Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography/Archive 22

Resurrecting an old topic...

We still need a religious work group; as well as crime, business - and I still feel activist as well (since you can't very put them into the politician work group unless you change it from "politician" to political). --Ozgod (talk) 11:56, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Samantha Smith

Hi, just to let you know that Samantha Smith, an article within this project's scope, is at featured article review. Please see Wikipedia:Featured article review/Samantha Smith if interested in contributing. Thanks Dspark76 (talk) 20:12, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Spring 2008 Assessment Drive

I would like to invite you all to join me in a Spring 2008 Assessment Drive to help clear out our backlog of unassessed articles. I am looking at launching the drive on March 14, 2008 and having it run for three months, until May 14, 2008 June 14, 2008 or the ending Friday of that week. --Ozgod (talk) 01:02, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Um, wouldn't 3 months put it at ending on June 14? Wildhartlivie (talk) 04:00, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it would. My bad. --Ozgod (talk) 04:35, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I'll do what I can to help. John Carter (talk) 13:38, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

We (Milhist) will be running a tagging drive starting (hopefully) mid-April. It strikes me that if you could tag any bios of military people for Milhist, we could tag any Military bios we come across for Biography? Does this make sense, pooling resources a little? --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 13:43, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Sounds great to me. The only questions which come to mind to me would be which task forces, if any, of MilHist to tag the articles for. But, when the page for the assessment drive is created, I can try to ensure that the relevant material for MilHist would also be included. John Carter (talk) 13:51, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Makes perfect sense and is completely doable - I believe MilHist shows up on Outriggr's script; I'll double check it to be sure. --Ozgod (talk) 14:03, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) Sorry to take a while to get back on this but I had it in my mind that this drive was starting at the end of March! Oh well, better late than never. Anyhow, here are a few suggestions for addressing the practicalities.

Tagging

The least-demanding option is for editors to add: {{WPMILHIST|class = |Biography=yes}}. This adds the article to Category:Unassessed military history articles, which is regularly checked and assessed.

The adventurous could add the class too, using the standard codes, class = B. Milhist has its own B-class criteria but we can easily pick up articles which have B-class set but not the parameters so that is no problem.

The really adventurous could add Milhist task forces. However, there are over fifty of them so this can be a daunting job. The most popular ones are: WWI=yes (World War I), WWII=yes (World War II), US=yes (American), British=yes (British), Russian=yes (Russian), Maritime=yes (Naval), and Aviation=yes (Aviation). A complete list can be found in the Milhist template: {{WPMILHIST}}.

Rewards

Obviously any contributing editors would be entitled to Milhist service awards. These are awarded on the following basis:

250 articles - One stripe

500 articles - Two stripes

1000 - Three stripes

I could award them but it may be easier if you do this yourselves at the end of the drive. The

{{subst:Milhist-1stripe|For tagging '''''250''''' articles for the joint ''[[WP:WikiProject Biography|Wikiproject Biography]] / [[WP:MILHIST|Military history Wikiproject]]'' Spring 2008 drive, by order of the coordinators of the ''[[WP:MILHIST|Military history WikiProject]]'' I hereby present you with this Service Award. ~~~~}}

{{subst:Milhist-2stripe|For tagging '''''500''''' articles for the joint ''[[WP:WikiProject Biography|Wikiproject Biography]] / [[WP:MILHIST|Military history Wikiproject]]'' Spring 2008 drive, by order of the coordinators of the ''[[WP:MILHIST|Military history WikiProject]]'' I hereby present you with this Service Award. ~~~~}}

{{subst:Milhist-3stripe|For tagging '''''1000''''' articles for the joint ''[[WP:WikiProject Biography|Wikiproject Biography]] / [[WP:MILHIST|Military history Wikiproject]]'' Spring 2008 drive, by order of the coordinators of the ''[[WP:MILHIST|Military history WikiProject]]'' I hereby present you with this Service Award. ~~~~}}

I think that's everything covered. Thoughts? --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 09:39, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm noticing Outriggr's script does not allow us to tag to other WikiProjects - anyone else noticing that? It would simplify the process in helping to tag for MILHIST as well. --Ozgod (talk) 12:07, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

I found it didn't work for me at all last year. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 15:19, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

The script allows you to add the banners you specify in Special:Mypage/monobook.js. So in order to use WPBIO and MILHIST banners (and no others) with BIO as the default, try putting something like this:

assessmentMyTemplateCode = ["{{WPBiography|class=|priority=}}", "{{WPMILHIST|class=}}"];

assessmentDefaultProject = "WPBiography"; </code>

instead of the previous lines startingwith assessmentMyTemplateCode = and assessmentDefaultProject = in your monobook.js. I haven't come across a project banner that can't be added to script in this way, but you do have to specify every banner you want to be available. Hemmingsen 16:18, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Old Magazines

Greetings, WikiProject Biography! I am Cryptic C62 from Wikiproject Chemistry. I went to a massive low-price book sale today and found two old magazines with some articles you mind find interesting:

• November-December 1978 issue of American Art & Antiques:
  • Frank Furness
  • John Henry Twachtman
  • Atelier 17
  • The Paintings of William Robinson Leigh
• January 1999 issue of The Magazine - Antiques
  • Namikawa Yasusuki
  • Eastman Johnson, Edmund C. Tarbell, George Caleb Bingham
  • Dagobert Peche

If any of you are interested in using these magazines as sources, or if you're simply curious, I am offering to ship them at no cost other than the shipping charge. I have a complete list of the articles in each magazine, and will gladly provide any additional information needed. Anyone who is interested should respond on my Talk Page. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 01:47, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Annie Lee Moss

Can anyone lend a third pair of eyes for the article Annie Lee Moss. There is a dispute over whether historical references in the New York Times and Washington Post should be deleted from the article in favor of newer references from books. Thanks. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 18:13, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Actually, (as I've tried to explained to User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) multiple times) the dispute is over the appropriateness and usefulness of some footnotes that RAN insists on adding. As the other party in the dispute, I certainly would welcome some additional opinions. RedSpruce (talk) 20:41, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Proposed amendment to notability guidelines

There have been many arguments at multiple biographical AfDs about articles on the victims of murders that have received significant press coverage. I have, in conjunction with other editors, formulated a guideline proposal at User:Fritzpoll/Notability (criminal acts) which would potentially cause a slight reinterpretation of WP:BIO if consensus is reached. I would like to ask people to come, read the proposed guideline and make comments or suggestions on the talk page. Best wishes - Fritzpoll (talk) 12:07, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Proposal now exists in project space at WP:FELONY WP:N/CA Fritzpoll (talk) 17:05, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Infobox Writer template is broken

The {{Infobox Writer}} template is broken (see Template talk:Infobox Writer). 67.100.45.72 (contribs) 01:50, 14 March 2008 (UTC).

It's not broke. As you pointed out at Template talk:Infobox Writer, "I'm using an antiquated version of Mozilla that predates Firefox". I am working on a solution. _pete 17:02, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Assessment Drive is up

The Spring 2008 assessment drive is up and running and I look forward to working with all of you! --Ozgod (talk) 11:26, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Coordinators revisited

I see some other projects are now in the process of setting up coordinators like MILHIST does. Personally, given the scope of this project, and the amount of work to keep it going, I think that this project would probably stand to have a few individuals at least stated somewhere to be individuals who can be contacted regarding certain matters and/or who commit to help keeping the project's activities current. If MILHIST has nine, considering we have about 10 times the number of articles they have, I think we could probably use at least 9 as well. Also, I think it might help if we had at least one of the coordinators able to, perhaps, focus a bit of concentrated attention on the various work group and subprojects, maybe even designating them that group's primary coordinator. Thoughts? John Carter (talk) 15:55, 16 March 2008 (UTC) --66.195.91.61 (talk) 15:41, 19 March 2008 (UTC)dwqdsqedesqafkkkkkkfkdllelllllldfkkkkfkkwekq;THE NADE KILLED HIM SUP

Yeah, I remember my first time being drunk, too. John Carter (talk) 16:09, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

My interest waxes and wanes, but I'm likely to stick around and be available in the long-term, if not the short-term, so keep me informed about stuff if you need anyone to help. Carcharoth (talk) 13:12, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Lists of people needing categorization by birth or death

I've compiled three lists of people needing categorization by birth or death (as of mid-March 2008):

• User:Dsp13/Living people needing categorization by year of birth (containing about 26,000 individuals)
• User:Dsp13/People needing categorization by year of birth (containing about 11,000 individuals)
• User:Dsp13/People needing categorization as living or by year of death (containing about 18,000 individuals)

Any help gratefully received in adding the appropriate categories to these! Dsp13 (talk) 23:48, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Biographies of unclear notability

Hello,

on Wikipedia, there are currently more than 3100 biographies with their notability questioned. Based on a database snapshot of March 12, I have listed them here, sorted by workgroup.

I would encourage members of this project to have a look at these articles, and see whether independent sources can be added, whether the articles can be merged, or possibly be deleted. Any help in cleaning up this backlog is appreciated. For further information, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Notability.

If you have further questions, please leave a message on the Notability project page or on my personal talk page. (I'm not watching this page however.) Thanks! --B. Wolterding (talk) 11:23, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Alma Mater

What counts as the alma mater for the "person" infobox? Please post your thoughts at Template talk:Infobox Person#Alma Mater. Thanks --Tim4christ17 ^talk 22:13, 23 March 2008 (UTC)