Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography/Archive 13

Featured article candidates/L. Ron Hubbard
L. Ron Hubbard is currently a candidate for Featured Article status. Please comment at Featured article candidates/L. Ron Hubbard. Smee 09:05, 23 May 2007 (UTC).

Bertrand Russell GA/R
I have nominated Bertrand Russell for WP:GA/R due to inadequate referencing. I hope the article gets the attention it deserves during this process to retain its quality rating. Please see discussions at Good_article_review. TonyTheTiger (talk/cont/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 16:55, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Naming conventions for baseball players
The members of the Baseball Players Task Force (a part of WikiProject Baseball) have been discussing a set of naming conventions for baseball player bios. I have posted the draft copy here. Please feel free to discuss/propose changes at the talk page for the draft copy. Thanks, Caknuck 04:11, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Henry Reed
I need help in moving/renaming an article. There is currently an article called Henry Reed about the 20th Century English poet, and another called Henry Reed (fictional character). I am in the process of creating a page about Henry Reed (merchant) (1806-1880). Can someone created a disambiguation page and rename the Henry Reed article to Henry Reed (poet)? I am new at all this and don't want to step on any portals toes by moving around their articles! --McKDandy 19:51, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team
If anyone has some free time to help with the 0.7 Release Version in assessing and passing articles, please join. Or, if you see any notable persons that have not yet been approved or nominated, please, add them to the list. --Ozgod 03:17, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Proposed new infobox for Composer bios

 * Note: I'm cross-posting this here to solicit more opinion/help.  Please don't respond here; rather post any comments at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Composers.  Thanks

There's been extensive discussion at WikiProject Composers (check the archives) about the use of infoboxes in Composer's bios. The consensus has been that, as currently designed, Infobox musical artist and Infobox Biography rarely add much to these articles and are often actively harmful (conducive to anachronisms, overgeneralizations and other inaccuracies). However there's been some passionate discussion and even a little edit-warring.

Since infoboxes seem to be in the ascendancy on most of WP, and since I think the general concept is a useful one, I've "boldly" taken a shot at designing a "New, Improved" infobox specifically for composer bios, trying to maximize the potential benefit to articles while minimizing the potential harm. The "beta" version is here:


 * User:Turangalila/sandbox/Infobox composer

The page includes a draft "template-documentation" page with cut-and-paste markup & instructions, plus a few hypothetical examples of the template "in action." I've tried to leave almost all the paramters optional, and to emphasize in both the markup and the instructions that they should be deleted if not applicable, oversimple, etc. Obviously if folks actually want to use it in articles it should be moved to the Template namespace.

Please have a look and comment/criticize/suggest improvements &mdash; please leave comments at the WPComposers talkpage, unless they're purely technical, in which case a comment on my sandbox page might be better.

Thanks, &mdash;Turangalila   talk  17:09, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Good Article
Hi all. I just thought I'd mention that the article on John Henry Cound Brunt has been rated as a Good Article. Does this mean that I can update ALL the templates on the talk page, or do they have different criteria? -- JediLofty User Â¦ Talk 17:12, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Generally, I would look at the assessment parameters for each project before doing so, as they can differ. However, considering GA status is basically valid across the boards, I don't see that doing so in this case will be a problem. John Carter 13:47, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Requested addition to project Banner
I would request that one of our wonderful admins add the following text to the project banner for the religious figures work group:

This article falls within the scope of the Religious leaders work group. If you are interested in biographies of religious leaders, please visit the project page to see how you can help. }} Thank you. John Carter 17:16, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Award Center
There is now a specific page for people to perform actions to get awards at User:The Transhumanist/Award Center. If the members of this project would like to perhaps indicate that individuals who have met certain criteria for, say, assessment or other functions would receive one or more awards for doing so, I think a statement to that effect could be placed there. John Carter 17:43, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Summer 2007 Assessment Drive?
I was wondering if there are any plans for one and if not, I suggest having one. The one month long drive got 44,000 articles assessed. 22,000 more articles have been tagged since then. I propose a 3 month long drive running from June 1 - September 1. If we go at that rate more or less we could have the whole backlog of unassessed articles gone! It would then become a simple maintenance task. I hope this is the right place to put this and please put your opinions on this below. --Psychless  Type words  or read things!  00:50, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I am completely for that. Right now I am tagging any new articles that are created that are biographies so they do not languish in the Unassessed category. Completely up for a three month assessment drive. --Ozgod 03:25, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I'm looking for more opinions on this. And how would something like this be started?
 * I would contact an administrator who is a part of the WPBiography project and ask for assistance on getting it launched. I personally have never created a project page - but I will be more than happy to help you out in any way you need. Right now I am tagging and assessing any new articles that come in that are within the scope of the WPBiography project. If we can get a summer long project (June to August) assessment drive I can devote myself to that. --Ozgod 13:49, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Thats a good idea, an assessment drive would certain speed up things. If this one is as quick as the last one, we should be through most of the unassessed articles if it lasts for three months - â¢ The Giant Puffin â¢ 08:43, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

I have created a page for this in my user space. It can be found here. Please comment on this either at the page's talk page or my talk page, for a faster response. --Psych less Type words! 18:41, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Time to replace Infobox Guitarist?
There have been a growing number of Wikipedians questioning the need for a separate infobox for guitarists. The Guitarist infobox was created by WikiProject Guitarists, and it easily survived a deletion nomination back in September of last year, but that was before Infobox musical artist (which is supported by WikiProject Musicians) became a widely accepted standard. Both infoboxes are currently endorsed by WikiProject Biography, but recent discussions between some members of the Guitarist and Musician Wikiprojects have concluded that it may be time to deprecate the guitarist infobox, and start replacing it. (Unfortunately, this is not a task for bots, and will have to be done manually.)

Before making any final decision on the matter, we would like to get feedback from the broader community, so I am posting this notice to several Wikiprojects which may be affected. Comments should be posted to Template talk:Guitarist infobox. If you have strong feelings about this infobox, one way or the other, please feel free to let us know. Thanks, Xtifr tÃ¤lk 12:17, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Which infobox takes precedence?
I'm currently editing the article for Sam Shepard, American playwright, actor and author. There is no infobox and one of my goals is to remedy that. However, which infobox takes precedence? He is known extensively for both acting and writing, having been nominated for an Oscar, Emmy and BAFTA as well as winning a Pulitzer. I'm in a fix, since both infoboxes are restrictive against the other, so any and all suggestions would be welcome. I'm watching this page as well as the article (and my take page, of course), so comment where is best for you. Thanks! MarÃ­a ( habla con migo ) 17:18, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Zhou Tong (archer)
Someone put your project's banner on an article I've written, but never left a rating. The page is currently A-Class according to the China wikiproject, but as far as a biography, it's not very good. There is no other background information on this person besides his name and that he was the archery teacher of a famous Chinese general. There are plenty of folk legends that talk about him, but it's all fictional. (Ghostexorcist 20:41, 3 June 2007 (UTC))

Muhammad of Ghor
Can someone have a look at Muhammad of Ghor and offer some sort of intelligence to the editing? Thanks. --Nemonoman 23:27, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Lee Balkwell
Could someone look at this article. It appears to make claims (without inline references) about an ongoing murder enquiry and is possibly being used as an extension of a website that has a POV to push on the case. I'm not sure if this article should be improved or deleted, so I would appreciate someone with experience of biographies to take a look at it. MRSC â¢ Talk 09:56, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Priority vs importance, article vs person
I left a comment a day or two ago at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography/Assessment, but it may be of more general interest. Geometry guy 22:19, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Priority/Importance inactivated
It seems that the priority/importance parameter has been deactivated on the bio template. Why? TonyTheTiger (talk/cont/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 01:07, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't know. My guess would be that it would be incredibly difficult and possibly contentious if this one project were to as it were "pass judgement" on the comparative "importance" (or similar word) of people from all over the world. Also, I tend to think having maybe 10 to 20 thousand Top or High importance articles (maybe more) might scare some people away from trying to improve articles based on importance to this project, given the huge numbers involved. That's just a guess, though. John Carter 15:04, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Contentiousness is another reason for rating the importance of the article rather than the person. See my comments on the /Assessment talk page. Also note that ratings by a WikiProject give the importance of the article/person as viewed by that project. Different WikiProjects are entitled to give a different ratings, because importance is assessed in context. I can think of quite a few maths ratings where the Biography importance level is (and should be) lower than it is in the maths rating. Geometry guy 16:35, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Agreed. My apologies for my own inaccurate phrasing above. And, as indicated above, I guess some individuals might (erroneously) see that "importance" assessments be universal across the board, and might object to a given article's importance ranking. Lastly, I think one big question might be that a person who might be reviewing a biography of, say, a hugely notable leader of Bolivia might be a good biography assesser, but maybe not know enough about the history of a particular field to really even have a clue about the relative "importance" of that person's biography to the history of the subject's own particular field. I even hesitate to do a lot of importance assessments on Saints biographies, and at this point I am probably about as knowledgable in that general field as anyone else. The sheer scope of some fields makes making such "importance" rankings potentially not only problematic once made, but also possibly extremely difficult to make. John Carter 16:47, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

The Bus Uncle featured article review
The Bus Uncle has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here.

Biographies of living persons issues have been raised about the article, so I've been advised to put a notice here about the review. Please do add to the discussion. -- Jonel | Speak 14:07, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

People of British origin
I've noticed that people who originated from the United Kingdom overwhelmingly have their place of origin listed as one of the home nations (England, Scotland, Wales, N. Ireland). This is the only country I've seen it happen with - people from places like Spain or Italy that have their own subregions are listed from the overall state, not the region. Surely it violates NPOV to decide in this single case that the subregions are more important than the overal country? The Enlightened 11:12, 13 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I think any change here will only generate controversy. Many would argue that England, Scotland, Wales and N. Ireland are not subregions, but countries. They have their own parliaments, and Scotland has its own legal system. And here is the decisive factor: they have their own football teams :) Geometry guy 11:56, 13 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm sorry but this simply isn't the case. Only Scotland has its own parliament, and one which isn't even sovereign. The football team thing is a historical accident, and athletes compete as "British" in other sports. Besides, places like Catalonia have far more sub-government than Scotland. Its not for wikipedia to decide that the component parts of a state are more important than the state itself in this respect. It violates NPOV and is backing a political ideology represented by people like the Scottish Nationalists and the English Democrats. The Enlightened 10:52, 14 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I was being inaccurate for brevity &mdash; this is not an issue I care about (I am not a nationalist of any flavour!), but I just happened to be passing by and thought I would leave a friendly warning about potential controversy. However:
 * Wales has the Welsh Assembly, which is a parliament of sorts, but I guess you know that.
 * The football thing is not a historical accident, and in most team sports (rugby is another obvious example) the individual components of the UK have their own team. There would be a public outcry if these teams were merged.
 * You are completely right that it is not for wikipedia to decide whether component parts of a state are more or less important in any particular context than the state itself. Wikipedia should reflect common usage and perceptions, not ideology of any flavour.
 * I can assure you that you don't need to be a nationalist to regard the components of the UK as countries: it is a very common perception.
 * Refering to people from Northern Ireland as British is POV (and could get you into big trouble!).
 * If you want to press your case, I wish you luck! Geometry guy 12:33, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Proposed template mergers.
I have proposed that we merge Infobox Celebrity and Infobox Person (all the fields in the former are in the latter), and that we consider a further merge, into Infobox Biography. Please see discussion at talk:Infobox Person#Merge. Andy Mabbett 09:47, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Austin Nichols FAR
Austin Nichols has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here.Sandy Georgia (Talk) 23:35, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Bot request to standardise listas and DEFAULTSORT sortkeys
There is a current bot request and discussions to standardise listas and DEFAULTSORT sortkeys. For details and to add comments, please see User:Polbot/ideas/defaultsort and Bots/Requests for approval/Polbot 3. Thanks. Carcharoth 11:50, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Biography metadata on a subpage
A couple of other editors and myself have been working on the idea of storing infobox and other data on a subpage. The idea is currently being demonstrated at the article on Alexander Grothendieck. If you click in the "edit data" tag at the bottom of the infobox, you will be taken to Talk:Alexander Grothendieck/Persondata where these data are stored. In the article itself, has been replaced by a template in my user space which automatically transcludes the data from Talk:Alexander Grothendieck/Persondata.

The advantage of this approach is that these data are available for multiple uses. For example, one of the entries is the sortable form of Grothendieck's name. This is used in DEFAULTSORT, the Persondata template, and the listas parameter in. Indeed the (usually invisible) Persondata template at the bottom of the article is generated entirely by the subpage data.

Consequently, if any of the data are missing or incorrect, they only need to be added or corrected in one place. There is further discussion at Wikipedia talk:Persondata, but I thought this idea might be of more general interest to this Wikiproject. Is it of interest? Worth developing further? Geometry guy 13:57, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Sir Thomas Warner, 1st Baronet
I am assuming that it is a case of a good faith error of understanding but with effect from this edit http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sir_Thomas_Warner%2C_1st_Baronet&diff=next&oldid=105546587 the article seems to have moved from being about one person to another.

I do not have the knowledge of either subject nor of how to unravel the two people to sort it out. I suspect that there have been some things linked to the second bio written under the article title as well as there being things linked when it was regarding its first subject. And I assume there will be somebody here able to fix the mess. --Drappel 23:28, 14 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I have now separated this page and created a new page Sir Thomas Warner (explorer) and a disambig page, Thomas Warner to resolve the conflicting edits. I think this sorts out the problem and i have left comments on the relavant talk pages relating to the articles. Woodym555 14:52, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Article Importance - Tim Morgan
Forgive me if this is inappropriate procedure, but I would like to suggest that someone place an header on the Tim Morgan stub article, or even better yet, improve it so I can know how this man belongs in Wikipedia. I am posting here because I can get no response on the article's talk page (another sign it is abandoned and/or it's unimportant). I would do it myself, but I don't think that's appropriate since my bias is pretty obvious. Tim Morgan 14:50, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Done. John Carter 14:54, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Regarding the recent template change
Read this to familiarize yourself with the change: Template_talk:WPBiography

Here is my bot proposal that I will post on WP:BOTREQ in a day or two, please look over this and make any changes you see necessary.

==WikiProject Biography Comment Moving== In a recent change of our template, we have removed a message asking you to leave comments on your assessment in a /Comments subpage. However, we would like the comments to still be found. We need a bot to go through Category:Biography_articles_with_comments and visit every articles /Comments subpage. Then the bot should add the comments to the respective article's talk page under a section called: WikiProject Biography Assessment Comments. Then the bot should blank the /Comments subpage and put the page in Category:Biography articles with a comments subpage that needs deletion. An administrator or two will go through the category and delete the pages manually.

The red linked category will be created before I request the bot. If you have any comments or complaints about the bot proposal or the recent change, post them here. --Psy c <font color="ForestGreen">h <font color="DarkGreen">less  00:33, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I think you should wait for more discussion to develop at Template talk:WPBiography. There may be problems that no-one has thought of yet. I hust feel things are moving a bit too quickly here, and as I said over there, I would have preferred a proof-of-concept bot be programmed before the change was made to the template. Carcharoth 01:25, 13 June 2007 (UTC)


 * /Comments pages are used by multiple WikiProjects and facilitate communication. They have other advantages too (e.g., they don't get archived, and they can be transcluded on other pages). I don't understand the problem: adding comments isn't compulsory, but when adding or updating a Biography rating, isn't it a good idea at least to sign and date it, so that other editors know when the article was last assessed, and by whom? Typing four tildes doesn't take long! I have commented further at Template_talk:WPBiography. Geometry guy 11:53, 13 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I think this change has not been adequately aired, nor have objections raised above been addressed by the proponents of this change. Please see my comments on the Template talk page.Take care — Gosgood 01:26, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Karmichael Hunt
I have nominated Karmichael Hunt for Featured article status.

Featured article candidates/Karmichael Hunt

 SpecialWindler   talk  08:36, 21 June 2007 (UTC)