Wikipedia talk:Persondata/Archive 7

Are partial dates acceptable?
I have found a few templates that say "DATE OF BIRTH= November 17" i.e. It is known when they celebrate their birthday, but they keep their age secret. I am raising the question as someone who has programmed an extract from Persondata and these day/months caused me a problem. The functions I used assumed the year was the current year and I ended up with celebrities a few months old!

I think a year only or a month/year should be acceptable, but I am not sure about day/month. Is there any consensus? Periglio (talk) 12:49, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, you have to program defensively. Wikipedia is crowd sourced, there can be any old junk in these fields.  Of course you should deal with those that you can, but, for example "November 17" can mean November of the year 17 AD.  (So 17 November would be better, as it is unambiguous.)  But you should also find words there like "unknown" "approx" "reputed" "After" "Fl." "Circa" and ranges.
 * The entry you describe can reasonably be "corrected" to "unknown" or "unknown - 17 November", but you cannot rely on the format or data type, despite the efforts of the Committee for getting things done. All the best, Rich Farmbrough, 06:18, 13 April 2014 (UTC).

Phase out plan
Do we have a plan for phasing out the Persondata template once we are sure Wikidata has reached the point of being a drop-in replacement? Remember: invisible data is harmful. —Tom Morris (talk) 13:44, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Is there a plan for phasing in Wikidata? Periglio (talk) 19:17, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

users with persondata in their sandbox
I've noticed in the Category:Persondata templates without short description parameter, there are quite a few users who appear to have added the persondata template to their sandbox (so they can copy and paste it when making articles).

Is there some protocol for asking users to stop using it? or to cancel it out by using hidden text or coding boxes e.g.



—Msmarmalade (talk) 19:09, 30 June 2014 (UTC)


 * , it should be commented out. Just like categories are "commented" out in sandboxes.  That is if the sandbox page is there long term.  If a person is actively working on the page and will be moved shortly, then just wait till it is moved.  Bgwhite (talk) 23:58, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Hoang v. Amazon.com
Hoang v. Amazon.com used to be about Junie Hoang, but some time ago I moved and repurposed it as a result of this AfD. I just noticed I never deleted Hoang's persondata from it. I was about to do so, but paused; is persondata appropriate in an article like this, where there is no other article about the individual and the individual is closely associated with the subject of the article, but the individual has been deemed not notable for Wikipedia purposes? TJRC (talk) 00:55, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Persondata should only be on an individuals biography, not on an event. It should not appear on Hoang v. Amazon.com. However, as the Junie Hoang redirect exists, it could be used to hold Persondata as well as categories relating to the actress. See Myra Hindley for an example. Periglio (talk) 09:08, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Makes sense; thanks. TJRC (talk) 15:39, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 19 September 2014
This request is in regard to the webpage for Stephen F. Hale, I would like to have the Display Title changed to "Stephen Fowler Hale" this formal title is used in most instances of reference documentation.

Thank you, Sophronia Forrest Sophronia Forrest 21:59, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Sophronia Forrest 21:59, 19 September 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sophronia Cook (talk • contribs)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: this is the talk page for discussing improvements to the page Wikipedia:Persondata. Please make your request at the talk page for the article concerned. -- Red rose64 (talk) 22:52, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Overlinking in Persondata
The main policy of persondata provides no formal support to any type of linking, yet a number of pages are affected with the overlinking of professions, geolocations in persondata and multiple links. Right now, the policy doesn't mention overlinking or anything against it.

While removing overlinking a script would also target persondata, usually 2/10 pages with persondata are affected. There has been consensus to remove overlinking, but recently one user questioned that overlinking doesn't apply on persondata. I haven't seen any such discussion before.  Occult Zone (Talk • Contributions • Log) 04:57, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
 * A sentence in the template documentation appears to encourage linking of these, viz: "currently it isn't necessary to provide wikilinks in them; however, these might be useful in some future application, so feel free to add them to locations if you wish", but this "usefulness" has never been defined or elaborated on. Can anyone enlighten me on where you are heading with this template? --  Ohc  ¡digame! 05:54, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't think that any linking in Persondata is ever necessary. If any linking of a term (a place name, very often) is necessary, it should be on the first use of the term, which will not be in persondata. This is because if something's in Persondata, it should also be in the article text; if it's not in the article text, it doesn't belong in Persondata. Then there is Persondata: the presence of Wiki markup might pollute the extracted data. -- Red rose64 (talk) 10:54, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the input, but here the bigger question is that if one should be allowed to remove overlinking in persondata. It is pretty easy to understand that what persondata is talking about even if "| PLACE OF BIRTH = Kota Bharu, Kelantan" has been changed to "| PLACE OF BIRTH = Kota Bharu, Kelantan".  Occult Zone (Talk • Contributions • Log) 11:33, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Personally, I would remove all the linking in persondata: Kota Bharu, Kelantan -- Red rose64 (talk) 11:40, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Seems far better, though I still leave one so that the person can verify. Shouldn't have linked anything in persondata from 1st day.  Occult Zone (Talk • Contributions • Log) 11:54, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

I am OK with it. We can write that "in general there is no need to add wikilinks in Persondata". Maybe we could also modify WP:AWB not to add wikilinks in PLACE OF BIRTH/DEATH in the future. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:30, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

,, From a Wikidata prospective Persondata can be dropped. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:49, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Hopefully, it was coming.  Occult Zone (Talk • Contributions • Log) 22:03, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I started the chat on Wikidata today. There was only one bot that I could find that was importing anything from enwiki Persondata into Wikidata. Another bot was working with dewiki only.  I contacted the bot's owner, Ricordisamoa, and they responded at the above chat link.   I'll wait a bit longer for any other comments.  If the chat continues to say drop and people here agree, I'll start up an RFC.  User:Pigsonthewing/Persondata will weigh in heavily in the RFC. Bgwhite (talk) 22:18, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the heads-up. Glad if that page helps. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 23:20, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

One of the problems with Persondata is when people shoehorn prose into it. I can't recall an exact example, but I've seen things like:


 * Birthplace= London or possibly Manchester

and:


 * Deathplace = (died from tuberculosis)

Also, how is a parser to know the difference between


 * Paris, Texas ( = Paris, Texas )

and


 * Paris, France ( = Paris, France ) ?

Finally, don't forget that using an infobox also emits structured, machine-readable data. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 23:20, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
 * The longest I ever found was . -- Red rose64 (talk) 00:07, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
 * That's genius! Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:05, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
 * there's no difficulty parsing Paris, Texas  and Paris, France, but can you quantify the potential for ambiguity if we were to send a bot to unlink these? --  Ohc  ¡digame! 13:54, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
 * What ambiguity? There would be Paris, Texas and Paris, France -- Red rose64 (talk) 18:11, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

, et al. Do we have consensus to remove all examples with wikilinks from Persondata from documentation? -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:51, 14 September 2014 (UTC)
 * For me, yes. -- Red rose64 (talk) 11:52, 14 September 2014 (UTC)
 * yes, fine by me. --  Ohc  ¡digame! 14:33, 14 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes we do, no one seems to be opposing.  Occult Zone (Talk • Contributions • Log) 14:50, 14 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I still have concerns about how disambiguation can happen (see above), but if no parsers are currently using links from Persondata, yes: remove it. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:39, 14 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Agree with Andy - how do you handle dab links to show the correct location without the wikilinks? Keith D (talk) 21:37, 14 September 2014 (UTC)
 * By showing more than the specific town or village, just like the GPO did before postcodes were invented. Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, Lincolnshire, England -- Red rose64 (talk) 22:46, 14 September 2014 (UTC)
 * My concern is not how to show them, but how is a parser to know the difference. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:16, 15 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I am concerned that a BOT just removing links will end up with a mess where the wrong part is removed. For example "Halifax, West Riding of Yorkshire, England" where the undab part of the link would need to remain and not the dabed part of the link that should end up as "Halifax, West Riding of Yorkshire, England" and not as "Halifax, West Yorkshire, West Riding of Yorkshire, England" Keith D (talk) 21:27, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Keith D I did not say anything about a bot removing wikilinks. I only suggest that we say that wikilinks inside any fields are not encouraged. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:29, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

RfC: Should Persondata template be removed from articles? (redundancy with Wikidata)
Discussion can be found at here. Bgwhite (talk) 21:30, 20 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Update: As of September 1, 2014, this RfC was closed and can be seen []. Here is the conclusion reached:


 * —Msmarmalade (talk) 04:47, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks for posting - I couldn't remember to include it or not in new articles. As I understand it, I will just "carry on as usual until further notice". Jane (talk) 06:57, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I posted a request at Wikidata for bot writers to help import the metadata into Wikidata. Kaldari (talk) 18:10, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

Rough Plan
I've been working on this page: User:Msmarmalade/Persondata, which is basically a collection of relevant links, discussions and some points from the RfC, along with my own rough plan for transferring and deleting Persondata. Please take a look and see if it's of any use. Let me know. —Msmarmalade (talk) 08:12, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Question
I'm working on manually exporting some statements to Wikidata. I was just wondering, should I delete the Persondata template afterwards, or leave it be until the future of this template is decided?  George.Edward.C –  Talk  –  Contributions  18:14, 8 November 2014 (UTC)
 * , keep it. (1) There is no harm.  (2) Somebody might re-add it, but usually with some, but not all parameters.  This causes other people to come by and add them, thus causing more work. Bgwhite (talk) 00:08, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
 * FWIW, I've posted bot requests both on Wikidata and en.wiki to import the data, but no one has bitten yet :( Kaldari (talk) 03:25, 20 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Would love to help once I get the these shackles off. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 13:20, 21 November 2014 (UTC).

Protected edit request on 5 November 2014
Can an admin make this template only add pages to the Persondata templates without short description parameter category if the page is in the main namespace using {{namespace detect ? I help with cleaning out that category a lot, and sometimes I'll see pages in the Wikipedia talk or User talk namespace that don't really belong there. -Fim atic  (talk &#124; contribs) 23:26, 5 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done {{ping|Fimatic}} I've added the code to the main template. It might take a while to filter through to all pages due to slowness in the job queue. (I've known waits of up to a month for all transclusions of a high-use template such as this to be updated.) — Mr. Stradivarius  {{sup|♪ talk ♪}} 11:11, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
 * {{ping|Mr. Stradivarius}} Okay, thanks! That will probably do a good job of filtering out the backlog.  -Fim atic   (talk &#124; contribs) 14:54, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
 * But articles about living people shouldnt be in user space at all (or at least only for a short period) Christian75 (talk) 21:16, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
 * There are various reasons why the persondata template appears outside the main namespace - testing, reworking an article. We have to accept this happens. The without short description category is for maintenance of the main namespace. The request is to isolate the articles that need work. Periglio (talk) 13:37, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Exactly.  -Fim atic   (talk &#124; contribs) 03:43, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
 * While we wait for the job queue to do its work, I will just add that you can make individual pages jump the queue by doing a NULL edit. ie Go into EDIT, then click SAVE PAGE without changing anything. This will remove the page from the index - handy if you just want to tidy up a small alphabetical group. Note this should only be done sparingly - let the queue spread the server load. Periglio (talk) 18:32, 12 November 2014 (UTC)
 * {{ping|Periglio}} I noticed that there's a user talk archive that doesn't use any instances of the persondata template (used ctrl+f to see), and all it has on that page that's even close to it are the words "persondata" and "short description" in the same message. Should I do a null edit on that?  -Fim atic   (talk &#124; contribs) 01:57, 20 November 2014 (UTC)
 * There is no harm in doing a null edit, so try it. Periglio (talk) 09:23, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

October 2014 - Template for Discussion
A Template for discussion request for Persondata was closed with the outcome: Deprecate. —Msmarmalade (talk) 05:33, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

However, there were only about 4 participants in the discussion, a lot less than. If this decision holds, how do we proceed from here? —Msmarmalade (talk) 05:37, 27 October 2014 (UTC)
 * As one of those participants, my conclusion is that TfD came to basically the same conclusion as the RFC: once this data's migrated to Wikidata, we don't need PersonData too, but for the time being, the data is valuable. For new pages, adding the data at Wikidata is preferable, but if it's added as persondata instead, it's still going to end up getting migrated over eventually. --ais523 22:29, 27 October 2014 (UTC)
 * One thing Wikidata hasn't implemented yet is the sort order of names (such as "Magellan, Ferdinand" in Persondata). That's an important aspect and currently proposed at Wikidata, but in any case another thing that has to be sorted out over there before we could call Persondata "deprecated". Gestumblindi (talk) 23:36, 27 October 2014 (UTC)
 * , name sorting has nothing to do with Persondata, DEFAULTSORT handles that.
 * Wikidata doesn't want the Persondata info. It is unreliable. They do have a bot that has gotten the SHORT DESCRIPTION data in the past, but it no longer runs.  Wikidata doesn't want it.  Nobody uses the information.  Bgwhite (talk) 23:45, 27 October 2014 (UTC)
 * As I understand it, name sorting happens in both places: DEFAULTSORT is part of categorization and as such handles the name sorting for categories, see here. It is separate from Persondata. Persondata, however, contains name sorting as well, that's why the NAME field isn't filled with "Ferdinand Magellan" but with "Magellan, Ferdinand". That creates the correct sorting for re-using of Persondata e.g. in external tools. From the discussion at Wikidata, I didn't gather the impression that they don't want Persondata info, see there and linked discussions (Jheald said there that the sort order which Persondata has is "something we really ought to have in Wikidata"). Personally, I don't think that Wikipedia's Persondata content is substantially less reliable than what Wikidata has to offer. Gestumblindi (talk) 23:57, 27 October 2014 (UTC)
 * , There is absolutely no name sorting in Persondata. Persondata name is supposed to be surname, first name.  Surname and sortname can differ.  For Otto von Bismark...  DEFAULTSORT:Bismark, Otto    persondata name= von Bismark, Otto.  For  Francisco da Costa Gomes... DEFAULTSORT:Gomez, Francisco     persondata name=da Costa Gomes, Francisco.  Also, a good 20% of persondata name is first name, surname.  Personata was never supposed to be sort value and has too many wrong values. Bgwhite (talk) 01:11, 28 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Here is a (link) to the ongoing discussion at wikidata about name sorting for those interested—Msmarmalade (talk) 08:12, 28 October 2014 (UTC)
 * You keep saying nobody uses it, I use it! Periglio (talk) 11:55, 28 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Using it has a hobby and only for your use doesn't really count. Bgwhite (talk) 00:16, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
 * I only just noticed your reply. Who do you think uses Wikipedia if it isn't millions of people looking up something for their own personal interests? Plus, I have used the data to create a utility which is used by others. Okay - the world will not cease if I am unable to maintain the database, but it is an available resource that is available to the community. Why destroy it? Periglio (talk) 22:44, 21 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks for pointing out the issues when trying to use Persondata for sorting. It may be better to extract DEFAULTSORT for Wikidata purposes, then - I have answered more in detail in the Wikidata discussion. Still, I maintain that Persondata at least attempts to do a kind of name sorting, otherwise there would be no point in using the "surname, first name" format. That's sorting (maybe primitive sorting) and there's only reason to do that if you want to sort extracted data in a particular manner. Gestumblindi (talk) 14:43, 28 October 2014 (UTC)
 * You would have a valid point if people actually did "surname, first name". The error rate is so high as to render an use of the data as worthless.  Bgwhite (talk) 00:16, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

So do we have a consensus to stop adding new Persondata? (Is that what deprecate means?)—Msmarmalade (talk) 11:14, 20 November 2014 (UTC)
 * See deprecate. -- Red rose64 (talk) 14:11, 20 November 2014 (UTC)
 * I saw that, but I wasn't sure how it applied to the Wikipedia process, and especially Persondata. Specifically, I want to know if AWB and The AfC process and other bots can be notified to stop adding new Persondata, (if that hasn't happened already)—Msmarmalade (talk) 05:48, 21 November 2014 (UTC)
 * , AWB can stop adding the Persondata template. Make a request at Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Bugs.  I'm not aware of any other bots that add Persondata except for AWB based bots.  btw... AWB uses infobox values to populate Persondata's dates and places.Bgwhite (talk) 07:35, 21 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the direction, I've now made a request to AWB. Next I'll take a look at the AfC process.—Msmarmalade (talk) 00:36, 25 November 2014 (UTC)
 * As regards the template, "deprecate" is used in the sense of the first (The feature has been replaced by a more powerful alternative feature.) bullet, because we now have Wikidata. -- Red rose64 (talk) 15:39, 21 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Wikidata has the potential to be more powerful, but currently it is as flawed as Persondata. Wikidata has no mechanisms in place to maintain or validate the data, and a much smaller group of contributors to spot problems. Periglio (talk) 22:44, 21 November 2014 (UTC)
 * This has been discussed ad nauseum in . If you disagree with the above TfD ruling, I invite you to contest it through the proper channels (I'm not sure, but maybe at Deletion review? Though it's not really a deletion ruling...?). I've compiled a list of the people who were in the RfC, in case we need a more thorough ruling. —Msmarmalade (talk) 00:36, 25 November 2014 (UTC)
 * It may have been discussed ad nausuem, but nothing is actually happening to make Wikidata the superior product! In the meantime, Persondata is slowly heading towards eradication. By the way, I have started the decision contested ball rolling on the grounds that the TfD was not properly announced. Periglio (talk) 04:06, 25 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Can you please post a link here when you've submitted the contest? Just to clarify: I appreciate your input about Persondata, I am just wary of our attempts to deal with Persondata going in circles or becoming stagnant. Thanks, —Msmarmalade (talk) 04:38, 25 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Just a note that Periglio was referring to this query to the closing administrator of the Tfd. —Msmarmalade (talk) 06:43, 30 November 2014 (UTC)