User talk:Dv82matt

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[edit] Raphael

It seems perverse to remove this from the vital articles. There are now only 9 artists left, and Raphael must be more significant, on any objective scale, than Dali or Monet at least. Nor can the article reasonably now be described as start class. You may remember Jimbo expressing the wish some time ago that WP improves its coverage of the visual arts - this hardly seems the way. Johnbod (talk) 23:10, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

I removed the vital article parameter from the {{WP1.0}} banner because "Raphael" is not listed as a vital article at Wikipedia:Vital articles. I wasn't making an editorial descision that it shouldn't be a vital article. You might want to bring this up at the vital articles talk page. Cheers —dv82matt 23:29, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Vital articles

I noticed you have removed quite a few mathematics articles from Wikipedia:Vital articles. I'm curious what criteria you use in deciding which ones to remove. It seems to me that the concept of "vital to a general-purpose encyclopedia" doesn't change much over time. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:19, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

I've no set criteria for inclusion of mathematics articles at the moment but redundancy is a significant factor. Of my recent removals Cartesian coordinate system and Polar coordinate system seemed redundant with Coordinates (mathematics); Mathematical logic redundant with Logic; Division (mathematics) and Subtraction have since been readded but at the time I removed them I reasoned that they could be considered as special cases of Multiplication and Addition respectively and also redundant with Arithmetic; Trigonometric function and Set theory I considered redundant with Trigonometry and Set respectively.
I just want to note that I am not focused exclusively on removal of articles. Actually many of the articles I have removed were originally added by me.
You are right that the concept of being a vital article should (ideally) not change much over time but that includes a couple of assumptions, first, that the Vital articles list is itself already of high quality, and second, perhaps more seriously, that there is some objective standard of what constitutes a Vital article. Another factor is that the list has a tendency to grow as people tend to focus on additions to the list rather than removals. This nessessitates having to prune the list back from time to time. I look forward your further input at Vital articles. —dv82matt 03:42, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Criteria for Vital Articles?

I saw Singapore taken out. While I can imagine how it might be justified, without a reason given it does seem arbitrary. Perhaps your WP 1.0 wikiproject can clearly list out the criteria for inclusion and exclusion, to be fair and transparent. I also notice in your list that there is "something for everyone" — an attempt seems to have been made to counter systemic bias by picking a (something) from every continent. But I wonder if the world is simply so reducible. --Rifleman 82 (talk) 00:55, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Some archived discussion is here. To be clear though, I am not a member of the WP 1.0 wikiproject. I am active at WP:VA but that is unrelated. Deleting the VA parameter from the {{WP1.0}} templates is just housekeeping. Most of the articles whose VA parameters I've removed, including Singapore, were removed from the vital articles page some time ago but no one had bothered to update the relevant {{WP1.0}} parameter in some time if ever.
There are no specific criteria for inclusion that cover the list as a whole, but for cities relevant factors include population, economy, historical/religious/cultural significance and to a lesser degree political significance.
You are right that attempts to counter systemic bias can sometimes wind up introducing biases. Any specific input you may have on this would be helpful at Wikipedia Talk:Vital articles. Thanks —dv82matt 05:22, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification, I understand your point of view. Reading the archived discussion, I am wondering if it is even meaningful to have a list at all. Perhaps you guys (collectively, not referring to you alone) can take care of the articles which are not actively being taken care of by wikiprojects in the first place? Rather than lead people into a pissing contest (perhaps an unintended consequence?). --Rifleman 82 (talk) 05:57, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

No problem, one thing to bear in mind is that the vital articles list is intended to be informal. It does not carry any official sanction and only reflects the opinions of those who choose to participate. No one is forced to accept the legitimacy of the list. That said I do think it is useful. It can serve as a centralized watchlist or as a guide for prioritizing articles that need improvement. I know at one point the Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team used it to supplement the articles in their core topics list. It can also be used as a minimal article guide for small foreign language wikipedias. In fact the vital article page originally evolved from m:List of articles every Wikipedia should have and I think it is a significant improvement from that list. —dv82matt 06:51, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] PBB templates

FYI, just a quick note in response to your edit comment. Absolutely, feel free to remove those templates at whatever point you feel they are not longer useful. Mostly, the templates are there so that gene pages which haven't yet been touched can continue to get periodic updates from Entrez Gene. Cheers, AndrewGNF (talk) 17:04, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. I was unsure how useful or welcome it would be to edit the gene pages where the automatic update system is in place so I wikilinked ATP1A1 to test the waters so to speak. Thanks for your assurance that I haven't mucked anything up. —dv82matt 04:49, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
Oh absolutely edits to those pages are welcome. Encouraged even. I've been actively trying to steer people (some already on WP, some not) to come edit their favorite gene. In my ideal world, all these gene pages would get to the point where the bot content was a small fraction of information or perhaps even removed altogether. I hope to see your edits on my watchlist again soon! Cheers, AndrewGNF (talk) 05:27, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Vital Articles at 1000!

The Working Man's Barnstar
For all your work in paring down Vital articles to 1000 entries. Postmodern Beatnik (talk) 21:25, 15 March 2008 (UTC)