Template talk:Authority control/Archive 6

Add SNAC ID
Hi All. At Wikidata we have matched all of the Social Networks and Archival Context Project ids to Wikidata concepts (see documentation on Wikidata. These ids provide links to a bunch of archival collections held at research universities the world over, and the landing pages on the project, include a number of useful. Research-oriented materials for anyone interested in learning more about that person. Can we add this to the Authority control templates? They would be incredibly useful for anyone using Wikipedia for research purposes . Sadads (talk) 01:28, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Pinging a few folks who can act on this request and the one above. Sadads (talk) 14:23, 20 April 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm a bit busy and I don't seem to have the rights to edit Module:Authority control. But what I think that needs to be done is this edit.
 * This module could use a bit of clean up so we don't end up having to create a function for every identifier. I think this module was created before formatter URL (P1630) was used widely? Multichill (talk) 17:21, 20 April 2017 (UTC
 * Yes, but how does the property help us? --Izno (talk) 17:49, 20 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Oh, btw this query and this one give a nice overview of authority control properties that might be interesting to add here. 19:28, 20 April 2017 (UTC)
 * I agree with Multichill, that we should clean this up. : the SNAC url contains all of the Archival materials for Archives that contain archival materials for that subject that share their data in a public standard. Sadads (talk) 16:25, 22 April 2017 (UTC)
 * I was unclear--I was asking after the formatter URL property. --Izno (talk) 05:07, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

RFC about large templates for external links
Please see the RfC at Template talk:Medical resources, which is a similar kind of template and which someone believes might not comply with WP:ELT. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:56, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

Please use HTTPS URL for German National Library links
The purpose of this edit is to provide increased privacy and security for users by having the Authoriy control module use HTTPS for German National Library links. In Module:Authority control, please change  (on line 205) to   instead. Thanks. --Elegie (talk) 09:52, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the template. This is a non-trivial find/replace for this link. I appreciate the HTTP->HTTPS switch, but going from an actual identifier to what appears to be a query page (without some investigation) seems to be a not-obviously-good change. Izno (talk) 11:50, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

Harmless?
... Thus, using this template on a page with no authority information is harmless. We now have editors mass adding empty authority control templates into random (non-biography) articles just to inflate their edit counts (despite the fact that most of the articles they are adding them to have no authority control IDs in Wikidata and never will). This bloats the revision table with useless revisions, spams people's watchlists, slows page parsing, and in most cases adds no value to the encyclopedia. Do we really want to encourage this? If it's true that every article on Wikipedia should have the authority control template, we should probably make it a built-in part of the page (like interwiki links) and delete the template entirely. Kaldari (talk) 09:07, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

Please use HTTPS for NDL (National Diet Library) link
The purpose of this edit is to provide increased privacy and security for users by having the template use HTTPS when generating links to the NDL (National Diet Library.) The NDL URL appears to support HTTPS; for example, see the entries for Alexander Graham Bell and Open-source software. In Module:Authority control, please change  (on line 103) to   instead. Thanks. --Elegie (talk) 03:51, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
 * ✅ — xaosflux  Talk 03:57, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

Please use HTTPS for ResearcherID links
The purpose of this edit is to provide increased privacy and security for users by having the template use HTTPS for ResearcherID links. At the current time, the template generates a ResearcherID link that uses regular HTTP. The ResearcherID site appears to support HTTPS; for example, see the entries for Dave Goulson and Sophie Scott. In Module:Authority control, please change  (on line 232) to   instead. Thanks. --Elegie (talk) 06:59, 14 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done Izno (talk) 12:47, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

Also link to DBLP profiles, available in Wikidata
See

DBLP is very popular in computer science, and open data.

--Chire (talk) 15:08, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

See

Also worth adding: ACM Digital Library. This should only require adding the following functions:

and the following entries to

Support or objections to this? These IDs are already in Wikidata.

P.S. DBLP does not appear to support https yet for the dblp.org short URL. This is the formatter URL as present in Wikidata. There appear to be 683 DBLP ids in Wikidata, and 512 ACM DL ids, but I would assume that most computer scientists have at least one of these two IDs. --Chire (talk) 13:38, 31 May 2017 (UTC)


 * Changes proposed in the sandbox, with canonical code using WikiData (c.f. diff):
 * DBLP (as above)
 * ACM Digital Library (as above)
 * SNAC ID Template talk:Authority control/Archive 6 was already in the sandbox, looks good to me
 * Please check. Examples for DBLP, ACM-DL are at the end of Template:Authority control/testcases (Bill Gates, Tim Berners-Lee) -- Chire (talk) 08:48, 25 July 2017 (UTC)
 * If consensus is sought, I support these changes. I did much work to propagate DBLP pid across Wikimedia projects (I am still trying to par down Category:Pages using DBLP with the id parameter here on the English Wikipedia). 50.53.1.33 (talk) 18:42, 26 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done Izno (talk) 03:54, 28 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Please ensure you create the relevant categories, presently red linked on the test case page. --Izno (talk) 03:56, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

Discussion on WP:Village Pump (idea lab)
A discussion has been initiated at Village pump (idea lab)/Archive 23. All the volunteers are invited to share their comments. -- Pankaj Jain Capankajsmilyo (talk · contribs · [//tools.wmflabs.org/xtools-ec/?user=Capankajsmilyo&project=en.wikipedia.org count])  07:31, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

Using interwiki linking for identifier label links to reduce internal link clutter
Hello, I wanted to propose changing this module/template to make the identifier label links use interwiki linking and remove them from the internal link table (and Special:Whatlinkshere). Basically change this code: to this:

This way for example, Alabama (and many many other articles) will not be in Special:WhatLinksHere/Library of Congress Control Number, etc. It always bothered me that identifier labels mentioned in navigation at the bottom of the page cluttered the link tables for those identifier articles. Now they will not be there unless otherwise mentioned within the article.

We could also use this linking style for our reference (on line 400) to Help:Authority control as well.

I could make the changes in the sandbox without issue, but I notice where is already an outstanding change there and I figured getting some feedback on such a change first might be useful.

Let me know what you think. Thank you. 50.53.1.33 (talk) 19:08, 26 July 2017 (UTC)
 * There is no response within three weeks. I am going to assume no one is planning to scream if I implement this in the sandbox and post an edit template-protected request here. Thanks. 50.53.1.33 (talk) 02:00, 17 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Silence is rarely consensus on a template used on over 500k pages. If you believe this is a beneficial change, you should probably invite comment via WP:VP or WP:RFC. --Izno (talk) 03:48, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

Tracking categories
Thanks for marking not individualized GNDs. I would like to help improve authority control. The following tracking categories would be helpful: Can you - or anyone who is able to - implement these categories? --Kolja21 (talk) 03:34, 6 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Category:GND different on Wikidata (like Category:VIAF different on Wikidata)
 * Category:GND not on Wikidata (like Category:VIAF not on Wikidata)
 * I suggest using WikidataCheck in the template like this or integrating Module:WikidataCheck into Module:Authority control. —&thinsp;JJMC89&thinsp; (T·C) 04:49, 6 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Using Module:WikidataCheck is the more logical choice. That said, this sort of thing should likely not be implemented just for GND but for all applicable identifiers (i.e., ones Module:Authority control could potentially pull from Wikidata). 50.53.1.33 (talk) 05:44, 6 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I agree. That's what I was referring to by integrating Module:WikidataCheck. —&thinsp;JJMC89&thinsp; (T·C) 06:02, 6 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I looked at this a little more and there are a number of issues with implementing this (none of which could not be overcome though). First, Module:WikidataCheck does not really seem to be written for consumption by another Lua module (there is only the one function that takes a template frame). Next Module:Authority control does not always fetch the Wikidata (when arguments are present) and it uses getBestStatements to select the item property values with the best rank (Module:WikidataCheck does not seem to support this). For these reasons, I believe it would be easier to just directly implement this behavior in Module:Authority control and dispense with Module:WikidataCheck, although it could be used for inspiration and we could name our categories in a similar manner. Alternatively, Module:WikidataCheck could perhaps be fixed to better support use cases like what is need in Module:Authority control and then Module:Authority control could be made to employ such. 50.53.1.33 (talk) 06:23, 6 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Doing most things in Lua is outside my expertise. If you or else wants to implement the necessary changes (to either/both modules) in the sandbox, that would be great. Otherwise, I'll do this to fulfill this request and leave further development to the Lua pros. —&thinsp;JJMC89&thinsp; (T·C) 22:39, 12 August 2017 (UTC)
 * You are welcome to do that for now but I would rather hold off (because as I mentioned above that will yield spurious tracking errors due to the difference in how Wikidata is pulled between Module:WikidataCheck vs. Module:Authority control). Of course doing it in general (in the Lua module) would be far better but upon looking at this, it would take significant work and thus will take time. The main reason is because the Lua code just pulls all the args and then pulls Wikidata and stomps over the args with Wikidata where "appropriate". This makes it impossible to make decisions like adding things to tracking categories later. Methinks the best method would be to pull all Wikidata into another table and compare them later but that requires some more serious redesign. 50.53.1.33 (talk) 01:27, 17 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Toggled without implementation per 50.53.1.33. I've asked for some eyes at WT:LUA. —&thinsp;JJMC89&thinsp; (T·C) 17:44, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

Also link to autores.uy ID, available in Wikidata
This is the only ID available for uruguayan authors. The code would be this:

The line in conf would be: Thanks. --Zeroth (talk) 17:24, 5 August 2017 (UTC)
 * ✅ Please update the documentation. —&thinsp;JJMC89&thinsp; (T·C) 02:57, 26 August 2017 (UTC)
 * . Done!. Thanks!. --Zeroth (talk) 14:17, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

Photographers' Identities Catalog IDs
The Photographers' Identities Catalog (PIC) is a New York Public Library database of biographical information on ~125,000 photographers. There are currently ~14,000 PIC IDs in Wikidata. Might we include PIC IDs in the Authorities template? Davidrlowe (talk) 13:39, 10 August 2017 (UTC)
 * For reference:  —&thinsp;JJMC89&thinsp; (T·C) 01:53, 1 September 2017 (UTC)
 * ✅ —&thinsp;JJMC89&thinsp; (T·C) 02:18, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

Convert to core functionality
This template should be upgraded to become core functionality of wikipedia. It should be visible by default on pages which have authority control and not be added to each and every such page manually. -- Pankaj Jain Capankajsmilyo (talk · contribs · [//tools.wmflabs.org/xtools-ec/?user=Capankajsmilyo&project=en.wikipedia.org count])  03:06, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

Julius A. Palmer Jr.
I'm in user space working on an article for Julius A. Palmer Jr. Wikisource has him without the Jr., but looks like a redirect correcting that. Wikidata has him set up as Julius Auboineau Palmer. When I get ready to publish to main space, how do I link the Authority control template to this Wikidata information? — Maile (talk) 21:21, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
 * can link the article at d:Q18910635. (Click edit next to Wikipedia.) —&thinsp;JJMC89&thinsp; (T·C) 01:31, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Maybe I'm just not getting the hang of this. I did the link on what you have above at Wikidata. What that accomplished was to create a separate page Julius A. Palmer Jr. Q41001903.  Different number, you notice.  But when I go into the original, as you have linked above, it doesn't make the connection.  What I accomplished was to list this separately at Wikidata, showing as such in my Wikipedia toolbox sidebar.  How can we fix this? — Maile  (talk) 15:44, 25 September 2017 (UTC)
 * A bot created the duplicate item after you published your article. I've merged the two items using the Merge gadget. —&thinsp;JJMC89&thinsp; (T·C) 16:00, 25 September 2017 (UTC)


 * Fixed now. Thanks for your help. — Maile  (talk) 15:55, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

reqs + matchesWikidataRequirements
For anyone investigating the table  or the function   in the future, as noted by Eran in  above, an edit on 24 October 2014 emptied   with a note that can be seen here. That means  is never called.

I was wondering why the function had a lowercase  which would never have worked. Despite it being unused, I will correct that to uppercase and change the occurrences of  to   so statements are processed in the order presented. This is for the information for anyone interested, but mainly myself. It turns out that I made the point about  in November 2013 and had completely forgotten ever seeing this module. Johnuniq (talk) 06:48, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

Testcases
The following testcases allow checking results from the main and sandbox templates and modules.
 * Template:Authority control/testcases • Tests appearance of main and sandbox templates.
 * Template:Authority control/testcases2 • Tests whether main and sandbox templates generate identical wikitext.
 * Module:Authority control/sandbox/testcases • Similar, but too hard to update with current expected results.

A test of the testcases is to edit Module:Authority control/sandbox and make a change, for example, delete the " " from " ". Do not save the edit. Under "Preview page with this module" enter the following
 * Template talk:Authority control/testcases2

then click Show preview. That shows how Template talk:Authority control/testcases2 would appear if the changes were saved. Several errors will be shown because the sandbox module is outputting incorrect wikitext. Close the browser window to cancel the edit. Johnuniq (talk) 04:00, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

Technical improvement
please consider to avoid calling getEntityObject from this module - this has a side affect that the page gets connected to the wikidata item in wbc_entity_usage with X aspect (so any change in wikidata is reflected in the recentchanges/watchlist - even if it as nothing to do with authority control properties).

To load specific statement use mw.wikibase.getBestStatements( 'Q1', 'P12' ) instead of mw.wikibase.entity:getBestStatements. For example Module:Authority control in hewiki with this trick.

Following this change you should expect:
 * wbc_entity_usage with All/X aspect should decrease
 * When users show wikidata in recentchanges (usually hidden) it will be a little less noisy in the future (T151717)

Thanks, Eran (talk) 21:28, 11 September 2017 (UTC)
 * That would be a premature change as the Wikidata team is working on exactly that issue already. There is no need nor reason to optimize at this time for those supposed benefits. --Izno (talk) 22:40, 11 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Izno:
 * This is not a premature change (already tested on hewiki for a whilewbc_entity_usage)
 * There are good reasons for optimization:
 * To show less noise on recentchanges (T151717)
 * To improve load time of watchlist (T171027))
 * Even if wikidata is planing to improve the usage tracking anyway (T172914), there is a side benefit of allowing Wikibase to load specific statements rather than the whole entity
 * Eran (talk) 04:43, 12 September 2017 (UTC)
 * ? Eran (talk) 18:09, 19 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Sorry, Eran. You're going to need to find someone who actually knows Lua and is familiar with the involved functions. I suggest putting your changes in Module:Authority control/sandbox and asking someone like or  to review. —&thinsp;JJMC89&thinsp; (T·C) 00:19, 20 September 2017 (UTC)
 * As it happens I am up to my ears with some module work at Commons which started with exactly the issue raised by Eran above (T171392 in case of interest). I hope to finish the Commons stuff soon but will then have other things to catch up. If anything is still wanted in two weeks, consider pinging me then. Johnuniq (talk) 03:27, 20 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Johnuniq, can you please copy&paste User:ערן/Module:Authority control into Module:Authority control with credit in the edit summary. Testing it on Aristotle should give same output, but Lua memory usage (under Parser profiling data) should get from 9.56 MB/50 to 8.43 MB/50 MB (other aspect is the usage tracking which isn't visible). Eran (talk) 09:45, 20 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I can look at the code in a day or two. Is the issue that you want someone with template editor or admin rights to copy the code? I really like to have a way to test code before making it live and I haven't got much idea about what the module is supposed to do. Johnuniq (talk) 10:28, 20 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes, the module is protected (for good reasons) and I don't have access rights to change it. To test it you can select one of the pages in Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Authority_control (I used Aristotle) and and use Special:TemplateSandbox to make sure it doesn't break anything. Similar change was already done long ago on hewiki and rowiki. Eran (talk) 10:35, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

@Eran: I started looking at the module and I see your changes are straightforward and look good. Thanks! However, if it's me copying over the code I would want to put it in the sandbox as suggested above, and try it in a few places. That's simple. However, I cannot avoid fiddling with code and I will want to think about the details of your changes because I have unpleasant memories of handling results from Wikidata and will want to investigate  which I don't think existed when I did most of my Wikidata work.

Some trivial points I noticed are that the module has: local id2 = mw.ustring.gsub(id, '%s', function(s) return mw.uri.encode(s, 'WIKI') end) local id2 = mw.ustring.gsub(id, '%s', function(s) return mw.uri.encode(s, 'PATH') end) Why not the simpler and faster alternatives? local id2 = id:gsub('%s+', '_') local id2 = id:gsub('%s+', '%%20') Why is the following not inside ? local reqs = {} Johnuniq (talk) 03:00, 21 October 2017 (UTC)
 * @Johnuniq:
 * My changes relate only to Wikidata side as I didn't want to have other possible sideaffects.
 * As for encoding: I think that practically it is OK to do it and might be slightly faster, BUT the uri.encode does some other encoding and not just space, so in theory it may be not be safe (for example "\t\n" also match %s so "123\t\n456" will give different output). To be on the safe side I would suggest either to keep it or to make sure that the specific IDs for which there is replacement never use space characters (\t\n) beside normal space.
 * As for reqs: It isn't clear to me where exactly it get assigned, maybe it can be removed. looks like it never get assigned and "if reqs[params[1]] ~= nil then" is always false. It seems that this is following Special:Diff/630995220 of Legoktm.
 * Eran (talk) 06:53, 21 October 2017 (UTC)
 * OK, I'll contemplate that, thanks. I agree that minimal change is safest, but I can't help myself. I'm certainly going to trim trailing whitespace and fix the indents to use tabs per current style. Don't the mw.ustring.gsub examples above only work on %s? I think the first would give '__' (two underscores) as the result for '\t\n'. Johnuniq (talk) 07:08, 21 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I tested it in sandbox:


 * This doesn't mean it is wrong - I'm just not familiar with the specific IDs and whether they contain \n \t.

Eran (talk) 09:02, 21 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks for testing. I don't know what is correct but I have fixed many hundreds of convert templates and found quite a lot of cases (among the two million converts) where tabs and even newlines are used. The above shows that, for strict compliance with current behavior, the  regex should be   (space instead of  ). Johnuniq (talk) 00:55, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

@Eran: I finally tested the sandbox module (see below) and have updated Module:Authority control with your code. Thanks. Johnuniq (talk) 06:53, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

Pages with errors
Peter Wyse Jackson, Pablo de La Llave and Anna Weber-van Bosse all have errors in the template, with no obvious changes to the pages or their Wikidata pages. Tried purging them in case it was miscached data, but that did not help.-- JohnBlackburne wordsdeeds 16:44, 24 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Johnuniq and JohnBlackburne: I think the issue is % should be escaped in gsub. e.g


 * Eran (talk) 17:37, 24 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Ouch, that's embarassing. I actually found and fixed the issue over four days ago (see my " " post above) but somehow the error got back in my local copy of the module that I was working on. Anyway, it's fixed now and I'll add a testcase to capture it in the future. Johnuniq (talk) 21:28, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

http links
Elegie recently updated the module to change the GND link to use https. Good! For anyone interested in investigating other http links, the following shows sample http links that the module can generate. All other links are https. Johnuniq (talk) 23:10, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
 * LCCN: n79091479
 * ISNI: 0000 0001 2120 0982
 * BNF: cb11907966z (data)
 * BPN: 79012623
 * HDS: 11461
 * LIR: 1735
 * MGP: 101078
 * NCL: 187455
 * NKC: jn19990003739
 * Léonore: LH/1320/26
 * ICCU: IT\ICCU\CFIV\000163
 * RLS: 000081185
 * Botanist: P.S.Wyse Jacks.
 * US Congress: L000313
 * BNE: XX874892
 * CiNii: DA00460099
 * TLS: Peter Stein
 * SIKART: 4000293
 * KulturNav: id
 * IATH: w6wm1csb
 * DBLP: a/DerekAbbott
 * autores.uy: 1756

I fixed the KulturNav link in Module:Authority control/sandbox. At Victor Hugo, it would display the following. I also fixed the KulturNav link to display the id value rather than "id". The id value is long and ugly, but I guess it's better than "id". I'll wait to see if anyone has opinions on this or other possible changes, then I'll update the main module. Johnuniq (talk) 06:47, 28 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I updated Module:Authority control to fix the KulturNav link, and updated the expected results at Template:Authority control/testcases2. Johnuniq (talk) 03:25, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

Suggestion for the left cell of the authority control template
See proposal made at User talk:Jimbo Wales. --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:43, 15 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Archived at User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 223. Johnuniq (talk) 21:59, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

Expand authority control template to include the standard external links like the Russian Wikipedia does
Expand authority control template to include the standard external links like the Russian Wikipedia does. See this entry for an example. Look at the English version, Elsie Janis, to see how much more space the English version takes up. --RAN (talk) 05:49, 6 November 2017 (UTC)
 * The following is Authority control from Elsie Janis:


 * The following is &#123;&#123;ru:Template:внешние ссылки}} from ru:Дженис, Элси:


 * I will contemplate the difference later but the above may help clarify the proposal. Johnuniq (talk) 06:44, 6 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Here are the links as we currently do them:


 * Assuming the intention is to add the links that ruwiki uses that we currently do not, disagree with the proposal - please clarify if that was not the intended meaning. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:24, 7 November 2017 (UTC)


 * I think we should include the top 5: Internet Broadway Database · Internet Movie Database · Find a Grave, any suggestions for the last two slots? The Russians limit AC identifiers to the top 5, we can expand or subtract. --RAN (talk) 13:48, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
 * We do not, but those are not high-value options for addition. Nikkimaria (talk) 16:09, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
 * You wrote: "We do not". Who is "we" and what don't you/they do? Why don't you suggest what you consider "high-value options", so I do not have to guess what you are referring to. This doesn't have to be about anyone's personal favorites, we just have to find the top populated external links by their domain name at Wikidata. The concept is to make them more compact and in a fixed order, since they are already displayed in articles. --RAN (talk) 00:48, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I was responding to your original post, which you silently changed it after I had responded; please see WP:REDACT for the appropriate way to approach that. You originally stated that "The Russians limit AC identifiers to the top 5, but we will not." My response is that we do not in fact do that now - we have more than five identifiers in the template, and I think our current list is reasonable. I don't agree that it's appropriate to add links to this particular template simply because they are frequently used. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:55, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

Edit request to remove TfD template
I've just WP:SNOWCLOSEd the TfD. Could someone remove the Template for discussion/dated call, please? — OwenBlacker (talk) 20:18, 15 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Done. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 20:45, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

BIBSYS or Bibsys
A recent edit at Module:Authority control/sandbox changed a link from  to.

That reflects the fact that Bibsys is the article while BIBSYS is a redirect to the article. If no one objects that will be in the next release of the module, whenever that occurs. At Victor Hugo, the result would be the following which shows "BIBSYS" but links to Bibsys.

I don't know what is "right" here. On the one hand, the article is Bibsys, on the other hand, we don't normally "fix" redirects like this. The above includes "identifiers" in the name per proposal above. Johnuniq (talk) 21:55, 16 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I don't understand why the article has inconsistent capitalization. The original move of the article said it was a not an acronym. So why is it capitalized as such (ref WP:MOSTM). It should probably be completely changed here as well to Bibsys rather than its current piped form. --Izno (talk) 22:20, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

Rename to External Identifiers?
Now that the recent deletion debate for this template has concluded, I noticed in the comments on that debate that some people expressed that they didn't understand what this template is for - and that's among Wikimedians who know how to find the Templates for discussion page. I was wondering: does the name of the template itself cause some of the hostility/confusion about it?

The template was created in 2009 with the edit summary "new: from German Wikipedia" and a link to the de.wp equivalent page called "Normdaten" (which googletranslates to "authority data") - link to the diff. The term "Authority Control" is, while accurate for library-science, very jargony and also combination of two rather hostile words when you think about it! :-) It also doesn't infer any meaning to the casual reader of Wikipedia. At least "PersonData", when it existed, inferred something more about it's purpose.

I suggest that changing the name of this template to "External Identifiers" go some way towards increasing the general understanding of its purpose, while still retaining the technical accuracy of the meaning, and also having the benefit of using consistent terminology with Wikidata. If this template didn't already exist, and we were creating it now - what would it be called? Wittylama 16:19, 16 November 2017 (UTC)
 * On the one hand, I agree that the title is potentially confusing for people not familiar with that particular jargon. On the other hand, one of the concerns raised in the TfD was template bloat, and I'm worried that the proposal lends itself to that. Nikkimaria (talk) 16:54, 16 November 2017 (UTC)
 * This suggestion relates to changing the name of this, existing, template - which would have no effect (in either direction) on the number of templates or amount of content within this template. Wittylama 17:13, 16 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Understood, but the change in terminology reflects a more expansive view on what could/should be included or not. Nikkimaria (talk) 17:26, 16 November 2017 (UTC)
 * See above for a proposal to include external links to stuff not related to authority control. Changing the name of the template would not increase people's understanding, and given that authority control is an article, the name of the template seems fine. Those supporting deletion do so because the template uses data from outside enwiki and a rename would not satisfy them. A very large group of editors, including myself, hate external link spam/promotion and any name using "external" would be a red flag for them. The current name is fine, and the documentation should be relied on to explain the purpose. Johnuniq (talk) 21:12, 16 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I find myself largely in agreement with Johnuniq, but perhaps changing the link text in the template from "Authority control" to "Authority control identifiers" would help? Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:26, 16 November 2017 (UTC)
 * That's a good idea, although just adding "identifiers" with no line break would give this result at Aristotle:


 * (Sorry about the wikitext bloat necessary to show the above.) Johnuniq (talk) 21:42, 16 November 2017 (UTC)
 * How about "Authority control IDs" ? Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 00:05, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

Have the Wikidata Q-number appear in the Authority control template as was done at Wikimedia Commons
Have the Wikidata Q-number appear in the Authority control template as was done at Wikimedia Commons as seen here:


 * Commons:Category:Ransford Dodsworth Bucknam.

Currently the Wikidata link is hard to find in the left hand menu, and part of the concept of the Wikidata Q-number is to have it displayed so that people can search for it in Google and Bing and find all materials related to the person or the concept. --RAN (talk) 14:59, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
 * This was suggested at . I personally do not agree that this is a beneficial change. I do think that the left-hand location is sufficient, and it is located there three times... --Izno (talk) 17:54, 7 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Wikidata Q-numbers are essentially a wikimedia-internal number and I don't see them as being appropriate to promote in this way. Stuartyeates (talk) 22:09, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
 * It should be displayed, not just a link to it on the sidebar for the same reason we display all the other authority control identifiers, people search for that particular number in Google and Bing when they find an authority control number on say a photo in the Library of Congress. --RAN (talk) 00:53, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm inclined to agree. Wikidata ID is now referenced by many external systems, and cannot be considered a second class citizen.  Conversely the wikidata link in "tools" would be rendered obsolete, and could I suppose, be removed.  All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 22:46, 18 November 2017 (UTC).

Journal IDs for Wikispecies
Over on Wikispecies, where we have few if any Lua coders, we wish to extend the local version of this template to use on items about journals, and to display the Wikidata properties and. Can anyone assist (or talk me through the process of adding them) please? Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:32, 25 November 2017 (UTC)
 * See species:Special:Diff/3537951 for adding ZooBank. There isn't a formatter URL for BPH, so I don't know what to link. —&thinsp;JJMC89&thinsp; (T·C) 22:21, 25 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you. I've added and copied both to the live template. Is it not possible to display IDs without a link, where no Formatter URL is possible?  Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:33, 25 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I made a minor correction at species:Module:Authority control because function names must be unique (as fixed by JJMC89 in species:Module:Authority control/sandbox). The module can do whatever is wanted, so all that is needed is an example of what should be displayed. Ideally that would be an example of a Wikidata item where BPH is specified as a property, and the wikitext that the template should output given that property. Johnuniq (talk) 22:50, 25 November 2017 (UTC)
 * species:Special:Diff/3538026 will add BPH without any links. species:ISSN 0028-0836 is an example for BPH (BPH: 68374). —&thinsp;JJMC89&thinsp; (T·C) 23:08, 25 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you, both. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 00:00, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

Suggestion adding Swedish Musical Heritage P4607 to the template
Wikidata Property P4607 contains biographies of Swedish related classical composers in english - Salgo60 (talk) 05:50, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
 * About Swedish Musical Heritage
 * list of articles with a Wikidata entry (we are still adding)

Label of P243 propertie
hello, I need some help, can you tel me what is the label of the propertie P243) : OCLC control number ? I try "OCLC" and it not work. Same think with WORLDCAT (WORLDCATID is for and other propertie). I want to link to the http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/$1 web site. Thanks. --FERNANDES Gilbert (talk) 17:04, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
 * @FERNANDES Gilbert: This relates to a discussion at frwiki and . Please give an example of what is wanted. You might link to an article which displays the authority control box and say what extra text should appear, with the exact URL wanted. Johnuniq (talk) 22:54, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
 * I do not think qualifies as an  or a  since it is a  for identifying an  of a  (not a  or specific  of such). A better choice would be to add  which seems like an applicable identifier also from . 50.53.1.21 (talk) 21:27, 12 January 2018 (UTC)

Ensuring single values
How does this template ensure that (for example) if a Wikidata item has two VIAF codes, it only displays one? eg/ Aeschylus has two VIAF and ISNI on Wikidata but the template only imports one of each. I've spent some time reading over Module:Authority control and can't quite figure it out. A simple template call to Wikidata would normally return something like "VIAF1, VIAF2". Andrew Gray (talk) 13:10, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

S
 * Related info. When we find doubles the VIAF coordinator merges them at VIAF, but I have not seen corrections in a while. There is a report generated at Wikidata of all entities that have multiple VIAF numbers. Here is the report at d:Wikidata:Database reports/Constraint violations/P214. I think their rule was to keep the lowest number and have the other number as a redirect, so I think the lowest number is reported in the template. There is also a report on Wikipedia assembled manually for duplicates at VIAF/errors where they are broken down into categories. Some are Wikidata side errors that we can fix, and some are VIAF side errors. --RAN (talk) 14:11, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
 * In most cases, the line at  will prevent multiple from being displayed, because someone at Wikidata will probably have set one of statements (where there is more than one for a single property) to the "preferred" rank. I'm not sure if I saw anything in the module which would restrict display should two identifiers pop up with equivalent ranks. --Izno (talk) 15:48, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Very interesting - I had wondered if preferred rank would be the way to do it, but in the Aeschylus example (d:Q40939) both the ISNI/VIAF values have normal ranks. All very mysterious! Andrew Gray (talk) 17:48, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
 * As a side note, I would prefer for people to use the "deprecated" rank when an identifier use to refer to something or is an older alias (e.g., moved). Please use "preferred" rank only when there is more than one current identifier for an item. "getBestStatements" never returns statements with "deprecated" rank claims (even if those are the only ones). 50.53.1.21 (talk) 21:37, 12 January 2018 (UTC)
 * The module uses  to get all values, so if there were two VIAF codes it would get both. Wikidata has some internal mechanism for deciding the order that applies if there are two statements with the same rank. The module then cheats and uses only the first returned value, so any other values are ignored. That is done with   where   means the first value is used. Johnuniq (talk) 22:28, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks - that's really helpful. I'll try and put some time aside to work out how to call the module properly in templates rather than using string-edit hacks :-) Andrew Gray (talk) 21:10, 15 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I haven't looked at what would be involved, but in principle I could modify the module so it displays all returned values, in order, or perhaps limit it to the first two in case someone goes crazy at Wikidata. I say "in principle" because I'm short of time and it would not happen soon. Johnuniq (talk) 00:19, 16 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure that would be a good thing. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 22:48, 18 November 2017 (UTC).
 * Yes, restricting it to one would be best. In most cases where there's a duplicate the assumption is that one is secondary or will be deprecated at some point, anyway. There are a few cases where double IDs are encouraged & equally valid but I don't think we currently use any here. Andrew Gray (talk) 11:16, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

Feeding Wikidata identifier into Wikipedia
I am writing from the National Library Board Singapore. We would like to expose the Wikidata identifier National Library Board Singapore ID (https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Property:P3988) in English Wikipedia. How do we proceed from here?

E.g. National Library Board (https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6974124) - The National Library Board Singapore ID l26-DGZwOIE only exists in Wikidata, but not found in the authority control of the English Wikipedia article National Library Board (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Library_Board). Is there a way to expose the Wikidata identifier in Wikipedia?

Nlbkos (talk) 06:53, 29 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Please link to an article here at Wikipedia where the proposed addition would make a difference. What additional text with what link would be displayed in the authority control box at the article? There are a lot of libraries and they cannot all be listed so I'm not sure what should happen. Johnuniq (talk) 07:10, 29 December 2017 (UTC)


 * I am assuming the desire is to add a link like the following example to the authority control at the bottom of the Catherine Lim article:
 * NLB: gzmyZ3wowyA
 * The required additions would be something like:
 * and:
 * Of course it is true there are many libraries and the question of how notable such is with regard to authority control and if we should include it should still be debated. 50.53.1.21 (talk) 20:51, 12 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Of course it is true there are many libraries and the question of how notable such is with regard to authority control and if we should include it should still be debated. 50.53.1.21 (talk) 20:51, 12 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Of course it is true there are many libraries and the question of how notable such is with regard to authority control and if we should include it should still be debated. 50.53.1.21 (talk) 20:51, 12 January 2018 (UTC)

I've tried adding the National Library Board Singapore ID l26-DGZwOIE to the Wikipedia article https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6974124 :

However, it does not display in the Wikipedia article: Am I missing something here? Nlbkos (talk) 00:50, 2 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Every property and/or identifier in Wikidata is NOT automatically added to articles which include Template:Authority control. Your comments on this particular talk page seem to indicate some sort of understanding of this. 50.53.1.21 (talk) 20:51, 12 January 2018 (UTC)

I've tried the above method to insert *NLB: gzmyZ3wowyA for the Wikipedia article Catherine Lim (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_Lim), but it doesn't seems to display properly:

nlbLink(gzmyZ3wowyA) '' .. getCatForId( 'NLB' ) { 'NLB', 'NLB', 3988, nlbLink},



Nlbkos (talk) 01:29, 26 January 2018 (UTC)


 * This example raises an interesting point. Sometimes one repository library is the most authoritative or complete for a specific author, often this is the national library corresponding to that author's nationality. Particularly when an ISNI has not been long assigned, it may be useful to link that national library's identifier. How hard would it be to do that? LeadSongDog come howl!  20:20, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

Why are only AC boxes with more than 13 elements being tracked in  (e.g. Category:AC with 14 elements) K175 (talk) 20:49, 28 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't know, but the code has been there since April 2014. It was 11 and was changed to 13 in diff. I imagine the idea was to have a way of finding articles with a lot of entries although I can't think of a reason for doing that other than interest. The subcategories are listed in the documentation and at Category:Wikipedia articles with authority control information. I suspect there are some articles with more than 22 items. Johnuniq (talk) 21:28, 28 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I am going to go ahead and change 13 to 0 on the Afrikaans Wikipedia, since I don't see the harm of having many tracking categories. E.g. maybe someone is looking at person articles with AC with only 1 element, and wonders why the article doesn't have more. A tracking category will help in this case. K175 (talk) 08:44, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

Suppress
Is there any way to suppress display of a single link in an instance of this template? Nikkimaria (talk) 13:27, 29 January 2018 (UTC)
 * No. It is possible, although undesirable, to override a Wikidata value. For example,  would use values from Wikidata except for VIAF, where the value in the template would be used. That number has to be valid (according to the module). In the case of VIAF, that means it has to consist purely of digits (at least one), and an ugly error message is shown if it isn't. If a Wikidata item needed to be suppressed, perhaps it should be removed from Wikidata, although I suppose enthusiasts might argue with that. Johnuniq (talk) 00:33, 30 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Yeeess. That probably isn't the ideal solution. Would it be possible to add this functionality to the template instead? Nikkimaria (talk) 03:25, 30 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, yes, such as  to suppress VIAF? I think Izno had in mind a specific example, and that would be desirable. Johnuniq (talk) 03:54, 30 January 2018 (UTC)
 * To give a specific example, this link on James Cameron isn't particularly useful. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:12, 30 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Something went wrong with your above message. I added some square brackets to fix the link but presumably you meant to say more, or you did not intend to post the last line. I see what you mean about that libris.kb.se (SELIBRP) link, but for all I know it might help someone. If there is support for the VIAF=omit syntax and no opposition, I could look at trying this in the sandbox in due course. I'm not really happy with the idea of people sprinkling these around because it might be better to show the link and let the reader judge. That is particularly true given that in three months the link might point to helpful information which could be hidden for years by the "omit" parameter. If someone is interested in researching a topic, they would prefer a few useless links they can quickly discard. There are already far too many hidden tracking categories for this template and I would be reluctant to add more to allow tracking "omit" usage. Johnuniq (talk) 04:32, 30 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I would argue that including useless links obscures the ones that are actually useful, potentially frustrating less dedicated researchers and contrary to the guidance at WP:EL. Nikkimaria (talk) 13:22, 30 January 2018 (UTC)
 * It seems to me that authority control records are less about what is actually useful, as you put it, and more about the libraries in question. people won't start with the Swedish AC link  (and maybe there should be a discussion about the current ordering, generally). Given that most of us speak English, the random reader will start with the LOC or the VIAF records, following probably with the GND or the BNF (as well-curated). Allowing or even providing for suppression of random links is just More Maintenance for an edge desire. --Izno (talk) 13:37, 30 January 2018 (UTC)
 * The random reader probably won't know what is well curated or not, or from the template alone what is English or not. Preventing any sort of curation would seem inconsistent with our general approach to external link management, which is hardly an "edge desire". You'll need to explain your concern about "More Maintenance" - this would seem relatively straightforward to implement on the template side (compare for example the Wikidata-enabled infoboxes, most of which have this feature without any such issue). Nikkimaria (talk) 03:15, 31 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Why would you want to? Please be specific about your need. --Izno (talk) 00:42, 30 January 2018 (UTC)
 * In some cases some links in the template do not provide value to a particular article. It would be useful in those cases to be able to suppress the display of the link. In cases where the link is wrong of course the best solution is to remove from Wikidata. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:25, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

DBLP http->https
The DBLP has been updated to use https and is even recommending inbound links be changed to use this. Please change "http://dblp.org/" to "https://dblp.org/". Thank you. 2600:1700:EDB0:A060:14D0:1D18:969:4211 (talk) 13:42, 16 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done —&thinsp;JJMC89&thinsp; (T·C) 14:12, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

Two authority controls on a page?
There's a weak consensus to merge the pages for Fritz Schlumpf and his brother Hans Schlumpf, but each page has a distinct authority control. If merged, what should be done about these? Keeping them on their individual pages would mean that they are lost to most readers, but is it possible to have two authority control templates on a joint page like the proposed Hans and Fritz Schlumpf? Klbrain (talk) 00:08, 11 February 2018 (UTC)
 * At the moment there is no provision to provide the wanted Wikidata item id as a parameter to the template, therefore there is no automatic way to do what is wanted. However, it is possible to work out what parameters currently apply, then manually create an authority control box like this:


 * I did that quickly, but I think it is correct for Hans Schlumpf, although of course it would not reflect any changes that are made as Wikidata. Johnuniq (talk) 01:06, 11 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Looks like one has to define all of the parameter; for example, adding:


 * on the Hans page generate (at least when previewing):
 * WorldCat Identities VIAF: 43089670 LCCN: n78013559 GND: 124209106
 * WorldCat Identities VIAF: 60010456 LCCN: n78013559 GND: 124209106
 * So, there is a manual force for VIAF, but the other Fritz parameters are wrong. Using the full set for Fritz:
 * looked OK. That's a potential solution for a combined page, and I'll go with it unless there are other suggestions. Klbrain (talk) 11:25, 11 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Pages now combined, Hans and Fritz Schlumpf, but it seems that some Fritz parameters propagate to Hans. Is there a way of suppressing some of the parameters in the template? Klbrain (talk) 07:09, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I think (not sure) that you would need Hans and Fritz Schlumpf to have no Wikidata item. At the moment the article erroneously uses as it Wikidata item, and that makes the authority control module use the identifiers defined at Q123779, which you could override, but not suppress. Johnuniq (talk) 07:35, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I have done the briefest of housekeeping work on Wikidata to move the en.wp page to its own item, and linked it to its child items via "has part". --Izno (talk) 16:25, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I have done the briefest of housekeeping work on Wikidata to move the en.wp page to its own item, and linked it to its child items via "has part". --Izno (talk) 16:25, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

Why MGP but no AcademicTree?
Just out of curiosity, why do we include MGP (academic genealogy for mathematicians and related quantitative fields) in this template, but not AcademicTree (academic genealogy for all fields)? --bender235 (talk) 16:46, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Probably because no one has cared enough to get around to adding it. Stuartyeates (talk) 01:21, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Authority control on user pages
I recently added my authority control to my user page User:Stuartyeates. Will this flow to wikidata? Stuartyeates (talk) 01:24, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
 * If you mean, will the information you added be copied to Wikidata, no. If your user page had a Wikidata item (as shown by a "Wikidata item" link in the tools box on the left), a gnome might copy the information to that Wikidata page. If that happened, you could remove the parameters from the template on your user page. However, it is extremely unlikely that a user page would have a Wikidata item. Johnuniq (talk) 03:40, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Someone created a wikidata item for me a while ago. I had a short discussion here and it seems that user pages have to be linked differently to articles, using Property:P4174. There doesn't seem to be an inherent reason why user data couldn't be migrated to wikidata. Grab the users' real name from one of the identifiers and off you go. Stuartyeates (talk) 10:28, 11 April 2018 (UTC)