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Vital Wikipedia Articles

436 points by soheilpro 7y ago

sittingnut 7y ago
wikipedia is now under the effective control of limited number of entrenched editors, mostly subscribing to western establishment's "liberal" ideology, with almost absolute power over content. a prime example of this bias, is the article about british empire. comparison of that article with articles about other brutish regimes(ussr, mao's china, etc) is telling, even though it's atrocities far exceeds any other regime, in terms of both quantity and extent.
- andrepd 7y ago
  Whenever Wikipedia is mentioned in hackernews, it's always the same comment. Have you got anything new to add, or any substantial argument to support your position? As it stands it's a pretty serious accusation and a pretty thin argument.
  - pessimizer 7y ago
    I've rarely seen this comment on hackernews about wikipedia. I think you may have been thrown off by the use of "liberal" to think it's a right-wing critique. Incidentally, the complaints I'm used to are that "they keep deleting the thing that I'm involved with that I think is notable" "they won't let me edit myself even though I'm an expert on myself" and "weird editors squat articles." This is a "wikipedia is completely western and whiggish" critique.
- MatekCopatek 7y ago
  While I agree with that assessment, I don't really think it has much to do with Wikipedia itself, it's just how things are in the entire Western culture. History is written by the victors and all that. Consequently, it feels a bit unfair to put this on Wikipedia editors. Kinda like blaming a random restaurant manager for forcing waiters to rely on tips. Yes, if they have enough profits, they can pay people more and fix a small part of the problem. The general issue remains systemic though.
  - blattimwind 7y ago
    > Consequently, it feels a bit unfair to put this on Wikipedia editors. Kinda like blaming a random restaurant manager for forcing waiters to rely on tips. Yes, if they have enough profits, they can pay people more and fix a small part of the problem. The general issue remains systemic though. Systemic yet oddly restricted to a particular area.
- the_duke 7y ago
  Can you provide some links to said atrocities by the British empire? (I'm genuinely curios) There probably are some Wikipedia articles you could link to. Edit: just a few examples * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_concentration_camps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_concentration_camps * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famine_in_India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famine_in_India * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Britain#Enslaved_Africans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Britain#Enslaved_Af...
  - mehrdadn 7y ago
    I was looking this up just now. It seems 29 million died in India alone under British rule due to famine. [1] However there was widespread crop failure in the late 19th century. [2] I don't know how much control they had over what and how every set of deaths occurred, so it's not yet clear to me you can just directly compare number of deaths between empires without taking into account the surrounding context. [1] https://www.quora.com/How-many-people-did-the-British-empire-kill-worldwide/answer/Karthikeyan-Madathil https://www.quora.com/How-many-people-did-the-British-empire... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Empire#East_India_Company_in_Asia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Empire#East_India_Comp...
    - twic 7y ago
      The Bengal Famine is a well-studied case where, AIUI, the current consensus is that imperial policies contributed significantly to the suffering and death toll: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943
    - sbmthakur 7y ago
      While it wouldn't be wise to attribute all those deaths to the British Empire, it's important to note that British agricultural practices led to widespread famines and crop-failures. Diversion of food crop land to grow Opium and Indigo led to famines[1]. And the risk of crop-failures was often beared by the cultivator[2]. 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irrigation_in_India#History https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irrigation_in_India#History 2. http://barrett.dyson.cornell.edu/NEUDC/paper_364.pdf http://barrett.dyson.cornell.edu/NEUDC/paper_364.pdf
- TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
  Do you mean to imply that "conservative" western ideology would be more truthful about British empire?
  - claudiawerner 7y ago
    That's not what GP means by "liberal"; "liberal" in this sense refers to the belief and support of the current "democratic" establishment, the right to private property, the idea of human rights, and freedoms defined as matters of separation between people (i.e. the assumption of the person or people attempting to take them away rather than a positive conception in human community). In this view, both US 'liberals' and US 'conservatives' are both liberal. Thus, what GP means by 'non-liberal' includes the critics of liberalism, most notably ones on the left. You can read more about the philosophical notion of liberalism and its critics at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/liberalism/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/liberalism/
    - TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
      Thank you.
- derefr 7y ago
  I think you mean “English-language Wikipedia”. Try switching to one of the other languages and then putting the article through Google Translate. They’re not the same article semantically! Each language has its own set of editors putting its own spin on things. It’s only to be expected that each language’s editorial policy will be dominated by the cultural hegemony of that language’s speakers, if one exists. (For example, even without government interference, you would expect “Taiwan” to have different first-sentence descriptions in the Chinese–Simplified, Chinese–Traditional, and English Wikipedias.)
  - amyjess 7y ago
    > For example, even without government interference, you would expect “Taiwan” to have different first-sentence descriptions in the Chinese–Simplified, Chinese–Traditional, and English Wikipedias.) I agree with your sentiment, but that's not the best example. There is one Chinese Wikipedia, and articles are machine-transliterated between simplified and traditional forms (plus a few more forms using region-specific vocabulary).
    - yorwba 7y ago
      Well, besides Mandarin there are also articles about Taiwan in Cantonese, Eastern Min, Gan, Hakka, Literary Chinese, Southern Min, and Wu. They all seem to be able to agree that it's an island in the Pacific, but differ in the degree to which they mention that the Republic of China controls it. The Hakka article prominently displays the national flag, while the Southern Min one doesn't mention it in the introductory paragraph.
- Yizahi 7y ago
  At least one Wikipedia should maintain close to facts approach. If you prefer authoritarian "rewrite history" approach then you can consult Russian Wiki, where they rewrote all political and history pages, and I assume Chinese Wiki is the same.
  - owl57 7y ago
    you can consult Russian Wiki, where they rewrote all political and history pages Can you link some specific examples?
    - Yizahi 7y ago
      En: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Donbass https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Donbass Ru: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0%BE%D0%BE%D1%80%D1%83%D0%B6%D1%91%D0%BD%D0%BD%D1%8B%D0%B9_%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%BD%D1%84%D0%BB%D0%B8%D0%BA%D1%82_%D0%BD%D0%B0_%D0%B2%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%82%D0%BE%D0%BA%D0%B5_%D0%A3%D0%BA%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%B8%D0%BD%D1%8B https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0%BE%D0%BE%D1%80%D1%83... En: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_military_intervention_in_Ukraine_(2014%E2%80%93present) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_military_intervention_... Ru: none, lol En: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Crimea_by_the_Russian_Federation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Crimea_by_the_Ru... Ru: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9F%D1%80%D0%B8%D1%81%D0%BE%D0%B5%D0%B4%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B5_%D0%9A%D1%80%D1%8B%D0%BC%D0%B0_%D0%BA_%D0%A0%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%81%D0%B8%D0%B9%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B9_%D0%A4%D0%B5%D0%B4%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%86%D0%B8%D0%B8 https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9F%D1%80%D0%B8%D1%81%D0%BE... En: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Georgian_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Georgian_War Ru: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0%BE%D0%BE%D1%80%D1%83%D0%B6%D1%91%D0%BD%D0%BD%D1%8B%D0%B9_%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%BD%D1%84%D0%BB%D0%B8%D0%BA%D1%82_%D0%B2_%D0%AE%D0%B6%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%B9_%D0%9E%D1%81%D0%B5%D1%82%D0%B8%D0%B8_(2008) https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0%BE%D0%BE%D1%80%D1%83... For several years they vandalized Kievan Rus' page (in Ru segment) renaming it to Ancient Rus'. For some reason they stopped doing it now , but all changes are still in history. https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9A%D0%B8%D0%B5%D0%B2%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B0%D1%8F_%D0%A0%D1%83%D1%81%D1%8C https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9A%D0%B8%D0%B5%D0%B2%D1%81... En: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17 Ru: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Катастрофа_Boeing_777_в_Донецкой_области https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Катастрофа_Boeing_777_в_Донецк... Basically any mention of unfavorable or outright bad mention about current country of a dictator or about any preceding country from which they claim inheritance is censored or obfuscated or buried in a flood of "alternative" opinions.
itcrowd 7y ago
This list is awesome. Along with [1], it could make a great starting point for learning about new topics but also quickly gaining knowledge on what topics are considered important in a discipline. For example, if you want to learn about philosophy but don't have a good understanding of what topics are even available, just scroll down in the list! I think it could also serve as a list for topics a well-rounded person should know something about (of course, this is highly personal / debatable etc.). Or at least heard of. Perfect way to learn something every day! Great submission, bookmarked, thanks! [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_articles_every_Wikipedia_should_have https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_articles_every_Wikip...
- kalev 7y ago
  Totally agree. I just read Earth [1] for the first time and it was really fascinating. Don't forget to click on 'Level 1' in the top bar as well, to see the top 10 most important articles. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth
- o09rdk 7y ago
  I had a different reaction. I understand the reasons for having this sort of list internally, but some of what's included and left out is really odd to me, especially when it comes to biographical entries. I worry that these lists will kind of reify a very superficial approach to certain areas. I'm not sure how they came up with these lists, but it would seem better to me to somehow quantitatively organize them, by numbers of edits or some index of controversy or something. That way there would be a more direct relationship with the reason for having the list in the first place. As it is these lists remind me a lot of the controversies over Wikipedia when they started giving editors more and more power. It seems to reflect some preconceptions on the part of the Wikipedia editors more than anything else.
  - itcrowd 7y ago
    First, I don't understand what you mean by "having this sort of list internally". Wikipedia is completely open, so what does "internally" even mean? Second, I don't understand your desire. Do you want more controversial topics? The goal of an encyclopedia is not to list/explain controversial topics[+], or am I mistaken somehow? Third, to be concrete: who should come off the list and who should be on the list if you don't agree? Fourth: if you don't agree on the list and can't come up with replacements, give us exactly the definitions that should be used to warrant inclusion. My guess is that these definitions / rules / decisions are so difficult to make in the first place, that agreeing on those rules is as difficult as agreeing on the people / topics that are included in the list. [+] Definitely not to mark them as somehow more important than other subjects that are less controversial.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
freddref 7y ago
I wonder how these pages change in content and tone across languages..
- yorwba 7y ago
  Level 1 with 10 articles is available in 32 languages. There are some differences among the languages I checked, but they are mostly just using different representative articles for the same general categories. E.g. French has "culture" instead of "human" and Chinese has "culture" instead of "philosophy" and Catalan has "geography" instead of "Earth" and "society" instead of "human".
throwawaylolx 7y ago
Is is possible to see these ratings/labels/classes on an article? For instance, can I tell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Dickens https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Dickens is B-class from the page itself? I assume the lock icon at the top right may have some correlation with the assessed quality, but it doesn't seem consistent across classes.
- segfaultbuserr 7y ago
  Article ratings below "Good Article" are considered only relevant to the coordination of Wikipedia writers and editors, so these are only shown in the top templates in its Talk Page. For example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Charles_Dickens https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Charles_Dickens You'll see: --- This article is of interest to the following WikiProjects: * WikiProject Biography / Arts and Entertainment (Rated B-class) * WikiProject England (Rated B-class, Top-importance) * WikiProject Children's literature (Rated B-class, Top-importance) * WikiProject Hampshire (Rated B-class, Top-importance) * WikiProject Journalism (Rated B-class, High-importance) * WikiProject London (Rated B-class, Top-importance) * WikiProject Kent (Rated B-class, Top-importance) --- This article has been reviewed by the Version 1.0 Editorial Team. * C - This article has been rated as C-Class on the quality scale. * B? - This article has not yet been checked against the criteria for B-Class status: Referencing and citation: not checked Coverage and accuracy: not checked Structure: not checked Grammar and style: not checked Supporting materials: not checked Accessibility: not checked To fill out this checklist, please add the following code to the template call assessing the article against each criterion. * High - This article has been rated as High-importance on the importance scale.
- inops 7y ago
  The article's class is on its talk page.[1] If you have an account and don't want to leave the article to find out the class, you could enable the metadata gadget. [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Charles_Dickens https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Charles_Dickens [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Metadata_gadget https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Metadata_gadget
- TuringTest 7y ago
agumonkey 7y ago
They could include Lewis Dartnell
1wd 7y ago
Level 5 has 31 video game designers (under Artists, musicians, and composers -> Game and toy designers), including Shigeru Miyamoto as the only one also included in Level 4 (under Businesspeople). (Mario is the only fictional character from games included in Level 4.) Notable omissions: Richard Stallman (Linus Torvalds is in), GNU (Linux is in), GPL, Free Software (Open-source software is in Level 4), Rust (Assembly, C, Java and Javascript are even in Level 4), Deep Learning, Hacker News (Reddit is in).
- lm28469 7y ago
  > Rust (Assembly, C, Java and Javascript are even in Level 4) The languages in parentheses basically run the world, Rust is barely used in comparison, it's not surprising it doesn't get the same attention.
- chipperyman573 7y ago
  >GNU, GPL, Free Software I love these things as much as anyone else on HN but realistically they are just semantic differences between already included pages. A line has to be drawn somewhere, and since they are mostly just minor differences (which, to be fair, have large implications... but the differences themselves are still quite minor), I don't think it's fair to say they should be included. >Hacker news (Reddit is in) Isn't reddit one of the top 10 websites by DAU? HN is intentionally niche.
inmate4587 7y ago
The list seems awesome, I'll definitely go through it all.
benplumley 7y ago
I know it's possible to download the entire Wikipedia database, but does anyone know of a way to download every article in this list? Preferably as a torrent.
- kekebo 7y ago
  Not a torrent or a full solution but applying the regex /wiki/(?!.\:)[aA-zZ0-9%()_] on the source should select all the articles (along with some generic wikipedia links matched at the bottom), then batch adding "https://en.wikipedia.org" https://en.wikipedia.org" to the beginning of each line gives full urls. Here's one such list: https://hastebin.com/terugezeda https://hastebin.com/terugezeda wget has an option (-i) to download links line-by-line from a text file but is sadly making a mess of the images, using wget --span-hosts --convert-links --adjust-extension --page-requisites --no-host-directories --no-parent --wait=1 --reject="robots.txt" -i wget.txt or wget -H -k -E -p -nH -np -w 1 -R "robots.txt" -i wget.txt for short. Maybe someone has a better idea for the last step edit: shorthand version
  - jozvolskyef 7y ago
    I'd recommend inliner for the last step: https://www.npmjs.com/package/inliner https://www.npmjs.com/package/inliner
- computator 7y ago
  I was about to say that a torrent is hardly necessary. How big could a 1000 mostly-text files get? Pretty big as it turns out. Downloading a dozen random entries from that list, the sizes seem average around 2 MB, and that's including only the small images on each page (not the big picture you get when you click on an image). So 1000 entries at 2 MB each would be 2 GB. Picking apart just one page (the Jane Austen entry), the plain ASCII text with no markup is only 88 KB. The 19 small images, plus some tiny buttons and logos, are 536 KB, and the markup (HTML, CSS, and whatnot) is 497 KB. I was surprised that Wikipedia, in terms of page weight, is mostly images and markup. (Not complaining, of course. Wikipedia is one of the few big sites on the web that doesn't throw in gratuitous and irrelevant images and videos.)
tobr 7y ago
What does the process of selecting these articles look like?
- derimagia 7y ago
  Generally you can find this kind of stuff in the Talk pages for articles. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Vital_articles#Introduction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Vital_articles#...
- kaycebasques 7y ago
  See “What makes an article vital?” and “How are articles selected?” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Vital_articles/Frequently_Asked_Questions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Vital_articles/...
Sharlin 7y ago
Surprisingly ”University” is only level four. I’d say it definitely deserves a place on level three, being not just a subconcept of ”school”, but an institution responsible for the majority of scientific research. Edit: Okay, these are definitely the weirdest downvotes I’ve ever got on HN.
- jimmychangas 7y ago
  I guess it is pointless to argue about what topics are the most relevant. This "vital articles" list seems completely arbitraty and, frankly, not very important.
p1esk 7y ago
“Adolph Hitler” is the 6th most visited article in the last 90 days. Wow.
- tim333 7y ago
  I guess human drama needs a bad guy.
- frogpelt 7y ago
  That article immediately follows World War II and World War I and D-Day was June 6. I'm surprised by William Shakespeare coming in at #16.
- JetSpiegel 7y ago
  > Vital articles sorted by number of views in the past 90 days (as of 17 July 2014) Sex is the eight.
  - p1esk 7y ago
    I don't see anything wrong with that :)
tapland 7y ago
I would argue that List of Common Misconceptions[0] belongs in any list of important or vital Wikipedia-articles. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_misconceptions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_misconceptions
- m3at 7y ago
  You're not alone in arguing for the importance of this page :) https://m.xkcd.com/843/ https://m.xkcd.com/843/
  - pessimizer 7y ago
    Ugh, the world has me figured out, but at least it approves.
  - ru999gol 7y ago
    obligatory link to lesswrong: https://www.lesswrong.com/ https://www.lesswrong.com/
- po 7y ago
  Second only to the List of Cognitive Biases: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases really... you think you know them all but you don't. Everyone needs to understand the IKEA effect for example
  - virgilp 7y ago
    The problem I have with these sort of lists is that they try to be comprehensive and add a lot of second order biases that tend to drown the basic/ fundamental ones. Take your example for IKEA effect: it is in fact a consequence of loss aversion. Once you invest emotion, time or money into something, you assign more value to it, because you do not want "lose" your initial investment.
    - andruby 7y ago
      Is that again a consequence of "sunk cost" fallacy?
magic_beans 7y ago
This list is missing quite a lot of writers/scholars/intellects of color. Who decided this list and what are their biases? Downvote me to oblivion, HN.
0wis 7y ago
Superb list. Should read ! A great example of a « knowledge tree », could be useful to find a root concept for an idea you want to explore. Any other tool to find « first-principle » roots of any topic ?
dcchambers 7y ago
Well there goes my productivity for the day.
incidentnormal 7y ago
So few A-class articles in the list.
- 8bitsrule 7y ago
  One problem there is Wikipedia culture. Suppose you're a bona-fide content-area expert, fully capable of accurately conveying your knowledge in clear language that most people can understand. You might want to concentrate on creating the article. Instead ... if the topic is not obscure and unpopular ... odds are high that you'll wind up jousting with dozens of inspired but unqualified challengers. The first time two of the paragraphs you've spent hours crafting disappear on someone's whim, you're probably going to stay gone. "Anyone can edit"? In many cases, no. Take the 'Start-class' article 'performing arts', for example: how many people are truly qualified to summarize that enormous topic? A-quality doesn't emerge from a melange of bits and pieces.
jvln 7y ago
What I want to emphasize is that majority of articles represent western democratic, capitalistic, liberal culture. Reading these articles you won’t learn anything extra that you were tought in school. On one hand it is ammusig how english wikipedia became a western culture mirror. On the other hand it is sad that you can not get insights into other cultures without western culture filter.
- falcor84 7y ago
  >...it is sad that you can not get insights into other cultures without western culture filter. I don't understand this sentiment. Why can't you? There are quite a few other entry points out there created by non-westerners; why complain that an index created by westerners for the English Wikipedia has a western bend? How could it conceivably be different?

436 points by soheilpro 7y ago

wikipedia is now under the effective control of limited number of entrenched editors, mostly subscribing to western establishment's "liberal" ideology, with almost absolute power over content. a prime example of this bias, is the article about british empire. comparison of that article with articles about other brutish regimes(ussr, mao's china, etc) is telling, even though it's atrocities far exceeds any other regime, in terms of both quantity and extent.

andrepd 7y ago
Whenever Wikipedia is mentioned in hackernews, it's always the same comment. Have you got anything new to add, or any substantial argument to support your position? As it stands it's a pretty serious accusation and a pretty thin argument.
- pessimizer 7y ago
  I've rarely seen this comment on hackernews about wikipedia. I think you may have been thrown off by the use of "liberal" to think it's a right-wing critique. Incidentally, the complaints I'm used to are that "they keep deleting the thing that I'm involved with that I think is notable" "they won't let me edit myself even though I'm an expert on myself" and "weird editors squat articles." This is a "wikipedia is completely western and whiggish" critique.
MatekCopatek 7y ago
While I agree with that assessment, I don't really think it has much to do with Wikipedia itself, it's just how things are in the entire Western culture. History is written by the victors and all that. Consequently, it feels a bit unfair to put this on Wikipedia editors. Kinda like blaming a random restaurant manager for forcing waiters to rely on tips. Yes, if they have enough profits, they can pay people more and fix a small part of the problem. The general issue remains systemic though.
- blattimwind 7y ago
  > Consequently, it feels a bit unfair to put this on Wikipedia editors. Kinda like blaming a random restaurant manager for forcing waiters to rely on tips. Yes, if they have enough profits, they can pay people more and fix a small part of the problem. The general issue remains systemic though. Systemic yet oddly restricted to a particular area.
the_duke 7y ago
Can you provide some links to said atrocities by the British empire? (I'm genuinely curios) There probably are some Wikipedia articles you could link to. Edit: just a few examples * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_concentration_camps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_concentration_camps * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famine_in_India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famine_in_India * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Britain#Enslaved_Africans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Britain#Enslaved_Af...
- mehrdadn 7y ago
  I was looking this up just now. It seems 29 million died in India alone under British rule due to famine. [1] However there was widespread crop failure in the late 19th century. [2] I don't know how much control they had over what and how every set of deaths occurred, so it's not yet clear to me you can just directly compare number of deaths between empires without taking into account the surrounding context. [1] https://www.quora.com/How-many-people-did-the-British-empire-kill-worldwide/answer/Karthikeyan-Madathil https://www.quora.com/How-many-people-did-the-British-empire... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Empire#East_India_Company_in_Asia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Empire#East_India_Comp...
  - twic 7y ago
    The Bengal Famine is a well-studied case where, AIUI, the current consensus is that imperial policies contributed significantly to the suffering and death toll: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943
  - sbmthakur 7y ago
    While it wouldn't be wise to attribute all those deaths to the British Empire, it's important to note that British agricultural practices led to widespread famines and crop-failures. Diversion of food crop land to grow Opium and Indigo led to famines[1]. And the risk of crop-failures was often beared by the cultivator[2]. 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irrigation_in_India#History https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irrigation_in_India#History 2. http://barrett.dyson.cornell.edu/NEUDC/paper_364.pdf http://barrett.dyson.cornell.edu/NEUDC/paper_364.pdf
TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
Do you mean to imply that "conservative" western ideology would be more truthful about British empire?
- claudiawerner 7y ago
  That's not what GP means by "liberal"; "liberal" in this sense refers to the belief and support of the current "democratic" establishment, the right to private property, the idea of human rights, and freedoms defined as matters of separation between people (i.e. the assumption of the person or people attempting to take them away rather than a positive conception in human community). In this view, both US 'liberals' and US 'conservatives' are both liberal. Thus, what GP means by 'non-liberal' includes the critics of liberalism, most notably ones on the left. You can read more about the philosophical notion of liberalism and its critics at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/liberalism/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/liberalism/
  - TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
    Thank you.
derefr 7y ago
I think you mean “English-language Wikipedia”. Try switching to one of the other languages and then putting the article through Google Translate. They’re not the same article semantically! Each language has its own set of editors putting its own spin on things. It’s only to be expected that each language’s editorial policy will be dominated by the cultural hegemony of that language’s speakers, if one exists. (For example, even without government interference, you would expect “Taiwan” to have different first-sentence descriptions in the Chinese–Simplified, Chinese–Traditional, and English Wikipedias.)
- amyjess 7y ago
  > For example, even without government interference, you would expect “Taiwan” to have different first-sentence descriptions in the Chinese–Simplified, Chinese–Traditional, and English Wikipedias.) I agree with your sentiment, but that's not the best example. There is one Chinese Wikipedia, and articles are machine-transliterated between simplified and traditional forms (plus a few more forms using region-specific vocabulary).
  - yorwba 7y ago
    Well, besides Mandarin there are also articles about Taiwan in Cantonese, Eastern Min, Gan, Hakka, Literary Chinese, Southern Min, and Wu. They all seem to be able to agree that it's an island in the Pacific, but differ in the degree to which they mention that the Republic of China controls it. The Hakka article prominently displays the national flag, while the Southern Min one doesn't mention it in the introductory paragraph.
Yizahi 7y ago
At least one Wikipedia should maintain close to facts approach. If you prefer authoritarian "rewrite history" approach then you can consult Russian Wiki, where they rewrote all political and history pages, and I assume Chinese Wiki is the same.
- owl57 7y ago
  you can consult Russian Wiki, where they rewrote all political and history pages Can you link some specific examples?
  - Yizahi 7y ago
    En: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Donbass https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Donbass Ru: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0%BE%D0%BE%D1%80%D1%83%D0%B6%D1%91%D0%BD%D0%BD%D1%8B%D0%B9_%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%BD%D1%84%D0%BB%D0%B8%D0%BA%D1%82_%D0%BD%D0%B0_%D0%B2%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%82%D0%BE%D0%BA%D0%B5_%D0%A3%D0%BA%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%B8%D0%BD%D1%8B https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0%BE%D0%BE%D1%80%D1%83... En: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_military_intervention_in_Ukraine_(2014%E2%80%93present) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_military_intervention_... Ru: none, lol En: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Crimea_by_the_Russian_Federation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Crimea_by_the_Ru... Ru: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9F%D1%80%D0%B8%D1%81%D0%BE%D0%B5%D0%B4%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B5_%D0%9A%D1%80%D1%8B%D0%BC%D0%B0_%D0%BA_%D0%A0%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%81%D0%B8%D0%B9%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B9_%D0%A4%D0%B5%D0%B4%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%86%D0%B8%D0%B8 https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9F%D1%80%D0%B8%D1%81%D0%BE... En: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Georgian_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Georgian_War Ru: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0%BE%D0%BE%D1%80%D1%83%D0%B6%D1%91%D0%BD%D0%BD%D1%8B%D0%B9_%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%BD%D1%84%D0%BB%D0%B8%D0%BA%D1%82_%D0%B2_%D0%AE%D0%B6%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%B9_%D0%9E%D1%81%D0%B5%D1%82%D0%B8%D0%B8_(2008) https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0%BE%D0%BE%D1%80%D1%83... For several years they vandalized Kievan Rus' page (in Ru segment) renaming it to Ancient Rus'. For some reason they stopped doing it now , but all changes are still in history. https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9A%D0%B8%D0%B5%D0%B2%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B0%D1%8F_%D0%A0%D1%83%D1%81%D1%8C https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9A%D0%B8%D0%B5%D0%B2%D1%81... En: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17 Ru: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Катастрофа_Boeing_777_в_Донецкой_области https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Катастрофа_Boeing_777_в_Донецк... Basically any mention of unfavorable or outright bad mention about current country of a dictator or about any preceding country from which they claim inheritance is censored or obfuscated or buried in a flood of "alternative" opinions.

itcrowd 7y ago

This list is awesome. Along with [1], it could make a great starting point for learning about new topics but also quickly gaining knowledge on what topics are considered important in a discipline. For example, if you want to learn about philosophy but don't have a good understanding of what topics are even available, just scroll down in the list! I think it could also serve as a list for topics a well-rounded person should know something about (of course, this is highly personal / debatable etc.). Or at least heard of. Perfect way to learn something every day! Great submission, bookmarked, thanks! [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_articles_every_Wikipedia_should_have https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_articles_every_Wikip...

kalev 7y ago
Totally agree. I just read Earth [1] for the first time and it was really fascinating. Don't forget to click on 'Level 1' in the top bar as well, to see the top 10 most important articles. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth
o09rdk 7y ago
I had a different reaction. I understand the reasons for having this sort of list internally, but some of what's included and left out is really odd to me, especially when it comes to biographical entries. I worry that these lists will kind of reify a very superficial approach to certain areas. I'm not sure how they came up with these lists, but it would seem better to me to somehow quantitatively organize them, by numbers of edits or some index of controversy or something. That way there would be a more direct relationship with the reason for having the list in the first place. As it is these lists remind me a lot of the controversies over Wikipedia when they started giving editors more and more power. It seems to reflect some preconceptions on the part of the Wikipedia editors more than anything else.
- itcrowd 7y ago
  First, I don't understand what you mean by "having this sort of list internally". Wikipedia is completely open, so what does "internally" even mean? Second, I don't understand your desire. Do you want more controversial topics? The goal of an encyclopedia is not to list/explain controversial topics[+], or am I mistaken somehow? Third, to be concrete: who should come off the list and who should be on the list if you don't agree? Fourth: if you don't agree on the list and can't come up with replacements, give us exactly the definitions that should be used to warrant inclusion. My guess is that these definitions / rules / decisions are so difficult to make in the first place, that agreeing on those rules is as difficult as agreeing on the people / topics that are included in the list. [+] Definitely not to mark them as somehow more important than other subjects that are less controversial.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

freddref 7y ago

I wonder how these pages change in content and tone across languages..

yorwba 7y ago
Level 1 with 10 articles is available in 32 languages. There are some differences among the languages I checked, but they are mostly just using different representative articles for the same general categories. E.g. French has "culture" instead of "human" and Chinese has "culture" instead of "philosophy" and Catalan has "geography" instead of "Earth" and "society" instead of "human".

throwawaylolx 7y ago

Is is possible to see these ratings/labels/classes on an article? For instance, can I tell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Dickens https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Dickens is B-class from the page itself? I assume the lock icon at the top right may have some correlation with the assessed quality, but it doesn't seem consistent across classes.

segfaultbuserr 7y ago
Article ratings below "Good Article" are considered only relevant to the coordination of Wikipedia writers and editors, so these are only shown in the top templates in its Talk Page. For example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Charles_Dickens https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Charles_Dickens You'll see: --- This article is of interest to the following WikiProjects: * WikiProject Biography / Arts and Entertainment (Rated B-class) * WikiProject England (Rated B-class, Top-importance) * WikiProject Children's literature (Rated B-class, Top-importance) * WikiProject Hampshire (Rated B-class, Top-importance) * WikiProject Journalism (Rated B-class, High-importance) * WikiProject London (Rated B-class, Top-importance) * WikiProject Kent (Rated B-class, Top-importance) --- This article has been reviewed by the Version 1.0 Editorial Team. * C - This article has been rated as C-Class on the quality scale. * B? - This article has not yet been checked against the criteria for B-Class status: Referencing and citation: not checked Coverage and accuracy: not checked Structure: not checked Grammar and style: not checked Supporting materials: not checked Accessibility: not checked To fill out this checklist, please add the following code to the template call assessing the article against each criterion. * High - This article has been rated as High-importance on the importance scale.
inops 7y ago
The article's class is on its talk page.[1] If you have an account and don't want to leave the article to find out the class, you could enable the metadata gadget. [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Charles_Dickens https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Charles_Dickens [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Metadata_gadget https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Metadata_gadget
TuringTest 7y ago

agumonkey 7y ago

They could include Lewis Dartnell

1wd 7y ago

Level 5 has 31 video game designers (under Artists, musicians, and composers -> Game and toy designers), including Shigeru Miyamoto as the only one also included in Level 4 (under Businesspeople). (Mario is the only fictional character from games included in Level 4.) Notable omissions: Richard Stallman (Linus Torvalds is in), GNU (Linux is in), GPL, Free Software (Open-source software is in Level 4), Rust (Assembly, C, Java and Javascript are even in Level 4), Deep Learning, Hacker News (Reddit is in).

lm28469 7y ago
> Rust (Assembly, C, Java and Javascript are even in Level 4) The languages in parentheses basically run the world, Rust is barely used in comparison, it's not surprising it doesn't get the same attention.
chipperyman573 7y ago
>GNU, GPL, Free Software I love these things as much as anyone else on HN but realistically they are just semantic differences between already included pages. A line has to be drawn somewhere, and since they are mostly just minor differences (which, to be fair, have large implications... but the differences themselves are still quite minor), I don't think it's fair to say they should be included. >Hacker news (Reddit is in) Isn't reddit one of the top 10 websites by DAU? HN is intentionally niche.

inmate4587 7y ago

The list seems awesome, I'll definitely go through it all.

benplumley 7y ago

I know it's possible to download the entire Wikipedia database, but does anyone know of a way to download every article in this list? Preferably as a torrent.

kekebo 7y ago
Not a torrent or a full solution but applying the regex /wiki/(?!.\:)[aA-zZ0-9%()_] on the source should select all the articles (along with some generic wikipedia links matched at the bottom), then batch adding "https://en.wikipedia.org" https://en.wikipedia.org" to the beginning of each line gives full urls. Here's one such list: https://hastebin.com/terugezeda https://hastebin.com/terugezeda wget has an option (-i) to download links line-by-line from a text file but is sadly making a mess of the images, using wget --span-hosts --convert-links --adjust-extension --page-requisites --no-host-directories --no-parent --wait=1 --reject="robots.txt" -i wget.txt or wget -H -k -E -p -nH -np -w 1 -R "robots.txt" -i wget.txt for short. Maybe someone has a better idea for the last step edit: shorthand version
- jozvolskyef 7y ago
  I'd recommend inliner for the last step: https://www.npmjs.com/package/inliner https://www.npmjs.com/package/inliner
computator 7y ago
I was about to say that a torrent is hardly necessary. How big could a 1000 mostly-text files get? Pretty big as it turns out. Downloading a dozen random entries from that list, the sizes seem average around 2 MB, and that's including only the small images on each page (not the big picture you get when you click on an image). So 1000 entries at 2 MB each would be 2 GB. Picking apart just one page (the Jane Austen entry), the plain ASCII text with no markup is only 88 KB. The 19 small images, plus some tiny buttons and logos, are 536 KB, and the markup (HTML, CSS, and whatnot) is 497 KB. I was surprised that Wikipedia, in terms of page weight, is mostly images and markup. (Not complaining, of course. Wikipedia is one of the few big sites on the web that doesn't throw in gratuitous and irrelevant images and videos.)

tobr 7y ago

What does the process of selecting these articles look like?

derimagia 7y ago
Generally you can find this kind of stuff in the Talk pages for articles. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Vital_articles#Introduction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Vital_articles#...
kaycebasques 7y ago
See “What makes an article vital?” and “How are articles selected?” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Vital_articles/Frequently_Asked_Questions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Vital_articles/...

Sharlin 7y ago

Surprisingly ”University” is only level four. I’d say it definitely deserves a place on level three, being not just a subconcept of ”school”, but an institution responsible for the majority of scientific research. Edit: Okay, these are definitely the weirdest downvotes I’ve ever got on HN.

jimmychangas 7y ago
I guess it is pointless to argue about what topics are the most relevant. This "vital articles" list seems completely arbitraty and, frankly, not very important.

p1esk 7y ago

“Adolph Hitler” is the 6th most visited article in the last 90 days. Wow.

tim333 7y ago
I guess human drama needs a bad guy.
frogpelt 7y ago
That article immediately follows World War II and World War I and D-Day was June 6. I'm surprised by William Shakespeare coming in at #16.
JetSpiegel 7y ago
> Vital articles sorted by number of views in the past 90 days (as of 17 July 2014) Sex is the eight.
- p1esk 7y ago
  I don't see anything wrong with that :)

tapland 7y ago

I would argue that List of Common Misconceptions[0] belongs in any list of important or vital Wikipedia-articles. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_misconceptions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_misconceptions

m3at 7y ago
You're not alone in arguing for the importance of this page :) https://m.xkcd.com/843/ https://m.xkcd.com/843/
- pessimizer 7y ago
  Ugh, the world has me figured out, but at least it approves.
- ru999gol 7y ago
  obligatory link to lesswrong: https://www.lesswrong.com/ https://www.lesswrong.com/
po 7y ago
Second only to the List of Cognitive Biases: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases really... you think you know them all but you don't. Everyone needs to understand the IKEA effect for example
- virgilp 7y ago
  The problem I have with these sort of lists is that they try to be comprehensive and add a lot of second order biases that tend to drown the basic/ fundamental ones. Take your example for IKEA effect: it is in fact a consequence of loss aversion. Once you invest emotion, time or money into something, you assign more value to it, because you do not want "lose" your initial investment.
  - andruby 7y ago
    Is that again a consequence of "sunk cost" fallacy?

magic_beans 7y ago

This list is missing quite a lot of writers/scholars/intellects of color. Who decided this list and what are their biases? Downvote me to oblivion, HN.

0wis 7y ago

Superb list. Should read ! A great example of a « knowledge tree », could be useful to find a root concept for an idea you want to explore. Any other tool to find « first-principle » roots of any topic ?

dcchambers 7y ago

Well there goes my productivity for the day.

incidentnormal 7y ago

So few A-class articles in the list.

8bitsrule 7y ago
One problem there is Wikipedia culture. Suppose you're a bona-fide content-area expert, fully capable of accurately conveying your knowledge in clear language that most people can understand. You might want to concentrate on creating the article. Instead ... if the topic is not obscure and unpopular ... odds are high that you'll wind up jousting with dozens of inspired but unqualified challengers. The first time two of the paragraphs you've spent hours crafting disappear on someone's whim, you're probably going to stay gone. "Anyone can edit"? In many cases, no. Take the 'Start-class' article 'performing arts', for example: how many people are truly qualified to summarize that enormous topic? A-quality doesn't emerge from a melange of bits and pieces.

jvln 7y ago

What I want to emphasize is that majority of articles represent western democratic, capitalistic, liberal culture. Reading these articles you won’t learn anything extra that you were tought in school. On one hand it is ammusig how english wikipedia became a western culture mirror. On the other hand it is sad that you can not get insights into other cultures without western culture filter.

falcor84 7y ago
>...it is sad that you can not get insights into other cultures without western culture filter. I don't understand this sentiment. Why can't you? There are quite a few other entry points out there created by non-westerners; why complain that an index created by westerners for the English Wikipedia has a western bend? How could it conceivably be different?