Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography/Archive 6

This is an archive of past discussions on Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

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Archive 4

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Missing topics lists

I've been working on several missing topic list for several months and I was curious if the Michael Newton's Encyclopedia of Robberies, Heists and Capers list might be at all helpful ? MadMax 07:06, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

AWB plugin

If you're interested in reviewing and assessing biography articles or tagging them with {{WPBiography}} then please check out my plugin. This tool works with a wiki web browser called AWB to add WPbio templates and simplify the review process. --kingboyk 18:47, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Categories to tag with the bot

What categories after living people would be good for my bot to tag? I'm looking for large, well organised categories... we can rule out military for a start, I think, as Plange has done a lot of work there. --kingboyk 19:04, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

OK, I think we need one of these. And, one of these would be nice too. --kingboyk 09:01, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Have added Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography/Automation department and stubbed it out with some tasks and ones already done that I know of. If people have gone through auto-assessing any stub categories, please add to completed list so that effort won't be duplicated, thanks! --plange 01:55, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Made stats page: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Biography/Assessment#Statistics but I don't know what the formula is for Monthly changes that Kirill used - math is not my strong point :-P --plange 02:29, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

It's [number of articles added in current month] / [number of articles present at the end of last month] * 100. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 02:31, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Kirill! --plange 03:18, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Woooh! You da man Plange - erm... well, you know what I mean! :P --kingboyk 10:21, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Indian collaboration

Sometime back User:Plange wanted us to inform this project when a biography article is selected. Sudhir Phadke, a singer-composer is this week's Indian Collaboration of the Week. Please come and help it become a featured-standard article. - Ganeshk (talk) 22:45, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for letting us know Ganeshk! --plange 22:46, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Science workgroup?

I'm just checking whether or not we are going to create a new workgroup for Science and Academia (whatever the name), as my next job after Category:Politicians will be to tag Category:Physicists (giving a helping hand to WP Physics). Of course if we're to have a science workgroup these folks should be in it.

(If we're going to get a new musicians workgroup, it would be cool to add any other new workgroups at the same time so I only have to do one round of code updates to my plugin). --kingboyk 15:26, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I really would like to have it called Science and Academia so it can include people involved in scientific stuff but not called a "scientist" maybe, but it didn't get enough votes. Also it would be in keeping with our naming convention of using the industry category (i.e. Arts and Entertainment, Politics and Government) instead of what the job title is (Artists and entertainers, Politicians and government workers). For my reasoning on what can be included (including philosophers) see the subcategories of this Category:Academics by subject and Category:Scientists --plange 01:24, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia works on consensus not votes :) Nobody who contributed to the debate after the new name was proposed objected to it. Thus, if you think that the new name is logically better you can consider consensus to be there - the 3 people who commented all supported, and you can consider the strength of argument too. --kingboyk 10:21, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

...of course for the purposes of my plugin, the actual name doesn't matter and can be changed. All I need to know is the name of the parameter. Changing a name later is as simple as clicking on a label in the form designer and editing the text.

Any other workgroups you want to add at the same time? Also, could you make an executive decision on the musicians workgroup/child project/whatever we want to call them? It seems they're willing to join. One member has proposed a fancy template design but I think we can just add it as a workgroup entry a la A&E and use their chosen picture. There's is a straightforward biographical group so that would be best. I think it's a great addition! Anyway, we need to fix up our template, check their categories and merge them into our tree, and add our sidebars to their pages. I'll take care of programming the plugin including some code to find and remove their old template. --kingboyk 10:25, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Cool, then let's use these parameters:

academic-work-group=yes for Science and Academia

sports-work-group=yes for Sports and Games

musician-work-group=yes for the new Musicians group

How do these sound? --plange 14:40, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

You know my feelings on "work-group" (extra-keystroke spam!) but, apart from that :), #2 and #3 sound fine. I'm not sure about #1 as many (most?) scientists aren't academics. --kingboyk 14:54, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

I know but we just use royalty for both royalty and nobility -- how about s&a-work-group? --plange 17:36, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

boffins work group?? :P I don't like s&a much but I suppose it's better... I tell you what, just go with whichever you think best :) --kingboyk 17:38, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Let's go with s&a then-- scientists are more likely to object to being lumped into academics than nobility and government officials being lumped in with royalty and politician respectively. --plange 18:09, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Catholic Encyclopedia

I've collected all the missing biographical encyclopedia articles at Wikipedia:Catholic Encyclopedia cat People, if anyone thinks that they could do with getting a few easy articles under their belt. JASpencer 20:49, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

New work groups added!

Okey-dokey, we now have 3 new workgroups! They are:

Musicians (which is Musicians WikiProject) -- param: musicians-work-group=yes
Sports and Games -- param: sports-work-group=yes
Science and Academia -- param: s&a-work-group=yes

Need help populating these with stubs and categories and anything else that could be useful :-) --plange 02:07, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm very new to this so might be doing it wrong, but adding 'musicians-work-group=yes' didn't seem to alter the template appearance when I tried it. (I've had no problem with adding eg 's&a-work-group=yes'.) Espresso Addict 00:02, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Notability of local US TV reporters, anchors, weatherpeople

I am not sure if this is the proper place for this, but the issue of the notability of the bios of local US TV reporters, anchors, and weather persons has caused a great deal of vandalism and sockpuppety on many articles. User:CFIF and many articles of his have fallen victim to many of these sockpuppets. Part of the problem is that there are no standards of notabilty for these people. I personally feel that we need an established set of guidelines for the inclusion or we will have more nonsense like the Spotteddogsdotorg sock ring, which may have generated some false positves. Hopefully we can find some solution, since User:Wknight94 did leave a note at Wikipedia talk:Notability (people)#Local reporter criteria, but the more hands on deck for this the better! TV Newser 01:34, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

There was recently a whole bunch of Philadelphia reporters and anchors who each had articles. The whole lot of them went up for AfD. Now you'll have to find someone who is a little closer to this issue, but the basic idea was that anchors are notable and reporters and weathermen are generally not. However, there are exceptions to this rule, as in the case of Vince DeMentri. When in doubt, you could always ask a question on WP:NOTE, but hopefully someone who monitors this page will have a better, more specific answer for you. You can see a generic article WCAU news team and notice how many of the persons on that page have their own article because they are notable enough. Often the idea solution for someone who is not notable for their own article to have information about them placed in a related article. If they become notable on their own standing, then the article can be broken off. -- RM 13:16, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

In my opinion, the notability of local US TV reporters, anchors, weatherpeople depends on the region and specific position of the person. It has to be evaluated case by case. --Ineffable3000 01:04, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Oscar Nunez page move?

Should Oscar Nunez be moved to Oscar Nuñez (the correct spelling of his name)? --DrBat 13:21, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

I believe so, but probably check at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people)

Rosario "Ybarra" name of article

Sorry if this is not the place to post this request. The title of article "Rosario Ybarra" it´s wrong, her surname is "Ibarra". I can´t see how to change it with edit tools.

posmodern2000

I fixed it. --Ineffable3000 04:32, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Heads up on FA articles

I'm systematically going through and listing FA articles that were promoted in the "brilliant prose" days before inline citations were required. If you are a regular editor of an FA article, you might want to look at the worklist that contains FAs and see if yours has a comment that inline citations are needed. If it does, you can help forestall a future FAR/FARC process for your article! --plange 22:32, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

GA process and inline citations

Recently GA added a requirement for inline citations. This is now being contested and I thought I'd post a note here for people to comment. A straw poll is up for voting whether they should be required and using WP:CITE as the guideline for implementation, and there's a debate on the talk page of WP:CITE on what should or should not be cited. I invite your participation no matter what side of the debate you may fall on --plange 18:14, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Geoffrey Beene or Beane

There is a stub page under the title "Geoffrey Beane." In the brief explanation on the page it makes reference to "Geoffrey Beene", the American fashion designer. (Please note the different spellings of the last name.)

My research indicates that the American fashion designer is, in fact, Geoffrey Beene. There is already a page under that spelling. So, who is Geoffrey Beane? Is this just a common mispelling of his last name? It would seem so if you look in ebay and other online shopping sites for people selling clothing and fragrances under the Beane spelling. Or is there really a Geoffrey Beane with an 'a' out there who deserves recognition? Either way, a correction is needed to this stub page. Eicher 14:45, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Canada collab. notice

Stephen Leacock is October 2006 Canada collaboration and it's a biographical article, feel free to improve. Thanks, feydey 12:08, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Adding bio of different person with same name

Yes, a jerkoff newbie but time to start somewhere. Rather than jump right in and mess up a page, could someone explain the protocol for adding a bio of a different person with the same name as some already listed. Thanks, ibar88 15:30, 1 Oct 2006 (PST)

That depends rather on who is the more famous or notable, and whether there is already a "disambiguation page" or not. Let's assume that the person you want to write about is rather less well known than the person whose article is currently there, and that what's currently there is indeed an article on a person and not a disambiguation page (an index page of multiple people sharing the same name) :

Create the new page with a suitable suffix in brackets. For example, the person is Fred Bloggs, a journalist, but a very notable Fred Bloggs, a politician, already has an article. Create the new article at Fred Bloggs (journalist). In the existing Fred Bloggs page, add this to the top of the page:

{{otheruses4|the politician|the journalist|Fred Bloggs (journalist)}}

Which will output:

If you need more specific help us let know the page and people involved. --kingboyk 17:13, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

With the instruction, I worry about messing up the page. In any event, the page is Chuck Rosenthal Ibar88 18:00, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

OK, I fixed it. Your article is at Chuck Rosenthal (author). Chuck Rosenthal is now a disambiguation page. --kingboyk 18:14, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Thank youIbar88 18:32, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Comedian Wikiproject/Work group

I'm thinking of proposing a Comedian Wikiproject to work specifically on comedian biographies. This might work well as a work group as well. Any interest? Thoughts? --Twintone 16:42, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Definitely we'd want such a project to be a workgroup rather than standalone, so that talk page templates are shared and we don't get a new WikiProject whose scope is entirely a subset of ours. The best thing you can do is contribute as a member of the arts & entertainment workgroup, and at the same time canvass for support for a new comedians workgroup. Once you have, say, a handful of interested parties you can set yourselves up as a workgroup of this WikiProject. That's my take anyway; anyone else? Plange? --kingboyk 17:07, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Feel free to start editing the section Wikipedia:WikiProject_Biography/Arts_and_entertainment#Comedians - right now it only has a stub template listed. Take a look at the top of that page for a template that can lay out a nice header and workspace for your area --plange 18:59, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Indian collaboration

Ritwik Ghatak, a notable film maker has been selected as this week's Indian Collaboration of the Week. Please come and help it become a featured-standard article. - Aksi_great (talk) 16:15, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Pieter Zeeman

The Pieter Zeeman biography has been rated "B-class", without explanation. Can somebody explain to me what needs to be improved for it to be promoted? JdH 19:30, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

I left some comments. Leaving them are not required when rating-- we try to when we do, but it's not always possible... --plange 05:38, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Next of kin

Is there any sort of consensus on whether or not to mention the non-notable family members who survive someone who was notable enough to have a Wikipedia article? Thanks! -AED 21:28, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

I would have said that some basic details of X's parents, partner(s) and children are definitely relevant to X's biography, and that would include their years of birth (to show relative age). Whether their lives after X's death are relevant to X's biography is perhaps a bit doubtful, but having begun the story I suppose one might as well complete it by giving the years of death or the fact that they are still living. I don't see any reason not to. What do others think? Andrew Dalby 23:21, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

I would also agree, though I've found in practice that when I bring these to peer reviews or FAC, that children that are not notable it's suggested I remove them. I definitely think parents, spouses, and lifetime partners should be included and will go to the mat on them, but for non-notable children I didn't argue when it was criticized. So now I just say, such and such had 5 children, of whom were (and then just note the notable ones)... Also interested in others' takes? --plange 23:31, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

I suppose I ought to add to my previous comment that we shouldn't do original research, so we can't put this information in (and certainly not for living people) if it hasn't been published. Andrew Dalby 08:39, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Of course! Didn't gather that was what they were wanting to do? --plange 00:25, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Terry Fox proposed merge

There’s a discussion going on right now at Talk:Terry Fox that I thought you guys might be interested in. Well, actually, there isn’t much discussion, and that’s the problem. I proposed (quite a while ago) that Marathon of Hope be merged into Terry Fox. So far, there hasn’t really been much discussion on the matter, and I’d love to get some comments from you guys. Thanks so much! --Gpollock 07:10, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree with your proposal. The Marathon of Hope was Fox's principal life work and so it makes more sense that it be included in his biographical article. And the Marathon of Hope article isn't by any means too long to easily fit into his bio anyway. Pinkville 00:32, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

German scientists/engineers biographies

I have received a response regarding my newly-proposed WikiProject Germany at Wikipedia:WikiProject/List of proposed projects#Germany from an individual who is interested in developing the articles on German scientists and engineers. I would like to work on such things in the project, but am unsure whether the Germany project is necessarily the best place for such an effort to take place. This project more directly deals with biographical data already, and is frankly one of the most impressively run Projects out there, which my own may well not be. Do you think addressing the issues of German scientist biographies would be more appropriate within the proposed Germany project or within the Biography project, or, maybe, in a now-nonexistent Scientific Biography project or group? Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 13:43, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Actually we have a fairly new Science and academia workgroup, but it doesn't seem to have attracted any interest yet. Perhaps you could bring some life to that workgroup? Alternative solutions about how we could work together are most welcome of course but until one of the big brains over at WP:COUNCIL suggests some I don't have any :) --kingboyk 13:51, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

GA Collaboration

The article Britney Spears is now the GA collaboration your assistance would be appreciated. It would also be appreciate if you went through the GA list biographies and add a more specialized GA tag which can be found at Category:Wikipedia GA templates. Tarret 13:59, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Eliot Fisk bio page

This article is in need of serious help, and so am I. Eliot Fisk Considering I'm the origional author of this article, I realize the origional text I wrote, which was a paraphrased version of the webstite, and a few other sources. I'm trying to undertake a rewrite of this article, in a more biographical, and organized manner. Having the origional page would be a much easier place to start. If there is any way in which an administrator or anyone else can revert all edits to the origional page, I would be very greatful. Thanks a bunch--Chopin-Ate-Liszt! 22:11, 17 October 2006 (UTC) (even if you can't revert it, please tell me so on my talk page.)

Drive-by ratings

So I'm seeing things get tagged with the {{WPBiography}} on the talk page, which is all well and good. The problem is the rating system, which is something otherwise foriegn to me as I'm not part of this wikiproject. I don't mind the ratings, really, but the problem is when an article is rated a certain way, and then the person who left the tag goes away. I noticed it personally at Kroger Babb, where the comments area is still a redlink. Not really sure how to handle it,but there you go. --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:14, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Hello! We don't make the comments area mandatory to fill out, in fact we're one of the few projects that has a class rating and has a comments area. We have a lot of bios to assess and so it would be impractical for us to require this. You can take a look at the class rating page to see what makes a B, etc., and if you'd like detailed feedback on how to improve your article, you can ask for a peer review. --plange 16:30, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm familiar with PR (not that it's entirely useful), but if you are offering a comments area, it might be helpful to put something there, even if it's an automated something. It's hard to improve bios when people are giving them certain "grades" without explanation. Just a thought, in any case. --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:32, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

The explanations for the grade can be found here. I hear ya, it's just not possible for me to force this on anyone who is volunteering to help this project and assess. And on classes lower than B, it's pretty much not worth it, as there's too many things that make it a start or stub to even comment on. Try out our PR process, I think we're doing a pretty good job :-) --plange 16:38, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Cultural lists and Core Biographies articles

I've had an idea percolating and posted to other relevant talk pages, and it's been suggested I post here as well. I'm the editor who raised Joan of Arc to FA and in the process of doing so created Cultural depictions of Joan of Arc, which is the first (and so far only) In popular culture section to have grown into a featured list.

Last week at Talk:Alexander the Great I realized a rather extensive cultural section had been deleted from the article, so I used the material to create Cultural depictions of Alexander the Great. During the past day I've posted to other Core Biography talk pages to suggest this as a model. Responses have been mostly positive and per previous talk page suggestions or responses to my posts I've renamed two related pages to Cultural depictions of Leonardo da Vinci and Cultural depictions of Ludwig van Beethoven. Not wanting to step on any toes, I've deferred to whatever response page editors give on the subject.

This seems to be the first effort of its kind, so I've created a worksheet at User:Durova/Cultural depictions of core biography figures and have invited editors who respond with interest to discuss things there. If participation grows to critical mass it would move to some Wikipedia namespace. Welcoming comments and participation. Warmly, Durova 19:41, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Gough Whitlam is current ACOTF

Dear WP:BIO members, the current Australian collaboration of the fortnight (WP:ACOTF) is Gough Whitlam. Since the scope has crossover with WP:BIO please contribute if interested. Cheers — Donama 12:39, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Biography AfD question

Could someone take a look at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Geoffrey F. Brown? Its a biographical AfD, but whether it actually passes WP:BIO is really up in the air. Thanks. EVula 15:06, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Will do, thanks for the alert! --plange 15:44, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Missing middle names and first names

Category:Missing middle or first names. I want to add this project to the article page, and reservations? --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 03:14, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Cat Mandu

Found your banner on the above page, an article about a feline which ran for office in Britain. Your call whether the banner stays there or not. Badbilltucker 18:46, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Hmm... tricky one. Let's deal with how the banner got there first: it was of course bot-added, due to the article's membership of Category:Official Monster Raving Loony Party politicians. The politican categories are usually populated by people!

Ordinarily, I'd say "no, articles on non-human animals are not within the scope of this project". Most rules have exceptions though, and I wonder if this might be an exception. "Cat Mandu" was the joint leader of a frivolous but well known British political party...

I won't remove the banner but don't object to others removing it. --kingboyk 11:27, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Do we have an article for Caligula's horse? Andrew Dalby 13:34, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I'd say it shouldn't have one-- kingboyk's argument would be valid though for inclusion in any political project since it's a real thing.... --plange 16:43, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Birth date and age template

I've been adding the {{birth date and age}} template to the infobox in biographies. There has been some resistance to this but the template has survived a nomination for deletion. So, where do I go from here as far as adding it to more infoboxes? Can I just keep going or do I need a sanction from this WikiProject?

My reasoning for using it is as follows:

While editors may think that it's simple math that anyone can do on their own, the truth is many adults cannot easily do the math. I know several who would have to think about it.
It makes an infobox, which is basically a quick reference, even quicker to use.
It does no harm. Not very much space is taken up by "(age:XX)".
It automatically links the date so that user preferences display the date correctly.

Thanks, Dismas|^(talk) 13:02, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm strongly opposed to any use of the age template. A person's age is not notable unless it is somehow remarkable, i.e they are 120 years old or they are the youngest pole vaulting champion in Peoria. Kaldari 15:32, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I applaud you for your initiative. I agree with Kaldari though... Plus we get into the tricky area when dealing with historical figures born during Jan/Feb before the switch to the new calendar....--plange 16:46, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

It's not for dead people. It's only for the living thus far. I don't believe there is a template for age at death. Dismas|^(talk) 21:27, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

{{age}} works for dead people. Example : Bette Davis Rossrs 03:30, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

I think it's use is inappropriate and unnecessary for both living and dead people. Kaldari 05:56, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

I think listing their dates (birth and death, where applicable) is sufficient. Listing their specific age is unimportant unless, like Kaldari said, they are notable specifically for their age. EVula 06:11, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Image Fair Use

Did the Fair Use image thing ever get figured out? JBKramer is disputing the Fair Use of Image:Hannity.jpg, a publicity photo use to illustrate the person. His comments are "This pictures is not acceptable in this article because it is a picture of a living person used only to show the appearance of that person." Thanks Morphh ^(talk) 21:22, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately, that is what the current guideline says. See Wikipedia:Fair Use#Counterexamples. —Cel ithemis 21:36, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

However, a case can be made under Fair Use Wikipedia:Publicity photos. Morphh ^(talk) 14:30, 24 October 2006 (UTC)