Wikipedia talk:Authority control/Archive 2

LCCN does not show up
I've created articles for many scholars, and the authority control template works fine most of the time. However, I've encountered a couple cases where an author's LCCN exists, but does not show up when entered into the template. See Kang-i Sun Chang, for example. Li Yining used to have the same problem, but was automagically fixed. Anyone knows why? -Zanhe (talk) 00:29, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I suppose it was "automagically fixed" in the browser-rendered footer Li Yining when the value was imported by WikiData as value of its parameter 'LCNAF identifier'. --Only minutes before your report here yesterday, as I understand the WD page history.
 * The browser evidently displays values assigned at WikiData for those {Authority control} parameters not defined here. And the use of lowercase 'lccn' meant that LCCN, or LCNAF identifier, was not defined here. Proper uppercase local assignment such as 'LCCN=n/99/5' obviates/overrides WikiData (in this case, only because 'n/99/5' has a valid interpretation). --P64 (talk) 22:17, 20 February 2015 (UTC)


 * I fixed that for Kang-i Sun Chang whose problem was lowercase parameter name lccn. Not mentioned in the summary, I added the parameters GND and SUDOC whose values I glimpsed at.
 * genuinely 'automagical'? when Wikidata creates?

： --P64 (talk) 01:04, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
 * technical interjection (Help!) I did not complete the last thought because of an occasional problem --most likely a Windows 7 problem, I guess. By some inadvertent keystroke(s) I toggled use of the keyboard to another character set --probably for Arabic script, I guess. Always for me the consequence is that I abort a session --frequently with one or several Arabic(?) characters as edit summary --because Ctrl-Z does not undo the toggle.
 * The initial colon in my signature line may be a clue to you. In the composition window now I see that colon  as slightly different from the others, but only by close study, prompted by the browser-rendered version in which that line begins flushleft with a visible colon. Probably I entered that colon from the keyboard after the inadvertent toggle to "Arabic", I guess.
 * --P64 (talk) 20:08, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

FWIW, I think it's a better choice to put the authority control data on Wikidata and let the Authority control template grab it from there rather than hardcoding the data here. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:12, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your help! Didn't know the parameters are case-sensitive. -Zanhe (talk) 01:16, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Hm, how would one put the authority control info in Wikidata - or does this need to be agreed upon across-the-wiki? kosboot (talk) 02:15, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Go to the Languages => Add Links (or Edit Links) thingy in the bottom left corner of the window, use it to go to a Wikidata item for your article, add information to the Wikidata item (here's one you could model the format of the information after), and then just use the Authority control template without any arguments. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:50, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
 * For a page such as our Li Yining, created by Zanhe one year ago, and now linked via WikiData to French- and Chinese-language pages, there are significant obstacles to providing data there --either providing at WD instead of here, as for LCCN on David Eppstein's suggestion, or providing there in parallel as for birthdate. The WikiData project has not done a good job re those obstacles and should not expect EN.wiki content editors to overcome them. (Visitors to this talk page are likely to be at least part-time specialists in metadata such as LCCN, from whom more may be expected. But WikiData should do more for everyone. For one, provide a warning that one's IP address will be recorded in the page history, as Wikipedia does. But the extra login will remain an obstacle.)
 * For a new EN.wiki page such as our Kang-i Sun Chang, created by Zanhe last week, there are great obstacles to the parallel provision of data to WikiData. Most should leave it to the specialists (first of whom is a robot, I infer).
 * If you're going to do this regularly, the multiple login thing can be fixed so that you only log in once to all Wikimedia projects. See Unified login. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:54, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
 * User:Zanhe (two paragraphs): Evidently you have mastered some lesser obstacles WD and may be a relevant expert in one respect. As I understand the history, you linked our new page Li Yining to WikiData on the day you created it (WD Li Yining difference 2014-01-30). Only two days later some IP visitor added a link to the older French stub fr:Li Yining (probably an experienced WP editor who overlooked the extra login required).
 * If there is a ZH.wiki page for Kang-i Sun Chang, of a certain age, there will be a WD item. Find it as Zanhe last year found Li Yining there (WD Q8460642 version 2013-11-21) --by appropriate Chinese character search I suppose. If there is no WD page for Kang-i Sun Chang (probably in this case because there is no page for her, or only a recent one, at ZH.wiki), that is another of the great obstacles. A new Item must be created.


 * Eventually WD will add a new item for Kang-i Sun Chang by reference to the new EN.wiki biography Kang-i Sun Chang. Automagically, I suppose. The history of WD Li Yining shows it was created 2013-03-27 by SLiuBot with the link to ZH.wiki and two substantial claims. --P64 (talk) 21:43, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Update
Can someone update the counts in the fourth paragraph? - PKM (talk) 01:21, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Sparse (duplicate) clusters

 * What to do with VIAF identifiers when there are more than one cluster in VIAF due to negative matching which results in sparse (duplicate) clusters containing only one national authority record?

Hi all, I would like to know what is the general policy regarding adding VIAF identifiers in Wikidata when in VIAF there are more than one cluster and the local record identifier has not been matched with the richest VIAF cluster, so that it is isolated, forming a new VIAF cluster. Example: in the italian Wikipedia, the entry about Barack Obama at https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama has the VIAF Identifier: 305358548 which is different from the VIAF identifier added in other Wkipedias. For example, in the English Wikipedia, the entry about Barack Obama at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama has the VIAF: 52010985. In the case of the Italian Wikipedia, the VIAF: 305358548 has been added because it is the identifier of the VIAF Cluster formed only by the Italian authority record coming from the national union catalogue (identified by the code SBN: see VIAF at http://viaf.org/viaf/305358548/) As a consequence, now in Wikidata the record about Barack Obama has 2 VIAF identifiers: 52010985 and 305358548 See at https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q76 Is this policy correct? Or in these cases entries in all Wikipedias should have the same VIAF identifier as the English Wikipedia? In other words: Wikidata records should have only one VIAF identifiers or they can have more than one VIAF identifier? In these cases, why the corresponding entry in Wikipedia has only one VIAF identifier? --Pierfrancominsenti (talk) 18:21, 22 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I believe it's OCLC's idea that eventually disparate entries such as Obama's will eventually be clustered. (In this case it's obvious that the 52010985 entry will remain the main one, but I've seen others that are more ambiguous.) I've asked them and they've reminded me that VIAF is still an experiment where confirmed workflows (such as clustering) have not yet been solidified. kosboot (talk) 18:54, 22 February 2015 (UTC)
 * The short answer to problems with VIAF, is to contact your local VIAF-participating agency and get them to correct it. Stuartyeates (talk) 22:03, 22 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I guess I assumed that everyone knew that VIAF is a product of OCLC. They will correct some things, but other things they'll leave alone (I've asked them to cluster names in the past and they've not done any action). kosboot (talk) 22:36, 22 February 2015 (UTC)
 * VIAF is a 'product' of the OCLC, but local national libraries are responsible for the individual entries. The people at NLNZ have been very appreciative of me sending them corrections for New Zealand people. Stuartyeates (talk) 00:26, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
 * So the problem is not that the Italians had a different name for Barack Obama, but that it simply is not clustered with most other countries. That's not anything the Italians can do, since VIAF is all in OCLC's hands. kosboot (talk) 00:42, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I know that VIAF is still an experiment etc. But I'm afraid you may not have understood my question which is simply referred to a Wikipedia/Wikidata policy: that is: what in your opinion is more advisable to do in Wikidata/Wikipedia in these cases? For example, in the case of the Italian entry for Barack Obama, do you think that it would be more advisable to add the VIAF identifer more used, the same added to the English Wikipedia, then 52010985, or is it better to add the VIAF identifier that at the moment is connected to the Italian national identifer, then 305358548? Or is it indifferent? But if we add the VIAF identifier for a sparse record, is there any synchronization mechanism which may garantee that in the future, when VIAF is corrected and contain only 1 cluster, even the Italian Wikipedia will be authomatically corrected? Or there is no some mechanism of the kind? And final question/doubt: is it advisable to add to the record in Wikidata more than one VIAF property? --Pierfrancominsenti (talk) 10:31, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I would think that eventually the two will be clustered. But for now, I think it advisable to use the 52010985 identifier. kosboot (talk) 12:23, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

I would use VIAF=52010985 in biogrpahy pages, same as Kosboot.

Once [for one WikiData page] I added multiple VIAF identifiers at WikiData (rather than report them at VIAF/errors) --as an experiment that I didn't pursue, and I don't recall where I may have noted the relevant facts!

During the few years I have attended to identifiers in biographies at EN.wiki, and occasionally DE.wiki: For some months now I have noticed at least several redirect targets [1] and no missing targets [2] at VIAF. But the numbers are small. Anyway, I don't know whether my experiences reflect any changes in VIAF policy or practice, maybe no more than variations among VIAF workers whose assignments variously match my attention. --P64 (talk) 21:42, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
 * 1) For several months covering dozens of VIAF mergers it was always true that redirection rather than deletion of VIAF pages preserved our links to VIAF. In the example given, VIAF=305358548 would be redirected to VIAF=52010985 (or vice versa) after the merge so that the footer links from EN.wiki and IT.wiki to VIAF would both target the merged cluster at least indirectly.
 * 2) Later for some months I noticed that dozens of footer links to VIAF had been broken by mergers, evidently as VIAF pages had been deleted rather than redirected.


 * (continued a few days later -P64) Checking the source I see that WikiData does endorse multiple VIAF entries. That is, violation of the "single value" constraint is permitted for property 214, VIAF. "Exceptions are possible as rare values may exist: Jean-Louis Foncine (Q3166765)" --WikiData:Property_talk:P214.
 * To me that exception evidently welcomes thousands. The three VIAF values for WD Q3166765 represent one person by pagename Jean-Louis Foncine, by pseudonym Charles Vaudémont, and by birth name Pierre Lamoureux. The U.S. national library, and from 2014 the German, do commonly authorize multiple identities such as these --ie, they issue distinct ID numbers by policy, not by mistake-- and VIAF routinely bundles them separately.
 * WikiData:WikiData:Database reports/Constraint violations/P214 now shows "3690 violations (+1 exceptions)". This shows that WikiData has made no progress identifying exceptions, and faces a long backlog. There is no reason to suppose genuine exceptions are rare.
 * --P64 (talk) 18:02, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Liaison with VIAF
Moved to Wikipedia talk:Authority control/VIAF. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:58, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Coverage of Wikipedia redirects
User:Vycl1994 provided this edit summary for VIAF/errors yesterday:
 * I placed a VIAF dataset corresponding with Haemmerling's pen name Curt Moreck on the Moreck redirect, but was reverted at de.wiki. Is it against rules there to place templates on redirects?

Vycl: At German/DE Wikipedia you added the template {Normdaten} or de:Vorlage:Normdaten to the Curt Moreck redirect (diff 2015-03-01). The edit summary doesn't show, and I doubt, that editor de:Benutzer:Horst Gräbner understood your intention to add one rendition of {Normdaten} to that redirect, representing the pseudonymous identity, with parameter values all distinct from that rendition in the footer of the target article (de:Konrad Haemmerling), representing the overt identity under real name.

As I understand the bottom line, DE.wiki does not place {Normdaten}, nor other people external link templates such as {DNB-Portal} and {British council}, on redirect pages. That pertains not only to redirects that represent alternative identities for people whose biographies are the targets, but also to other people redirects. Nor do we do so, as I understand. No template Authority control, nor VIAF and Worldcat id &c, should be placed on any redirect pages. Neither redirects that represent alternative identities of their targets such as, nor those that do represent a person primarily and do carry people categories, such as redirect.

From another perspective, as I understand, WikiData does not cover Wikipedia redirects. There is a page for Janet Ahlberg at WikiData because she has a Norwegian/NO biography of her own (not joint with collaborator-husband Allan Ahlberg, as our article), namely no:Janet Ahlberg. Because she has no biography in another language, and WikiData doesn't cover redirects (WD Janet Ahlberg doesn't link our R to joint biography), that NO biography lists no other-language links in the left margin (Språk).

Here at EN.wiki i have seen mention of WikiData debate about coverage of Wikipedia redirects, but I don't know where it is. (Debate probably more than a year ago, tabled or concluded "not ready yet".)

--P64 (talk) 18:54, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

P.S. Husband-collaborator Allan Ahlberg does have a trivial page at PL.wiki as well as the NO biography no:Allan Ahlberg, so the latter page does list one other-language links in the left margin (På andre språk: Polski).

Links from these NO and PL pages for the Ahlbergs to our joint biography Janet and Allan Ahlberg can be created manually, perhaps best as External links in the article footers. I don't know the recommended format even here at EN.wiki. --P64 (talk) 19:04, 21 March 2015 (UTC)


 * User:Mirokado and I have discussed this at my talk page one month prior to this discussion .This section of WP: Authority control was brought to my attention.

"There are many cases when topic in wikipedia does not match the topic in the authority control system (see for example Category:Redirects from pseudonyms for examples of people with more than one name and Category:Articles about multiple people for examples of articles about multiple people). In these cases, the Authority control template should be put on the page (article or redirect) that most closely matches the topic in the authority control system. If necessary, create a new redirect to carry the template."


 * That is why I have been placing Authority control templates on redirects at EN.wiki. I erroneously thought the same would apply at DE.wiki, but was mistaken. However, it seems that placing Authority control on English redirects is not wrong. Vycl1994 (talk) 22:17, 21 March 2015 (UTC)
 * What do you think you are accomplishing by placing that template on a redirect? It's not a place where people can view the authority control data, because most readers are not even going to see the redirect page. I think the only things that should go on redirects (beside the redirect itself) are in rare cases categories and interwikis (when those make more sense for the redirect name than for the target name) and "{{R from..." templates. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:33, 21 March 2015 (UTC)


 * We do use template {{tl|DEFAULTSORT}} on redirect pages, to ensure for example that Janet Ahlberg shows up under A in {{cl|British children's book illustrators}} (displayed italic because that page is a redirect).
 * David Eppstein: if i understand correctly you would place manual interwiki links on our EN redirect and the NO article no:Janet Ahlberg. Right?
 * We may hope that a robot will replace such interwiki links (2) by a link (1) from WD:Janet Ahlberg, section Wikipedia, to the EN redirect --not long after WikiData agrees how to incorporate redirects. (If so, there is a parallel case for adding {Authority control} to our redirects from people; it will alert whatever WD robots monitor use of the template for purpose of creating new WD pages/items, and will provide some authority ID for upload to WD as well.)


 * Vycl: More than a year has passed since any WD discussions whose mention at EN.wiki I vaguely recall. I believe I confirmed at the time that the Category intersection [the link target is a tool; set Depth=1] of {{c|Redirects from people}} [size ~1000] and {{c|Wikipedia articles with VIAF identifiers}} was null. Now the intersection is merely 9 pages, alphabetically from {{-r|Albert Maysles}} (your recent work, Vycl1994) to {{-r|Stanislaw Burzynski}}. The latter is 15 months old, since the template was moved from the target page diff where VIAFbot placed it about 30 months ago diff.
 * Unless I made some mistake with the tool just now, the intersection of VIAF identifiers with {{c|Redirects from pseudonyms}} [size ~500] is still null now.
 * --P64 (talk) 20:16, 22 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I created https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=David_Millar_%28museum_director%29&redirect=no just the other day. The redirect links the authority control record with our coverage of the individual. Stuartyeates (talk) 20:24, 22 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Stuart, I added the line, so your page is now in cat {{c|Redirects from people}} [Depth=0] and the intersection reported above should be 10 pages. (It takes some time and heat to intersect categories, especially the super-size VIAF identifiers, so I do not check. The setting Depth=1 covers pages that under the category at depths 0 and 1.)
 * A new redirect page should be placed in at least one redirect category. WP:RCAT is the place to begin. A new person redirect should be placed in article category {{c|Living people}}, or one of its siblings depending partly on its placement in {{c|Births by year}} and {{c|Deaths by year}}. WP:LIVING is the place to begin. --P64 (talk) 23:05, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

I visited the 9 pages that were in categories {R from people} and {Wikipedia articles with VIAF identifiers} hours ago, reported above. Seven (7) date from the recent work by Vycl1994 and Mirokado; two from 2014, {{-r|Stanislaw Burzynski}} and {{-r|Fanny Holcroft}}. I made some improvements here and at WikiData but did not change our nine redirects in the respect at stake here, as I understand: all carry template Authority control and some carry {{tl|Persondata}}. Only one is now badly fouled at WikiData, where WD:Kevin Kopelow and Heath Seifert links the duo at EN and ES but also links fr:Kevin Kopelow. (Heath Seifert has a WD page, whose relation to the duo page I fixed.) Good night. --P64 (talk) 23:55, 22 March 2015 (UTC)


 * (I just noticed this section) Policy on de.wiki is to place no content primarkly intended to be visible to users on redirect pages. Therefore the (formerly invisible) templates de:Template:Normdaten and de:Template:Personendaten are alright on a redirect page (there must be not more than one of that kind on the target page), and de:Template:DNB-Portal ist not allowed (intention is to provide user-clickable weblinks, several of them are allowed on the target page, provided they differentiate themselves by the appropriate name and type parameters). Usually cases like that can also carry categories on the redirect pages and should be instances marked as __STATICREDIRECT__ (the entity the redirect page stands for is distinguishable from the entity connected with the target page). Sadly on de.wiki the community usally will always "optimize" away any double redirects, regardless of the state they declare. -- Gymel (talk) 15:11, 27 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Help:Magic words tersely states how __STATICREDIRECT__ switches the behavior of Wikimedia software. Should we use it to distinguish redirects that represent their objects? Do others use it that way?
 * On those two kinds of redirect pages here at EN.wiki I now provide WP:COMMENT explanation and instruction as at Edgar Parin d'Aulaire and Edgar Parin D'Aulaire. (I store a completed A.c. template elsewhere, usually; never create a redirect talk page for the purpose.) --P64 (talk) 15:45, 27 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Few of our {{c|Redirects to joint biographies}} carry STATICREDIRECT. It is common among those that carry inter-language links (in turn, usually DE.wiki). For instance see {{-r|Tim Hildebrandt}}. --P64 (talk) 01:06, 31 March 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)

Google Scholar author ID?

 * Moved from Template talk:Authority control. Also, this issue has been raised in the past, with no reaction.

Straightforward question: should we add Google Scholar author IDs as parameters to this template? I think it would be extremely useful, given that a lot of academic research is published in (peer-reviewed) journals rather than books, where our "usual" authority control IDs like VIAF, LCCN, etc. have a blind spot. Examples: What are your thoughts? --bender235 (talk) 16:33, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
 * N. Gregory Mankiw → VIAF: 85258531 → GS: Ga0i--0AAAAJ
 * Gary Becker → VIAF: 7436093 → GS: 5MryvlgAAAAJ
 * If we start down the path of proprietary indices, there are several others we'll have to address. We already drive far too many eyeballs Google's way. They don't want to adopt an open answer (e.g. ORCID, ISNI or VIAF) only because it interferes with their business model of capitalizing on open knowledge. Tough. That isn't our purpose. LeadSongDog come howl!  17:46, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
 * What exactly makes this Google Scholar ID more "proprietary" than ThomsonReuters' ResearcherID (which is already included in this template) or even VIAF? What exactly makes VIAF "open"? --bender235 (talk) 19:57, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, as VIAF is just a federated service administered by OCLC, based on dozens of national authority databases (from the BL, LoC, BNF, etc), it pretty much had to adopt an open ruleset. There's an established way to feed in changes. Search results will remain available to anyone. OCLC is a nonprofit with these articles and regulations which essentially say that any library can choose to play along on equal terms. "The new Agreement confirms the free re-use of VIAF data, including the commercial re-use of data according to the ODC-By license."--press release. That license is here for perusal, it is intended as CC-By for databases. Short of an unrestricted wiki, it is about as open as it could be and still function correctly. Google and Thomson are only in it for a profit, and will happily charge the moon for access, even to public-domain content. They would even make records go dark if that served their bottom line. Relying on them as guardians of the archives conflicts with the basic tennets of the WMF. I can stomach supporting links to them only so far as it contributes information not yet otherwise available. Once open resources are out there, those should be the links we use. LeadSongDog come howl!  16:41, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Maybe you (or somebody else) can answer this, but is there an actual alternative to this Google Scholar ID when it comes to connect a certain author to working papers and journal articles (as opposed to books)? --bender235 (talk) 16:08, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, ORCID. In my view (I'm Wikipedian in Residence at ORCID) it's better, but there are people with GS IDs and no ORCID, and vice versa, and people with both, but with more works listed in one than the other, or vice versa. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:20, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I see. And then how can I find, say, all journal articles and working papers by Greg Mankiw? Which site would return those for a given ORCID? --bender235 (talk) 23:09, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I support this change, which doesn't undermine the use of other authority control identifiers such as ORCID. I believe ultimately all author and bibliographic metadata should live in Wikidata, author items will hold all the mappings to authority control identifiers. (you can read more on this proposal on wikidata:Wikidata:WikiProject Source MetaData and File:Citing as a public service.pdf --DarTar (talk) 04:14, 23 September 2015 (UTC)
 * If we do this, I would suggest just linking it as "GS" rather than making the number visible, as we do for some other links (WorldCat, MGP). —David Eppstein (talk) 16:01, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I have no view as to whether or not we should include GS IDs, but if we do, I'd rather not hide them. And if we do hide them, they should be styled so that they display in print. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 09:11, 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)

Duplicate Authority Control entries
For the new Undersecretary of the Treasure for International Affairs, D. Nathan Sheets, there appear to be *multiple* entries in the LCCN https://www.worldcat.org/identities/lccn-n2006021042/ and https://www.worldcat.org/identities/lccn-nr2002035878/ as well as multiple entries at http://viaf.org/viaf/search?query=local.names+all+%22Nathan%20Sheets%22&sortKeys=holdingscount&recordSchema=BriefVIAF. Which seem to indicate both multiple VIAF and multiple DNB entries. D. Nathan Sheets does often go by Nathan Sheets. (He is a friend of the family, so I'm quite sure on that). Any ideas on how to set up the authority control entries at Wikidata?Naraht (talk) 21:02, 28 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Simply add all of them except the "undifferentiated" GND record and its corresponding VIAF id 244425364. VIAF will take that as a hint for clustering them together. -- Gymel (talk) 23:13, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

MusicBrainz
I've started a discussion about whether MusicBrainz is a reliable source, and reliable enough for Authority Control, over at Reliable sources/Noticeboard. Fram (talk) 16:05, 20 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)

Autoarchiving
I have fixed the archive. Previously it would only work if at least 9 threads were to be archived at once; now it will only go by the last edit date of each thread individually.

I have decreased the time to auto archive from 9 months to 6 months so that only active discussions are given prominence.

Kindly --Tom (LT) (talk) 05:13, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

Adding NLI (National Library of Israel) to the Authority Control template & RTL Version
We're seeking to add authority control templates on he.wiki, and it makes sense to add: 1) The National Library of Israel system identifier (unique identifiers) to the list of authority control identifiers? 2) an RTL version of the template (that would work with Hebrew and Arabic)?

What's the procedure to achieve 1 and / or 2 ?

Cheers, Alleycat80 (talk) 09:04, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

Authority control in musical works
Hi folks. I only noticed today that musical works do not have authority control. But they could. Shouldn't we extend authority control to musical works? - kosboot (talk) 13:07, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

What Does the Template Search For?
I just put the authority control template into Jean-François Eugène Robinet without success but an entry for this guy exists. Leading me to wonder, what does the template query for? Advice in the page associated with this talk (I believe) says something about making a reference but I don't see how to do that without knowing how the template will query. Please set me straight. SewerCat (talk) 18:38, 31 March 2017 (UTC)
 * It produces a bar of identifier numbers for the subject from information in the subject's entry on wikidata. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:46, 31 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you. However, I knew what the template does. What I would like to know is how the template interrogates wikidata for the information that it places in the bar of identifier numbers. As it happens, after I put this question here I added the link to Robinet's wikipedia page to his wikidata record and when I returned to his page — by magic — found that the control info is there. But now I don't know whether this is because I added the wikipedia link or because some bot updated the page! :) SewerCat (talk) 23:08, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

Harmless?
Please see discussion at Template talk:Authority control. Thanks. Kaldari (talk) 09:09, 29 May 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])  07:30, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

Revisiting / reviving a previous suggestion for adding EIDR IDs to Authority Control
I would like to revisit and revive the previous request Item 37 from the archives to add EIDR to Authority Control. Now at 1.8m records, the EIDR registry is becoming the largest ISO DOI standard for commercially available film and television works, with significant non-commercial registrations with archives such as the Library of Congress, the British Film Institute, the Complete Index to World Film and many others. As a start, there are already 39141 EIDR IDs in Wikidata. Thank you. Wkreth (talk) 04:03, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

Query
Why doesn't this template display the Wikidata id? Wikidata is a identifier database as much as any of the others are. Prince of Thieves (talk) 16:43, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

ELN discussions
Discussions relating to this guidance (i.e. which may ultimately alter it if consensus can be found) are currently going on at WP:ELN. Please discuss there, not here. --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:54, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

LCCN formatting
I have a 1957 book here with "Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 56-13477". How should this be mangled to fit the template? --Palosirkka (talk) 09:32, 21 October 2018 (UTC)
 * This book?
 * Add the details to its wikidata item. d:Q3828875 using the "wikidata item" link at the left of the screen, d:Special:Diff/769328305. Add Authority control at the foot of the article, Special:Diff/865046366. And, nothing...
 * p.lccnLink in Module:Authority control tries to split the identifier, but this identifier is purely numeric so there's nothing to split, and it fails. The link works from the wikidata item, it looks like Authority control only works for items with an alphabetic start to their LCCN, not for books which don't. I'd be happy to be shown I'm wrong.
 * Pinging who may be able to shine some light. Cabayi (talk) 10:54, 21 October 2018 (UTC)
 * My dumb mistake there. LCCN numbers for books are entered in d:Property:P1144 & for people in d:Property:P244. Only P244 items are picked up by the module. Cabayi (talk) 11:11, 21 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, that's the book Cabayi, thank you. --Palosirkka (talk) 13:13, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, that's the book Cabayi, thank you. --Palosirkka (talk) 13:13, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

authority contol line "magically" appears on existing articles
Greetings, While updating articles I have noticed some articles with existing   line & a blank line above. When I add "Subject bar" line, the authority control line now shows. This is not a big issue, but just curious why this happens? For example: Ermanrich, Bishop of Passau article. Why auth.control lines do not display when there is existing a.c. content? Regards, JoeHebda (talk) 15:17, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

"The NLR id XXXXXXXXX is not valid"
I'm seeing this large notice in red on all kinds of Authority Control templates now. Also "The BNC id XXXXXXXXXX is not valid". Sample:. Could someone please fix this? Softlavender (talk) 08:40, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

There are currently nearly 700 NLR invalid messages on Authority Control templates:, and at least 170 BNC invalid messages:. -- Softlavender (talk) 10:13, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

NLM
Is https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nlmcatalog/101321165 an authority control number for Thomas Morstede? WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:12, 7 November 2019 (UTC)