Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography

WikiProject Biography

Discussions about article assessment (including complaints and suggestions) should go to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography/Assessment

Bob Dylan FAR

Bob Dylan has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here.

Mercy Lewis update

I think that the section under Mercy Lewis, "The Afflicted Children," should have its own page because there has been more and more research on the children as a whole. There are more than a hand full of accusers, but only Mercy's page shows the afflicted children as a whole. I think a more in depth study on the afflicted girls about their afflictions, the symptoms, their behavior, and why they acted as they did is neccessary as its own page because of the amount of information available.

proposing indigenous people's workgroup

I just edited a few tweaks on George Horse-Capture of the Fort Belknap Agency, and there's nothing on the page or in his linked bio to say which of the two tribes on that agency he's a member of (or both?) - Gros Ventre (a branch of the Blackfeet) or Assiniboine (a Siouxan group). I noted he's in the s&a (science & academia) workgroup of WP:Bio; but might I suggest that there be convened a workgroup to address indigenous peoples' bios, since there's so many of them and they have particular categorizing, cultural-sensitivity etc needs. I added {{NorthAmNative}} which of course addresses some of this, but I'm finding lots and lots of "Indian bios" that don't have NorthAmNative on them; maybe the proposed workgroup could be an interface between that project and this one??Skookum1 (talk)!~

Article alerts

This is a notice to let you know about Article alerts, a fully-automated subscription-based news delivery system designed to notify WikiProjects and Taskforces when articles are entering Articles for deletion, Requests for comment, Peer review and other workflows (full list). The reports are updated on a daily basis, and provide brief summaries of what happened, with relevant links to discussion or results when possible. A certain degree of customization is available; WikiProjects and Taskforces can choose which workflows to include, have individual reports generated for each workflow, have deletion discussion transcluded on the reports, and so on. An example of a customized report can be found here.

If you are already subscribed to Article Alerts, it is now easier to report bugs and request new features. We are also in the process of implementing a "news system", which would let projects know about ongoing discussions on a wikipedia-wide level, and other things of interest. The developers also note that some subscribing WikiProjects and Taskforces use the display=none parameter, but forget to give a link to their alert page. Your alert page should be located at "Wikipedia:PROJECT-OR-TASKFORCE-HOMEPAGE/Article alerts". Questions and feedback should be left at Wikipedia talk:Article alerts.

Message sent by User:Addbot to all active wiki projects per request, Comments on the message and bot are welcome here.

Thanks. — Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 08:52, 15 March, 2009 (UTC)

Hillary Rodham Clinton GAR

Hillary Rodham Clinton has been nominated for a good article reassessment. Articles are typically reviewed for one week. 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) 22:38, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Discussions have been moved to Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Hillary Rodham Clinton/3.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 04:02, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Martin Luther King, Jr. Request for comment

There is currently a discussion regarding how much material regarding certain matters of the subject's private life should be included in the article above. A request for comment on the subject can be found at Talk:Martin Luther King, Jr.#Request for Comments. Any input is more than welcome. Thank you. John Carter (talk) 14:11, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Heenal Raichura

Would appreciate an independent eye on the links to this article. Basically every list of "notable" for which she qualifies by ethnicity or place of study etc.. But is she notable enough to be in them? Would categories be more appropriate? Rich Farmbrough, 18:08 14 May 2009 (UTC).

BULLETIN — Category:Biography articles without listas parameter

The backlog is now under 100,000!

Rejoice!

JimCubb (talk) 01:14, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

If you give me the logic used to insert the listas perameter I can assist using AWB as well.--Kumioko (talk) 18:25, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

140,000 unassessed articles

Time for another assessment drive? Geraldk (talk) 16:03, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

I'd love to participate. (but perhaps starting at the end of July?) :) Hekerui (talk) 16:38, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

GA Sweeps invitation

This message is being sent to WikiProjects with GAs under their scope. Since August 2007, WikiProject Good Articles has been participating in GA sweeps. The process helps to ensure that articles that have passed a nomination before that date meet the GA criteria. After nearly two years, the running total has just passed the 50% mark. In order to expediate the reviewing, several changes have been made to the process. A new worklist has been created, detailing which articles are left to review. Instead of reviewing by topic, editors can consider picking and choosing whichever articles they are interested in.

We are always looking for new members to assist with reviewing the remaining articles, and since this project has GAs under its scope, it would be beneficial if any of its members could review a few articles (perhaps your project's articles). Your project's members are likely to be more knowledgeable about your topic GAs then an outside reviewer. As a result, reviewing your project's articles would improve the quality of the review in ensuring that the article meets your project's concerns on sourcing, content, and guidelines. However, members can also review any other article in the worklist to ensure it meets the GA criteria.

If any members are interested, please visit the GA sweeps page for further details and instructions in initiating a review. If you'd like to join the process, please add your name to the running total page. In addition, for every member that reviews 100 articles from the worklist or has a significant impact on the process, s/he will get an award when they reach that threshold. With ~1,300 articles left to review, we would appreciate any editors that could contribute in helping to uphold the quality of GAs. If you have any questions about the process, reviewing, or need help with a particular article, please contact me or OhanaUnited and we'll be happy to help. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 22:30, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

FAR for Samuel Beckett

I have nominated Samuel Beckett 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) 06:24, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Attalus I at FAR

I have nominated Attalus I 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) 07:04, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Seeking info on birthplace convention

I believe that when you cite a person's birthplace, you use the actual municipality (city/town/etc), not a post office within that city or town? Here is my dilemma. At the Dave Bolland page, the birthplace is listed as Mimico which was a formal town at one time. Bolland was born after the formal town was dissolved, although you can still mail a letter to Mimico. And people of the area do self-identify as being from Mimico. If he was born in Mimico before it was absorbed into Etobicoke, the birthplace should be listed as Mimico. But not if you were born afterwards. Am I following convention or not in this way? Alaney2k (talk) 14:16, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

The most relevant question is what do the sources say? Wildhartlivie (talk) 17:32, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

It seems to be evenly split between Mimico and Toronto. Do a google search on 'dave boland birthplace'. One lists his birthplace as Toronto, and home-town of Mimico! Alaney2k (talk) 20:04, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

I think the compromise you came up with is the best solution. There are many instances where smaller towns are swallowed up by larger ones in municipal areas and there isn't a real convention for how to deal with that. Seeing as Mimico hasn't actually ceased to exist and there is evidence that the essence of it still remains, I think Mimico, Etobicoke, Ontario works fine. Wildhartlivie (talk) 20:54, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Maybe the fact David Bolland himself states he is from Mimico & it's important enough to him that he has a Tattoo with "Mimico" on it other people should not believe they know more than the locals. As I have stated before, just because politicians make decisions to dissolve towns for financial reasons in no way means it ceases to exist. Mimico is alive & strong with a history it's residents are proud of.

From the London Free Press.

"Bolland isn't one to forget where he comes from, symbolized by a tattoo on his back of the maple leaf with "Mimico" written in the spot usually reserved for "Canada.""

http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Hockey/Junior/2006/01/12/1390657-sun.html

Malekwa (talk) 02:21, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Fictional People?

Should Fictional People be in this Project? Recently I have run into a number of articles that are in Category:Fictional people of the Three Kingdoms and they are also a part of this project. Should they be in this project?

JimCubb (talk) 18:04, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Fictional people shouldn't be in this project. The problem I'm seeing with some of the articles I looked at in Category:Fictional people of the Three Kingdoms is that it isn't clear at all if they are fictional (does that mean mythological?), historical or whether that is unclear. If they are mythological and existence is unclear, then they probably should be included here but also in a mythology category. I don't know enough about Chinese history to be able to say with any more specificity. Wildhartlivie (talk) 19:13, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

As I understand from reading the articles involved, the "people" in Category:Fictional people of the Three Kingdoms are solely characters in a 14th Century novel about The Three Kingdoms era. Many more articles than the number that populate that category have a tag that says that the article does not delineate clearly between fact and fiction.

JimCubb (talk) 20:34, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps the category name needs to be changed to clarify it is in reference to a specific novel. The articles I looked at from the category should probably also note it doesn't delineate between fact and fiction. Wildhartlivie (talk) 20:54, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Featured BLPs

On the off-chance that anyone is interested, I did a brief analysis to come up with some stats and a snapshot listing the featured articles concerning living people. The results are here in my userspace. Carcharoth (talk) 23:38, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Presidency of Shimon Peres

I have tried to expand the article Presidency of Shimon Peres. Any comments and/or edits would be appreciated. Thanks. Ism schism (talk) 01:15, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Requested move for Shirley Temple

There's a request here to move "Shirley Temple" to "Shirley Temple Black". Folks might like to weigh in with their opinions. Ed Fitzgerald _{t / c} 18:20, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

David Hume

David Hume: a core article is delisted in GA sweeps process. My suggestions are available on the GAR page. --Redtigerxyz ^Talk 06:19, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Daniel Levy (businessman)

Can someone explain to me why the references are being removed? I don't understand the last editor comments or context removal. thanks. Govvy (talk) 23:08, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't see that the IP gave any rationale for removing the references or the changes made, nor was there a talk page posting regarding it. If it were me and I had an issue with this, I'd revert it. Wildhartlivie (talk) 04:21, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Question about murder victims

I've been working on Wikipedia:Find-A-Grave famous people, a list of "missing" biographical entries based on the Find-A-Grave website. A small number of entries on that website are dedicated to "famous" murder victims, i.e. people who were victims of a serial killer, a shooting rampage, a particularly well-documented murder investigation and so on. With a few exceptions, there is no reason to create an article for these people but I'm wondering about redirects. I'm sure such issues have been discussed extensively but I don't know if they've resulted in some set of basic principles. There are for instance redirects for most, if not all, victims of Jeffrey Dahmer. I think that makes sense. On the other hand, I'm not as comfortable with redirects for very young victims of recent events though I suppose a search will inevitably lead to the murder article. Anyways, thoughts and comments would be appreciated. Pichpich (talk) 19:53, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

In most cases, murder victims don't have separate articles, usually based on a rationale of them being notable for one event only, although as you note, some do have redirects. However, I would not create redirects for very young victims (or perpetrators for that matter) due to privacy concerns. There are certainly a few articles for very high profile victims, but in most cases, the ones that are redirects are so because an article on that person was redirected instead of being deleted. Just to ask, are you using the template {{findagrave}} when you add links (I hope)? Wildhartlivie (talk) 20:26, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, if the name is mentioned in the original article, and is found in publically available secondary sources, then there shouldn't be a problem from a policy point of view. There are reasons for deleting redirects, but this isn't one of them. I can agree that the issue can be a sensitive one, but it should then be discussed in the context of the article, not the redirect. Of course if the name does not appear in the article, then the redirect makes no sense and can be deleted. Keep in mind that Wikipedia is not censored from objectionable material and murder victims are not covered by BLP. -Duribald (talk) 20:41, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

No, but in some cases, young murder victims and some perpetrators are protected from names being used, based on laws governing a country. There was a situation last year where an article regarding a murder in Canada was subject to a lot of debate because Canadian law prohibited the publication of the name of one of the perpetrators because of her age, although I can't recall the article name at the moment. Wildhartlivie (talk) 20:56, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia only answers to the laws of the state of Florida, where the servers are located. Legal problems can, of course, arise for editors who put the information on Wikipedia, because they are legally responsible according to the laws of their contries. But Wikipedia doesn't censor. If - and only if - the name is publically available from reputable secondary sources, it is not per se a policy problem. One can of course make the argument that the information is unnecessary, or not notable, and does not need to be included in the article. But that should be discussed on the article talk page. If the name is already in the article there's no reason to not have a redirect. -Duribald (talk) 22:24, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the input. I'd like to note that in the case of Find-A-Grave entries, privacy is already dead (no pun intended). So I'll follow the obvious rule of thumb and create redirects whenever the victim's name appears in the redirect target. In some cases, adding a {{findagrave}} reference makes sense but in others, the info that victim X was a cheerleader at school so-and-so is of marginal value or even relevance and borders on morbid curiosity. I don't really see the point of, say, the find-a-grave link on the Columbine High School massacre article but I don't think I'd win that debate. It has little to do with whether or not Wikipedia is censored but more with whether or not Wikipedia articles are able to focus on things that actually matter. Pichpich (talk) 02:51, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

My comments were more of a general nature, but I feel I need to add that there is factually situations where privacy concerns in jurisdictions other than Florida is considered. The one of which I spoke is the Richardson family murders. There's a very long debate on using the girl's name, which at this time is not included on the article although she is imprisoned for the crimes. There is a vast difference between censorship and the validity of attempting to consider all points when legality in some jurisdiction becomes an issue. It isn't so black and white, or the Richardson girl's name would be included. Wildhartlivie (talk) 04:57, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

The Richardson girl is not a murder victim. She's a very much a living, and underaged, girl. I agree wholeheartedly that her name should not be revealed, and it was discussed in the context of the article. This is covered in BLP. Of course it's not all black and white and it has to be discussed on a case to case basis, but the question here was that of policy and precedent. :-) -Duribald (talk) 11:31, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, this is a completely different issue and personally I believe that in such cases, it is best to simply follow the jurisdiction of the state/country where the crime took place. Anyways, I see that in the case of my original question, there's a pretty solid consensus that, save a few exceptions, redirects are ok. Pichpich (talk) 15:46, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm a little unhappy with the idea of putting redirects for all the victims - mostly because of the situation (which occurs frequently) where someone else has the same name. If one creates an article for that person, is one honor-bound to put a {{for}} link or other means of locating the murderer's article in the otherwise completely unrelated one? In other words - what is the positive value of adding the links that outweighs the negative value of the fact that they do get in the way at times? --Alvestrand (talk) 20:00, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree that using {{for}} is unnecessary in most cases. However, there's still value in keeping a redirect from Jane Doe (murder victim). For one thing, it will turn up in the search but it will also appear as a suggested completion now that this feature is available from Wikipedia's search box. Pichpich (talk) 21:06, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Requesting input

Please see this. Thank you.--Rockfang (talk) 22:30, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Sorry but I do not understand the question.

JimCubb (talk) 02:25, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Please Help

Category:Biography articles without listas parameter is growing. Many of the new pages cannot be handled properly by a bot as they do not have a sort value on the article page.

The good news is that when I first got involved with the problem there were over 375,000 pages in the category (375,812 on 6 February 2009). After the work of some crazed editors there were only 344,000 pages in the category when listasbot jumped in (date unknown). Two days ago there were 45,000 pages in the category. Then listasbot found that the efficiency dropped like a rock, from around 170/200 to 1/400. There are now 51,512 pages in the category.

This means that people are needed to look at each page, apply a listas parameter to the page by whatever valid manner possible and put that value on the article page as the DEFAULTSORT, if such is needed. Can you do this?

Please wander over to Category:Biography articles without listas parameter, pick a page at random from the menu (Suggestion -- click the right arrow of the ToC menu the number of times you get from the last two numbers of your phone number but you may have another method.) and putter around the the pages. If you find that you can fix some of the pages and you enjoy doing the work, register your interest on the Talk page of the category, here.

You may find that the exercise is fun.

JimCubb (talk) 03:34, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Bernard Williams at FAR

I have nominated Bernard Williams 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) 11:42, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Eduardo Paes

The Air France Flight 447 article states that the mayor of Rio de Janeiro died in the crash. The Rio article states that the mayor is Eduardo Paes, but that article doesn't state that he has died. Can anyone confirm that this is the correct person? (copied at WP Brazil) Mjroots (talk) 05:26, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Woody Guthrie

I have nominated Woody Guthrie 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.—141.155.159.210 (talk) 12:12, 3 June 2009 (UTC)