I've just moved this topic to its own subsection, WHS Top 200. So we can create, new individual discussions about subsets under that header.

- The final list will be 200 WHS by voting. But we first narrow the 1031 current WHS down to about half by discussion? I would like to limit the voting to that reduced list, adding extra 'free choices' would make the pre-work we wil do less important & would be quite a hassle to program.
- I like the idea of using the categories for this. They are shown at the right side of each individual category: http://www.worldheritagesite.org/categories/category10.html . I can create a forum topic for each for starters.
- Will the goal be "Most Important (however defined) 200 WHS" or "200 WHS which best represent this World and its history". ?

Good idea - should you have a "sticky" first post for each with the original number, the current number as a result of proposals and a list of the sites in the category for us to cut and paste from?

We can try & start at Glaciation.

Maybe by having an example, we can better define the goal (Will the goal be "Most Important (however defined) 200 WHS" or "200 WHS which best represent this World and its history". ?) - I liked telling the little green men what the Earth is about.

Although it's interesting to revisit the different connections and timeline, I'd prefer to be able to choose the Top 200 from the whole WH list. After all, all 1031 sites have been inscribed for one reason or another. Depending on everyone's taste, preference, experience, wanderlust, etc we would hopefully have different lists with several common sites + some surprises. For example, I might be inclined to choose several glacial sites mostly on them being iconic for example but then choose only 1 cave because it is unique. Or several renaissance, medieval sites and just 1 for industrial revolution and modern architecture. And my list would be surely different from Ian Cade's (who would definitely include what I'd exclude, so to speak. otherwise, we risk having a list which is too biased from the first contributors or because of the urge to represent geographical uniqueness and less personal choices. Just my two cents

We could still do this in the end, but I like doing the excercise of going through all 1031 first to get a better feel for:
- how we define "the best" (iconic and unique are two criteria that already were brought forward)
- sites we haven't visited ourselves (for most people that's over 50%)
- balance between the variety of sites

Well - we "tried" with a "start"! It may be that Natural sites are going to be particularly difficult but I suspect, after the first 3 categories, that we are not going to be able to agree on a subset of WHS which could, on some set of objective critera, be described as " best", "most important" or similar! So,where do we go next?

Fine by me, as it will also help to check, update or learn more about the different connections. So why not ? But it will be very very hard for me not to include around 30-40 sites from china and Italy for example even if repetitive. Either because their so iconic or unique or too important on a global level not to tell "the little green man" about them

I disagree. I think it is worthwhile to establish such a list through discussion, but this will take some time. At the end we could vote for each category where no consensus is reached.

Categories?

I agree with Assif. I'm very much looking forward to dive deeper into e.g. Glaciation sites (which I must confess I never cared about so far), but it takes time (and my holidays are just over - sigh). This has only been up for 1-2 days, so it's too early to judge.

(BTW: Thx for reviving this initiative, Els!)

From what we see so far I think we could reach a consensus for each of the categories relatively effortlessly, at least regarding the obvious sites that can be omitted already.

I answered this on the Urban planning tread but perhaps it is more pertinent to put it here:


Yep I think that is a really good point.
Had I come up with arguments for each I would have come across Solivagant's concerns on Goree (which I already knew but glossed over in the rush to get down answers).

For most of us we are not going to have first hand knowledge of the majority of sites, so a fair chunk of our selections may just be abstract knowledge. If we just slow down a little and try to put down our reasoning on them it may lead to some more satisfactory results, and a bit of learning en route.

I meant categories, not connections. :)

Totally agree!

I try to recapitulate each Category Topic, splitting them in Definitely (all or most agree), Maybe (some arguments in favour) and No (one or noone in favour). For most categories posted now we have not yet reached that stage. The shorter category-lists prove to be easier. In the end I will post the full list including reasoning in favour.

Can we use survey site for compilation of results now (like we had done in top 50 missing or visited sites). Here we can give 1 point for each vote and then we can check the results and come up with nomination list for top 200. It would make things easily accessible and transparent. We can do it for each category.