Category talk:Biography articles without listas parameter/Archive/Biography articles with listas parameter

Cleanup of missorted[edit]

Somebody ought to actually put this to use to clean up all the missorted articles. Start with the ones that come after Z, whether because they improperly start with a lowercase letter or because they improperly start with some letter not in the English alphabet. Gene Nygaard 12:08, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That would be a good idea, wouldn't it! Please do remember though that this category is only meant to reflect the use of DEFAULTSORT on the main article. Any changes made to listas should also be made to DEFAULTSORT. In case anyone is wondering, this category exists because I couldn't find any other way to track use of DEFAULTSORT. This category (and the related one, Category:Biography articles without listas parameter) at least show how much still needs to be done - or would if DEFAULTSORT and listas could be synchronised. Carcharoth 04:18, 13 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't really understand what you are saying. Does this somehow also track DEFAULTSORT? Or just listas? Or both?

And listas and DEFAULTSORT don't necessarily have to be the same, just as categories might be sored contrary to either of them. Gene Nygaard 00:20, 14 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This category only tracks use of listas. To understand what I am saying about DEFAULTSORT, try and answer the simple question: "Which biographical articles do not yet have DEFAULTSORT?" Think of it as a clean-up category. If a biographical article doesn't have DEFAULTSORT, you would want to add that to the article. At the moment, it is not possible to easily find articles without DEFAULTSORT. The next-best thing is to find an article without the listas paramter, to look at the article, and either add both DEFAULTSORT (to the article) and listas (to the talk page), or copy the DEFAULTSORT to the talk page (but call it listas instead). It should be possible to get a bot to do the copying bit. Carcharoth 13:01, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Getting back to the mis-sorted ones, and looking at the ones after 'ZZ'. See here. You are quite right. That does need tidying up. All the special characters should be sorted under the standard alphabet, as per Wikipedia:Categorization of people#Ordering names in a category. I make it 659 mis-categorised ones. I've made a start, but it will take a while to clean up, and it requires doing both listas and DEFAULTSORT, which is a pain. If these were all Living People, we could find them at the end of that category - see here, but the dead ones don't have that convenient supercategory yet. Do you think a bot will help here? Carcharoth 13:15, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Update: it looks like the 'Living people' ones have already been tidied up by others, as there are none after Zz. Anyway, I will ask at WP:BOTREQ whether this can be done. Carcharoth 13:19, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This looks like one of the most useless categories I've ever seen. Who cares under what letter a talk page is sorted?! --kingboyk (talk) 14:17, 8 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As I understand, if we have DEFAULTSORT in the main article we don't need listas in the talk page. Am I correct or not? -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:58, 7 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What we want is for any article with DEFAULTSORT to also have listas (a bot can copy them across). That way, the articles without listas become a defacto way to track the articles without DEFAULTSORT. DEFAULTSORT should be on all biography articles, as even those that don't need it should have some way of showing that someone has checked that the title is the same as the DEFAULTSORT value. Carcharoth (talk) 12:50, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I thought some one was cleaning this. I just took care of the ones that had ">" as the listas parameter. I will start on the ones after zz. I wonder how many of the ones in between are wrong. I still remember "Soter, Ptolemy I". Someone should scan the pages and fix the ones that are out of order.

JimCubb (talk) 03:45, 19 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Listas?[edit]

Just curious, but what does this parameter do? 70.186.172.75 (talk) 14:46, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't this a Spanish word? And if it isn't, what does it mean. In utter confusion, GeorgeLouis (talk) 06:51, 23 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

See Category talk:Biography articles without listas parameter. Didn't realise that listas was a Spanish word... Carcharoth (talk) 04:38, 25 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, well, I read this article once before, and it was clear as mud then, too. I think the name must come from "List As . . ." But thanks very much for the link. Yours, GeorgeLouis (talk) 05:06, 25 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Why?[edit]

What's the point of a category with over a half-million entries? ~ MD Otley (talk) 23:08, 6 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The main uses that I can think of are that

This is the only listing of articles that are in WPBiography.
This is the most effective way to tell if articles are sorted properly as the {{DEFAULTSORT}} value on the article page and the |listas= value on the talk page should be identical. (See all the pages after "Zz". They all need to be corrected. The {{DEFAULTSORT}} value and |listas= value may only start with a number or a capital letter from the English Alphabet. No "special" characters are allowed).

There may be other uses that I have not considered. JimCubb (talk) 21:57, 23 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If a regularly-updated list of all biography articles would be useful to you, then I will look into it for you. How would you like such a list formatted? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:02, 16 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A list of any kind would not be useful at all. There is no way that it could be updated by any editor or groups of editors as quickly as to be as comprehensive as a category.

A Category is needed to find the pages that have incorrect sort values. Before you depopulated the category there were more than 2000 pages that had forbidden characters in the sort value. How do you propose that these pages can be found and corrected?

I would file a notice at WP:AN/I but I know that such an effort is doomed to failure as your "consensus" consists of a dozen or so folks who do not see a need for this category as opposed to two or three who do see a need for the category. Your failure to notify me as a dissenter that you were going to depopulate this category would not help that effort. JimCubb (talk) 06:27, 17 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Unlike its analogous Category:Biography articles without listas parameter, which exists solely to keep track of biographical entries in need of the sorting key "listas=", with the ultimate aim that it should remain depopulated, this Category:Biography articles with listas parameter is its complete opposite, which has as its aim to receive all entries depopulated from the other category. Thus, while "Category:without" should ideally have no entries and exist to keep track of newly-created biographical articles via those articles' talk pages, this "Category:with" has been serving as a permanent maintenance category which provides an alphabetical listing of nearly three quarters of a million (with constant daily arrivals) biographical entries of both living and deceased individuals.

While article-page Category:Living people and talk-page Category:Biography articles of living people continue to keep track of that segment of biographical entries, "Category:with" has been the sole place in Wikipedia to keep track of all of the biographical entries, including, perhaps primarily, as has been pointed out by User:JimCubb, of the thousands of misalphabetized, misspelled and missorted entries which wind up at the end of each letter of the alphabet or at the end of the alphabet itself. No list could possibly deal with a task of such scope, other than one that is automatically generated. There is obviously more to be said on the subject but, for the moment, faced with a submission for "speedy deletion", consideration should be given to the usefulness of this category and its ultimate retention.—Roman Spinner (talk) 04:49, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This category is/was no more than a listing of pages using a certain parameter in the banner. A category that truly contained all biographical entries would be easy to implement, but this was never it. PC78 (talk) 06:58, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There are two answers to User:PC78.

Think of a huge comma-delimited database and assume you want to know the number of records in the file. (I have been in this situation. It was possible to get an idea of where the relevant data to our situation was located by the total number of records.) The easiest way to do this is to count the number of lines that have a zero, count the number of lines that do not have a zero and add the two numbers together. This category is the one that contains the records that do not have a zero. Its partner, Category:Biography articles without listas parameter is the one that contains the records that do have a zero.
If it would be easy to implement a category that contains all biographical entries why has the category not been implemented? Is it because the implementation is not as easy as you say? Is it because those who see the need for such a category are not empowered to create the category and those who are empowered to create such a category do not see the need for the category? (From what I have read of the posts of the folks in the latter group, their ignorance is a conscious choice — "My mind is made up. Don't confuse me with facts!" — and their good faith is no longer to be assumed.)

JimCubb (talk) 22:51, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You seem to have some funny ieas about good faith, Jim, ideas which are contrary to what the community expects. Perhaps the category has not been implemented because you've been too busy stamping your feet, throwing your arms in the air and throwing accusations at people to ask for it properly? But if such a category would suit your needs, then I'll see to it. PC78 (talk) 23:02, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

User:Carcharoth asked for such a category two years ago. It did not happen then. I doubt that it will happen now but I am eager to be pleasantly surprised. (A fully populated category before the end of the year will amaze me.)

Note that User:MSGJ first tried to depopulate this category on 24 July 2009. Then, when User:Carcharoth weighed in and restated the reason for the category, User:MSGJ repopulated the category with a comment that I found interesting. Now, without the courtesy of a notice to either User:Carcharoth or me the category has been depopulated. Please, if you can, explain the good faith in this latest action.

Be Bold! Go for it! Create something!

JimCubb (talk) 01:48, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The category was depopulated after a discussion on the template talk page where consensus was found to deprecate the category. If you want to return to this issue, I suggest you continue the thread over there because this category (and talk page) will be deleted soon. As I'm sure you realise, because the category is populated by a template, opposing the deletion of this category will not overturn the decision that was taken there. Regards, — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:59, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I am copying what I said in the discussion linked immediately above: Respectfully, I am firmly in the camp of those who believe the category is useful for the reasons set out above. I have found a number of errors in the living and listas tags (e.g. Yobot for some reason thinks that a number of dead people are actually alive); one of the few ways to find these articles is thru a listing (however imperfect; and it is). But I'd rather have that imperfection and know it's there rather than stumble blindly thru each biography as I do cleanup on both its talk page and the article itself. I hope this makes sense. Also, I think a warning on the category page itself that the listas category was going to be depopulated in the near future would have been helpful. I was surprised to find it had happened (I discovered it yesterday). Again, this is my opinion. I remain, yr humble, --FeanorStar7 (talk) 10:28, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Moved from category page[edit]

Admins:

This category was first depopulated by User:MSGJ on 24 July 2009 by changing the project banner template that populated it but was repopulated because of the strong objections of User:Carcharoth and me (User:JimCubb). There was no deletion discussion prior to that incident.
Now, again with no discussion, the category has been depopulated by User:MSGJ by changing the project banner template that populated it.

This is a unique and uniquely useful category which should remain as a permanent feature within Wikipedia. Specifics discussed on talk page under heading "Why?".—Roman Spinner (talk) 04:43, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]