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Mystic fluff - 7 and 12

In an almost interesting way, these two numbers probably are the biggest attractors of cultural fluff: one is the first definitely "not round" (in some sense; the first coprime to 60, for example), the other is the "most round".

Anyway, the history of 7 is interesting: in 2019 it was about 60k bytes, including extended lists of factoids under headings like "Religion and mythology" - "Old Testament" ; "New Testament"... "Science" - "Astronomy" ; "Biology"... and so on. Then in a single edit, someone removed 3/4 of the article, which then grew gradually from 15k to 20k. In 2021 (diff) after an editor pointed out that 7 was the only number article with no "cultural fluff" (I'm using "fluff" only semi-disparagingly), the separate article Symbolism of the number 7 was merged back in, bringing the count to 30k. It then grew gradually, with huge amounts of mathematical content of dubious significance added by one particular editor to around 50k, and has since been whittled back to around 30k. But the current article, it seems to me is rather the worst of all possible worlds. The "mathematical" section is long, and still a lot of it really is marginal: "There are 7 frieze groups in two dimensions..." to give an example. Meanwhile, the "cultural" bit, which you would expect to be extensive, has been reduced to two sections, incongruously called "Classical antiquity" and "Culture", with an audio recording of a kind of 19th century WP article in between. The article Symbolism of the number 7 now redirects to a nonexistent section.

I think that in many ways the version in 2019 was better: it was in list format, which makes it easy to skim read, and I think had a representative number of the cultural factoids. I invite suggestions on how to restore balance. I see that there is a cogent argument for a separate "cultural symbolism" article, on the grounds that this is much bigger than for other numbers, but I also see the counterargument.

I haven't addressed 12 (number) yet, but there is a note under Judaism and Christianity about "explaining the meaning of 12"; I don't really understand this, but suspect that if I did understand it I would disagree. We can put in any number of verifiable statements made in the bible, but any "deep meaning" is likely to be literally inexplicable.

Sorry, this is a bit scrappy, but please comment. Imaginatorium (talk) 11:08, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, cleaning up this side of the number articles is a good idea as part of a wider effort to keep these pages concise. Allan Nonymous (talk) 02:03, 17 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Guidelines for cultural inclusions are too strict

Our guidelines state that "Route 66" should not be included on the page for the number "66", but I disagree. I believe "Route 66" is significantly culturally important enough (such as being mentioned in a popular song), moreso than other roads, which gives it a strong association with the number such that it deserves an inclusion (and it currently is included on the page). ALittleClass (talk) 21:28, 8 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I personally don't think being mentioned in a song makes Route 66 'significantly culturally important enough' to be included. There should be a better reason if possible (you used 'such as' so I believe there exists one). However I won't remove it nor do anything to the page at the moment. Electorus (talk) 13:46, 10 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Powers of 10 should have at least 'Mid' importance

By Wikipedia:WikiProject Numbers/Assessment, Articles of powers of 10 generally have 'Low' importance, with some exceptions as follows: 10,000/1,000,000,000 (Mid), 10/100/1,000 (High), and 1 (Top). In my opinion, all powers of 10 articles should warrant at least 'Mid' importance due to their role in representing orders of magnitude and their relevance to long and short scales naming convention. Electorus (talk) 12:22, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The criteria for the importance scale could be expanded some about what it's looking for. Axiom Theory (talk) 09:02, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. There should be a discussion about this in the future. Electorus (talk) 14:21, 8 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If it means relevance then I'd agree probably higher than "Low". Axiom Theory (talk) 04:29, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion about WikiProject banner templates

For WikiProjects that participate in rating articles, the banners for talk pages usually say something like:

"This article has been rated as Low-importance on the importance scale."

There is a proposal to change the default wording on the banners to say "priority" instead of "importance". This could affect the template for your group. Please join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Council#Proposal to update wording on WikiProject banners. Stefen 𝕋ower ^{Huddle • Handiwerk} 19:47, 6 December 2025 (UTC) (on behalf of the WikiProject Council)[reply]

This is actually what I was getting at above, so I'd agree. Axiom Theory (talk) 02:14, 28 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Good article reassessment for Long and short scales

Long and short scales has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Z1720 (talk) 17:52, 12 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]