Wikipedia talk:Vital articles/Level 5

Introduction

The purpose of this page is for discussions of over-arching matters regarding Level 5 Vital articles, such as procedures, quotas, or other broad changes. Level 5 Vital articles are meant to be 50,000 topics for which Wikipedia should have high-quality articles.

If you want to propose articles to be added, removed, or swapped from the Level 5 Vital articles lists, please do so at the relevant subpages.

Discussions on this page and its subpages follow these guidelines:

1. Before being closed as passed, a Level 5 discussion must:
   1. Run for at least 15 days; AND
   2. It must have at least 4 support !votes of which at least 4 must be from at least 7 days ago; AND
   3. It must have over 60% support; AND
   4. It must have no oppose votes from the last 7 days.
2. Before being closed as failed, a Level 5 discussion must:
   1. Run for at least 15 days; AND
   2. It must have at least 2 oppose !votes of which at least 2 must be from at least 7 days ago; AND
   3. It must have no more than 60% support.
   4. It must have no support votes from the last 7 days.

For moves and other reorganization within a single subpage, discussion is optional. Moves between subpages should preferably be announced on the talk page in advance. If a move between subpages involves enough entries to require a quota reallocation, they require as many votes as additions and removals.

For reference, the following times apply for today:

• 15 days ago is: 03:28, 15 June 2026 (UTC)
• 7 days ago is: 03:28, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

If you're interested in regularly participating as a closer, the following browser tools may also be helpful:

• Streamlined closing with User:DaxServer/DiscussionCloser.js
• One click archiving with User:Elli/OneClickArchiver
  • Consider User:andrybak/Scripts/Archiver if you prefer archiving several discussions in one go

V5 histogram data

For me and my posterity, here is histogram data of interwikis. Here's the data dump:

1 106
2 142
3 168
4 192
5 209
6 200
7 226
8 268
9 280
10 275
11 275
12 303
13 290
14 315
15 309
16 289
17 324
18 334
19 318
20 306
21 317
22 332
23 345
24 330
25 341
26 363
27 343
28 344
29 346
30 352
31 329
32 320
33 328
34 310
35 318
36 326
37 306
38 310
39 309
40 317
41 296
42 306
43 298
44 280
45 267
46 276
47 270
48 252
49 246
50 240
51 236
52 251
53 207
54 186
55 202
56 184
57 174
58 157
59 157
60 155
61 145
62 155
63 136
64 140
65 138
66 143
67 114
68 127
69 121
70 102
71 102
72 95
73 103
74 84
75 89
76 83
77 100
78 86
79 82
80 72
81 67
82 71
83 63
84 64
85 56
86 57
87 47
88 50
89 49
90 39
91 42
92 40
93 38
94 34
95 30
96 35
97 27
98 21
99 32
100 28
101 23
102 20
103 24
104 23
105 17
106 26
107 21
108 18
109 13
110 14
111 17
112 14
113 9
114 10
115 13
116 9
117 17
118 15
119 14
120 11
121 14
122 12
123 14
124 7
125 9
126 10
127 8
128 12
129 12
130 9
131 8
132 5
133 4
134 7
135 4
136 6
137 7
138 5
139 4
140 4
141 3
142 2
143 7
144 6
145 2
146 5
147 4
148 3
149 3
150 2
151 1
152 2
153 3
154 1
155 2
156 3
157 2
158 3
159 2
160 2
161 0
162 1
163 4
164 0
165 2
166 2
167 3
168 1
169 4
170 1
171 0
172 2
173 2
174 1
175 1
176 1
177 0
178 0
179 0
180 2
181 0
182 0
183 0
184 2
185 2
186 1
187 3
188 3
189 3
190 2
191 3
192 5
193 2
194 1
195 2
196 1
197 1
198 0
199 1
200 0
201 1
202 0
203 0
204 0
205 0
206 0
207 1
208 0
209 0
210 0
211 0
212 0
213 1
214 0
215 0
216 0
217 0
218 0
219 0
220 0
221 0
222 0
223 0
224 1
225 0
226 0
227 0
228 0
229 0
230 0
231 0
232 0
233 0
234 0
235 0
236 0
237 0
238 0
239 1
240 1
241 0
242 1
243 0
244 1
245 1
246 1
247 0
248 0
249 1
250 0
251 0
252 0
253 0
254 0
255 0
256 0
257 0
258 0
259 0
260 0
261 0
262 0
263 0
264 0
265 1
266 2
267 2
268 3
269 1
270 0
271 0
272 0
273 0
274 0
275 1

Since interwiki usage is contentious, I thought we would be better if we had data on this :) -1ctinus📝🗨 23:32, 4 May 2025 (UTC)

Hello,

The main issue I have with Wikilinks is that they are not the only variable we have, just the easiest one to grab from the front page. I think we should consider multiple ones. Are you using Python to run these? GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 00:51, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

Looks like 20-30 is pretty normal. Having more than 150 is irrelevant to VA5. Having single digits is concerning. _pbp 01:12, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

Agreed w GeogSage as we should be looking at at least a few different sets of objective, quantifiable data before we put our own interpretation and collective wisdom together.

But yes, we as a group probably should review all 1-link articles. That in itself seems like they may not have the world-impact they need for this project. GauchoDude (talk) 12:05, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

Could you compile a named list of the articles with no interwikis? I think that would be an essential list of articles for pruning. I want to make it clear that there's no obligation to do this (beggars can't be choosers), but this sort of data really helps out the project. ALittleClass (talk) 23:43, 1 June 2025 (UTC)

ALittleClass, 1ctinus: These really should be immediately put up for removal. GauchoDude (talk) 16:20, 6 June 2025 (UTC)

the world is your oyster. Feel free to nominate any article you see as innapropriate. -1ctinus📝🗨 17:57, 6 June 2025 (UTC)

I have it. @ALittleClass:

-1ctinus📝🗨 16:08, 6 June 2025 (UTC)

Just to let everyone know, I have updated this list. It's not a perfect update—I just went through the list to see which article either got removed or gained an interwiki—so if there's an zero interwiki article that somehow got added after this list got made, I have no knowledge of it. Bluevestman (talk) 09:24, 29 December 2025 (UTC)

Apparently we have another zero interwiki article. Bluevestman (talk) 08:42, 8 January 2026 (UTC)

As I've said, "interwiki links" are not a good stand alone metric for "vitality." We have several criteria, for what makes something "vital," and several project goals the list is meant to support, and language links are fairly good at identifying Western Bias, but not perfect.

• First, these are the language links primarily, and exclude the other projects that are used in the full "interwiki link" metric. When we compare the interwiki minus language links, there are some interesting stand outs.
• Second, language links are subject to individuals with interest in a topic and capability to translate. The most famous example of this is Corbin Bleu , with pages in 217 other language Wikipedia projects.
• Third, building on the second, it takes a lot of time and motivation for people capable of translating pages to actually do so. This means there is a huge bias towards topics/pages that are really old. There are many topics on Wikipedia that have not been created for a variety of reasons, but not the least of which is that some topics are not well known among the general population and it requires an expert editor to notice the omission and take the time to make the page. Once created, it can take several years for other Wiki projects to do the same. This does not mean the topics are not vital.
• Fourth, While language links are a good indication of Western bias, we have other criteria, and other values we have data can serve as indicators for these other criteria. I created an published a script in July of last year that would use a few of the APIs for Wikipedia to capture these other datasets (see discussion). After some initial analysis, I created an index comprised of four weighted themes: Theme 1: ((Percentile Watcher) + (Percentile Editors)) /2, Theme 2: ((Percentile Pageviews) + (Percentile Revisions)) /2, Theme 3: ((Percentile Links in) + (Percentile Project links)) /2, Theme 4: Percentile Language Links. Each theme addresses a separate vital article criteria, theme 1 is editor interest as a proxy for "notability," theme 2 is user interest and article "activity," also as a proxy for notability but with an emphasis on supporting the "centralized watchlist" purpose of the list (specifically, a page that is being edited often and viewed regularly is both more likely to be notable and more likely to need to be watched). Third theme focuses on how Essential to Wikipedia's other articles each article is to other English language articles/projects, and to a lesser extent coverage (It is not a 1 to 1 relationship with coverage, we would need to look at categories for that). An article with a lot of links in, and that is on multiple English language projects like Wikiquotes and Wikimedia commons, is going to be important to a lot of articles. The fourth theme is Language links to address the No Western bias criteria, and unlike the other four only looks at language links. This index and themes is imperfect, however only using one variable (and an unweighted, raw value at that) only gives a very small picture of what makes something "vital." I suspect we use this variable mostly out of convenience/laziness as it is the easiest to get, being listed on the article page itself without needing to look at the talk page or other statistics pages.

GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 18:34, 8 January 2026 (UTC)

More representation of transport

Somehow, transportation only has 461 vital articles (1 level 2, 8 level 3, 75 level 4, 370 level 5). This seems awfully small for the method by which humans.... move. I find it much more likely to come across a biography that is a vital article than a transport article; although this is fair to some extent, I think there should be more allocated slots.

For example, I think that train operators on a national level (e.g. National Rail, Amtrak, Nederlandse Spoorwegen) should be Vital level 5, especially as flag carriers often are (British Airways, American Airlines, Air China).^[a] Equally, major railways seem to be absent from vital articles (e.g. East Coast Main Line, West Coast Main Line, High Speed 1, High Speed 2 in the UK and I'm sure it's equivalent globally). Away from railways, I think the same could be said about major roadways (e.g. M25 motorway in the UK, Interstate 80 In the US, Route 1 (Iceland)).

As someone incredibly biassed towards transport, I think it should have 1000 articles at or above level five^[b] (I'm completely willing to haggle down). For example, could we try handing WikiProjects a potential number of vital articles, let users generate ideas about ones worth of vital article, then work from there?

Interested to hear people's thoughts on this. JacobTheRox^{(talk | contributions)}

Notes

Support

1. Support as nom JacobTheRox^{(talk | contributions)} 19:21, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

   You have not submitted a list of nominees for consideration here. There is no specific list of articles for me to support or oppose. The way to change the composition of the vital articles is through the nomination process. Start nominating things. They will get a fair shot and you will get feedback. I would hop on this. I expect us to be overquota at level 5 within 30 days because of #Equalizations that amount to an unapproved quota shift. Once people see that we are overquota, people will start responding differently to batch and mass nominations.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 20:39, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

   P.S. non of the links above should be nominated here. They should be nominated at Wikipedia talk:Vital articles/Level/5/Society.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 20:41, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

   I will assemble a list then for Wikipedia talk:Vital articles/Level/5/STEM as that is where it seems to be hosted. JacobTheRox^{(talk | contributions)} 14:50, 31 July 2025 (UTC)

   I am not sure why you assert STEM. See Wikipedia:Vital_articles/Level/5/Society_and_social_sciences/Politics_and_economics#Transport.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 16:09, 31 July 2025 (UTC)

   @TonyTheTiger That's only the transport companies. There is a large transportation section on Wikipedia:Vital_articles/Level/5/Technology#Transportation. Having these separated might be a problem. 166.140.230.92 (talk) 19:51, 31 July 2025 (UTC)

2. Support a shift of quota from biographies towards transport. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 18:26, 22 August 2025 (UTC)
3. Per nom. GauchoDude (talk) 14:25, 24 August 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Oppose until Jacob tells me what this vote passing would do. It's been a month and I still haven't received an answer as to what we're voting on here. QuicoleJR (talk) 12:41, 22 September 2025 (UTC)
2. There is no viable nomination here. We nominate specific articles or sets of articles, not broad themes.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 14:29, 22 September 2025 (UTC)
3. 飞车过大关 (talk) 18:08, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

Neutral

Discuss

@JacobTheRox: What is this proposal about? Are we discussing a batch addition, a quota increase, or something else entirely? I need to know what I'm voting about before I vote on it. QuicoleJR (talk) 16:13, 24 August 2025 (UTC)

Take 100 slots from Philosophers, historians, political and social scientists

Splitting Technology into some sub pages.

@User:Lophotrochozoa: and you didn't update the template following splitting the Technology page because…? Bluevestman (talk) 22:26, 5 June 2026 (UTC)

@Bluevestman: Which template? Lophotrochozoa (talk) 22:07, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

This one. I already updated it. Bluevestman (talk) 23:18, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

Sorry. Lophotrochozoa (talk) 12:32, 12 June 2026 (UTC)

Take 100 slots from Countries and Subdivisions

There shouldn't be 1300 slots just for countries and administrative divisions. I feel like it would be easy to remove 70 from the list. I would probably move them to Physical Geography, or split 50/50 between Geography Basics and Physical Geography. ChaoticVermillion (talk) 11:26, 1 November 2025 (UTC)

I could support this, if you have a good proposal for which articles to cut. The 50/50 split is needed. It would be fairly easy to remove 70 from the list if we had everyone on the same page, but there is a real hoarder mentality and change is very conservative. I just did a bold move of 3 articles from Countries and Subdivisions into Geography basics, but there is only so much we can shuffle for a proposal like this. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 19:02, 1 November 2025 (UTC)

I'm good with this, I really want to give Narrative Arts more quota and at this point I'm willing to take the slots from nearly any other subpage. If you can come up with enough good removals, I'll gladly support the quota shift. QuicoleJR (talk) 20:48, 9 November 2025 (UTC)

Since this was proposed 7 months ago, 100 slots were added to narrative arts, 50 were added to geography basics, and 50 removed from physical geography. The regions and countries page is currently 31 under its quota. Should we fill this page or reduce the quota? Melozone crissalis (talk) 20:37, 16 June 2026 (UTC)

Rename the "Countries and subdivisions" page to mention regions

There is a proposal to rename the "Countries and subdivisions" subpage. Lophotrochozoa (talk) 01:20, 21 November 2025 (UTC)

reminder about the zero interwiki article list

I'm not very active here anymore, but I believe 1cintus had posted a list of articles with no language links and set up a quarry in the last few months. While not necessarily being a complete reason for demotion in it of itself, it is a good list to check for articles that may not meet vitality, so anyone interested could look through it. ALittleClass (talk) 02:58, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

I’ll update it tommorow. -1ctinus📝🗨 02:28, 9 December 2025 (UTC)

Add a no-consensus close for VA5

I frequently notice very old discussions on the VA5 list, which are often 6-12 months old, just sitting around not being voted on. These old discussions crowd the talk page, and while I can't speak for other people, I sometimes feel obligated to just vote pass/fail on an old proposal so it can finally close. All the other levels have no-consensus closes, and I think that VA5 would benefit from one too. Since VA5 is less restrictive and the barrier for a decision is lower, a no-consensus close would ideally happen after a longer period of time than the other levels, to give it a chance to be voted on. My proposal would be the following:

• After 60 days, a proposal may be closed as NO CONSENSUS if the proposal hasn't received any votes for 60 days, regardless of tally.
• After 90 days, a proposal may be closed as NO CONSENSUS if the proposal has no oppose votes and two or less support votes.
• After 120 days, a proposal may be closed as NO CONSENSUS if it has neither 60% support and 4 or more support votes nor less than 60% support and 2 or more oppose votes.

@GeogSage said this under another proposal on this page, with I think is a good idea as well: "I suggested above we could have a system that allows users to re-open no-consensus proposals at a later date if they're interested, where votes can be imported by pinging the users, and if they want to change their vote they can."

Support fully

1. As nom. Shocksingularity (talk) 03:52, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

Support 60-day rule

1. If adding everything fails. Shocksingularity (talk) 03:52, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

Support 90-day rule

1. If adding everything fails. Shocksingularity (talk) 03:52, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

Support 120-day rule

1. If adding everything fails. Shocksingularity (talk) 03:52, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

Support resurrecting no-consensus proposals with old votes

1. If adding everything fails. Shocksingularity (talk) 03:52, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

1. We have hashed this out a few times already. All durated limits will result in less popular topics never achieving quorum. The purpose of the queue system is so that every nomination get consideration by a quorum, which by the current rules is either 4 supports and greater the 60% or 2 opposes and 60% or less. If we just allow the less popular topics to sit until a quorum is achieved they will eventually rise to a high enough position in the queue to compel a quorum.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 06:29, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

Discuss

• Honestly, this discussion seems like it should be closed. We just voted above at #User:The_Blue_Rider_Closing_discussions_without_a_quorum against closing without a quorum. That discussion was just closed on 13:47, 26 October 2025 (UTC)-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD)
• We decided to require 2 oppose votes very recently as well at Wikipedia_talk:Vital_articles/Level/5/Archive_22#Require_2_oppose_votes_before_failing, which was closed at 20:53, 20 May 2025 (UTC).-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 21:18, 29 November 2025 (UTC)
• We voted against a time-limited closure at Wikipedia_talk:Vital_articles/Level/5/Archive_22#Close_proposals_after_2_months_of_inactivity_regardless_of_vote_count?, which was closed at 02:43, 9 February 2025 (UTC).-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 21:20, 29 November 2025 (UTC)
  • There you can see my example of a well-formed queue showing it takes 6-9 months for some times of topics to achieve a quorum.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 21:23, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

Shocksingularity (talk) 03:52, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

Quota reallocations to enable moves of sections

These proposals were originally made with the proposal to allow the page quotas to be multiples of 5 but I would like to note that there are alternative options if we have any sections to spare, for example if we decide to only increase the narrative arts quota by 50. Lophotrochozoa (talk) 22:02, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

Increase "Basics and technical geography" to 150

Can we do something about removal nominations without non-statistical explanations?

It seems like bad practice to me to have nominations without any reason listed besides statistics. We don't allow this in XfD. -1ctinus📝🗨 15:21, 12 January 2026 (UTC)

Sorry that I think having crap stats is enough to remove an article. Bluevestman (talk) 20:19, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

Fixing the margins for level 5

In this section (Wikipedia:Vital_articles/Level/5/Society_and_social_sciences/Culture#Germanic_languages), the article African-American Vernacular English ◎ 5 doesn't display correctly. I am bringing this up here because there might be more pages where this might be an issue, but this one stands out to me. How can we fix this? Any thoughts? Interstellarity (talk) 00:21, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

@Interstellarity I just see that "African-American Vernacular English" is on four lines with one word each. Is that what you're talking about? If so, the solution would be either to make the column width wider for that section, or use fewer levels of indentation. Melozone crissalis (talk) 19:31, 12 February 2026 (UTC)

The entry overlapped with the space of the next column (though not with the text of the next column) before I decreased the indentation level Lophotrochozoa (talk) 13:17, 14 February 2026 (UTC)

New stub list

Since User:1ctinus does not want to edit his stub page (I don't blame him), I decided to create my own version.

James_Meade
Dichroism
Street_gutter
Hadron_era
Xu_Zhonglin_(novelist)
Portunidae
Snout
Okhotsk_plate
Amur_plate
Esocoidei
Hallway
Square_mile
Pine_squirrel
Nightstand
T-square
South_Hamgyong_Province
Executive_agreement
Stilt
Hand_game
Groat_(grain)
Sahand
Rib_eye_steak
Pomfret
Chambeshi_River
Pistonless_rotary_engine
Muhammad_Najib_ar-Ruba'i
Extrusive_rock
Ottoman_(furniture)
Pico_Cristóbal_Colón
Mathieu_Orfila
Antonio_García_Gutiérrez
Reusability
Lygaeidae
Qiongzhou_Strait
Kra_Isthmus
Joule-second
Grove_(nature)
Marrah_Mountains
Grand_Canal_of_Alsace
Relativity_(M._C._Escher)
Luo_Ronghuan
Phyllite
Earthworks_(engineering)
Masbate_Island
Language_binding
Metre–tonne–second_system_of_units
Erythroxylum
Akira_Kamiya
Manovo-Gounda_St._Floris_National_Park
Fennoscandia
Lacerta_(genus)
Main_course
Oum_Er-Rbia_River
Mechanic
Jamshid_Mashayekhi
Huanglong_Scenic_and_Historic_Interest_Area
Heiligenschein
North_Caribbean_Coast_Autonomous_Region
Osteolepis
Snipe_eel
Patent_office
Karakum_Canal
Emba_(river)
Arak_gorges
Chinhoyi_Caves
Cerro_Sarisariñama
Mallos_de_Riglos
Ciudad_Encantada
Shrimpfish
Street_game
Anthony_Gatto
Galina_Chistyakova
Jô_Soares
Kennedy_Simmonds
Ground_hornbill
George_Jones_(publisher)
Nastasen
Candareen
Mace_(unit)
Kan'ami
Kaori_Icho
Fructuoso_Rivera
Hernando_Siles
Juan_Mora_Fernández
Ottavio_Rinuccini
Al-Qurtubi
Foot-pound_(energy)
Grand_unification_epoch
Isenthalpic_process
Shunpei_Yamazaki
Brittle–ductile_transition_zone
Radian_per_second
Square_degree
Björn_Dunkerbeck
Lian_Po
Ritual_warfare
Tactical_formation
Study_(room)
Menotti_Del_Picchia
Alberto_de_Oliveira
Tikkavarapu_Pattabhirama_Reddy
Patio
Oshima_Peninsula
Jarir_ibn_Atiyah
Hump-winged_grig
Majoidea
Procambarus_alleni
Galop
Distribution_function_(physics)
James_Gamble_(industrialist)
Plasma_recombination
Macropodiformes
Si-o-se-pol
Courser
Ōshikōchi_no_Mitsune
Stream_bed
Juan_Crisóstomo_Falcón
Flores_Sea
North_West_Cape
Colemanite
Taihang_Mountains
Field_galaxy
Pont_d'Arc
Paul_Cornu
Misua
Nettilling_Lake
Annie_Fratellini
Angelo_Mariani_(chemist)
Punta_Pariñas
Needlework
Shandong_Peninsula
Ma_Zhiyuan
Egg_salad
Military_volunteer
Saronic_Islands
Mbomou_River
Andrey_Lavrov
Illampu
Dmitri_Ivanovsky
East_Antarctica
Headstander
Leanchoilia
Monosodium_citrate
Sodium_metavanadate
Pseudocereal
Ancylostoma
Night_heron
Trou_aux_Cerfs
Law_of_Poland
Strokkur
Cape_Lopatka
Lofoi_Falls
Maletsunyane_Falls
Longclaw
Putorana_Plateau
Buhturi
Yana_Churikova
Mooré
Labid
Umar_ibn_Abi_Rabi'ah
Sun_Yu_(director)
Menengai
Motor_ship
Ogata_Kenzan
Richard_Genée
Temistocle_Solera
Cesare_Sterbini
Chico_Ejiro
José_Nepomuceno
Luigi_Illica
Dettifoss
Mergini
Eider
Monal
Cash_(unit)
Scolopendridae
Alessandro_Striggio_the_Younger
Open-end_spinning
Geologic_province
Graded_bedding
Oriental_giant_squirrel
Sciurus
Cratonic_sequence
Syncline
Convention_center
Pendant_group
Chonos_Archipelago
Knife_switch
Dromiidae
Sirloin_steak
Sadamisaki_Peninsula
Cape_Farewell,_Greenland
Cape_York_(Greenland)
Song_Yu
Sequence_(geology)
Lake_Tritriva
Serei_Saophoan_(city)
Direct_examination
Thái_Bình
Folding_(chemistry)
Sofa_bed
Milton_Cato
Lingqu
Pace_(unit)
Northeast_China_Plain
Yangtze_Plain
Matola
Sporades
Blanca_Estela_Pavón
Ziz_Gorges
Substantive_law
Promontory
Rift_lake
South_Central_China
Rotary_switch
Li_Mu
Authentication_(law)
Lingnan
Quail_as_food
Tarapacá_Region
Dimorphic_fungus
Marine_architecture
Hectorite
Nyi_Pu
Samuel_Sachs
Ferret-badger
Kluane_/_Wrangell–St._Elias_/_Glacier_Bay_/_Tatshenshini-Alsek
Stone_Forest
Pontic_Mountains
Khone_Phapheng_Falls
Kuang_Si_Falls
Tendon_as_food
Axonopus
Pulse_(physics)
Top_(clothing)
Anastasia_Davydova
Jia_Xian
Huayllay_National_Sanctuary
Zhao_Kuo
Patricio_Guzmán
Guido_Menasci
Giovanni_Targioni-Tozzetti
Khartoum_North
Sol_(colloid)
Leochares
Prolibytherium
Protoceratidae
Hölloch
Stratigraphic_section
Kohgiluyeh_and_Boyer-Ahmad_province
Progymnosperm
Pteraspis
Lophiodon
Feldspathoid
Eastern_mole
Highland
Pleurosauridae
Linckia_laevigata
Sutherland_Falls
Mardalsfossen
Qarchak
Golestan,_Tehran
Pakdasht
Qods,_Iran
Cape_Crillon
Ensis
Octodon
Dead_leaf_mantis
Misgurnus_fossilis
Shahriar,_Tehran_province
Shutruk-Nakhunte
Headland
Overhead_cable
Paris_Charter
Dowitcher
Cut_bank
Kinder_goat
Curtain_wall_(fortification)
Aluminosilicate
Spinneret_(polymers)
Solar_storm
Optical_path
Isaac_W._Sprague
Muhammad_ibn_Ali_al-Sanusi
Lecanorales
Supporting_character
Mikhail_Budyko
Boris_Chirkov
Hydraulic_manifold
Hong_Sok-jung
Closure_temperature
Stick_mantis
Bradymetabolism
Nonthaburi
Phuket_(city)
The_Ninth_Wave
Itoigawa-Shizuoka_Tectonic_Line
Tugtupite
Reyn
Cubic_metre_per_second
Kii_Channel
Hypsometry
Pointe_de_Pen-Hir
Euthymenes
Staggered_conformation
Musa_balbisiana
Dimitar_Dimov
Hydrosaurus
Étienne_Oehmichen
Recrystallization_(geology)
Degradation_(geology)
Phormis
Pachypasa
Boracite
El_Kantara
Monopotassium_glutamate
Hetao
Russeifa
False_Cape_Horn
Leaching_(pedology)
High-energy_astronomy
Oder–Havel_Canal
Trapeziidae
Pre-stellar_core
Spectral_energy_distribution
Alborz_province
Rig-e_Jenn
Mandraka_Falls
Tayabas_Isthmus
Culcita_(echinoderm)
Nosean
Sirhind_Canal
Valle_de_la_Luna_(Bolivia)
Antozonite
Quark_epoch
Pigeonite
Friouato_caves
Kainite
Gobiinae
Kavir_Buzurg
Roger_Sisson
Intergalactic_dust
Slab_(geology)
Cape_São_Roque
Heterocongrinae
Flooded_grasslands_and_savannas
Hubert_Beuve-Méry
Naviglio_di_Bereguardo
Shimokita_Peninsula
Health_and_usage_monitoring_systems
Isthmus_of_Suez
Continental_rise
Dorcatherium
Hall_Islands
Nomoi_Islands
Carving
Capital_appreciation
Corn_harvester
Transplanter
Julida
Lifting_equipment
G-Cloud
Peak_Pobeda_(Sakha)
Huang_Xianfan
Shelter
Cervalces
Ophioglossidae
Arsenide_mineral
Service_(motor_vehicle)
Pre-exponential_factor
Hypogeusia
Virgocentric_flow
Flexible_shaft
Recessional_velocity
Stenotherm
River_morphology
Network_media
Cryptopidae
Raised_field
Railway_engineering
HWB_color_model
Golestan_National_Park
South_China
Giant_Void
Enzyme_unit
Byerlee's_law
Cascades_de_Karfiguéla
Prachov_Rocks
Maritime_administrations
Semiheavy_water
Papuan_Peninsula
Digital_buffer
Inverse_second
Terra_Australis_Orogen
Aphrophoridae
Newton-second
Synchronous_circuit
Sciadopitys
Aphelida
Lingdingyang
Lingulata
Wedgefish
Gram_per_cubic_centimetre
Antigone_(bird)
Basic_lead_phosphite
Rocher_de_Sel
Tanougou_Falls
Sling_(medicine)
Rhinocerotoidea
Maritime_passenger_terminal
Seismic_zone
Moschidae
Stepfather
Stepchild
Stepsibling
Tang-e_Gharu
Jugurtha_Tableland
Anguinae
Norfolk_four-course_system
Sororate_marriage
Ictonychinae
Amazon_Delta
Uroplatinae
Dhanin_Chearavanont
South_West_Ethiopia_Peoples'_Region
Renato Simoni
Salicaceae
Raspberry juice
Adad-nirari II
Historical metrology

Bluevestman (talk) 20:17, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

Thank you. If you want to update the list automatically,

see:

feel free to make this a subpage at Wikipedia:Vital articles/Stubs -1ctinus📝🗨 20:21, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

Add 100 slots to politicians and leaders

Social sciences subcategories may need more slots

This isn’t really a formal proposal because I don’t know the intricacies of the list enough to know where we would want to take slots from, but judging just from the talk pages, growth in the societal sections seems to be imminent with proposals for a lot of elementary concepts that we have been missing such as Widow, Nepotism, Deadweight loss, and Land reform. Considering this section is already over quota, it may require a number of new slots if this trend continues. What do you all think? Dess Dedalus (talk) 10:20, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

I am not sure we need 205 educational institutions, and a number of other things in the social sciences section could probably be removed, but I think some of these topics should be listed. Either Artists, musicians, and composers or Entertainers, directors, producers, and screenwriters could be cut. A combined 1210 actors/actresses, comedians, and television personalities, and 501 directors, producers, and screenwriters are kind of a lot. Melozone crissalis (talk) 20:10, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

I generally don't like mass listing of Fooland articles, but I think educational institutions are one of the few places where we could benefit from mass replacement of those individual institutions with these. Only the most prestigious universities in the world, like Tsinghua University ◎ 4 or University of Oxford ◎ 4 should have their own. There is no reason to list schools like University of California, Los Angeles ◎ 5 and University of California, Berkeley ◎ 4 that University of California ◎ 5 or Higher education in the United States  could encompass. We could easily cut down 5 or 6 articles, for example, by replacing the wide swath of Canadian universities we list with one or two plus Higher education in Canada , or another 7 by replacing these Australian unis with Higher education in Australia . Dess Dedalus (talk) 20:22, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

National-themed articles are a bit of a minefield due to controversy and political correctness. I don't think that's where we should be focusing our improvements. Instead, I believe we'd gain more value by aggressively cleaning up the organization and legal articles. 飞车过大关 (talk) 10:20, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

Alright, if you have a good set of proposals I’ll look over them and cast some votes. Dess Dedalus (talk) 17:38, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

Move 50 quota from Philosophers, historians, and social scientists to Biology, biochemistry, anatomy, and physiology

Ordering of the summary table

@Interstellarity: just reverted the ordering of the level 5 summary table to list philosophy and religion before everyday life and games and sports. I previously moved philosophy and religion before after everyday life to reflect the division into talk pages, as philosophy and religion shares a talk page with society and social sciences, which is listed after all those, and everyday life shares a talk page with arts, which is listed before them. If the purpose of the revert was to agree with the level 4 table, I suggest reordering the level 4 table to agree with the division into level 5 talk pages. Lophotrochozoa (talk) 16:43, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

@Lophotrochozoa I'd be willing to reorder the level 4 table. I'm hoping to get input from others before doing so. Interstellarity (talk) 14:30, 7 February 2026 (UTC)

Since one one else has objected, I have reverted your revert of the level 5 list and reordered the level 4 list. Lophotrochozoa (talk) 19:18, 18 February 2026 (UTC)

List of people on banknotes and List of people on coins

here stats:

should replace non-vital people on the list for example firefighter or pranksters could get cut, IMHO. Dawid2009 (talk) 13:07, 8 February 2026 (UTC)

Why does a person getting their face on money make them "vital?" Broad coverage means we need to get samples from diverse subjects, not just narcissistic politicians. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 01:09, 14 February 2026 (UTC)

Are there really that many people from average-sized or larger countries whose faces appear on bills or coins who are not at least V5? BD2412 T 02:27, 14 February 2026 (UTC)

Move national flags and national athems to culture section

We should have these two topics in one similar place to be compared each other (at least quotas/representation/coverage). For example we list national anthem of the Philipines but no National flag of the Philipines. Currently national anthems are in art section and national flags in history section. They both more fit to culture section, where should be measured with other topics listed here. We list in that section more comparable articles like Culture of the United States. It is easier to arrange coveage/representation for national symbols if you compare number of thse articles with articles whichare listed in culture sectin as subsectin of society. Even if they fit to both sections it is clear anyway that at least in light f discussions/comprasion it is better to put in same place. We technically list rainforewt at the level 3 at geography section and at the level 4 at physical sciences to make things better to view/analyse, we can make things better to viw and analyse also here: try find solution to put national anthems and national flags in the same section. Dawid2009 (talk) 19:49, 14 February 2026 (UTC)

1. Eh, I feel AV arts might be better for both. Dess Dedalus (talk) 20:16, 14 February 2026 (UTC)

   I do not see how national anthems and national flags better fit to AV than say video games (which are more overrepresented id comprasion to flags and anthems an all BTW). Dawid2009 (talk) 20:24, 14 February 2026 (UTC)

   Video games are a type of Game ◎ 2, and so is Sport ◎ 3. Games are a type of Recreation ◎ 4, and consequently belong in the recreation section of everyday life. It’s a consequence of the classification system: if we moved video games we’d have to move all the board games and sports too. Furthermore, flags are a form of visual design/art and anthems are a form of auditory art. Just think of Ode to Joy ◎ 5, the anthem for the European Union ◎ 3. That certainly belongs in AV art. Also, I think video games’ representation compared to flags and anthems are fine, the latter are really only important as symbols of their countries unless for some other reason like the aforementioned Ode to Joy. No reason we should include a bunch of random tricolours over Doom (1993 video game) ◎ 5, which basically founded modern shooter games. Dess Dedalus (talk) 20:44, 14 February 2026 (UTC)

I support that. Ipedecha (talk) 21:28, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

Not seeing a clear split between art and culture but they don't belong in history. CMD (talk) 22:44, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

Move 100 slots from "Entertainers, directors, producers, and screenwriters" to "Politics and economics"

Bottom 200 VA5 articles by VitalScore

Extracted from Vitallist_AllLevels_VitalScores2.csv made last year by GeogSage. I've removed articles which have already been delisted and replaced redirects with their targets. Items with the lowest VitalScore are at the top.

Interestingly Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. ◎ 5 ended up with one of the very lowest VitalScores, despite having non-terrible stats (~350 daily pageviews, 92 page watchers, 9 interwikis) at first glance. I think I'll make a pageviews-based bottom list soon after this.--LaukkuTheGreit (Talk•Contribs) 13:12, 20 February 2026 (UTC)

I'd have to look at the data, there are some odd things I'm seeing. Specifically, the I made sure to capture the QIDs of them so that we could make sure that the article matched, and it does, however the date of creation I captured does not match what I'm seeing in page statistics. I did some investigating, and I believe that it captured the redirect page Are you there God for some reason. I suspect the "?" might have messed up the API query. Fun problems! Great to have more eyes on it to help catch this stuff for next run. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 02:12, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

Uh, Vulnerability (computer security) ◎ 5, seems to have a lot better stats than the rest of the list. Bluevestman (talk) 06:32, 28 March 2026 (UTC)

I've now struck these two out.--LaukkuTheGreit (Talk•Contribs) 08:42, 28 March 2026 (UTC)

Bottom 200 VA5 articles by pageviews

Least viewed at the top. From the same CSV by GeogSage. Redirects and already-delisted articles have been cleaned up by me.

Posted as a possible alternative to the bottom-200-by-VitalScore one, and which may (or may not) in some ways be more accurate in capturing the most useless listings.--LaukkuTheGreit (Talk•Contribs) 15:06, 20 February 2026 (UTC)

Page views are useful, however I found the other variables I looked at were really important. For example, look at Wikipedia:Popular pages, and you'll see that United States and Donald Trump are the number 1 and 2 top most viewed pages. Countries rate really high when it comes to page views as well. It is not the most meaningful metric, and I think editors/watchers as well as links in, site links, and language links are all useful. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 02:18, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

As an individual metric, (extremely low) pageviews probably are more useful as an indicator of non-vitality than (high pageviews of) vitality. While recentism boosts topics of transient relevance, on the flipside it's hardly worthwhile to improve articles that virtually nobody ever reads. These all have single-digit daily pageviews (save for the bugged ones), at double-digit views I think we can be more careful about the metric.--LaukkuTheGreit (Talk•Contribs) 09:04, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

I am surprised how many of these are biographies. This is a fertile group for swaps and removals.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 14:42, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

In particular I think we can try using these stats as a guide in reducing US biographical bias.--LaukkuTheGreit (Talk•Contribs) 11:39, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

A significant portion of these biographies are about women scientists, experts in niche fields, or cultural figures from the non-Western world. Although I personally support removing most of them, such a cleanup might fail due to the need to "prevent systemic bias". 飞车过大关 (talk) 13:58, 7 March 2026 (UTC)

Splitting the vital article level 5 pages

I created a discussion on the people talk page here where I suggested splitting that page since it is our biggest page in terms of bytes. I think it would be good to split the remaining four vital article level 5 talk pages as those pages are over 300 KB. Pinging @Selina Dedalus and @1ctinus if they wish to provide input on how to do this. We could probably do the split for each of the ten sublists. With the People page being the most active page on the entire VA project, I believe this makes sense to do this. Interstellarity (talk) 21:00, 20 February 2026 (UTC)

We should probably split up all of them except arts+everyday life, that one's pretty small. For people, I think we divide it 3 ways:

• Creative & cultural figures: Writers, journalists, artists, musicians, composers, entertainers, directors, producers, screenwriters, and sports figures. This encompasses people whose output is fundamentally artistic and/or cultural.
• Thinkers & researchers: Philosophers, historians, social scientists, scientists, inventors, and mathematicians. This is for people involved in research and discovery in the major academic fields: humanities, STEM, and social science.
• Authorities & leadership figures: Religious figures, politicians, leaders, military personnel, revolutionaries, and activists. This is for people who are involved in leadership positions, leadership of societies or movements, and frequently but not always the use of force (either legitimate or illegitimate).

Not sure how to split up miscellaneous, but different parts of that seem to fit different areas better. Chefs belong in the first category, law enforcement in the third, businesspeople in the third, etc. Or we could just make the third category "OTHER" and encompass all non-creatives and non-thinkers.

I think we can also just split history and geography into different pages, one for hist and the other for geo.

I also believe we can split up Society into one page for religion, philosophy, mythology and culture; the other page being for society, social science, & economics.

Finally, we could break up STEM into Tech&Engineering vs Science & Mathematics. Alternatively, we could break it into Biology & Health, Tech & Engineering, and Other Sciences & Mathematics. I also think we could use splitting up Level 4: that talkpage is ridiculously large as well. Dess Dedalus (talk) 21:21, 20 February 2026 (UTC)

@Selina Dedalus Just to let you know that I like your ideas on splitting the talk pages. Because the People subpage is the biggest talk page on the subject, I think it should be our highest priority in splitting the vital articles. I will hold off on splitting the other subpages since they are likely not that big. They will need to be split up at some point, but we should at least prioritize the biggest talk pages so that the subpages are more manageable. Interstellarity (talk) 00:11, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

@Interstellarity If you look at the early archive of society you see arts proposals. You cant just create a bunch of irrelevent articles willy nilly, at least change the name of the old “history and geographic” to “history” or “geography”, like every other subarticle created. Ipedecha (talk) 14:54, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

@Ipedecha How do you suggest going about doing this? I'd be willing to make the changes. If you see a better solution that would be better, that would be great if you could implement the changes you think would be helpful. I understand preserving the page history of the discussion page. I could rename the H&G subpage to History, delete the history subpage, and keep the Geography one. As this is a collaborative project, I welcome your ideas on how we can better organize discussions on this page. Interstellarity (talk) 16:02, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

I would have renamed one of them and created a new one. Ipedecha (talk) 16:43, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

I put a technical request in to move and merge the pages as I am unable to do it myself. Interstellarity (talk) 16:57, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

@Interstellarity and Selina Dedalus: We should give the discussion more time. I disagree with dividing the Society talk page differently from how the level 4 list is divided into subpages, and I might have opinions about how to name the new discussion subpages. Lophotrochozoa (talk) 21:57, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

@Lophotrochozoa How long do you think is sufficient time to discuss before taking any action? I was leaning towards a week for two, but if consensus forms earlier, then we can play it by ear. Interstellarity (talk) 22:27, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

Agree we should have opinions of most people. I wasn’t involved in creating the new pages and was just giving my ideas for what a best division would look like. Dess Dedalus (talk) 22:50, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

@Interstellarity, you really got to stop jumping the gun on everything. Bluevestman (talk) 23:09, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

@Bluevestman You're right. I should've probably waited until some time has passed before doing anything. I realize that now. Interstellarity (talk) 23:26, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

Welp, I tried to move Society to Society, social science, and economics, but because I'm an idiot I accidentally moved it to social science, and economics, and now I can't move it back! Bluevestman (talk) 00:59, 24 February 2026 (UTC)

@Lophotrochozoa, @Selina Dedalus, @Interstellarity, Help. Bluevestman (talk) 01:03, 24 February 2026 (UTC)

@Bluevestman I requested a page mover to WP:RMTR to make this move. Interstellarity (talk) 01:12, 24 February 2026 (UTC)

@Bluevestman: Didn't you just complain about Interstellarity jumping the gun? Lophotrochozoa (talk) 01:15, 24 February 2026 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm a hypocrite. Bluevestman (talk) 03:05, 24 February 2026 (UTC)

I just noticed that there are proposals on Wikipedia talk:Vital articles/Level/5/History and Wikipedia talk:Vital articles/Level/5/Geography. Many people may not be aware these pages exist, as they are not watching them, which is a problem. The same goes for the other subpages. Should we split out all the proposals on the old subpages to the new subpages? Melozone crissalis (talk) 20:07, 24 February 2026 (UTC)

Honestly, it doesn't matter to me, but if it were up to me, I would keep the existing proposals on the old subpages and let them run and then only require new proposals to be on the new subpages. Interstellarity (talk) 21:47, 24 February 2026 (UTC)

Here's mine opinion: merge history and geography (old) with the new history page, and keep the latter title. There's no reason to leave that page dead just because you didn't think of doing that. Bluevestman (talk) 22:17, 24 February 2026 (UTC)

Agree with BVM: Merge these pages Dess Dedalus (talk) 00:37, 25 February 2026 (UTC)

I can go along with your suggestions. How do you think we should go about with the merger? What do you think we should do with the existing discussions on both pages? I don't want to do anything to those pages yet until we reach an agreement on what we should do. I think these are some good questions to keep in mind while deciding what we should do. Interstellarity (talk) 23:44, 25 February 2026 (UTC)

If history and geography (old) and history are merged, I think that the existing geography proposals should be moved to the geography talk page. ChaoticVermillion (converse, contribs) 23:49, 25 February 2026 (UTC)

What should we do with the existing history proposals on each talk page? Which talk page do you think would be best? I want to do this while preserving the past discussions we have so we can easily find them especially in the archives and page history. What do you think? Interstellarity (talk) 00:38, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

I'd keep the history proposals on the merged history page and move the current geography proposals all to the new geography page. ChaoticVermillion (converse, contribs) 02:24, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

Just move the new current discussions on the new page to the old one. The more we wait, the more pain in the ass it'll be to merge them. The geography discussions on the old page can stay on. Bluevestman (talk) 04:32, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

I agree Dess Dedalus (talk) 04:48, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

Admin help request: There seems to be a consensus to move the existing page for the old History and geography page to History. This seems to be a case of history merging. I would an admin to perform this merger while preserving the history. Any action in assisting in this would be great. Interstellarity (talk) 02:30, 28 February 2026 (UTC)

Just merge the new page into the old one and change the name to History… Dess Dedalus (talk) 12:25, 28 February 2026 (UTC)

As a note, I already contested this at WP:RM/TR because of WP:PARALLEL history. See here. Tenshi! (Talk page) 13:15, 28 February 2026 (UTC)

And we can't just simply move the discussions in the latter to the former because….? Bluevestman (talk) 03:05, 3 March 2026 (UTC)

I have been asked to review this request as an administrator. I would note that it is entirely permissible to merge the page content and redirect the former page without merging the history, so long as the edit summary for the content merge directs readers to where the edit history (which would remain under the redirect) can be found. This is particularly useful if there are overlapping edit histories, such that a history merge can confuse the actual changes made to the page from one edit to the next. BD2412 T 23:57, 3 March 2026 (UTC)

There isn't, I objected to the history merge solely on that the histories are parallel. I suggested at RM/TR that an alternative may be to round-robin the two pages and do so, however Polyamorph removed the request 3 hours after I said that. Tenshi! (Talk page) 00:06, 4 March 2026 (UTC)

Given the length of the discussion here, and the fact that the technical request was contested, it was clear that it was not an uncontroversial move, hence my removal from the technical requests page. For potentially controversial moves that require discussion use WP:RM. Polyamorph (talk) 18:05, 4 March 2026 (UTC)

Administrator note - I have marked the {{admin help}} request (above) as answered, for the reasons given by both BD2412 and Polyamorph. Arcticocean ■ 10:08, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

@Interstellarity, did you just created more pages after everything we went through? Bluevestman (talk) 01:03, 4 March 2026 (UTC)

Can we please not have "(old)" pages? Just make the current STEM page into physical sciences and let the old proposals run through. Dess Dedalus (talk) 01:09, 4 March 2026 (UTC)

@Bluevestman@Selina Dedalus Should be all fixed. No more old pages for now. Interstellarity (talk) 01:15, 4 March 2026 (UTC)

You're just absolutely remarkable. We made it abundantly clear that we don't want to abandon these pages, and yet you still were going do the same thing with what used to be the STEM page. You were only stopped because me and Dess caught it. Bluevestman (talk) 18:09, 4 March 2026 (UTC)

Split the Social studies subpage and merge the parts with other subpage

Split history quota

History is the section with the biggest unsplit total quota 3300 and its kinda annoying to navigate the list. So i suggest splitting every thing until Prehistory (so general to history by topic) with 950 and the rest (so prehistory to comteporary) with 2.350. (I calculated and it should be almost perfect status quo with this split). I not sure of the name of the two subsections.

Support

1. As nom. Ipedecha (talk) 10:53, 23 February 2026 (UTC)
2. We could just call these "General history" and "Historical events, entities, and developments"? Dess Dedalus (talk) 22:27, 24 February 2026 (UTC)

   Maybe ditch development, cause it kinda of a long title and one can argue a development is a event, but i think the names are fine. Ipedecha (talk) 17:26, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

3. KhaiDo (talk) 03:33, 2 April 2026 (UTC)

Oppose

1. We are getting proposals like "Swap History of French Guiana for Devil's Island, so I'm not convinced this would be helpful. Melozone crissalis (talk) 23:39, 2 March 2026 (UTC)

   I dont understand your comment. What does this have to do with splitting the quota? This is helpfull because its a pain in the ass to navigate the history quota that is the biggest one and going to be the biggest by fair if the tecnology split is approved Ipedecha (talk) 23:59, 2 March 2026 (UTC)

   @Ipedecha: because there may be proposals to swap entries between the two sections, so I don't think setting separate quotas for each is particularly useful. Melozone crissalis (talk) 00:01, 3 March 2026 (UTC)

   @Melozone crissalis: That's like saying murder shouldn't be outlawed because a lot of murders are happening. The reason why there are many swap proposals between the two is exactly because they are not split. It's the is–ought fallacy. Even then, I don't see a problem with making swaps between different sections, as long as they follow the respective quotas and proposed in the appropriate talk page. KhaiDo (talk) 03:33, 2 April 2026 (UTC)

   I thought the number of articles in each subsection should be free flowing rather than holding to a quota. Melozone crissalis (talk) 19:20, 2 April 2026 (UTC)

2. 飞车过大关 (talk) 18:07, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

Comment

Brainstorm on how to ease the backlog

This backlog is getting absurd, especially with the proposals of EVERY STUB and the increase in activity at this level. I think at this level, which I am very guilty of, people tend to propose but not to vote. Potential ideas include:

• A moratorium
• A QPQ system
• A cap of maximum proposals
• A drive of some sort to create a voting incentive

I am neutral on which should be implemented. -1ctinus📝🗨 15:58, 24 February 2026 (UTC)

IMO it's all about clearing out proposals faster. If a proposal has no more than 1 support vote after 30 days it should be closed. We should let proposals with zero oppose votes and 4+ support votes be closed out after a week instead of waiting 15 days. Ban batch proposals with the only justification for each individual proposal being statistics (whether that be article class, size, or "Vital Score" - each batch proposal should have some qualitative justification individually in order to discourage willy-nilly mass proposals like, say, every single stub. Dess Dedalus (talk) 00:36, 25 February 2026 (UTC)

Another thing is that some people spend too much time making random proposals and arguments on L3 with no chance of passing rather than helping clear out the weeds down here. I really wish we put a moratorium on arguing about L3 for a bit so we could get some of this tough L5 work done. Dess Dedalus (talk) 00:38, 25 February 2026 (UTC)

It doesn't help that the V3 list is terrible (Walt Disney listed? Seriously?) -1ctinus📝🗨 13:37, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

I think it’s fine? Like after 20 years of consensus building I think it’s in a fine enough state to freeze proposals there for about a year or so while our editors focus on the massive amount of work involved in getting V5 to a remotely presentable state. Dess Dedalus (talk) 16:35, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

I agree that there should be a 6-month moratorium on VA3. If you ignore the debate on biographies, level 3 is in a good enough state to be kept like that for a bit, while we spend our efforts more on VA4 and VA5. ChaoticVermillion (converse, contribs) 08:47, 3 March 2026 (UTC)

I would support a ban on quantitative only proposals. It drives me crazy and it adds spam. -1ctinus📝🗨 13:36, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

I would support a ban on proposals that FAIL to include quantitative metrics, as well as proposals that do not explicitly frame themselves in the vital article criteria. Qualitative only proposals are literally just vibes and bias, and it has made the list be quantitatively a mess. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 06:06, 3 March 2026 (UTC)

I don't think quantitative metrics are useful as a sole heuristic. Like it or not, the point of this project at its core is vibes-based. "Importance" or "Vitality" is inherently a subjective construct, and no use of quantitative metrics will remove that. What quant metrics will do is introduce invisible bias we are unaware of when we claim to have none. Is a specific page a stub because it truly is unimportant, because it only has sources in other languages which enwiki editors don't have access to, or because it's a complex topic which editors shy away from editing? There is no way of knowing just from the quantitative metric. What qualitative analysis is is reasoning on the topic and whether or not it fulfills individual editors' conception of 'vitality': the consensus on what 'vitality' is ultimately winds up determined by the consensus of our editors' votes. This is central to what "importance" actually is as a concept: things we as humans have collectively agreed are notable or essentially. No sole focus on quantitative analysis will get us to some central measure or score of 'importance', only collective application of reason can get us to 'importance', because importance is fundamentally a social construct created by our collective understanding of what's important. This list will never not be based on opinion because there is no true essential quality of importance, merely opinions of it. Dess Dedalus (talk) 09:20, 3 March 2026 (UTC)

Four of the five vital article criteria, ("coverage," "Essential to Wikipedia's other articles," "No (Western) bias," and "Page Statistics") can be looked at with quantifiable data we have. Specifically, hierarchy in the page categories, pages linking to the article, number of languages with a similar article, and obviously page statistics. Notability is hard to determine, and this metric is usually mostly ignored. Pages that have high level categories with lots of articles linking to them are "Essential to Wikipedia's other articles," and would be the most "vital" to the project overall. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 01:42, 4 March 2026 (UTC)

The problem is really individual proposal, thousands of them. Batch proposals, especially ones that address multiple articles at once, are much less space then one proposal for each topic. Our list is not consistent, and a large part of the reason for that is individual proposals. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 06:04, 3 March 2026 (UTC)

The way I've found of making batch proposals most palatable is using bullet points and a short 1-2 sentence of explanation as to what each item is and why it should be added/removed, as well as adding a partial support section. You can look at this proposal I made today for an example. This lets editors quickly understand what they are voting for and feel more comfortable casting a full-batch vote for quite a few articles, as well as letting them cast support easily for *almost-everything* and have a section for disputes on individual items. This also serves as a very space-efficient way of crafting draft proposals. Dess Dedalus (talk) 09:20, 3 March 2026 (UTC)

Page statistics are one of the listed criteria, and trying to actually compare 50,000 pages one at a time through qualitative means has produced a very flawed list. Quantitative metrics can help to improve and maintain Wikipedia. Any "ban" on types of proposals should be ignored, as per Wikipedia policy Wikipedia:Ignore all rules: "If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it." The real problem is qualitative proposals that have no grounding in the vital article criteria, but are essentially opinions and vibes based on bias and grade school education. Also, L3 is more vital then L5, L3 is pretty terrible, and shit rolls downhill to L5. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 06:17, 3 March 2026 (UTC)

The criteria themselves are very wishy-washy about using page statistics: "However, these values should be treated with caution as they can be driven by recentism, and other bias, which is a particular concern at Levels 1-4." Dess Dedalus (talk) 09:20, 3 March 2026 (UTC)

Being cautious about using page statistics is not what I would describe as wishy-washy. Context should always be considered, however this is usually to catch exceptions and outliers. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 01:33, 4 March 2026 (UTC)

Also, I disagree that L3 is 'pretty terrible'. It's almost entirely in a good spot imo and highlights Wikipedia's most essential articles and those most likely to be the most regularly visited over a long, long time. It quite literally has been curated since before I was born. Dess Dedalus (talk) 21:09, 4 March 2026 (UTC)

You not believing that a top 100 people list should include culture figures does not make our Level 3 list terrible. Bluevestman (talk) 20:23, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

I don’t understand the argument that biographies aren’t vital. I have the phone widget for the Wikipedia app which displays the current “top read” article and it’s a biography about 99% of the time. Biographies as a category make up a considerable amount of Wikipedia’s traffic (I’m almost certain it’s a plurality, and wouldn’t be surprised if it were a majority) and are consequently vital to the functioning of the wiki. Dess Dedalus (talk) 00:39, 7 March 2026 (UTC)

If anything, I think our removal of 5-or-so relatively unimportant explorers (I think all of their removals except Amundsen [he was the first to visit both the North Pole *and* the South Pole!] were fine) should have been a place for us to add more cultural figures like a third director, a non-Western musician, another writer, Mary, etc. We generally undervalue these cultural figures as ‘vapid’ or ‘unimportant’ due to having effects on thought, culture and belief rather than on maps or technology, which I think is wrong. Dess Dedalus (talk) 00:47, 7 March 2026 (UTC)

I think the minimun time for approval be reduced a little bit and to have something like the current event in pt-wiki were having more vote diminish the minimun time. So for example lets say it 12 days for a normal aproval, but 6 for a 5-0, 3 for a 6-0, 2 for a 7-0 and if 8-0 or more 1 day. Prohibiting debate is ridiculous, estabilishing a minimun time only make less popular subjects less likely to be approved, cap proposal is horrible ideia cause v5 needs lots purges and mass inclusions, V3 is awful. The stat proposal ban, while i think is fine, since the list still very unpolish it does seens to be draining and annoying for most, it also sometimes gives important stuff a though time, especially if the en-wiki is bad, so i guess i be fine. Every suggestion should be voted tho, i find ridiculous needing to vote to move a article, but someone can just change important stuff. Ipedecha (talk) 17:24, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

• One easy solution is to get more comfortable with batch proposals that cover a lot of articles with a single vote. One proposal "Remove all stubs" is easy to handle. "Demote _____ articles to level 4," easy. The issue is people insist on voting on each article individually, and those votes get spread over months, different editors vote in them, and the results just make the list more inconsistent when some pass and others fail.

GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 06:21, 3 March 2026 (UTC)

• Another solution is to close discussions as "No consensus" if they fail to get the appropriate number of votes in 3 months or so. That is how it used to be, but they voted to get rid of that at some point so discussion would theoretically happen eventually. Technical issues with page length were brought up and ignored. I don't remember where this was.

Most of our proposals aren't really from 3+ months ago, they're usually from the last few weeks and haven't seen enough votes to close yet. Dess Dedalus (talk) 09:20, 3 March 2026 (UTC)

GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 06:24, 3 March 2026 (UTC)

• It seems that this discussion is currently meaningless, as a large number of Level 5 project votes remain stalled, while many users (myself included) are still casting mass votes.I suspect that voters only focus on casting their votes and take no responsibility for other editing tasks, such as updating the lists or archiving the votes. It seems there aren't many users willing to take charge of these tasks.飞车过大关 (talk) 18:40, 15 April 2026 (UTC)
  • Of course, based on my observation of the accumulated proposals for Level 5 lists, a user whose name starts with 'b' has submitted the most backlog nominations. It is safe to say that if their proposals were removed, the backlog for Level 5 lists would be reduced by more than half. I must admit, however, that I have also submitted some backlog proposals, so I share some responsibility for the current situation.飞车过大关 (talk) 18:40, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

Proposal to ease backlog

Considering that our backlogs are only increasing and increasing in length with pages becoming extremely difficult to navigate, I’d like to submit the following rule for consideration on the VA5 level:

Prohibit people from splitting the discussion subpages without a vote

Swap votes

When a nomination is made to add or remove and a discussant says they support swap. Does that count as a support to remove. User:飞车过大关 closed several discussions at Wikipedia talk:Vital articles/Level/5/Arts and everyday life (including A Cotton Office in New Orleans, Blue Horses and Gassed (painting)) where I would not have counted the support votes as support for straight remove.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 19:04, 4 March 2026 (UTC)

Most of the time when I vote for a swap my support is conditional on both parts happening. Dess Dedalus (talk) 19:20, 4 March 2026 (UTC)

That is what I thought. I think a few things got closed incorrectly.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 22:33, 4 March 2026 (UTC)

A swap is a add and a remove, so i only clarify there must be a swap with words. Ipedecha (talk) 20:59, 4 March 2026 (UTC)

• @飞车过大关: Would you please comment here?-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 18:17, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

  I understand that my closing method may seem somewhat mechanical, but I believe that when voters express "swap" under the "support" section, they are by default supporting both the removal and the addition of an alternative—not conditionally supporting removal only if the addition succeeds. For instance, when I cast a swap vote, I intend it as straightforward support for both removal and addition. If voters wish to attach conditions to their support, they should state this explicitly—perhaps by placing their swap vote under "oppose," or by clearly clarifying the conditional nature. Past voting archives also show instances where swap votes were counted as support for removal. If a voter intends their swap to mean "only remove if addition succeeds," they should move it to oppose or clearly note the condition to avoid confusion. Of course, my interpretation is certainly debatable. So if the consensus is that swap votes are conditional support (otherwise oppose), I personally hope this view can be formalized as an official rule to prevent misinterpretation by vote-counters. 飞车过大关 (talk) 08:37, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

  I think it's problematic to place swap votes that mean "support adding an alternative, otherwise oppose removal" under "support". Such votes are less likely to be mechanically misinterpreted if placed under "partial support", "neutral", or "oppose". Under "support", only one type of swap vote should be placed: those that mean "I support removal, but I also support adding an alternative." 飞车过大关 (talk) 08:44, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

  Of course, the view I'm expressing here is confined solely to removal proposals. 飞车过大关 (talk) 08:45, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

  Furthermore, I believe classifying swap votes under "support" as neutral is just as subjective as treating them as opposition. However, this approach can help opponents overturn proposals and hinder the passing of removal proposals. 飞车过大关 (talk) 06:55, 7 March 2026 (UTC)

  Generally I think everyone should just get into the habit of being more clear with their votes. "Support swap" should mean supporting the swap. "Support add and remove" should mean supporting both the add and remove independently. We should standardize how we view someone saying "Support only add" or "Support only remove" wrt the other side of the swap. Dess Dedalus (talk) 07:40, 7 March 2026 (UTC)

• Can User:Axeledits clarify some votes at the above mentioned discussions
  1. Remove A Cotton Office in New Orleans: it is unclear whether you supported straight remove given how different this vote was stated than the other two. I.e., this one states Support Swap while Gassed was Swap or Remove and Blue Horses was remove and addition. It seems you were saying something different on this vote and the count should be 3-1 meaning quorum not achieved.
     • For this, I did not support a straight remove and my vote was counted incorrectly. (However my proposal to swap in the other Degas is likely going to pass anyway) Axeledits (talk)|
  2. Remove Blue Horses: This seems like you supported the removal, but just checking.
     • Indeed Axeledits (talk) 12:27, 7 March 2026 (UTC)
     • Also @Bluevestman: are you OK with that support swap vote counting towards straight remove?
     • I personally would prefer my vote have been counted as support only swap.
     • Given three supports for a swap I would have left this one open just for clarification on whether a fourth swap suppport would come in.
  3. Remove Gassed_(painting): I never even got a response about a seeming better swap proposal,
     • I would rather be silent or oppose the straight remove-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 06:21, 7 March 2026 (UTC)
• User:Axeledits do you have thoughts on The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit vs. Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose given the relative pageviews and interwikis advantage to the latter?-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 23:37, 7 March 2026 (UTC)

  I'm fine with being counted as a straight removal vote. Bluevestman (talk) 04:07, 8 March 2026 (UTC)

Vote on splitting the talk pages

Interstellarity is trying to split the level 5 talk pages but several of us are objecting to doing it without voting. I'm starting a new thread because I suspect that several of us only read new threads. Lophotrochozoa (talk) 14:54, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

@Interstellarity, Selina Dedalus, Ipedecha, Bluevestman, LaukkuTheGreit, and ChaoticVermillion: I hope this notification works. Lophotrochozoa (talk) 15:08, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

@Lophotrochozoa Thank you for opening up a fresh discussion on splitting the talk pages. Unfortunately, there seems to be a lot if arguing over the best way to split the page. When I have more time on my hands, I will look into it. Personally, I don’t care how the pages are split, as long as the discussion pages are a reasonable length. Interstellarity (talk) 15:57, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Wikipedia talk:Vital articles which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 21:49, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

14 days for four !votes with no opposition is acceptable for Level 5, but this approach may not works when swaps are involved rather than straight/outright additions or removals.

14 days is OK for four !votes but not for swap entires.

The proposal to remove György Sárosi — the second most important pre-war footballer after Giuseppe Meazza — and replace him with Mohamed Salah raises some concerns about the consistency of the selection process. Sárosi was an exceptionally versatile footballer who played both as a defender and a striker and remained the leading goalscorer in world football for a long period during his career (as active player he was on the lead longer time than any footballer other than Romario and Ronaldo) He is occasionally mentioned in historical discussions as comparable to, or even stronger than, Ferenc Puskás:

It is also worth noting that according to Pantheon.world, Sárosi had a higher HPI (by Pantheon.World) score in 2024 than Mohamed Salah, as person born before World War. If Egyptian representation is considered desirable, it might be worth considering Hassan Shehata instead (or club: Al Ahly SC, in case of no consensus). Shehata is the most successful coach in the history of the Egypt national team and led Egypt to three Africa Cup of Nations titles, meanwhile Mohammed Salah in his early national career three times failed to qualiffy for Africa Cup: 2012, 2013, 2015. Restoring Sárosi through a swap (for example with Landon Donovan or Ian Rush) could be one possible solution. Another question is whether the list necessarily requires an Egyptian sports figure for representational balance, especially after the removal of the Filipino basketball player Ramon Fernandez. The Philippines is a very populous country and one of the few where football is not the most popular sport (which arguably made that case more distinctive). Listing Landon Donovan ahead of Ramon Fernandez, for example, seems unusual, especially as football is not even the second most popular sport in the United States.

For context, FourFourTwo ranked Mohamed Salah 42nd among players of the 21st century (there are 41 players ahead of him from 17 different countries in that short peirod), while Hassan Shehata was ranked 96th among the greatest football managers of all time in a ranking covering more than a century of football history (only 18 countries had better-ranked managers than Egypt in that ranking). Given that the managers ranking covers a much longer historical period, and that our coaches list is less nationally diverse than the players list on our vital list, Shehata’s position may be more significant for addition — especially considering that FourFourTwo is a British magazine and Salah plays in the Premier League (FourFourTwo is naturally more focussed on UK/Premier League players). It might therefore be reasonable to consider Shehata for now and revisit Mohamed Salah’s candidacy after the 2026 World Cup. Dawid2009 (talk) 23:01, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

If you have suggestions, you may submit a new addition or swap proposal to the dedicated discussion page yourself; airing grievances does not help advance proposals. 飞车过大关 (talk) 10:16, 14 March 2026 (UTC)

Thank you for the information. I opposed the removal of Ramon Fernandez. The Philippines still has Manny Pacquiao ◎ 5 and Paulino Alcántara ◎ 5, but I do think that the most popular sports in large countries should have a representative listed. I didn't know all this, and am willing to support whatever swaps you may have in mind. The original swap was made here: Wikipedia talk:Vital articles/Level 5/People#Swap György Sárosi with Mohamed Salah ◎ 5. @Ipedecha and Q.Khải: what do you think? Melozone crissalis (talk) 20:59, 1 April 2026 (UTC)

Apparently, Carlos Loyzaga is the greatest Filipino basketball player OAT, so if we were to add anyone, that should be him. However I don't think I agree that "the most popular sports in large countries should have a representative listed". For example the most popular sport in Vietnam, which has a population of 100+ mil, has always been football, and the most notable player is Lê Công Vinh, who is not remotely close to being the top ~100 most vital players in football history. Another problem with that approach is making the football section extremely bloated (200+ players if we want to cover all the relevant countries), while barely adding to other sports. I think context matters. Yao Ming ◎ 5, who is generally not included in most top 100 lists, is vital because he single-handedly popularized basketball in China, by establishing himself as a top-level player in the NBA at the time. Salad can somewhat be credited with a similar cultural impact in Egypt. KhaiDo (talk) 03:23, 2 April 2026 (UTC)

Take 50 slots from Sports, games and recreation to Audiovisual arts

Increase the history quota by 50

There is currently 100 unalocated quota and other proposals are swaps (other than the fifty to animals, which doesnt get a lot traction), so i think history is a good one that people been talking for a time, there is quite a few important thing from all over the world missing. If my split goes through this would be allocated to events

Support

1. As nom Ipedecha (talk) 13:31, 26 March 2026 (UTC)
2. ChaoticVermillion (converse, contribs) 22:46, 1 April 2026 (UTC)

Oppose

1. History is underquota by 10 (3290/3300), I'd rather allocate quota to overquota pages like Technology (3250/3200). There are some AI/CS topics for example which I'd like to add / swap in.--LaukkuTheGreit (Talk•Contribs) 09:00, 2 April 2026 (UTC)

   The reason why is underquota is that people otimize it more cause the competicion is stiffer than other quota like narrative art and the biographies, but a bunch of important is not present like a most crusade, basic history of global south countries, very important wars and battles, important dynasties and organizations. Also if every add proposal who is not being rejected was approved right now it would be overquota. As a quick example there are more US pop musician than classical african history. Ipedecha (talk) 23:29, 2 April 2026 (UTC)

   If you really feel that way, you should go and oppose the vote at Wikipedia talk:Vital articles/Level 5/People#(Re-)Add some rock musicians — a vote that ignores the quota for musicians and seeks to re-add the previously removed American singers — and take concrete action to stop the wrong trend within the Level 5 discussions. 飞车过大关 (talk) 09:42, 3 April 2026 (UTC)

2. Per LaukkuTheGreit-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 21:29, 2 April 2026 (UTC)

Discuss

1. It feels like it would be better to first give society‑related articles a quota of 50.飞车过大关 (talk) 09:20, 3 April 2026 (UTC)

History and geography and History

Didn't we agree to merge these pages? Seriously, what happened to that? We had to get the admin attention, and they proceeded to do nothing. I would really like for this merge to happen before it basically becomes impossible for us to do so. Bluevestman (talk) 18:19, 6 April 2026 (UTC)

Yeah, every one agree and someone called a admin, the guy said some irrelevant garbage, said his job was done and nothing happened. I don really mess with merging, i have moved pages in the pt-wiki, but never tried merging. Ipedecha (talk) 03:57, 7 April 2026 (UTC)

Increase Social Studies quota by 50

Take 50 slots from "Writers and journalists" to "Technology"

How should we divide the technology quota?

We have just decided to split the Technology subpage. This raises the question of how to split the quota. The updated statistics are:

• General (20), Engineering (65), Energy (186), Industry (227), Infrastructure (188), Machinery and tools (337): 1023 total. Suggested quota: 1000 or 1050
• Agriculture (234), Biotechnology (45), Medical technology (46): 325 total. Suggested quota: 300 or 350
• Computing and information technology (573), Electronics (116), Media and communication (136): 825 total. Suggested quota: 800 or 850
• Military technology (310). Suggested quota: 300
• Navigation and timekeeping (85), Optical technology (65), Astronomical technology (72), Space (75): 297 total. Suggested quota: 300
• Transportation (490). Suggested quota: 500

The lower suggestions add up to 3200. Even now that we have increased the technology quota by 50, the split would leave two subpages more than 20 over quota. We can leave the technology quota temporarily undivided while we decide how to split the quota. Lophotrochozoa (talk) 16:50, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

GeogSage apparently want to give more space for medical technology, which would mean a quota of 350 for agriculture, biotechnology and medical technology. Lophotrochozoa (talk) 12:07, 7 June 2026 (UTC)

Regarding the controversial changes made by Bluevestman to Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level 5/Geography/Cities without discussion

Since joining the Level 5 list, Bluevestman has often made controversial, undiscussed cross-page category changes—like moving Yang Guifei from 'Socialites' to 'Politicians' despite her lack of political ties. However, I didn't intervene because most of his edits were uncontroversial and such re-categorizations (without additions or deletions) are allowed. In fact, I've also made minor adjustments myself.

However, after May 25, Bluevestman began making massive changes to Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level 5/Geography/Cities, such as designating many cities as satellites or moving articles like the Yangtze River Delta. Since his edits—though full of original research—were broadly reasonable, I didn't intervene much. I only set Omdurman as a satellite of Khartoum based on reliable sources, and reverted his classifications of Nara (city) and New Taipei City as satellites. Bluevestman later reverted my change regarding Taipei, citing historical context. Given that New Taipei historically served as a suburb of Taipei despite their current political equality, I decided not to challenge it.

On May 30, Bluevestman made his most controversial and undiscussed edit yet. He designated Pakistan's capital Islamabad as a satellite of Rawalpindi simply because Rawalpindi has a larger population within the Islamabad–Rawalpindi metropolitan area, which is baffling. I couldn't stand it, so I reverted his change and explained that twin cities aren't necessarily unequal, asking him to stop making arbitrary edits.

Shortly after, Bluevestman reverted me again solely citing the metropolitan area link. Seeing him revert without explanation and recklessly classify Islamabad based on population alone, I couldn't tolerate his persistence in maintaining an unapproved controversial edit during an active dispute. Consequently, I made the mistake of escalating the editing conflict.

That said, I want to avoid an edit war, so I'm opening this discussion to seek community input. Also, I'd like more info on Islamabad being a satellite city of Rawalpindi. Most sources I've read treat them as equals, very few call Rawalpindi a satellite, and none describe Islamabad as a satellite city.飞车过大关 (talk) 19:52, 1 June 2026 (UTC)

Discussion

1. @Bluevestman:.飞车过大关 (talk) 19:52, 1 June 2026 (UTC)

   I understand the objections to placing Islamabad directly under Rawalpindi. Obviously, with the former being the capital of Pakistan, very few people are going to call it a satellite city. However, at the end of the day, these two cities are literally right next to each other. This isn't like Washington and Baltimore, Johannesburg and Pretoria, and Osaka, Kobe, and Kyoto; those pairs/trio of cities, while clearly forming urban agglomerations, do have enough distance between them that they each have their own metropolitan area, which is why I kept those cities separate. Bluevestman (talk) 21:57, 1 June 2026 (UTC)

   Also, little confused why you're not touching the Level 4 Geography page where I did the same thing. Bluevestman (talk) 08:21, 2 June 2026 (UTC)

Merge the discussion from Wikipedia talk:Vital articles/Level 5/People/Thinkers and researchers into Wikipedia talk:Vital articles/Level 5/People

As of now, Level 5 has 12 discussions, and a third of them are dedicated to people. Among these talk pages, Wikipedia talk:Vital articles/Level 5/People/Thinkers and researchers has the fewest participants and currently lacks an archive page, making it an ideal candidate to merge into Wikipedia talk:Vital articles/Level 5/People. I don't really care what the "People" page should be named; my main point is that having four subpages for people (including two with low traffic) is detrimental to discussion.

Support

1. 飞车过大关 (talk) 19:47, 3 June 2026 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

1. @Lophotrochozoa, Selina Dedalus, ChaoticV, I2Overcome, Interstellarity, and Bluevestman:Inviting users from related discussions.飞车过大关 (talk) 19:56, 3 June 2026 (UTC)

   Don't care either way. Bluevestman (talk) 20:12, 3 June 2026 (UTC)

   I have the same opinion as Bluevestman. Interstellarity (talk) 22:56, 5 June 2026 (UTC)

Increase the medicine quota

Take 60 slots from Miscellaneous (Former proposal)

Move judges, lawyers and prosecutors from social scientists to politicians

Judges, lawyers and prosecutors are currently listed in the Jurists section of the Philosophers, historians and social scientists subpage, but their role is closer to that of politicians than to social scientists so, like Tabu Makiadi in this discussion, I would like to move them to the Politicians subpage. I'm making the proposal here because it would require reallocating 50 quota slots.

Support

1. As nominator Lophotrochozoa (talk) 17:41, 12 June 2026 (UTC)

Oppose

1. I oppose the proposed move, and would counter that what is really needed is an entirely separate classification for judges in judicial officers. BD2412 T 18:29, 12 June 2026 (UTC)

   What I have in mind is a separate section in the politicians subpage. Sorry I didn't make that clear. Lophotrochozoa (talk) 20:07, 12 June 2026 (UTC)

   As an alternative, why don't we change the entire subpage from "Politicians" to "Government officials" or the like? Then judges could clearly be included without compromising the nonpolitical role of the judiciary. BD2412 T 00:10, 16 June 2026 (UTC)

   I think this is completely pointless. Many lawyers have nothing to do with being political officials, yet Lophotrochozoa would move them to the 'political figure' page alongside all judges, regardless of whether those judges are legal scholars. Moreover, your proposal could easily encourage people to add every Level 5 figure who has held office, even if they aren't known for politics, to the corresponding page. This would lead to bloated lists of political figures and undermine the overall diversity of Level 5 lists.飞车过大关 (talk) 12:05, 16 June 2026 (UTC)

   As 飞车过大关 points out, that wouldn't fit lawyers. Lophotrochozoa (talk) 18:06, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

2. I’m already unhappy that some classify first ladies or noble spouses as political figures, but now legal professionals are being included as well. What’s next—law enforcement officers, activists, and revolutionaries? Then the political figures list can legitimately expand, and the entire Level 5 list could become heavily skewed toward political figures, losing all diversity and balance. Moreover, I believe judges, lawyers, and legal scholars should be grouped together, not separated. 飞车过大关 (talk) 20:33, 13 June 2026 (UTC)

   The reason for this vote was explained elsewhere. Lophotrochozoa (talk) 20:28, 13 June 2026 (UTC)

Religion, philosophy, mythology and culture

Merge the Politics and economics and Social studies subpages

Many of the topics of the Society section of the Social studies subpage have much in common with those listed on the Politics and economics subpage, especially the Issues subsection. For example, as it's been pointed out on the level 4 talk page, Rights ◎ 4 and Human rights ◎ 3 are listed on different subpages. Lophotrochozoa (talk) 16:31, 28 June 2026 (UTC)

1. I find this proposal completely futile. Just imagine: if we ended up with a massive 'super page' lumping together sociology, politics, economics, finance, Criminology, business, law, military studies, psychology, social anthropology, diplomacy, corporations, identity politics, environmental protection, sexology, organizations, institutions, and political parties, it would only prove that the Level 5 categorization is an utter failure. (And let’s be honest, it’s already failing miserably).飞车过大关 (talk) 18:22, 28 June 2026 (UTC)