Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography/Archive 36

Help with placing photo

Hi, I just found a photograph of the subject in the biography Robert Townsend (Captain), but for the life of me cannot make it appear in the biography infobox, so I placed it outside. Can someone look at the article and place the photo inside the box and tell me what mistake I must be making? Thanks in advance. pmcyclist (talk) 21:24, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

  Resolved
 – Image moved to infobox. The image must be given in the form [[Image:Example.jpg|300px]] If something doesn't work or if you are not sure how to use a template, check the template documentation first. - kollision (talk) 02:56, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
I see how you did it now. I haven't had the same problem with other infoboxes, but now know how to place it. Thank you so much for your help! pmcyclist (talk) 11:34, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Rename of Category

Some of you may wish to participate in the discussion on renaming the category Armenian Genocide deniers to Armenian Genocide skeptics. The discussion is here.--Anthon.Eff (talk) 14:29, 2 May 2009 (UTC) R

Category:Book of Mormon people and this project

Not trying to start an argument about whether these people ever existed or not, just wanting to know whether the members of this project think they should fall within the scope of the project or not. Thanks in advance for your responses. John Carter (talk) 17:23, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Er... nor will I. But they should be treated in the same way that any other religiously related person is treated. If individuals included in the Hebrew/Christian Bibles are assumed to fall under WP:BIOG, then it seems logical that persons who are included in other religious writings, ancient culture, mythology, or anything similarly related, would be also. Is that broad - and vague - enough to answer the question? Wildhartlivie (talk) 21:33, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
Sounds good to me. Oh, yeah. I hope no one took the above as any sort of threat. I'm just going through the category and wanted to find out whether to add the Biography banner or not. Sorry if I came across in any other way. John Carter (talk) 21:38, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
I didn't take it that way, John. I saw it as a very good effort at avoiding any insinuations regarding the Mormon (or any other) faith or names involved in any way other than "where do they go?" I hope my response was in the same vein. Wildhartlivie (talk) 01:12, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Category talk:11th-century Spanish people

I think that there is a problem with Catalan counts as Counts of Urgell. They are in this category as in other categories similar than that and they weren't spanish because Spain didn't exist in that time.--Vilar 12:26, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Project banner and "core" status

Can anyone tell me how it was the project's banner was altered to allow for the "core" priority assessment, so that it might, potentially, be duplicated for other projects? I'm with the Christianity WikiProject, which has developed its own "core" articles list, and it might be useful to be able to do the same thing with our banner. Thank you. John Carter (talk) 19:26, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Bot tagging of physicist articles

In December, AnomieBOT tagged a number of physicist articles for both WP:PHYSICS and this project. WP:PHYSICS has requested another tagging run, are there any objections to adding/updating {{WPBiography}} on articles in the categories listed at User talk:AnomieBOT/Archive 1#Physics biographies in the same manner as was done before? Anomie 03:48, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

BTW, if you come across physicist article, you might as well add {{physics|bio=yes}} to the page if it's not already there. Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 02:42, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Proper infobox

I noticed that one editor has been using the {{Infobox Engineer}} for the biographic article he is creating, most of which are listed here. AFAIK none of these people are actually engineers. Is there a better, or preferred infobox, for such biographies? ww2censor (talk) 11:56, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

I checked several and in the ones that I looked at none where engineers. There where 3 that I would have used the Military Person infobox but mostly would just be the Person Infobox. I hope this helps.--Kumioko (talk) 12:22, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
Do you suggest actually replacing the engineer infoboxes with the regular Person Infobox, or just leave them as is? ww2censor (talk) 12:28, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
I would recommend replacing the engineer infobox with the infobox that is more appropriate. If the Person was in the military use the military person, if they where a politician use the politician, if there isn't a more specific one then use Person but the Engineer Infobox should only be used for engineers. I guess the simple answer is yes I would replace it.--Kumioko (talk) 12:58, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
Thanks ww2censor (talk) 13:12, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Inclusion Question

I have asked this in many places and do not recall getting a satisfactory answer.

Why are bands included in this project? As a corollary, why are large musical organizations not included in this project?

The inclusion of bands has introduced difficulties.

  • The worst may be in the living parameter. (The living parameter has been declared a required field and I believe rightly so.) It has been declared that a band is living if any of its members are still living. This means that when a musician dies one must change the musician's living parameter and then go to the page of every band in which the musician played and determine if any of the other members of the band are still alive so that each band can have the correct living parameter.
  • Possibly the second worst problem is that of accounting for the bands. In the first of the monthly count of articles without living parameter Magioladitis asks for an estimate of the number of bands the device that he uses to counts bands only considers the articles with the word "band" in the page name. There are twenty-five pages under "X" in Category:Biography articles without living parameter. One is an album. (Xero (album) for those who may doubt that an album has been added to this project.) Two have the word "band" in their page name. (X (Australian band) and Xenis Emputae Travelling Band, for those who are curious.) The other twenty-two pages are also bands. This letter has been under-counted by 91.67% As this is a special case let's assume that the general case is smaller than that by an order of magnitude, 9.167%. That is an additional 9.167% of the remaining article that are bands but are not explicitly identified as bands (about 500 articles). A category can be monitored effectively only if there are fewer than 200 articles in it, less than one page.

I respectfully and humbly ask that any admin who agrees with the logic above and is willing and able to do so initiate the procedure that is necessary to remove bands from this project. I will continue to add living and listas parameters to those articles that are in the categories of those articles that lack such parameters and I will continue to fix the problems that I encounter in the process. (All of the KMT generals who were in "X" in Category:Biography articles without living parameter had an incorrect listas parameter. I feel certain that the persons who supplied the original parameter know how to sort names of Chinese persons. I assume that they did not understand the nature of the listas parameter.)

JimCubb (talk) 03:02, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Good points. I guess this answers my question above (whether bands are, in fact, currently included). It seems odd to me, too, that bands are listed under "Biography", and have a "living" parameter. I would second the motion to remove them from the Biography project. Anyone have any ideas on where they should go if they are removed? Is there a more appropriate project? C.anguschandler (talk) 22:40, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Oppose. I believe I've already addressed this over at Template talk:WPBiography. To answer C.anguschandler, yes, there is a more approprate project, and therin lies the problem. WP:MUSICIAN is a sub project of WP:BIOGRAPHY; they don't have their own project banner, it's incorporated into {{WPBiography}} (as is the Royalty project, incidentally, which explicity includes non-biographical articles). So it's not just a case of excluding bands from this project, we would pretty much have to segregate an entire subproject, and that seems counterproductive for content that is essentially biographical by nature. Even if we did this, we'd still have biography articles for multiple people, and I don't see any particular need to treat bands any differently. Perhaps we just need a better way of handling such articles? PC78 (talk) 22:56, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Why doesn't WP:MUSICIAN have its own banner? The Heavy Metal project does. A band is not a person, it is a group of people. A symphony orchestra is not a person, it is a group of people. WP:BIOGRAPHY does not include symphony orchestras but it does include bands. WP:MUSICIAN could include all persons and groups of persons who make music.
Why aren't biographical articles of multiple people split? With very few exceptions the people will not be absolutely contemporaneous so the living parameter will be messy.
JimCubb (talk) 06:03, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
The heavy metal project deals with a genre of music; the muscician project deals with musicians, i.e. people, and groups of people are still people. I'm not so sure that bands and symphony orchestras are quite so similar. U2 is four people, whereas the London Symphony Orchestra is an institution with a 100+ year history and dozens of members in it's current incarnation alone. Biographies of multiple people exist because not everyone has individual notability, e.g. the Wachowski brothers.
I don't really see a problem here, and I think any solution would bring its own set of problems. Surely it's better to have the |living= parameter (and hence the {{BLP}} notice) where it isn't really needed than to not have it where it is? PC78 (talk) 15:38, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
The problem is mult-faceted.
  • Maintenance of blp banners for groups that are not of the stature of U2 (The New Christy Minstrels, The Swingle Singers, The Association, King's Singers, Julliard String Quartet or any of the thousands of local groups that have articles) will be nearly impossible.
  • Biographies are the story of the lifes of persons. Groups are not persons. U2 is not a person, it is four persons, each of whom have their own lives.
  • Applying the blp banner inappropriately is sloppy and an indication of sloppiness in other areas such as information in the articles.
JimCubb (talk) 21:55, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
I guess the question is: do band articles need the {{BLP}} tag? That's a question you're probably better off asking at WT:BLP. PC78 (talk) 22:10, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
No, the question still is, "Are articles about groups of people biographies?" However, your suggestion is a good one even though it is an attempt at mis-direction. I will ask. If the answer is no, as I suspect it will be, will you then support allowing to leave the nest and be a project with its own place in the general scheme of things, its own banner and its own furniture? Will you then agree that groups of people are not people, no matter the size of the group?
DYK that the 1st Canadian Regiment is covered by this project but the 2nd Canadian Regiment is not? Both were units in the American Revolutionary War.
Thank you for sharing.
JimCubb (talk) 02:01, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
Your concern has mainly been about bands; I don't think it is particuarly conducive to throw in other groups of people that are not part of the perceived problem. It is you who have complicated things by mentioning orchestras, legislative bodies and military regiments, none of which are typically tagged for this project AFAIK and nor should they be. There is no attempt at misdirection from me, and my position remains the same: bands fall under WP:MUSICIAN which is part of WP:BIOGRAPHY and should therefore be tagged with {{WPBiography}}. I don't agree with you that the |living= parameter poses a problem for such articles, but if it turns out to be unnecessary then we can make some appropriate changes and as far as I'm concerned we're done. PC78 (talk) 15:11, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
Back to bands - it seems to me that WikiProject:Musician should be about musicians, and that there should be a sub-project of WikiProject:Music for ensembles, bands, and orchestras. It seems to me that a "life story" of a band is a separate and distinct thing from the "life story" of a singular human being - the distinction being that the story of a single human being is a biography, and that of a band is just a history.
To me as a user, it is confusing that the biography project includes bands. I would expect them to be listed under WikiProject:Music.
C.anguschandler (talk) 21:19, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
The "life story" may be different, but WP:BLP is consistent across the board. And, so far as I know, the Biography project is probably the only project banner which has the blp tag on it, and this is probably the only really active project which deals with BLPs consistently. Maybe it would be a good idea to split out bands, but you'd probably want to talk to the Musicians project about that, because they have the more focused coverage on that subject. John Carter (talk) 21:32, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Tiger Woods GAR

Tiger Woods 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) 14:16, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

GA reassessment of Amenhotep III

I'm writing to notify the community that I have placed Amenhotep III on hold as part of the GA sweeps. It is currently a GA but unless significant work is done it will be delisted in a week. Please go here for my assessment. If you have questions please contact my talk page. H1nkles (talk) 19:35, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Sofia Rotaru

For those interested, please see the talk page. Someone is trying to delete portions of the article.--Rubikonchik (talk) 22:01, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

GA reassessment of Maria Rasputin

This is to notify the concerned projects that as part of the GA Sweeps the article, Maria Rasputin has been reassessed and found to need some work to maintain its GA status. The reassessment can be found here. Any questions or concerns can be posted on my talk page. H1nkles (talk) 04:19, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Redirect pages

Hi folks,

Because my bot has been stirring up a little bit of controversy over the subject, I'm going to pose this question to you:

How much does a WikiProject, such as this one, care about talk pages of redirects?

Thanks, Matt (talk) 16:59, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

I think that everything on the old tak page should be moved to the new talk page and a note put on the old one explaining the move. When I run across such a page because it lacks a listas parameter after the minutes of confusion caused by the redirect, I generally blank the old page except for a note. I think I am doing the right thing.
JimCubb (talk) 17:08, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
I, for one, agree with you...however, there are people that feel that some WikiProjects keep track of their redirects by tagging them as redirect-class in their WikiProject banner. I'd like to see a consensus on whether or not these talk pages are that important. Matt (talk) 17:34, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Folks, I'm moving the discussion to a centralized location -- User:Mikaey/Request for Input/ListasBot 3. Please provide further input there. Thanks, Matt (talk) 01:24, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Please help out by reviewing the article at the FAC page. Thanks! (Ibaranoff24 (talk) 03:16, 12 May 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 (talkcontrib) 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)