Wikipedia Vital Articles
I love Wikipedia's Vital Articles — a collection of progressively more exhaustive levels of key articles across Wikipedia :)
> The five nested vital article Levels are meant to give direction to the prioritization of improvements of English Wikipedia articles…to provide a measurement of quality of overall English Wikipedia…and to serve as a centralized watchlist of English Wikipedia's most important articles.
Table of contents, for quick reference:
Overview
Level 1 (10 articles)
Level 2 (100 articles)
Level 3 (1,000 articles)
Level 4 (10,000 articles)
Level 5 (50,000 articles)
Below I made a concise reference for level 1 (the first of 5 levels), with ten articles that rarely change.
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Interesting prompt: what would you change in this top ten list?
It does a good job avoiding western bias (a stated goal)…but of course still has a human bias — human and not plant or animal; earth and human history but not, say…time or physics.
What would an encyclopedia look like filtered by a non-human lens? Is such a thing conceivable?
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The arts - Wikipedia
This article is about the group of creative disciplines. For the concept of art, see Art.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_arts
Earth - Wikipedia
The Blue Marble, Apollo 17, December 1972
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth
Human - Wikipedia
Not to be confused with Person.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human
Human history - Wikipedia
Human history is the record of humankind from prehistory to the present. Modern humans evolved in Africa around 300,000 years ago and initially lived as hunter-gatherers. They migrated out of Africa during the Last Ice Age and had populated most of the Earth by the end of the Ice Age 12,000 years ago. Soon afterward, the Neolithic Revolution in West Asia brought the first systematic husbandry of plants and animals, and saw many humans transition from a nomadic life to a sedentary existence as farmers in permanent settlements. The growing complexity of human societies necessitated systems of accounting and writing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_history
Life - Wikipedia
“Biota (biology)” redirects here. For other uses, see Biota.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life
Mathematics - Wikipedia
Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, theories and theorems that are developed and proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many areas of mathematics, which include number theory (the study of numbers), algebra (the study of formulas and related structures), geometry (the study of shapes and spaces that contain them), analysis (the study of continuous changes), and set theory (presently used as a foundation for all mathematics).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematics
Philosophy - Wikipedia
Philosophy (‘love of wisdom’ in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, value, mind, and language. It is a rational and critical inquiry that reflects on its own methods and assumptions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy
Science - Wikipedia
Science is a strict systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the world.[1][2] Modern science is typically divided into three major branches:[3] the natural sciences (e.g., physics, chemistry, and biology), which study the physical world; the social sciences (e.g., economics, psychology, and sociology), which study individuals and societies;[4][5] and the formal sciences (e.g., logic, mathematics, and theoretical computer science), which study formal systems, governed by axioms and rules.[6][7] There is disagreement whether the formal sciences are scientific disciplines,[8][9][10] as they do not rely on empirical evidence.[11][9] Applied sciences are disciplines that use scientific knowledge for practical purposes, such as in engineering and medicine.[12][13][14]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science
Society - Wikipedia
A society () is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Societies are characterized by patterns of relationships (social relations) between individuals who share a distinctive culture and institutions; a given society may be described as the sum total of such relationships among its constituent members.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society
Technology - Wikipedia
Technology is the application of conceptual knowledge to achieve practical goals, especially in a reproducible way.[1] The word technology can also mean the products resulting from such efforts,[2][3] including both tangible tools such as utensils or machines, and intangible ones such as software. Technology plays a critical role in science, engineering, and everyday life.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology