Template talk:Authority control/Archive 5

At the moment, it is used almost exclusively in biographical articles
This seems to be false, as of a few days ago. E.g., Graph theory‎, Real number‎, Integer‎, Number theory‎, Diophantine approximation, Division (mathematics)‎, Numeral system‎, Binomial‎, Number, Angle, Equation, Arithmetic, Logarithm. Is this intentional, or has KasparBot run off the rails? Sławomir Biały (talk) 13:52, 17 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Existing templates mostly had been donated by VIAF, which does not include records for topical authority ("subject headings") data like LCSH or Rameau. Now, in a second run, KasparBot is inserting AC templates in any article the corresponding wikidata item currently has some AC data. -- Gymel (talk) 15:55, 17 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Too much alphabet soup for me, I'm afraid. Could the template documentation be updated to reflect whatever the current practice is?  Also, the template links to the article Authority control, which I think is less than helpful.  Is there a way of communicating to readers of the encyclopedia (and also editors) precisely what this is about?  At the moment it seems quite cryptic and non-reader oriented.  What exactly are the aims of this project?  Why is it being placed in article space instead of kept on Wikidata?  Have there been RfCs about this?   Sławomir Biały  (talk) 00:01, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
 * To answer one of those questions, this template actually gets the data stored in Wikidata and displays it here. It has done so for a while now but typically only on biographical articles. Its usage on mostly bio-articles is also why the template links to authority control and not some other page/place. --Izno (talk) 23:22, 19 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, now it looks like the template is being added to every article on Wikipedia. So, should the template link to Help:Authority control instead?  (I've raised the issue at WP:AN to try to solicit a greater diversity of input.)   Sławomir Biały  (talk) 14:49, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

Just tried an LCSH entry as a LCCN parameter for "Hoe (tool)" - it produces a useful LCCN link, but a bad WorldCat link. Could the WorldCat link be suppressed for 'sh...' formatted (ie subject heading) type control numbers? Batternut (talk) 22:24, 17 May 2015 (UTC)


 * I think we need a separate set of templates for people and non-people subject links. Too many library systems make this distinction and the potential presentation options in wikipedia re too varied. Stuartyeates (talk) 01:18, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
 * How would we do this? Have it distinguish between "Personal names", "Titles", and "LCSH" in the authority files, perhaps?  And what about "Corporate/conference names"?  Nyttend (talk) 17:11, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I would disagree with a separate set of templates. I would be amenable to a second row or similar in this template (and possibly renaming this template) per WP:TEMPLATECRUFT and similar. --Izno (talk) 23:22, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

Per the discussion here and at AN, I have boldly pointed the header link to Help:Authority control. Alakzi (talk) 15:25, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

Biblioteca Nacional de Chile work and people authority control
I'd like to suggest adding the Biblioteca Nacional de Chile authority control IDs to this template. There is plenty of Chileans (and non-Chileans too) who have a record in their catalog, and also of an infinity of publications, including newspapers, magazines, maps, and photographies, recordings, etc. I have already proposed the creation of a Wikidata property. --Diego Grez (talk) 03:18, 13 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Is it coordinated with VIAF / http://viaf.org/ or anything similar? Stuartyeates (talk) 03:55, 13 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Note that this template is only for authority control of people. Authority control of other things needs to be done separately. Stuartyeates (talk) 03:58, 13 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't know if it is coordinated with Viaf, but I know part of the library's catalog is on WorldCat. --Diego Grez (talk) 04:08, 13 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Support. It's not harvested by VIAF, but let's wait till the property is created (d:Wikidata:Property proposal/Authority control). --Kolja21 (talk) 13:32, 13 May 2015 (UTC)
 * What is the form of the identifier (4 digits? 7 digits? alphanumeric?) this is important for catching errors as early as possible. Where should it link to? Stuartyeates (talk) 20:36, 13 May 2015 (UTC)
 * It is an identifier of 9 digits, and it should link to http://www.bncatalogo.cl/F?func=direct&local_base=red10&doc_number=$1, whereas $1 is the catalog number --Diego Grez (talk) 21:47, 13 May 2015 (UTC)
 * It now has a Wikidata property, I think it would be beneficial to add it to the template. I'm adding some IDs on Wikidata. --Diego Grez (talk) 16:34, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Does it just have records for things from Chile or do it add IDs to all kind of other stuff too? Like elements, chemical compounds etc? like GND and NDL dows? Christian75 (talk) 19:12, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
 * It has records for all kinds of things, for example Catholic action, Stock, abacus, etc. And also for people from anywhere, not just from Chile. --Diego Grez (talk) 20:32, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
 * It's d:Property:P1890. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:33, 22 May 2015 (UTC)


 * You have added in some (many?) cases multiple identifiers. For example Oil:
 * = Aceites y grasas, BNC 000000067
 * = Aceites y grasas Análisis, BNC 000000068
 * = Aceites y grasas comestibles, BNC 000000070
 * These links are more like "see also" but not an identier for the term "oil" (aceite). --Kolja21 (talk) 20:55, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
 * They are derivative terms for "oil" anyway. Diego Grez (talk) 21:47, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
 * So you think of "ej. mantequilla" as a term for "oil"? Not at all: They are concepts, not terms. And a refinement of a concept is a different concept from the one realized through or represented by the wikidata item, even if a wikidata item for the refinement does not exist. Cross-mapping thesauri or classification systems (usually thought of as establishing equivalences) is a difficult task even for those familiar with the systems involved and there is no guarantee that one concept here can be mapped to a concept there even in principle. Perhaps you would like to stick to simpler things (persons, organisations, geographical places, historical events, literary works) until you really know what you are doing? -- Gymel (talk) 12:19, 23 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Mantequilla does not equal oil, of course. I thought "analysis", "extraction" and such other records could not have other place than the "Oil" item. I see now that I was wrong. --Diego Grez (talk) 12:59, 23 May 2015 (UTC)


 * "no place" might be more often the correct answer than you would like to see... Already the upmost "oil item" is very likely incorrectly assigned: BNC states "Aceites y grasas" and "Nota Pública: Úsase para las obras sobre los aspectos tecnológicos". Thus the BNC item on one hand covers (probably) more than even es:Aceite or en:Oil and on the other hand is additionally restricted to "technological" (chemical too?) aspects (as I understand for these aspects a distinction does not much sense anyway). The wikidata item for es:Aceite is w:Q42962 and in turn connected to some concept in many, many wikipedias. How much these cover depends heavily on the every day usage of en:fat in those languages. The more technical "the other term" like es:Grasa is, the broader might be the scope of "oil" article of that language. Depending on how someone wants to look at it the meaning of the wikidata "oil item" w:Q42962 "is" probably something in between es:Aceite and Aceites y grasas in the BNC sense, so the assignment could be justified if one can disregard the restriction to "technological aspects" which probably can only be decided by checking any single wikipedia on how they deal with any conceivable other aspect of "oil(s) and fat(s)"...
 * From my experience I can tell that a knowledge organisation system which uses many labels in plural form and/or enumerations with "and" and another system wich mostly uses words or small phrases in the singular form usually are not very compatible, especially at the "higher levels" of the hierarchically organized system. It seems to me that the "autoridades bibliographicas" of the BNC in this area are more like a hierarchical classification system than a "collection of concepts or topics" or whatever Wikidata and the single Wikipedias may be and therefore a mapping to categories (in some wikipedia, not necessarily the Spanish one) could be more promising. -- Gymel (talk) 14:41, 23 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I see your point Gymel, I did previously. Maybe we should just stick to link items with authority control IDs with concretely equal definitions. Diego Grez (talk) 17:57, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

TSURL
I try to clean up Category:Pages using authority control with parameters. Many of those pages use the parameter. What does it stand for and why do we need it? Can I just deleted it? Thank you, --T.seppelt (talk) 17:42, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I have not heard of it before, but see Template talk:Authority control/Archive 2 & Bots/Requests for approval/WolfBot 5. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:08, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you. I understand what BPN is. Nobody explained what TSURL is. It isn't used by module anyway... --T.seppelt (talk) 19:15, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
 * TSURL stands for ToolServer-URL: One user found it helpful that Wikipedia instances other than the German were able to provide a link to the Wikipedia Personensuche (then on toolserver.org, now on wmflabs.org). The parameter always reflects the current article name on de:WP (and thus was unstable in principle, rather like WORLDCATID a pointer to some interesting resource possibly exploiting Authority Control but not Auhority Control in itself). IIRC the parameter may occur more than only occasionaly only in eo:WP and ro:WP and probably should be discarded. -- Gymel (talk) 20:51, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Okay. I don't see any benefit. It isn't displayed. My bot is able to discard it. --T.seppelt (talk) 21:01, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
 * +1, you can delete TSURL. AFIK it was a test parameter by d:User:Gangleri that is not documented. At the moment the user is not active. (He added more parameters like "PeEnEo", "MW_WIKIS" and "TIMESTAMP" on smaller Wikipedias.) --Kolja21 (talk) 23:35, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

VIAF different on Wikidata
Wolf Bachofner is in Category:VIAF different on Wikidata yet checking WD against the value in the template... they're the same value. Can someone check my sanity please?--Izno (talk) 15:01, 28 May 2015 (UTC)
 * According to Q697657 the values are unequal. Wikidata states 311612791, Wikipedia 95106857. Regards, --T.seppelt (talk) 15:05, 28 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Ah. Clicking on the ID link presented (a Wikidata gadget) sent me to the same final location at 95... this implies that VIAF merged the two "cluster"s (that's the word, no?)? --Izno (talk) 15:09, 28 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, it is. I was already wondering, the monthly VIAF merge round was quite early this month (around May 12) and usually d:User:KrBot picks this up within a couple of days and substitutes all VIAF numbers which were turned into redirects. This action usually has an heavy impact on the constraint report for the VIAF property. So this month the local copy of the VIAF dumps at wmflabs (or whereever the bot runs) seems not to have been updated to the current version. Unfortunately I don't even know wether each of the bots operating on VIAF data has its own copy or if there exist a centrally operated one. -- Gymel (talk) 16:45, 28 May 2015 (UTC)
 * O.k. I pinged KrBot's operator and it turned out that a preparatory sanity check failed. VIAF ids on wikidata should now be current again, i.e. all redirects created in VIAF until and including 2015-05-12 have also been processed at Wikidata and none of the discrepancies recorded at Category:VIAF different on Wikidata should have the above phenomenon of "Wikipedia more current than Wikdidata" as their cause. -- Gymel (talk) 21:46, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

data.bnf.fr
Links to data.bnf.fr doesnt have the same format as other entrys, e.g. The_Village_Fête_(Rubens) - no explanation what it is, just an external link named data and no link to a wikipedia article either. Christian75 (talk) 22:52, 28 May 2015 (UTC)
 * It looks like it's their new catalogue and a linked data API. Alakzi (talk) 23:05, 28 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Ohh I see. I didnt enter the first link - just saw it looked strange (different). Its confusing to have two links named "cb12550675" and "(data)". Christian75 (talk) 00:10, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

Worldcat and LCSH
I see the LCAuth linking logic has been updated to support LCSH (and not just LCNAF): However this needs to propagate to the Worldcat linking that falls back for using this. Can we get this: updated to this: This should remove the WorldCat link for articles like: Automata theory. Thanks. 50.126.125.240 (talk) 12:32, 25 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done Alakzi (talk) 12:53, 25 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I didn't get the point. Does it mean that the WORLDCATID parameter is used by the module? Thanks, – T.seppelt (talk) 21:31, 29 May 2015 (UTC)
 * In the absence of a WorldCat ID, the module generates a WorldCat link using the item's LCCN ID. However, WorldCat does not support LCCN subject headings (links beginning with ); these links were dead. The change as implemented detects whether the LCCN ID is a SH, and thus bypassing the WorldCat step. Alakzi (talk) 21:39, 29 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Okay. So if the LCCN ID is a SH, the WourldCat parameter is used to generate a WorldCat link? -- T.seppelt (talk) 20:01, 31 May 2015 (UTC)
 * No, if the LCCN ID is a NAF, the LCCN ID is used to generate a WorldCat URL. Alakzi (talk) 20:12, 31 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Sorry... This means that we do not need the Worldcat parameter? -- T.seppelt (talk) 20:16, 31 May 2015 (UTC)
 * There is no WorldCat parameter. The WorldCat URL is either retrieved from Wikidata or generated from LCCN. Alakzi (talk) 20:25, 31 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Great. Many pages use such a parameter. I am going to delete this parameter usages with my bot. -- T.seppelt (talk) 20:28, 31 May 2015 (UTC)
 * ugh, sorry, I had it wrong. We've got WORLDCATID but it's undocumented, and the WorldCat ID is not otherwise retrieved from Wikidata. Alakzi (talk) 20:36, 31 May 2015 (UTC)
 * No problem. I edited just a few articles. No problems occurred there, I checked them manually. -- T.seppelt (talk) 20:43, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

Request for comments on "edit in Wikidata" links, for templates using Wikidata
You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Wikidata&. Thanks. Evad37 &#91;talk] 01:38, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

mw.wikibase.entity:getBestStatements
I see that WD has set up a new "BestStatements" that takes the preferred field. This would be excellent for this template as there can often be duplicate fields, eg. VIAF, that exist and we need to target the preferred data rather than the lowest number. — billinghurst  sDrewth  01:19, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

Edit on Wikidata
I noticed multiple discussions about wrong AC information transcluded by blank. A edit on Wikidata would prevent such discussions and redirect the editors directly to the corresponding Wikidata item. A possible implementation would be edit on Wikidata.

T.seppelt (talk) 16:36, 19 May 2015 (UTC)
 * It seems to me we would only want to display such a link for each specific parameter which the template is getting directly from WD i.e. where the local page definition has not overridden the value. Administratively, I'm closing the edit request since neither implementation nor requirements are fully laid out in your request per the edit protected template documentation. --Izno (talk) 23:19, 19 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I am not a lua expert but checking whether an identifier is stored locally should be easy. edit on Wikidata could be an implementation for the link. --T.seppelt (talk) 13:11, 20 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I've now added an "edit" link inside the header in the sandbox; it is shown if any of the IDs is retrieved from Wikidata. I've hijacked one of my own articles to demonstrate the output here. Alakzi (talk) 12:34, 3 June 2015 (UTC)
 * this looks great. Thank you -- T.seppelt (talk) 21:10, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
 * any reason not to deploy the sandbox version? Christian75 (talk) 16:28, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

Tracking categories
Please have a look at Category:Wikipedia articles with authority control information. Many subcategories (NDL, NSK, BNE, LNB) contain nearly no articles. As far as I understand the module  must be called at the link printing functions. Can somebody please implement this? We should consider whether  can be called generally and not separately at the   functions. Thanks, -- T.seppelt (talk) 17:10, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

ISNI link - use isni.org/
English Wikipedia links to http://isni-url.oclc.nl/isni/ much shorter would be http://isni.org/

Note also, that viaf.org links to http://isni.org/isni, which is already on the shorter domain, but still has the "/isni".

Eldizzino (talk) 15:01, 19 June 2015 (UTC)


 * It's probably completely parallel to VIAF: http://viaf.org/61540536 is a technical redirect maintained for compatiblity to http://viaf.org/viaf/61540536 : Also http://isni.org/how-isni-works#HowItWorks_LinkedData states: "Each assigned ISNI is accessible by a persistent URI in the form http://isni.org/isni/[isni]" and "URIs in the form http://isni.org/[isni] or http://www.isni.org/[isni] are not valid and should not be used". Thus shortened URLs might work for the near future, however the pattern coinciding with the official URIs IMHO should be preferred here. -- Gymel (talk) 17:10, 20 June 2015 (UTC)


 * "isni-url.oclc.nl/isni" has also the disadvantage that if you click on "marc21" you will get no result. --Kolja21 (talk) 21:05, 21 June 2015 (UTC)
 * The OP points out that we currently use links to isni-url.oclc.nl/isni; it seems that this should indeed be changed to isni.org/isni/.  Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:17, 21 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Since the ID is 16 digits long and some users need short URLs - e.g. Twitter, websites, especially mobile optimized websites - the short URLs will be used. And if they are used, will ISNI really retire them? They recently fixed the bug for the end-X in the short URL, i.e. they improved usability of that. What still is missing, is httpS. Then  could be the unified URL. Eldizzino (talk) 10:22, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Problem on Macedonian Wikipedia
Hello, I know that maybe this is not right place where I can posted about this problem, but we are facing with huge problem on our Wikipedia. So, we receive this message about module: Грешка во Lua во Модул:Navbox, ред 16: Tried to write global trim ("Error in Lua in Module:Navbox, section 16: Tried to write global trim". We tried to use new version in this module from English Wikipedia, but then we are facing with another problem, because we don`t see any templates at all. If you know what is the problem or you know someone who has any idea how to be fixed this, please contact us. Thanks and sorry for bringing this to this talk page. --Ehrlich91 (talk) 20:19, 14 June 2015 (UTC)
 * It looks like has applied the necessary fix. Is everything working now? Jackmcbarn (talk) 21:01, 21 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, now is working fine and without problems. Thanks a lot guys, especially to Alakzi, he fixed the mistake the same day. --Ehrlich91 (talk) 19:55, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

New Authority control troubleshooting tool
Hi everyone,

I set up a tool where you can find all problems which occurred while moving AC information to Wikidata: https://tools.wmflabs.org/kasparbot/ac.php. You can select the projects and the types of problems. The data set is refreshed periodically by my bot. Any feedback is welcome. Regards, -- T.seppelt (talk) 08:33, 6 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Question the first! There's a handful of rows output for the Ahlbergs, example: enwiki	Jessica Ahlberg	no wikidata item		2015-07-05 19:57:52	[search Wikidata] [create item] " These have Wikidata items but are redirects on en.Wikipedia (d:WD:Bonnie and Clyde), which is not obviously an error. Marking these as resolved is I feel incorrect, however. (Perhaps there is another wiki with these as individual pages?) --Izno (talk) 13:22, 6 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't know how to handle redirects in that case. Marking them as resolved is maybe the best idea (when the bot refreshs the list, the problem will be readded to the list anyway). Regards, -- T.seppelt (talk) 14:38, 6 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Can the error description be changed maybe? "No wikidata item" is actually incorrect. What is your script checking for which outputs that error? --Izno (talk) 14:59, 6 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, It can be changed. The script requests the corresponding Wikidata item using the API of the e.g. Enwiki. I could also suggest a "check for redirect" link in the troubleshooting column. Redirects should use the arbitrary access methods but this is not implemented yet.. --T.seppelt (talk) 15:08, 6 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Yeah, such a button would be great, but it might be easier if a filter were included for "suspected B&C redirects" since I'm fairly certain the API can tell you whether a page is a redirect. --Izno (talk) 00:45, 12 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Question the second! Improvement opportunity: Always display the remark if there are less than N remarks (N to be decided). --Izno (talk) 13:24, 6 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Actually, display articles with multiple problems in the same row might be a better way to handle this, since N is always = 1? --Izno (talk) 13:44, 6 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Remarks should be shown by default and the problems should be grouped by corresponding article, you are right. I will improve the script soon. Regards, -- T.seppelt (talk) 14:38, 6 July 2015 (UTC)
 * That's fantastic, thank you. Alakzi (talk) 13:29, 6 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Very useful, thank you. It would also be great to be able to filter by error type (e.g. just VIAF errors). Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:11, 6 July 2015 (UTC)
 * please have a look at . -- T.seppelt (talk) 12:42, 7 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Just the job, thank you. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:22, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

ISNI
click on the ISNI number for Abraham Lincoln and tell me if you get an error message or some data. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 01:48, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I get some data. Regards, -- T.seppelt (talk) 15:16, 16 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Me too today, must have been down yesterday. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 16:58, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

LCCN retrieval failure?
Cat Rambo now shows the template message without WorldCat and LCCN links. Twenty hours ago I added the LCAuth identifier (P244)=no2008028612 at Wikidata Q5051056. Then our template message included the WorldCat and LCCN links on "Show preview", yet not after "Save page" (same as now). --P64 (talk) 17:27, 18 July 2015 (UTC)


 * I've purged the cache for the page and it seems to be showing up for me now. Andrew Gray (talk) 18:22, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

Please consider protocol-relative URLs for research.archives.gov links
In Module:Authority control, it appears that line 50 generates a link that starts with  and line 54 generates a link that starts with. Would it please be possible to use protocol-relative URLs for these links? Thanks. --Elegie (talk) 17:49, 3 August 2015 (UTC)
 * We should probably just amend the module to output https links instead. --Izno (talk) 19:35, 3 August 2015 (UTC)


 * From testing done in Module:Authority control/sandbox, it should be possible to have Module:Authority control output HTTPS URLs for the research.archives.gov links by changing line 50 from
 * to
 * and by changing line 54 from
 * to
 * --Elegie (talk) 12:56, 5 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done Alakzi (talk) 13:08, 5 August 2015 (UTC)
 * to
 * --Elegie (talk) 12:56, 5 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done Alakzi (talk) 13:08, 5 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done Alakzi (talk) 13:08, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

Library resources box
Would anyone object to merging the functionality of Library resources box into this template? —Ruud 17:35, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

Google Scholar author ID?

 * Moved to Wikipedia talk:Authority control for broader audience. --bender235 (talk) 14:36, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

RKDimages
Hi, I have been using this template for artists and want to use it now for their artworks as well. I just added RKDimages to the sandbox (P350), which uses the same format as RKDartists (the potential of the db is about 250,000 records and currently about 1200 are linked on Wikidata). I would also like to add the "Cultural Objects Name Authority" called CONA, which is the same idea, but for ULAN (Getty Research Institute database already in authority control). Jane (talk) 08:47, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Revamp the Authority control template
-- so User:Jane023 suggests, or proposes, concerning template Authority control at WT:Wikidata. --P64 (talk) 20:36, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

Category:GND different on Wikidata

 * Also implementing a Category:GND different on Wikidata would be appreciated. --2A00:C1A0:4884:8E00:A05A:6EAF:9765:40C (talk) 21:18, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
 * ✅. For Category:GND different on Wikidata, please, test first in the sandbox. Ruslik_ Zero 20:21, 29 September 2015 (UTC)
 * This edit will do. Has been tested by Turkish Wikipedia. (Same as Category:VIAF different on Wikidata.) --2A00:C1A0:4884:8E00:ACA0:AB26:FB36:8DFA (talk) 02:40, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
 * The sandbox is not synchronized with the template. Please, synchronize and test again. Ruslik_ Zero 19:54, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

Category:Wikipedia articles with SBN identifiers
Can someone please implement this simple edit in the Module to have the SBN categories as already requested/discussed in April?

Categories has been created: Category:Pages with SBN identifiers

Thanks. --Accurimbono (talk) 08:28, 28 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Thanks! --Accurimbono (talk) 12:19, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

IMDb
What do folk think of adding IMDb person identifiers to this template, with a view to replacing IMDb name in biographies? Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:15, 7 October 2015 (UTC)


 * This template is generally unsuitable for readers as a point of entry to the resources that it targets.


 * Incorporation in this template display, in tandem with elimination of the target from External links section bullet lists (not the same as elimination of the dedicated template from articles, now biographies), is for external targets that we don't want displayed in Ext links bullet lists because they aren't or shouldn't be for general readers. Elimination of the dedicated template from Ext links bullet lists, or from articles entirely, raises the cost of linking the target semi-adequately. Those editors averse to inserting bare URL and bare linknames will either forego the link or craft a message that will frequently be more appropriate than the dedicated template message (likely, i suppose, in the contexts of formal References and of IMDb targets other than the biography subject). In other words, eliminate an attractive nuisance, a too much abused invitation to lazy linkage. Not to be determined here.


 * It may be a good to incorporate the IMDb name identifier with label "IMDb" or "Movies" in this template display. It would provide two-tier linkage to IMDb (for the biography subject only): Ext links bullet list as some editorial recommendation of the person's coverage at IMDb; this template display as strictly unselective. The balance depends on the advantages to outside users in relation to costs of further expanding the display and further mixing unlike things --IMDb being further from proper Authority than is WorldCat, some may say. No doubt, others who are more able will say more along these lines. --P64 (talk) 19:28, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

Redirects from people, workaround
We use this template in ; its use in other redirects may be forthcoming. What follows this paragraph therefore pertains to template Authority control as well as to categories and interlanguage links. (I would argue against mentioning AC along with cats and ills in the instruction that is underlined below, or equivalent instruction, analogous suggestion, etc, because I don't consider this template useful to readers.)

For discussion elsewhere, eg WT:RE, I provided illustration of one line at the end of an article that instructs concerning substantial incoming redirects.


 * See more categories and inter-language links :, ,

Thus, voila, navigation at one remove to (Janet) and  (Janet and daughter Jessica Ahlberg), no:Allan Ahlberg and pl:Allan Ahlberg.

That indented line is the illustration, now to be found also at Janet and Allan Ahlberg; version now, end of page --following any stub tags, which the example page does not include. But I revert the Ahlbergs joint biography momentarily.

--P64 (talk) 23:11, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

BNF identifier at VIAF
This hour I visited several categories of the Kasparbot report that T.seppelt links above and I settled on "regex doesn't match" as a small one (here at EN.wiki) that I might cover. (Done)

I noticed that 4 of 5 cases included assignment of BNF identifier without the final character, in all these cases one lowercase letter that follows 8 numerals. Meanwhile at VIAF i noticed that this 8-digit number is precisely what VIAF displays on mouseover. For example see and point to the French tricolor flag: '13942457'. But select the French flag; thus visit > https://viaf.org/processed/BNF|13942457 > line 009 displays the correct eddress http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb13942457h from which we must take the final nine characters, with closing lowercase letter 'h' but without lowercase prefix 'cb'.

Is there some reason VIAF cannot display the ninth character on mouseover back on the preceding page? Fewer of us would then give 8-digit values here or at Wikidata.

Good night. --P64 (talk) 00:00, 19 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Yet even further, field 035 reads (BNF)FRBNF13942457X and in a sense this is the most authoritative form of the identifier (but obviously not usable on the web). And I'm confident (the BNF catalogue is offline at the moment) that the record display at http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb13942457h will reveal some more variants. "The" BNF identifier comes in different flavors depending on the context, personally I have never been able to track down documentation discussing what the "most official" form might be. For some reasons VIAF has settled to base its processing on a form without any prefix and check digit, and on the occasion of creating the Wikidata BNF Property it was decided to store the identifiers in a form which can be simply appended to an URL template without additional (and complicated) calculation of a check digit. Thus both the VIAF form and the Wikidata form of the BNF identifiers are quite arbitrary distortions of official identifiers like ark:/12148/cb13942457h and its not a surprise that they slighlty differ. -- Gymel (talk) 05:49, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

Authority control for user namespace
Hi everyone,

In order to fulfil the agenda in Wikidata:WikiProject Authority control/Status I would like to propose a new Authority control template for the user namespace.

The problem is the following: the Authority control information in namespace 2 cannot be moved to Wikidata. In future the main namespace could renounce the local parameters (of course only if all differences and issues are solved ). In future we will need to templates: To prepare this step I would like to introduce [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Module:Authority_control/sandbox&oldid=682964469 Version 682964469] to Module:Authority control. Template:Authority control won't be affected. A future would just look like. Finally: Until
 * for all namespaces ≠ 2, especially 0. No support for local parameters. Able to receive information from Wikidata.
 * for namespace 2. Support for local parameters. Not able to receive information from Wikidata.

is replaced by

nothing would change. What do you think?

Regards, -- T.seppelt (talk) 06:52, 27 September 2015 (UTC)


 * This is necessary if (and only if) the local parameters are removed from the current template. On the assumption that that change has consensus, and that the code is valid (it's beyond my skill-set) I support this change. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 09:37, 27 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I would like to implement this change. What do you all think about it? Thanks, -- T.seppelt (talk) 18:11, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
 * The code is complete and looks fine, though I can't implement it. The intent of the change--that is, to remove the args from one and add them to the other--is incomplete, but we can work on that. That said, a better change IMO would be to ignore all args in the mainspace and then retain the single authority control template (with associated errors [red text or hidden categorization or both] when an arg has a value in a particular namespace). I have not switched "edit protected" to 'no' because I'm open to discussion either way. --Izno (talk) 18:39, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree with you. A single template with restricted parameters for certain namespaces (only 2 / ≠ 2 / 2 + all discussion namespaces) is also suitable and of course simpler. At the moment we already have a tracking category. I would appreciate a red text like Local paramaters should not be used any more. Please help to transfer the Authority control information to the connected Wikidata item . What do you think? -- T.seppelt (talk) 18:53, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

Why focus on the user namespace? I have used the template on many talk pages, usually biographies and recently under section heading Identities. Many of these are now redundant to article space (personal redirects if not articles, eg Talk:Janet and Allan Ahlberg) but many are not.

Offhand I suppose that the talk-space templates should continue to function either way; more important than the user space function, I think, altho there are hundreds of instances in my user space.

(The linked talk section is redundant to Wikidata, as well as to our article space, because I created a Wikidata item for daughter Jessica Ahlberg D:Q19842025, which is exceptional for me where the personal redirect is routine. Are we moving toward creation of Wikidata items for VIAF identities that are not Wikipedia people?) --P64 (talk) 18:06, 14 October 2015 (UTC)


 * I see the benefit of Authority control templates in the Talk namespace. Let's focus on unconnectable namespaces. The rule could be the following: In all namespaces with corresponding Wikidata items (main, category, template) local parameters does not work. In any other namespaces (user, talk etc.) the parameters work. Anyway this can only happen after solving all differences between Wikidata and Wikipedia. Concerning your last question: We should create Wikidata items for people only secondary for Wikipedia pages. Other Wikipedia projects are also using Authority control information from Wikidata. Therefore other Wikipedia projects should be able to connect their articles to Wikidata items which describe a certain part of reality (person, organization, event etc.), not a Wikipedia page. -- T.seppelt (talk) 08:34, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Regarding the prospective disabling in article space, do you know from migration work the rate at which template AC is now used --parameters values are assigned locally-- during the lag before any Wikidata item (commonly a newly one) is linked to the EN.wiki page L? That is, if I think correctly at this hour, how much recent migration of new local parameters begins with finding or creating, and then linking, an appropriate Wikidata items? If not much, that limits the cost of disabling. Finding/creating is a big step, however. In other words, do we have editors now defining local parameter values --providing much new identification of Wikipedia article subjects in VIAF bundles-- in articles that do not carry the invaluable link "Wikidata item" in the left margin?
 * My other followup question concerns redirects, which are pages in article space linked to Wikidata items only exceptionally. That's a statement, not a question, but it may indicate some questions adequately. --P64 (talk) 01:38, 17 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes of course. There is a tracking category. We have 466,725 articles with authority control information and 2,350 articles with authority control with local parameters. This are about 0.5 %. You can find a detailed report at the Authority control validator. My bot logged 416 articles without Wikidata items at it's last run. The creation of new Wikidata items or the connection of Wikipedia articles to existing Wikidata items is done by bots or manually. But most of them are redirects. I am not sure how to solve this problem. Maybe with the arbitrary access feature. The Polish Wikipedia did a good job on this. Paweł Ziemian is probably interested. I would recommend the following: Implement a red warning message as proposed above to raise awareness among the users that the local parameters are going to be decommissioned. A simple description about how to add Authority control information directly to Wikidata would also be very useful. This affects Help:Authority control and Template:Authority control/doc. What do you think? -- T.seppelt (talk) 19:27, 17 October 2015 (UTC)
 * . Those bot reports feature pages where local AC data remain. The reported collection(s) of pages is a residual stock. Largely, the same pages are reported after every run of the bot--at least in the "no wikidata item" category that contains mainly personal redirects, which I know personally. Thus the reports indicate how much AC data might now be collected from EN.wiki articles by parties other than the bot. They indicate nothing about rates at which the present system generates new AC data. Upon consideration I see that *some* such rates might be inferred from the successful activity on each run of the bot, some from comparison of the residual stock from one run to the next, but some must be unknown to "us" including a complete history of the bot activity.


 * "Arbitrary access" means nothing to me. What has PL.wiki accomplished in effect? Perhaps some particular pages at PL.wiki and some at Wikidata or other-language.wiki may compose a good illustration. --P64 (talk) 21:01, 18 October 2015 (UTC)
 * read pl:Dyskusja szablonu:Kontrola autorytatywna. Paweł Ziemian (talk) 20:32, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 10 November 2015
I would like to update the ref list for this artist.

This is a substantial interview in the Brooklyn Rail on recent work that might fit nicely (footnoted) in the opening paragraph: http://www.brooklynrail.org/2014/09/art/eve-andre-larame-with-ann-mccoy

Add an image from Wikimedia Commons, near the Major Works section: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Eve_Andree_Laramee_Apparatus_for_the_Distillation_of_Vague_Intuitions.jpg

Fix one citation - number 14. The date is showing up with a red error message.

Donkrug (talk) 01:52, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: this is the talk page for discussing improvements to the template . Please make your request at the talk page for the article concerned. Jackmcbarn (talk) 03:57, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

Discogs
Hello. I would like to suggest that Discogs is added to the template -- it is a similarly user-curated open database and would be immeasurably helpful to build a pathway for music-related content. -- Erika aka BrillLyle (talk) 00:56, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

German National Library abbreviation DNB
Hello. Would it be possible to add this to the explanation on the Template page. I tried but it didn't show up.
 * "Authority data on people, corporations and subjects from the German National Library, abbreviated DNB in VIAF.org" -- or something similar? I can never remember which one DNB is in VIAF to search for it using the Template links. It would help to match this to VIAF's conventions -- or at least note the pathway.

Thanks! -- Erika aka BrillLyle (talk) 00:58, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

ISNI
For ISNI IDs we're linking to, say:


 * http://isni-url.oclc.nl/isni/0000000031979523

but presumably should be linking to:


 * http://isni.org/0000000031979523

Can this be changed? Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:52, 31 December 2015 (UTC)
 * ✅. I switched the link to http://isni.org/isni/0000000031979523 that is the canonical URI according to the ISNI website. Tpt (talk) 21:20, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

Madonna
WorldCat parameter in the article Madonna (entertainer) produces link that doesn't work:

Correct link would be: https://www.worldcat.org/identities/viaf-59270244/. Is there a way to fix this? --Triggerhippie4 (talk) 01:02, 1 January 2016 (UTC)
 * [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Madonna_(entertainer)&type=revision&diff=698199704&oldid=698055992 fixed in the article], but this should be moved to wikidata? it wasn't clear to me if there is support in the module for WORLDCATID to be pulled from wikidata. Frietjes (talk) 16:43, 4 January 2016 (UTC)
 * No, it has to stay like this. The module only uses LCCN for assuming the WorldCat link. -- T.seppelt (talk) 16:53, 4 January 2016 (UTC)
 * should we create a list of all the valid parameters which cannot be moved to WikiData? this could be useful for splitting the tracking category into "fixable" and "non-fixable" and "not valid"? Frietjes (talk) 17:09, 4 January 2016 (UTC)
 * as far as I know WORLDCATID is the only non-fixable one. Please have a look at . 30 pages use other parameters which couldn't be parsed by the migration script. This aren't many. WORLDCATID not based on LCCN are even less (29). This problem can be solved quite quickly. -- T.seppelt (talk) 17:18, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

AllMusic
Hi. Would it be possible to add AllMusic as an authority control parameter? Ping me back. Cheers! 12:59, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

RfC started
I've started an RfC about Authority Control at Village pump (policy)/Archive 125, you are all invited to comment of course. Fram (talk) 17:09, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

CRIStin ID
Can we include CRIStin ID (Wikidata Property:P2287)? (It is Norway's national research information system). It is currently included on this project using Template:Cristin. Wikidata uses http://www.cristin.no/as/WebObjects/cristin.woa/wa/personVis?type=PERSON&action=sok&pnr=$1 as the formatter URL, however http://www.cristin.no/as/WebObjects/cristin.woa/wa/personVis?type=PERSON&action=sok&pnr=$1&la=en will deliver an English version. Bjerrebæk (talk) 23:07, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
 * I would encourage you to first: (a) write the CRIStin artcile, so we can describe to our readers where it is we're sending them; (b) give a regexp of what the identifiers look like, so we can catch errors; and (c) aim to get included in VIAF, which is already here. Stuartyeates (talk) 23:57, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
 * +added a regexp to P2287 for valid values of CRIStin ID H@r@ld (talk) 15:50, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
 * I added Wikidata property to CRIStin to link it to . It would probably be interesting/useful to get authority control identifiers from ERIH PLUS as well (since they are both managed by the same group now). 50.126.125.240 (talk) 16:25, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
 * ERIH PLUS is only an index of journals and publishers, unlike CRIStin which includes individuals and their publications. --Bjerrebæk (talk) 09:55, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

Script calls first listed VIAF from WD rather than the preferred rank value
Where there is more than one VIAF number recorded in Wikidata, the module seems to return the number of the first hit, rather than the value that has been marked preference. Would someone please make the required change so that the "preferred rank" VIAF identifier is chosen as the priority. An example is John Scotus Eriugena which shows the VIAF 264883161, whereas the preferred ranking I have set to 90633393 (lower number, to where VIAF merges).

Thanks. — billinghurst  sDrewth  02:11, 7 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I agree. I think this is already implemented in the Czech version of the module.--T.seppelt (talk) 07:07, 7 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Nope, just checked csWP and it pulls the old version. As no one here seems to be paying attention, I will seek the assistance of WD to fix the module. — billinghurst  sDrewth  11:26, 27 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Well, Module:Authority control in fact pulls all Ids for a given property from the WD item and then unconditionally selects the first one encountered for further processing (cf. the lines after the call to getIdsFromWikidata(...) ). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gymel (talk • contribs) 13:45, 27 February 2016 (UTC)
 * We could also display all values? Ranks aren't used so much anyways. --T.seppelt (talk) 23:13, 27 February 2016 (UTC)
 * ✅ We should be using the preference if it is available, not multiple listings, especially as they do merge them in time. I sought help and have made the following change item.claims[property] -> item:getBestStatements( property ) and it works as requested.
 * Thank you, billinghurst. --T.seppelt (talk) 17:57, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

Broken Bibsys link
The links to Bibsys are broken. The current format looks like this example: http://bibsys-almaprimo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/primo_library/libweb/action/dlSearch.do?institution=BIBSYS&vid=BIBSYS&search_scope=blended_scope&query=lsr39,exact,90885361 --Bjerrebæk (talk) 09:50, 27 February 2016 (UTC)
 * This seems to also be broken in Module:External links 2 (which seems to be related to ru:Module:External links and wikisource:ru:Module:External links). Your example seems to require a change to the format of the identifiers (removal of the leading "x"). That would be painful since at last count that would require updates to the property claims on 7344 Wikidata records (never mind what might be required in Wikipedia as well). 15.65.244.12 (talk) 02:41, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

VIAF supports https?
I found VIAF links do not work. For an example, https://viaf.org/viaf/9917892 produces "ERR_SSL_VERSION_OR_CIPHER_MISMATCH" error. But http works fine. We need to change the protocol. --Cheol (talk) 13:33, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I too noticed that VIAF secure links recently broke. I am not sure why we are linking secure links when Wikidata does not. Regardless at least the work around (if not the solution) is to change the schema. 50.126.125.240 (talk) 15:47, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm loath to do this so soon after wikipedia has switched over to enforcing https. I'd much rather OCLC fixed the problem with the viaf secure server., do we have any contact in OCLC able to get this fixed? Bazj (talk) 17:57, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Well this would not be so much of an issue if we had implemented (P1630)  as I brought of some time ago: /Archive 4/. However, I see little reason to use secure links if OCLC only supports RC4 (basically saying it is secure but it is not). 50.126.125.240 (talk) 22:19, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
 * ping Bazj (talk) 18:10, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
 * ,, what browser & version are you using? I recall the latest update of most browsers was about to deprecate keys based on SHA-1 in some way. Perhaps this is the effect? Bazj (talk) 18:36, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Just encountered a warning on my bank's website saying it has a problem working with Chrome 48. Looks to be a widespread issue. Bazj (talk) 19:03, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
 * I've been in touch with someone from OCLC and they've looking into it. Stuartyeates (talk) 19:09, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
 * It's due to them using the RC4 cypher which was removed from Firefox 44 and Chrome 48. -- WOSlinker (talk) 19:20, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Exactly. This is implementation of RFC 7465. Microsoft will be jumping on this too (at least for Edge and IE 11) if it has not already. See Transport Layer Security. 50.126.125.240 (talk) 21:55, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: It looks like the problem is with OCLC, not us, so marking this as done. If there's something specific we need to do here, feel free to reopen the request. — Mr. Stradivarius  ♪ talk ♪ 01:50, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Looks liek the problem has sorted itself out. Stuartyeates (talk) 06:21, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
 * As the person behind VIAF's linked data, I'd like to request http as the URI protocol instead of https. That will align with the URIs that we use in our linked data (just a WD uses http instead of https in yours). If it would help, we can ask to have the linked data URIs redirect to https the way you do.Realworldobject (talk) 13:28, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

Clarity of wording
Several people have commented to me, recently, that the template's wording, "Authority control", means nothing to them. Some have suggested alternatives, such as "Library catalogue IDs (Authority control)" or "External IDs (Authority control)". Any thoughts? Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:46, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
 * I am sure there are many terms people are not familiar with (that is a large part of the value of an encyclopedia). The template's wording "Authority control" might be meaningless to some but it directly links to Help:Authority control which links to Authority control which in turn links to Authority control. All of these very specifically detail the meaning and usage of authority control and how it applies to Wikipedia. Changing the wording to something else would likely confuse things more (I can think of several others such as "subject" or "indexing term"). It is sad that people tend to understand commercial product identifiers like ISBNs and even library classification systems like the Dewey Decimal System but not the more general concept of authority control (but then there is hope they will learn about such). 15.65.244.12 (talk) 20:42, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Authority control seems neither authoritative, nor to actually control anything. It seems more of an aggregator of unique IDs assigned elsewhere. But, in a similar vein, I'm sure most of us who use regular expressions in WP:AWB or WP:edit filters are unconcerned about its basis in formal language theory. We just need to accept authority control has its roots in library science and suck it up. Bazj (talk) 15:58, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

Switch WorldCat links to using VIAF over LCCN
I made some code changes to allow VIAF-based linking into WorldCat and made this linkage be prioritized over using LCCN-based linking: This allows more articles to be automatically linked, including ones with but without  Wikidata properties (but still works if the opposite is true). It also allows automatic linking in cases where WorldCat uses VIAF as their key instead of LCCN. For example, the Madonna article would not need to provide template arguments to override the WorldCat link like it currently does (since the new code would instead link like this: [//www.worldcat.org/identities/containsVIAFID/59270244 WorldCat]). I did testing and the results look good but there are some detrimental cases where we have different VIAF IDs linked than the ones that WorldCat uses to link to their records. When looking at Template:Authority control/testcases one can see where two entries are now WorldCat linked where they were not before and if you look hard you can find one case where the VIAF-based linkage fails over what was provided before. I believe this is the best that can be attained but feedback is welcome. Thank you. 15.65.244.12 (talk) 03:19, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
 * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:ComparePages?page1=Module%3AAuthority+control&rev1=707374937&page2=Module%3AAuthority+control%2Fsandbox&rev2=709273006
 * Thanks for your work. Could you get someone else familiar with the module to double-check your code and confirm this is a good idea? &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:22, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Sure—how would I go about that? 15.65.244.12 (talk) 19:26, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
 * No comment from others, so deployed. Hope that doesn't break anything because I've no idea what it does! &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 23:31, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
 * OK—cool. I just now posted to Wikipedia talk:Lua/Archive 4. I am not sure why this was not enabled sooner, however, these changes to Template:Authority control/doc are probably pertinent:, . 15.65.244.12 (talk) 00:34, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
 * This change is a problem because www.worldcat.org/identities/ is not the same as "WorldCat". Calling it that creates confusion about OCLC's brand. It would be OK to call it "WorldCat Identities", but beware of using "identities" that aren't bound to VIAF or LCCNs.Realworldobject (talk) 13:45, 21 March 2016 (UTC)
 * I've changed the display text for all three www.worldcat.org/identities/ links to "WorldCat Identities". If you think another solution would be better then feel free to reopen the request. Best — Mr. Stradivarius  ♪ talk ♪ 02:38, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
 * I was always more concerned with the fact we have that link in the template to begin with as it is the one item that is not really an authority control item (unlike which is a WorldCat authority control identifier). In the original change I did not change "WorldCat" so it already said that (since way back) though I agree "WorldCat Identities" is probably the correct name. 15.65.244.12 (talk) 18:48, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

Authority control and Worldcat
Hello, Sent here from Wikidata where I asked why, on pages: Harmonices Mundi and Mysterium Cosmographicum, Authority control adds a link to Worldcat, that leads to nothing. ..... Any clue? Thanks,--DDupard (talk) 18:03, 21 March 2016 (UTC)
 * On Wikipedia the link is wrong, but it's correct on Wikidata. Also, both on Wikipedia & Wikidata the LC link was wrong; I've corrected it. From what I've seen, when this information is copied to Wikidata it is removed from Wikipedia - not sure why that's not the case here. - kosboot (talk) 18:11, 21 March 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm maintaining the bot which is moving authority control information to Wikidsta. Worldcat IDs cannot be copied since there is no property for it on Wikidata. IDs can only be removed when they are based on LCCN and the LCCN ID is already on Wikidata. I didn't find time to react on the most recent update which enables the VIAF field as fallback for composing the Worldcat ID in case it isn't set locally. I'll do this as soon as possible.--T.seppelt (talk) 13:26, 22 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Well, it's not as if VIAF or LCCN or whatever would be the authority control system for WorldCat, it's only that querying those numbers is likely to yield some results. This assumption usually works well for people but should fail more often for works. -- Gymel (talk) 07:02, 23 March 2016 (UTC)


 * This underscores my concerned with the fact we have this link in the template to begin with as it is the one item that is not really an authority control item (unlike which is a WorldCat authority control identifier). I only implemented the change to use VIAF for links into WorldCat Identities as per comments in Template:Authority control/doc going back to 2012. 15.65.244.12 (talk) 18:52, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

Category names
Categories are named like. Why is the word "Wikipedia" added? Some over-enwiki reason? -DePiep (talk) 18:04, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

Use HTTPS for orcid.org/xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx links
For links of the form http://orcid.org/xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx where xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx is an ORCID, it appears that HTTPS is supported. It should be possible to generate HTTPS links by editing the code in Module:Authority control. Specifically, line 201 should be changed from to instead. Given the move towards HTTPS by default on WP, this would seem to be a useful change. Thanks. --Elegie (talk) 08:08, 9 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Could you obtain specific consensus for this change? I've seen discussions involving https go both ways. There's a decent sized group of editors that think we should be linking to sites using whatever default protocol they're using, not our own default protocol, and ORCID is http:// be default. ~ RobTalk 09:07, 9 May 2016 (UTC)
 * As a side note, see the first section on this page for one of the reason why linking to the other site's default protocols can be desirable. Sometimes the non-default breaks. ~ RobTalk 09:09, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

A one-off issue with VIAF is no reason not to protect our readers from snooping. It's also not true that ORCID serve HTTP by default:

$ curl -I http://orcid.org/xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently Server: nginx/1.4.6 (Ubuntu) Content-Type: text/html Date: Mon, 09 May 2016 10:55:16 GMT Location: https://orcid.org/xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx Connection: keep-alive Set-Cookie: X-Mapping-fjhppofk=...; path=/ Content-Length: 193

Now done. Izkala (talk) 10:57, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Prevent property–value line breaks
This is a request to edit the Module, not the Template, but they share this Talk page.

I marked up the Module’s sandbox with a change that should generally be invisible: it wraps each property–value pair between and. The result is visible on the Template’s testcases page, depending on your browser window’s width. For example, in the second testcases pair, it’s always:

“LCCN: n79113947”, and prevents

“LCCN: n79113947” (with a line break), a scenario whose probability increases toward the bottom of the page. Thank you. — LLarson (said &amp; done) 22:56, 17 May 2016 (UTC)
 * How about, because it's what Nowrap does anyway? Something like "thisisastring(s)" may still wrap (although it's an invalid case here). Any objections to just nowrap it all? — Andy W. ( talk  · ctb) 00:56, 18 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Although it seems a bit semantically heavy to call a remote stylesheet for an explicitly localized issue, I wouldn’t object to it if it seems best. — LLarson (said &amp; done) 01:12, 18 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done with Special:Diff/720802486. Thanks for pointing out the semantic issue. I simply sync'ed. — Andy W. ( talk  · ctb) 01:18, 18 May 2016 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 27 May 2016
Current Members in the band

Bohemiasub (talk) 15:33, 27 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: this is the talk page for discussing improvements to the template . Please make your request at the talk page for the article concerned. Izno (talk) 15:53, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

Style
This is styled like part of a navbox template for some reason. I propose the style below:

KATMAKROFAN (talk) 16:44, 28 May 2016 (UTC)

Base Léonore
I updated the module’s sandbox$[]$ with my proposal to link to English Wikipedia’s new Base Léonore article instead of its French‑language counterpart. I also updated the URI protocol in the corresponding link to the Ministère de la culture’s website: https: → http: until they repair their certificate. — LLarson (said &amp; done) 04:06, 3 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Looks good. Synced. — Andy W. ( talk  · ctb) 04:31, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

Add INSPIRE-HEP?
Sandbox edit: Can we include "INSPIRE-HEP" from ? It's a major database for high energy physics, and provides author profiles for physicists, especially in the particle physics field. The formatter url is https://inspirehep.net/author/profile/$1. Example: https://inspirehep.net/author/profile/Fabiola.Gianotti.1 – Danmichaelo (talk) 22:12, 23 June 2016 (UTC)
 * The entries currently existing are typically national libraries/catalogs. Most are very broad in scope, except for a few, like MGP or Author citation (botany) perhaps. INSPIRE-HEP looks useful for articles specifically in the field. I see you've been busy at Wikidata with INSPIRE-HEP updates already. I'm concerned that this addition doesn't have consensus as of right now. I looked at some Authority controls in other language Wikis, and couldn't find INSPIRE-HEP though. Are you intending to roll this out elsewhere as well? Are there guidelines on catalog scope for this, or the degree to which this is standardized? I'm just unsure whether its scope warrants the addition. Don't get me wrong though, I do see there are remarkable organizations behind this library. — Andy W. ( talk  · ctb) 15:20, 25 June 2016 (UTC)
 * No problem, my work on adding it to Wikidata has been done without having this template in my mind, so it's not a big issue for me if it's not added. There's perhaps efficiency issues with having too many Wikidata lookups? While INSPIRE-HEP is a well curated database, the scope is really quite limited, I only expect to be able to match it to a few hundred persons with articles on Wikipedia. – Danmichaelo (talk) 22:39, 25 June 2016 (UTC)

Johannes Gehrts "containsVIAFID/5684137"
At Johannes Gehrts this template generates WorldCat link to

where is correct for Gehrts, but that auto-generated URL yields "404: Document not found" rather than a working route to his page at WorldCat

where LCCN n79007641 is correct for him.

The VIAF and LCCN id and Wikipedia links are correctly entered at Wikidata Q6216686.

What's up? --P64 (talk) 19:03, 15 July 2016 (UTC)


 * , The module accesses WorldCat by way of the VIAF number. On wikidata Johannes Gehrts is linked to VIAF 5684137, on WorldCat Joh Gehrts is linked to VIAF 74976743. There doesn't even seem to be enough info to determine whether they're actually the same person. for (talk)  20:07, 15 July 2016 (UTC)
 * ? How do you know?
 * , which I considered adding to the biography footer, evidently redirects via (which i missed last hour).
 * https://www.worldcat.org/identities/viaf-74976743 (not found)
 * https://www.worldcat.org/identities/viaf-95844706 (yes, here we go)
 * The latter bundle includes ULAN (Getty) that has been entered at Wikidata, and the ULAN full record does specify LOC ID: n79007641
 * VIAF 5684137 and 95844706 need merge but that is beside the point, right? --P64 (talk) 20:33, 15 July 2016 (UTC)


 * How do I know? I clicked on the link you provided,
 * I scrolled to the bottom of the page, and I clicked on the link labelled "Virtual International Authority File". for (talk)  20:51, 15 July 2016 (UTC)
 * I scrolled to the bottom of the page, and I clicked on the link labelled "Virtual International Authority File". for (talk)  20:51, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

"WorldCat identities": more link failures
Same as the preceding section, the revised version of this template generates bad links to WorldCat by relying on Wikidata VIAF id rather than LCCN.

Justin Huntly McCarthy
 * https://www.worldcat.org/identities/containsVIAFID/32066525
 * https://www.worldcat.org/identities/lccn-n88-654900

E. Nesbit
 * https://www.worldcat.org/identities/containsVIAFID/7394811
 * https://www.worldcat.org/identities/lccn-n85-097242

--P64 (talk) 20:36, 17 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Actually WorldCat identities is not a real identifier. The database uses LCAuth and merges authors and works by rule of thumb. I've tried to correct two or three authors by mail and gave up, since with every correction more errors occurred. --Kolja21 (talk) 21:53, 17 July 2016 (UTC)


 * ,, since this seems to be a data driven issue you might get more help from this discussion. The links on that page include a link to a report on items with >1 VIAF number. for (talk)  15:34, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

The problem is not entirely "data-driven". Previously this template generated WorldCat links from LCCN. That version would, presumably did, generate working links for both McCarthy and Nesbit, because n88654900 and n85097242 are both [a] incorporated in good URL for McCarthy and Nesbit (displayed above) and [b] the unique or preferred of first-listed LCCN wikidata has on file for them.

Has anyone assessed coverage by the new version of the template and compared it with coverage by the old version? Can anyone characterize the class of people for whom the new version decisively provided adequate WorldCat links?

Some have argued that this template has made worldcat id redundant. Three years ago EN.wiki, mainly biography pages, showed 52,000 uses of the latter. One year ago there were only 4,417 uses of {worldcat id}. --So reported by me (P64) and Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing), with explanation in reply by User:Green Cardamom of recently stripping 10,000 instances in favor of this template. See Template talk:Worldcat id, with all contributions during the time when this template generated WorldCat links from LCCN. --P64 (talk) 19:12, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

I too would be very interested in any coverage assessment, however, I do not think anyone has done that. I do know the changes now allow many WorldCat Identities links to work that once did not. For example all of following currently do not use LCCN as a WorldCat Identities key: Incidentally, the last two also have LCCNs but are not indexed in WorldCat Identities by such (so the first three did not used to have such links and the last two used to have broken links).
 * Hirotaka Tobi
 * Jonathan M. Shiff
 * Hiroshi Ishii (computer scientist)
 * Russell Hornsby
 * Laura Allen

It should be noted that though I would recommend against such, it is possible to change the priority of the linkage by rearranging the statements added in. For example from the current: to something like: Moving the code down a few lines reprioritizes linking to WorldCat Identities using LCCN over using VIAF (but still allows VIAF links). So though such a change would fix Justin Huntly McCarthy and E. Nesbit, it would also break Russell Hornsby and Laura Allen. 50.53.1.33 (talk) 15:54, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

MusicBrainz IDs
Authority control seems to return the MusicBrainz ID for only the Artist ID, whereas there are several additional MusicBrainz Identifiers, all of which are specified in Wikidata, including for example: artists, release groups, releases, recordings, works, labels, areas, places, series, etc. It would make sense that Authority control did not limit itself to just one MusicBrainz Identifier. --Iantresman (talk) 09:53, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

Help please
I have added authority control to Gregor and the Curse of the Warmbloods and nothing has happened. Could someone who understands this stuff please take a quick look? Josh Milburn (talk) 23:09, 11 September 2016 (UTC)
 * when you add authority control just like this without any parameters (e.g. ) the template gets its information from Wikidata. You should add the identifiers preferably there. (I did it for this article now). Warm regards, -- T.seppelt (talk) 17:12, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks, but I'm at a loss here. I thought I had added some bits to the Wikidata item; why aren't they on the authority control template? Josh Milburn (talk) 18:31, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
 * You did add some bits to Wikidata, but those bits aren't included in this template, so the template didn't display. Should those bits be included in this template? That's a different question. :) --Izno (talk) 18:47, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Great, thanks. I confess that this is all a bit weird to me, but the authority control template and Wikidata seem to be here to stay, so I'll have to do my best to get used to them! Josh Milburn (talk) 21:39, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

WorldCat/OCLC/VIAF/LCCN...
Why is WorldCat in e.g. Bosnia and Herzegovina leading to broken URL https://www.worldcat.org/identities/containsVIAFID/112144648462347215522 (404: Document not found, OCLC SRW/SRU Server) instead of I guess correct (or, at least, working) one https://www.worldcat.org/identities/lccn-n81035836/?

Is mistake in the module or Wikidata entry is wrong (maybe there is LCCN identifier on Wikidata and VIAF one has deprecated value right now, really don't understand these...)?

Also, I've noticed that many links get redirected to some other URL (I think all of them in e.g. Bosnia and Herzegovina – VIAF, GND, BNF and NDL) i.e. they are not formed in module for Authority control as they are in reality (e.g. we get on Wikipedia http://d-nb.info/gnd/4088119-2 but it transforms into https://portal.dnb.de/opac.htm?method=simpleSearch&cqlMode=true&query=idn%3D040881199 in reality).

I've also noticed that https://viaf.org/viaf/112144648462347215522 gets redirected to http://viaf.org/viaf/316422510/ instead of https://viaf.org/viaf/316422510/ (it should have been formed in module already as https://viaf.org/viaf/316422510/ but if it is not – it should at least go to https because viaf.org uses secure protocol). --Obsuser (talk) 11:26, 22 September 2016 (UTC)


 * This has been discussed many times here (see the archives, e.g., Template talk:Authority control/Archive 5). This is because currently there is no place to store the Worldcat Identities identifier and instead a link is heuristically generated from the VIAF or LCCN LCAuth identifiers. I added the preferred (over VIAF 112144648462347215522) rank VIAF 126120141 so it links properly now. 50.53.1.33 (talk) 15:13, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

SNAC IDs
We're part way adding an initial batch of 128K Social Networks and Archival Context (SNAC) IDs to Wikidata. These are already matched by SNAC to Wikipedia articles. Later we'll work on matching another ~1 million SNAC IDs to Wikidata items. An example is w6f18z52 for Ezra Pound. To quote from the Wikidata property proposal:

""The Social Networks Archival Context project comes out of the archival community. This project is an aggregator of biographical information about people who are documented in archival resources. Individuals are assigned unique IDs and then links to archival material across different institutions are presented for the individual. This could be a great complement to the number of external IDs we have for people who have published works because it focuses on people documented in archives.""

SNAC is a partnership with highly reputable members. For background, see. I propose that we display those IDs in this template. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:49, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Please use HTTPS link for SUDOC
The purpose of this edit is to use an HTTPS link for SUDOC. The site that the SUDOC link leads to supports HTTPS, and using an HTTPS link instead of the current HTTP link should provide increased privacy and security for users. In Module:Authority control, on line 110, please change  to   instead. Thanks. --Elegie (talk) 09:01, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Seems uncontroversial, so done &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:18, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

Fix BIBSYS link
Please fix the BIBSYS linkage. I have provided the update in the sandbox (but it is for scn and not autid which normally differs by a leading 'x'; it should be noted that Wikidata uses scn and not autid which is the  so regardless we probably ought to move to that anyway despite my needing to update the example in Template:Authority control/testcases from using an autid with a leading 'x'). You can use Michael Goldsmith (computer scientist) (not to mention most of what is in Category:Wikipedia articles with BIBSYS identifiers) as an actual test case. We probably need to also hunt out all the autid uses and update them to scn but that is a larger issue for another day. Thank you. 50.53.1.33 (talk) 03:34, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:37, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Add Open Library to Authority Control
Hello -- due to 's great outreach work with Open Library, the Open Library authority control, which makes discoverable the largest resource of freely licensed books online, is now available. I would like to ask for this Open Library ID to be included in the Authority control -- and specifically the Authority control template in English (and other) Wikipedias.... -- Erika aka BrillLyle (talk) 07:15, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
 * I would like to support this, and also mention that in my day job at WMF, we have a good working relationship with Internet Archive (who backs Open Library), so any improvements would be awesome. Additionally, they provide DAISY Digital Talking Book for all the books that they can, so its helps with general knowledg accessability. Sadads (talk) 01:18, 18 April 2017 (UTC)