The post below by Solivagant was crossposted from the About-forum, as it deserves a forum of its own. Please reply in this forum.

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In our "User Account" introduction Els has invited each of us to nominate a site which should become World Heritage. I am aware that any such nominations will inevitably contain "subjective elements" but, in my view, there is a bit too much "special pleading" for national interests among the sites mentioned to date!

However it could, I think, be interesting for the WHS enthusiasts who frequent this site to try to develop a list of the top sites which, in their opinion, the nomination and inscription process, with its (many?) known weaknesses has "missed" to date! Our collective experience of visiting a fairly high percentage of WHS should provide us with an excellent feeling for comparative worth.

There are of course a whole host of reasons why potentially valid sites may not to date have been inscribed or even proposed. Beyond government inertia, many of these are likely to revolve around lack of "adequate" (as required by IUCN/ICOMOS) Management Plans, Buffer Zones etc. I suggest we ignore these and try to identify "intrinsic worth" based on the Criteria.

For similar reasons I don't think we should limit our nominations to sites currently on the Tentative List – though that may well, for obvious reasons, provide a high percentage of our "Inscriptions". But, in addition, the Bhutans of this world should be able to get a "look in" with us!

A few rules will be required. I would suggest starting with
a. We should not recommend any site from our own countries! Though we can contribute to arguments where one has been "nominated"?
b. We should aim (at the beginning at least?) to limit the list to say the "Top 50 Missing Sites" which we can generally agree really ought to have been inscribed.
c. Mass votes/proposals/support (as per e.g. Rohtas!) will not be allowed if detected.
d. Proposals should be supported with reasons in terms of the established criteria.
e. Nominations should be made separately within a new "Top Missing Inscribed Sites" discussion forum each with its own heading as per the "Connections" discussions.

We will need a "process" and I am reluctant to load Els with any more work but there must be some "arbiter" and some point where a site is moved from "proposed" to our inscribed "Top 50 Missing" list! A reasonable length of time should be allowed for pros/cons and agreements/disagreements to emerge depending on the degree of support/opposition! Similarly if, even after the initial discussions have led to "inscription", someone can come up with good arguments for taking a site off, then this too should be possible. This only seems likely to happen as we reach the 50 sites limit and a site must be removed in order for another to be added. We could move on to 100 later but I feel a period of "pressure" when the only way to get a site on would be to take another off would stimulate quality in the justification and decision making! Els could either take on the role of "Judge" herself or allow a "vote" from registered users (but how to avoid the "Rohtas syndrome"???). I would suggest that in many cases the general view will be quite clear and that we cross that bridge when we come to it!

Any views out there??

I think this is a great idea and will be willing to make a few suggestions.
I would recommend to exclude entries from the tentative lists since they are being considered anyway.

I particularly like this idea, though I think we should include the Tentative list sites as that would limit our choices in some countries that have extensive/ excessive tentative lists.

I think the limit on not nominating from your home country is reasonable, though I would hope people would not get too partisan anyway, I could only think of a few sites in the UK that I think would be worthy of inscription

I am not sure if there was some other way to doing this or if I was supposed to start a new thread but anyway here is my own favourite, lifted almost directly from my profile:

Major Buildings of the Chicago School of Architecture (C i, ii, iv)
The Chicago School revolutionised architecture by essentially placing the 'skyscrapper' as key component of modern urban planning. Chicago is such an architecturally rich city and its main buildings have shaped many cities world wide. There are also several buildings through out the USA that could also be included in New York, St Louis, Buffalo etc. The main architects involved would be Louis Sullivan, Daniel Burnham, Dankmar Adler, William LeBaron Jenney, John Root and to an extent Frank Lloydd Wright but his major works are a sperate entity.
It seems odd that there are no 'skyscrapers' on the world heritage list as they are such an important part of Modern town planning, this seems especially odd as many other aspects of modern architecture have been included yet 'vertical architecture' is only represented by San Gimignano (Italy) and Shibam (Yemen) which date from the 13th and 16th centuries respectively.

If only to generate discussion, off the top of my head I was also thinking of: Amritsar(Ind), Ur(Iraq), Plzen Brewery (CzRep), Irish Round Towers, Olympic Park in Munich

I am beginning to wonder if Assif wasn't at least partially right when he suggested not allowing "entries from Tlists as they are being considered anyway". The trouble is of course that many of them do not seem to be!

I think the problem arises from mixing both those on T lists AND those not. My idea of the Top 50 Uninscribed was to highlight the difference between those which get added each year - the motley collection of minor christian sites, vinyards, medieval towns and esoteric cultural landscapes (!!) selected by countries as a result of internal political agendas with the WORLD CLASS sites already on the T list which just seem to languish. Presumably, given the correct amount of effort many of the sites already on the T List ought to be capable of being brought successfully onto the Inscribed list?

Moving off into the blue yonder of sites NOT on the T list opens a can of worms since it raises all sorts of issues about whether a country would be prepared to see a particular site inscribed or whether it "fits in with" UNESCO/ICOMOS/IUCN views of what constitues WH. Nevertheless to consider these does "open the mind" somewhat. I have no direct answer to this problem. Perhaps we should await the reaching of 50 and see how many are on exisitng T lists and how many not and possibly consider splitting them into 2 lists??