User talk:Kolja21/Archive 2013

Speedy deletion declined: Personal Name File
Hello Kolja21. I am just letting you know that I declined the speedy deletion of Personal Name File, a page you tagged for speedy deletion, because of the following concern: The reason given is not a valid speedy deletion criterion. Thank you. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 19:44, 20 April 2012 (UTC)


 * ✅ db-g1 --Kolja21 (talk) 20:43, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

GND fix at EN.wiki
Kolja, I have visited some EN.wiki biographies where you have revised template Authority control, often termed "GND fix". You may be able to explain to me some important points about VIAF bundles as they pertain to GND records --how we should reflect VIAF bundles in EN.wiki biographies and when some explicit error report is welcome.

In one elaborate case you say "not a single person, just a container for the name" ?
 * 1. Ahlberg

(I have moved the revised templates from the joint biography, where they may be inappropriate, to a talk page section Talk: Janet and Allan Ahlberg. It seems likely that the templates will eventually be completed for the redirect pages Janet Ahlberg and Allan Ahlberg.)

The VIAF bundles for A. and J. Ahlberg include "undifferentiated" GND records. Do you consider such bundles to be VIAF errors that we should report, or merely something to avoid on wiki biography pages? If I understand correctly these records constitute a backlog of work in the queue at DNB. (For the famous German name Jutta Bauer, only four recent publications are undifferentiated.)

You may be able to comment usefully on the Ahlbergs talk page, Talk: Janet and Allan Ahlberg, where I have tried to explain my understanding --and where I have made some mistake in completing template DNB portal for these two people.

(This does not concern one of your fixes. This one too is in talk space, Talk: Lynn Poole, because it is destined for a redirect page. The writer has no biography here yet.)
 * 2. Poole

See Gray Poole at VIAF. Bundle #2 includes a GND record that is undifferentiated and covers no library holdings by Gray Poole. Whereas #3 is a person record that covers one publication correctly.

I suppose the template should be completed thus. Do you agree? If so, will the placement of this completed template in article space, Gray Johnson Poole, adequately report the error?

--P64 (talk) 00:03, 8 July 2013 (UTC)


 * Hi P64, you're right: GND 109050304 is not about a person, it's just a placeholder, a "NAME" (de:Hilfe:GND). Unfortunately VIAF treats these numbers as authority records. Since a few months they add "undifferentiated" as a hint.


 * Background: In the 90s, before GND was established, PND database (now part of GND) was used only by one library (the DNB). They add Tn records ("NAME") if they had no infos about an author and later, when they found a reliable source they changed the Tn into a Tp ("PERSON"). Today with the GND used by multiple institutions this system doesn't work anymore and the Tn's are left empty (if the right author / individual person has been found), get deleted or being changed into a redirect.


 * Since VIAF is an automated collection (harvesting) of authority records for VIAF duplicates and Tn's are no real errors. They just reflect the current state of the single databases. So the best way is to report errors to the GND editors using the button "@Korrekturanfrage". Since 2006 the German Wikipedia has a special page for reporting errors (de:WP:PND/F), but the feedback form works much faster.


 * Ahlberg: In this case the German Template:Normdaten would be added to the redirect "Allan Ahlberg" and the article for the group "Janet and Allan Ahlberg" would be left empty. (Wikidata for example needs this exact distinction.)


 * The Gray Poole example looks good: The GND is correct and since VIAF has duplicates it makes sense to chose the VIAF with the most hits. VIAF 71699030 has the best chances to survive. VIAF 290734179 will be merged or deleted ... if the single authority records adds more infos like the year of birth. --Kolja21 (talk) 17:09, 8 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks.
 * PS: I've used the GND feedback form ("@Korrekturanfrage") for GND 127357270: "Poole, Gray; Wirkungsdaten: 1966"; 1 book linked = Lynn Poole. Let's see what happens. --Kolja21 (talk) 17:31, 8 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately I do not understand the PS. I do not see "@Korrekturanfrage" --where at GND? This does seem to me a VIAF error, because the single authority record GND 127357270 identifies a publication that is sufficient with a little research. I understand that is not a connection likely to be made automatically, without our help. Unfortunately the publication listed by GND is not one of the identifying publications listed by her home national authority LC Poole, Gray Johnson at LC Authorities. Nor does that authority have any vital biographical data beyond the more complete name. Of course its catalog ("LC Online Catalog") does list many books by these two co-authors. --P64 (talk) 21:26, 9 July 2013 (UTC)


 * Click on "Datensatz im Katalog aufrufen". On the right side you will find the link "@Korrekturanfrage". – You can call it a VIAF error, but VIAF is just an algorithm. Even if someone would merge the duplicates by hand, the next VIAF update the error would be back again. (That's why it's so important to add GND, LCCN and other local authority files to Wikipedia. They are the source, VIAF is just a helpful addition. It's a kind of search engine for authority records.) --Kolja21 (talk) 00:44, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Voila! has been deleted. For Gray Poole at VIAF all is now good except association of m.n. "Johnson" with the placeholder.
 * This is encouraging so I have now submitted a correction GND 110738128 --weiblich, and needs merge with the first cluster for Karen Fonstad at VIAF. This includes migration of the link to our EN.wikipedia biography. --P64 (talk) 21:53, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
 * GND informed me next day -08-01 that idn=110738128 had been corrected (true) and that idn=180037692 would be deleted in a week. That has been done internally; its URL now redirects. If I understand you correctly the VIAF merge will happen automatically sometime.(not yet)
 * (One KWFonstad "cluster" had been deleted before my report.)--P64 (talk) 16:51, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

How important is it, for us to break GND links as you did for the Ahlbergs [1, above]? Are you searching somehow, or finding them by accident? (I may be responsible for creating about 100 in the course of work on perhaps 500 biographies.) --P64 (talk) 20:59, 27 July 2013 (UTC)


 * I think it's important, especially since User:VIAFbot exports GND from English Wikipedia to Wikidata. There are several tracking pages and categories like de:Kategorie:Wikipedia:Normdaten-Wartung. --Kolja21 (talk) 19:08, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

GND fix at EN.wiki (continued)

 * Hi, Kolja. Let me quote you at Template talk:Authority control yesterday:
 * (quote Kolja21) BTW: I've seen that the English Wikipedia and WD still got a lot of "undifferentiated" VIAFs (and/or GNDs, type n). Also there are dead links: VIAF Cluster has been deleted. Both could be removed by a bot. (The German WD has a tracking list for these errors.) --Kolja21 (talk) 18:08, 7 September 2013
 * Regarding my previous note ( underscored above): Last fortnight I revisited about 500 EN.wiki biographies that I edited during 2012 and early 2013. At the same time I visited all linked DE.wiki biographies, usually my first visit. Always I checked {authority control} and {normdaten} templates; unreliably I checked {worldcat id} and {DNB portal}.
 * At EN.wiki I unlinked 50 or so GNDName (not 100 as I guessed above). I noticed that almost all {authority control} links in place, usually from my previous visit, are now in one VIAF bundle that also links to our biography. Usually with some VIAF id(s) redirected, occasionally deleted. --I presume that the VIAF project has harvested from our biography footers, or from Wikidata which has harvested from us.
 * At DE.wiki, perhaps I provided 5 and fixed 5 GND links; many more LCCN and VIAF (missing or "VIAF Cluster has been deleted" or simply the wrong person).
 * I have finished the mass revisitation. Probably in the future I will edit some DE.wiki {normdaten} only occasionally, not in batches, and without notice to you there.
 * I wonder how soon VIAF bundles and Wikidata pages will reflect deletions and corrections in biography footers.
 * I edited only one Wikidata page, to sample the interface. --P64 (talk) 19:17, 9 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Hi P64, good to hear from you. VIAF is updated on a monthly basis. @#1: Also undifferentiated IDs are linked with books. VIAF is looking at the titles and if they match he treats the IDs as personal IDs. Imho this is a basic problem that needs to be solved by VIAF and the libraries. On the other hand VIAF was not made for Wikipedia and it fits for the needs of librarians. AFAIK VIAF is not using Wikidata by now. (I hope it will one day.) --Kolja21 (talk) 20:57, 9 September 2013 (UTC)