Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography/Archive 38

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Shalom Weiss

This article is about a white collar criminal who has the distinction of being sentenced to a longer term than Bernard Madoff, 845 years. This article has a number of issues that I have attempted to address, but expert help is urgently needed. --JohnnyB256 (talk) 17:14, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

GA reassessment of Mary Higgins Clark

I have conducted a reassessment of this article and have some issues that need addressing, which can be found at Talk:Mary Higgins Clark/GA1. Thanks. Jezhotwells (talk) 08:51, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

FAR for A. E. J. Collins

I have nominated A. E. J. Collins for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here.Cirt (talk) 13:59, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Asmahan

Hey. We've got an RfC open at Talk:Asmahan#RfC to try to reach consensus as to how to display her nationality. Any comments from people here would be most appreciated. Thanks! — HelloAnnyong ^{(say whaaat?!)} 19:27, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Ramesh Prasad Mohapatra

Some help would be appreciated here. The article was previously deleted several times for copyright violation. Permission was obtained to copy the text from one website; there is nothing, however, that confirms the neutrality of that content, as will be evident upon reading. Other text has been copied from various websites, mainly descriptions of books by online booksellers. Whether this content was original to commercial websites, or copied from the books themselves matters little. The concern is that they may still be copyright violations, and do not constitute reliable objective references. In all, the subject may merit an article, but much of what is being provided appears to be self-referential and non-neutral. This has been rather copiously discussed not only at the current article talk page [1], but previously at my talk page [2], that of the sole contributor to the article [3], and that of an administrator [4]. Thanks. JNW (talk) 19:28, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

GA reassessment of Andrea Dworkin

I have reassessed this article and found issues with the referencing which need to be addressed if the article is to retain GA status. The reassessment comments are at Talk:Andrea Dworkin/GA1. Thanks. Jezhotwells (talk) 20:31, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Justin Solondz

Could someone with experience in biographical articles take a look at the Justin Solondz article. --JWSchmidt (talk) 01:30, 5 July 2009 (UTC) Related article: Briana Waters. --JWSchmidt (talk) 01:49, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

I've cut out some commentary and unsupported information from the Justin Solondz article and removed the 'unfairly convicted' bit from Briana Waters. The Waters article could likely use another set of eyes and further reference double checks though. --ponyo (talk) 02:08, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

At the Justin Solondz article someone added some information and wrote: "Sources are directly from 2 of these girls who are now awaiting trial", which sounded odd. User:Ponyo took out some of what had been added but then it was quickly added back. --JWSchmidt (talk) 04:06, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Someone editing from 209.107.217.8 also recently added information about Rachel Corrie to List of The Evergreen State College people. The added information is not sourced and seems to contradict what is said at the Rachel Corrie article, although that article mentions that there is some controversy in the matter...I'm not familiar with that situation. --JWSchmidt (talk) 04:37, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

This seems to be more of a situation for WP:AN/I than for here. Wildhartlivie (talk) 04:40, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Request for comment

• Asmahan (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

An RFC is open at this article which is marked as within the scope of this Wikiproject but the RFC has so far seem very few responses. It would be very helpful to resolving the matter if any interested editors could stop by and offer any thoughts.

CIreland (talk) 01:58, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Neil Armstrong GAR notice

Neil Armstrong has been nominated for a good article reassessment. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to good article quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status will be removed from the article. Reviewers' concerns are here.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 03:58, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

FAR

I have nominated Frederick Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, 1st Marquess of Dufferin and Ava for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here.YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 02:43, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Another FAR

I have nominated Anne of Great Britain for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. john k (talk) 17:19, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

FAR of George F. Kennan

I have nominated George F. Kennan for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Otumba (talk) 18:44, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

GAR

I also submitted a couple of Biographical articles for GAR. They are all for Medal of Honor recipients and they are. Michael J. Daly, Charles Pomeroy Stone, and Merritt A. Edson. --Kumioko (talk) 19:30, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Marco Polo

 Chzz  ►  21:31, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Bahia Bakari (airplane crash survivor) AfD

Bahia Bakari (the sole survivor of Yemenia Flight 626) is up for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bahia Bakari, a semi-procedural nomination to ensure that a merge into the flight's article would not be excessive for a BLP. Input there would be appreciated. Thanks, Cosmic Latte (talk) 01:04, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Billy Sunday GAR

Billy Sunday has been nominated for a good article reassessment. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to good article quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status will be removed from the article. Reviewers' concerns are here. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 06:11, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Getting {{Blp}} to display with Banner Shells

Please be aware that {{WikiProjectBanners}} allows the {{Blp}} message to display when the |living=yes parameter is set within {{WPBiography}}.

However {{WPBS}} aka {{WikiProjectBannerShell}} does NOT display the {{Blp}}. For examples see Talk:George Clooney, which displays {{Blp}}, and Talk:John Candy which doesn't. Please refer to the history of Talk:John Candy IF it has been recently updated to display {{Blp}}.

This should be used

{{WikiProjectBanners
|1={{WPBiography |living=yes |class= |priority= }} 
|2={{WikiProject projectname |class= |importance=}}
}}

instead of this

{{WikiProjectBannerShell
|1={{WPBiography |living=yes |class= |priority= }}
|2={{WikiProject projectname |class= |importance=}}
}}

Can a Bot be created to replace {{WPBS}} with {{WikiProjectBanners}} ? 98.71.212.16 (talk) 15:34, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Any BLP which uses a banner shell should use blp=yes as a parameter within the shell itself and omit the living=yes from the template. ie:

{{WikiProjectBannerShell|blp=yes|1=
{{WPBiography |class= |priority= }} 
{{WikiProject projectname |class= |importance=}}
}}

As such, there is no need to replace anything. By the by, John Candy has been dead for 15 years so he his biography is not one of a living person. Regards, Woody (talk) 15:44, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Sorry for the bad example. Ahh! I see, perhaps there is an article out there using the other shell, just can't find an example at the moment. Thanks for the quick reply! 98.71.212.16 (talk) 15:57, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

There is worse news. The original code for {{WPB}} has been replaced by the code for {{WPBS}} with |collapsed= set to yes. In my view this was not at all necessary but occurred because a few admins, one in particular, decided that {{WPBS}} was more powerful and more flexible than {{WPB}} and, therefore, the latter should be eliminated. The details are on Template talk:WikiProjectBannerShell and Template talk:WikiProjectBanners. Notice that the recoding did not require any review process and no such process was sought. As the templates are protected so that only admins can edit them we non-admin editors are stuck with what has been foisted upon us.

JimCubb (talk) 20:22, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

WP:UNDUE FRINGE NPOV etc. vs. Biographies

Hi, I hope this is the right place to ask this question - if not, I'd appreciate a bit of direction on where I should post it. I have been working on a biography recently, and the person in question is a controversial scientist. In trying to present aspects of his work I have been running into quite a bit of grief with people reverting edits on the grounds that they violate various combinations of WP:UNDUE, FRINGE, NPOV, PEACOCK, and COATRACK. What has dawned on me is that people are applying these tags to the persons' research, not the biography. That is, the research this person has conducted is considered FRINGE (I argue it's Alternative Theoretical Formulation), so any mention of his work in the bio is being attacked for violating FRINGE and UNDUE, even though the sources are not FRINGE or UNDUE. I'm not sure if all of that is as clear as it could be, so I'll try to put it into a question and example; When writing a WP:BIO does UNDUE/FRINGE etc. restrict only the quality of the material/views presented (i.e. only present material that accurately reflects the majority view of what this person did), or can these policies also restrict presenting the actual work of the person who is the subject of the article? So for instance, if Joe Blow (who satisfies notability) conducted research into unicorns living on Venus, and there are plenty of reliable sources covering his efforts, can a biography on Joe Blow actually present the various elements of his unicorn research in some detail provided the biographical information is accurate and satisfies verifiability etc., or does WP severely restrict mention of unicorns on Venus research because it is such a fringe topic that it does not conform to the majority view of science, regardless of notability? Any help people could provide on this would be very welcome! Cheers, Blippy (talk) 09:51, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

You could present Joe Blow's unicorn work in his bio, so long as it's not discussed so extensively as to become an article on the unicorn theory. But if Joe Blow is notable enough for a bio, his unicorn theory might be notable too. It would depend on context. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 10:59, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

That's great SV, thanks for your time. In this particular instance Joe Blow (Ian Stevenson) is very notable, as is his theory. Cheers, Blippy (talk) 11:38, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Question about appropriate inclusion of awards

I'd like to get others' input regarding addition of information about awards won by living persons, especially whether there are relevant guidelines or general principles. I have a potential conflict of interest with a well-known public figure who has a Wikipedia article, and would like to include some appropriate information about public awards won. I have a list of 25 such awards going back the past four years, and although I have not done research to find reliable citations for them, I presume for now they do exist. However, I am not quite sure where lies the line between being informational and overdoing it. I've looked at guidelines within this WikiProject, as well as WP:SPAM, WP:AUTO and WP:NOT but neither make any such mention. Please let me know if you can. Thanks, NMS Bill (talk) 20:07, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Category:Biography articles without listas parameter Needs Your Help

This category at one time had more that 375,000 articles. Through extensive effort by editors and at least one bot it is now down to 50,000 articles.

There are still a few editors who are working on the articles in this category but a bot is no longer useful. (The last time it was run it could only work on one out of 400 pages.) The category is growing by almost 100 articles per day. What needs to happen now is for a larger number of editors who are very knowledgable in the naming conventions of many cultures to take 30 minutes or more per day and work on the articles within a specific area of the alphabet.

I have managed to clean out the articles before "A", the ones after "Z", the ones in "Q" and the ones in "X" and I monitor those letters each day. I am currently working on "V" because I wanted a break from Chinese and Arabic names and because it had fewer than 500 articles when I started.

Please jump in almost anywhere as a test effort. If you become interested in working on the project, please register your interest in the appropriate place on the category's talk page. You have nothing to lose but your sanity and how much of that is left anyway?

I may put a guide to how I determine a valid value to the |listas= on a sub-page to my talk page once I figure out how to make such a page. Until then feel free to ask me about any part of the process that puzzles or bothers you.

JimCubb (talk) 20:52, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Arthur Rose Eldred GA Sweeps: On Hold

I have reviewed Arthur Rose Eldred for GA Sweeps to determine if it still qualifies as a Good Article. In reviewing the article I have found several issues, which I have detailed here. Since the article falls under the scope of this project, I figured you would be interested in contributing to further improve the article. Please comment there to help the article maintain its GA status. If you have any questions, let me know on my talk page and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 22:38, 7 July 2009 (UTC)