There are currently 11 topics. For levels 4 and 5, the topic should match the name of the subpage that the article is listed in. Unfortunately this does not always match the categorisation system, as you can see in the table below.

Topic	Level 4 subpage	Level 5 subpage	Category	Notes
Arts	/Arts	/Arts	Category:Wikipedia vital articles in Arts (3,327)	Y Merged into Arts.
Everyday life	/Everyday life	/Everyday life	Category:Wikipedia vital articles in Everyday life (2,438)	Y Merged into Everyday life.
Biology and health sciences	/Biology and health sciences	/Biology and health sciences	Category:Wikipedia vital articles in Biology and health sciences (5,347)	Y Merged into Biology and health sciences.
Geography	/Geography	/Geography	Category:Wikipedia vital articles in Geography (5,191)	Y
History	/History	/History	Category:Wikipedia vital articles in History (3,273)	Y
Mathematics	/Mathematics	/Mathematics	Category:Wikipedia vital articles in Mathematics (1,197)	Y
People	/People	/People	Category:Wikipedia vital articles in People (15,464)	Y
Philosophy and religion	/Philosophy and religion	/Philosophy and religion	Category:Wikipedia vital articles in Philosophy and religion (1,429)	Y Merged into Philosophy and religion
Physical sciences	/Physical sciences	/Physical sciences	Category:Wikipedia vital articles in Physical sciences (4,823)	Y Renamed to Physical sciences.
Society and social sciences	/Society and social sciences	/Society and social sciences	Category:Wikipedia vital articles in Society and social sciences (4,291)	Y Renamed to Society and social sciences.
Technology	/Technology	/Technology	Category:Wikipedia vital articles in Technology (3,200)	Y

— Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 14:10, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

For the ones marked N I would like to know how people would like to resolve the discrepancy, e.g. what should the new name be? We can either rename the topic and subpages, or we can rename the category tree. — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 14:30, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

I have code in Template:Vital article/sandbox that will force articles in the categories according to the topics listed above. Is everyone okay with this? Any reason not to do this? — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 19:18, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

I have started on the renaming/merging process now — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 07:01, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

@ Mclay1: perhaps you would like to join the discussion? The categories of the edits you reverted are not in use anymore. — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 22:41, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

Also see Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Redlinked assessment categories, again — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 23:04, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

@ MSGJ Thanks for flagging this. If everyone else is OK with the clean-up, then I guess go ahead. But I think they should be tagged with G6 speedy deletion with an explanation rather than blanked so another admin tags them as empty. MClay1 ( talk) 01:23, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

I can add {{ db-c1}} if that is acceptable. Would you mind reverting your changes to all those categories? — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 14:40, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

Job done: @ Kanashimi: can you please update Wikipedia:Vital articles/data subpages so that topic is always one of the 11 topics listed above? — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 19:46, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

I tried to remove the setting in User:Cewbot/log/20200122/configuration#Topics. Kanashimi ( talk) 21:51, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

@ Kanashimi: I've just realised that level 5 articles are using the topic Biological and health sciences but level 4 articles are using Biology and health sciences. We need to consolidate these. Is there any preference on which we use? — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 08:41, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

I think biology? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 09:01, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

I agree — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 09:44, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

We need to standardize these uses. But I think we should consult experts who are more familiar with these topics. Kanashimi ( talk) 09:36, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

The level 4 page was created in 2009 and has never been moved. The level 5 subpage was created in 2018 by Feminist who also created a redirect to the level 4 subpage. Perhaps they could explain whether the change in name was accidental or the result of a consensus? — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 11:41, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

It's probably a typo when I created it, sorry. Feel free to move it to use "Biology". feminist🇭🇰🇺🇦 ( talk) 14:24, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for replying. No bother. It is not such a big mistake if it was only noticed 5 years later! I'll rename them later. Kanashimi, this may confuse the bot. — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 17:01, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

Pages moved. @ Kanashimi: please rename all the "Biological and health sciences" topics to "Biology and health sciences" — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 18:09, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

 Done Kanashimi ( talk) 21:46, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks to the work of @ Kanashimi and @ MSGJ we now have a functionality in Module:Banner shell that automatically computes the proper link to the corresponding vital-level page just by using the name of the article. Moreover, they are now trying to make it so that the link would lead to the right section as well! Similar functionality would be very useful in all our nomination discussions as well. I propose creating a new template called for example {{ Vital link}} using a similar code, which would take one argument like in {{ Vital link|Nikola Tesla}} and would then produce something like Nikola Tesla   3  4  5, where each number would link to the corresponding section containing the item. Kammerer55 ( talk) 10:00, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

{{Vital article link|Nikola Tesla}} produces Nikola Tesla    3 — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 10:54, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Amazing, thanks a lot! Just to confirm, if I want to display the link to the custom level or to all levels (as in the example), do we need to modify json-format as well? Kammerer55 ( talk) 12:04, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

I think the consensus is that each article should only be listed at one level. So if level 3, then 4 and 5 are removed as redundant — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 12:06, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

If you would like to comment on #Number of articles in headings that is what we are waiting for to produce the section links. Thanks — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 11:07, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

I've also made an abbreviated version: {{VA link|Nikola Tesla}} → Nikola Tesla    3. -- Kammerer55 ( talk) 12:56, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Note: Currently the template is more useful for level 4 and 5 articles, where the VA-list is spread over multiple pages: J. Robert Oppenheimer    4; Alexei Abrikosov (physicist)    5. — Kammerer55 ( talk) 13:04, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

• Is there a way to add a wrinkle to this template so that if you put {{VA link}} on an article page # would appear next to the Featured star or Good article plus disc or in that spot.-- TonyTheTiger ( T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 02:59, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

  Can you give an example of what page this would be used on? Then I could judge whether a modification to the template or a new template is required. — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 08:29, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

  1. At the top of Drowning Girl next to the gold star it would say 5 (which would link like yours does)
  2. At the top of Misty Copeland next to the green plus disk it would say 5
  3. At the top of Campbell's Soup Cans in the upper right it would say 4

  These are the three cases.- TonyTheTiger ( T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 13:33, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

  Maybe like those star and disk icons it should link to the front page for each level to help the reader understand what the icon means via a proper introduction.- TonyTheTiger ( T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 13:41, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

  Ahh, you're talking about mw:Help:Page status indicators (or "top icons"). These are currently generated by badges stored on Wikidata. Not sure we could jump onto that system, but you would certainly need consensus to start using these icons on articles. — Martin ( MSGJ ·  talk) 13:55, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

  Oh, I see. The idea behind this particular template was to use it in the inline text (mostly to help in discussions) to quickly indicate an article's status, though what you suggest also sounds like a good use case of a similar functionality (but probably not for this particular template). Kammerer55 ( talk) 18:41, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Displaying multiple numbers

Continuing from discussion in another topic and rethinking my original proposal, I am now convinced that the default behavior should be exactly as it is now: show only one level number and that's all (no extra-words or numbers), and to show a plain link if the article is not vital. In this way, the template can be safely used in nomination headers as well:

Example: Add Water    2, remove Ice    4

However, I still think that it would be good to have an additional (optional) functionality to display all levels and corresponding links as originally suggested. This would allow to see the article's context on other levels and to verify that it indeed deserves to be on its level. -- Kammerer55 ( talk) 19:19, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Possible redesigns would be: Nikola Tesla   3  4  5 or Nikola Tesla   3  4  5 to stress out the main level. -- Kammerer55 ( talk) 19:55, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Another alternative to find the article on lower levels would be to link from level-3 sections to corresponding level-4 and level-5 sections respectively, but that might require better synchronization of topics/sections between the levels. -- Kammerer55 ( talk) 19:55, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Use in edit summaries

It looks a bit odd in edit summmaries right now. Is there a way to fix that?- TonyTheTiger ( T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 11:43, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Good catch! Yes, it seems like this is a common problem arising when using templates in the header. In some cases, the editor would generate the right section-link automatically (for example, when you press reply, or when you edit a section on the mobile). In other cases, it would put {{VA link}} into edit descriptions which would not link to the proper discussion section afterwards. In such bad cases the solution would be to copy-paste the generated title from the preview, and then manually paste it into the auto-generated edit summary title. Kammerer55 ( talk) 03:44, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

Another possible solution might be to slightly adjust the template to produce only static links by using substitutions (like {{subst:VA link|...}}). This option should eliminate the need for manual editing most of the times, but would have a minor downside that the number's link might break quickly due to automatic count updates in the VA-lists. In any case, let me figure out how to properly implement this approach. Might take a few days. Kammerer55 ( talk) 04:01, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

User:Kammerer55, I asked about edit summaries and you responded about headers. Are we talking about the same thing?- TonyTheTiger ( T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 22:43, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

I thought it's the same thing, since the edit summaries are usually generated from the headers, right? Kammerer55 ( talk) 23:44, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

The edit summary and the section header are only the same for the person who intiates a new section. Thereafter, the section header is just the start of the edit summary, but there is room for an additional summary text to be added to the subsequent edit summaries.- TonyTheTiger ( T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 04:13, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

I understand the difference in terminology. I just thought the topic is the same, since the problem originates from edit summaries being automatically generated from the header. It does not happen only during section creation, but also when you press the [edit] button. Kammerer55 ( talk) 04:22, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

It might be best to not use these templates in headers – just place them in the nomination statement. The edit summary linking thing is a bit of a pain. J 947 ‡ ^edits 22:48, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

Indeed. The "solution" described above is not a solution. The solution is well-established at MOS:SECTIONHEAD: section headings should: ... Not contain template transclusions. – Jonesey95 ( talk) 23:17, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

I think a topic list like the one on Wikipedia:Bot requests might help? This way we can just browse the status of the topic and don't have to care about the edit summary. Kanashimi ( talk) 12:40, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

🌺 Cremastra ( talk) 15:50, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

It seems that there have been changes to Template:WPBS to accommodate vital articles. In the case where the VA is a WP:GA like Talk:Campbell's Soup Cans or WP:FA like Talk:Drowning Girl it seems to be working. However, at recent additions Talk:Microsoft PowerPoint, Talk:Microsoft Excel, Talk:Microsoft Word, Talk:Gig economy, Talk:I Love New York, and Talk:Oceanian art it is not.- TonyTheTiger ( T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 14:22, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

It is working now.- TonyTheTiger ( T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 02:08, 8 January 2024 (UTC)