Hey all, does this seem odd to anyone? I noticed a similar inclusion at another article here. It just seems so bizarrely self-referential to point out that the article the person is reading has ranked on a popularity chart. @Saqib: You are welcome to discuss if you'd like to argue for its inclusion. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 05:17, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
Hi Cyphphoid. Yes, I have to agree that those statements are of dubious encyclopedic value, and this kind of navel gazing is usually discouraged for article content, though I don't think there is any one single policy that encapsulates community consensus on the matter (not that I can recall seeing anyway). However, note that this probably not the ideal forum to raise this issue on. Per WP:Advice pages, as well as longstanding community consensus that has been further codified in ArbCom cases, it's not really appropriate to create blanket rules for multiple articles on a WikiProject. So while the matter can certainly be discussed here, any actual changes to those articles will need to be made through the normal WP:Local consensus process on each article's respective talk page. Alternatively, if you do want to create a more general principle, I would suggest the ideal place to raise the question would be at one of the central community discussion spaces: WP:VPP and WP:CD usually host these kinds of discussion and present the best option for moving towards a policy WP:PROPOSAL if you gain enough consensus support. And even if you didn't wish to shepard a policy change through and just wanted to raise the issue with the community, those are still the best places, where process is most transparent and gets the broadest amount of feedback and community input. Snowlet's rap05:28, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
Looks like someone got hold of a newspaper list and added approximately the same sentence for each personality on the list. Search on "most read amongst Pakistani personalities" and you can see several more examples. I don't think it belongs in an encyclopedia article but I'm not sure it warrants some broader policy change. Glendoremus (talk) 18:40, 10 January 2017 (UTC)
Judy Garland
I have nominated Judy Garland for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Snuggums (talk / edits) 01:08, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
Cut and paste U.S. Representative bios
Thank all for reviewing some of my new bios directly created on Virginia Constitutional Convention delegates. Per the lack of response to the inquiry above, I have returned to the articles to update them by removing the “Unreviewed” tag when a reviewer removes them from the log, but not the tag.
I am confining my first pass of creating bios from red linked and undisambiguated names to those who served in the Virginia Assembly (Delegates or Senators) or U.S. Congress — and excluding those who are not mentioned in Pulliam or Brenaman, or who did not serve in any other public office than one convention. The only Chart of Delegates that I have completed a run through is the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1829-1830. Seven daughter articles of Virginia Conventions to go.
Note that there are many U.S. Representative bios that have one source, such as William P. Taylor before I added the Pulliam reference. Many of these use a subdivision named “External Links” instead of “Bibliography”, which I am correcting as I contribute a second source. Further, the text is copy-pasted from one source, the “Biographical Dictionary of the United States Congress, without making an inline footnote, so the “Harv warning”: There is no link pointing to this citation”.
— What is the coding format for correcting the Harv warning in an inline citation? I will be happy to add that contribution in my visits to the U.S. Representative bios who were delegates to Virginia Constitutional Conventions as I go. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 10:39, 31 December 2016 (UTC)
Though I wouldn't bother fixing these "errors". Only people with the User:Ucucha/HarvErrors userscript will see the error messages. The only "disadvantage" of having an unused hravid is that a HTML anchor will take you somewhere instead of nowhere. The error is probably best as indicative of a problem in the kind of articles that consistently use a harv citation style and have Bibliography sections with hundreds of entries: entries without incoming harv links should probably be moved a Further reading section or removed. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 03:35, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
I've taken to reading the Congressional Biographical Directory entries, then adding inline references to conform with wp:mos, add a "bioguide" webpage bibliography citation along with Pulliam, place an "External links" header at the earlier contribution, then updating the article status to "Start" class.
I have discovered Charles James Faulkner, member of the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1850 and Congressman from Virginia 1851-1861 is not his son Charles James Faulkner, Congressman and Senator from West Virginia. Both are featured in the Congressional Biographical Directory, but only the son appears on Wikipedia. I had thought to disambiguate the two by naming the elder's article, "Charles James Faulkner Sr.". What is the proper convention, can I have an assist on the Congressional info boxes, and how is the disambiguation page generated? TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 12:48, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
This page is about United States Senator from West Virginia. For his father, the nineteenth-century American politician, see Charles James Faulkner Sr.
I'd help you there too if I could, but I'm not an infobox expert. If no one responds here, maybe try the template:infobox talk page or Village pump? Kendall-K1 (talk) 19:05, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
This article was nominated for a GA Review back in June. The nominator has not edited Wikipedia since early November. I started a GA review on December 25th at Talk:Nizar Nayyouf/GA1 but I cannot proceed unless someone else steps in and works with me on editing the article per my Review and suggestions. Would welcome help on moving this article towards possible GA status. Shearonink (talk) 21:18, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
This image was taken in December 1968 and has been in the family's possession ever since (there is also a signed dedication on the back). I have found no instances of it ever having been published on the web (although I may be wrong).
What would be your advice? How can I go about correcting this mistake and having the pages linked above show a true image of ny great grandfather, instead of an image of his father? How can I "prove" that this is in fact an image of my great grandfather?
Hi all, what's the general attitude toward including birthdates from verified Facebook and Twitter accounts in articles? I can imagine that in most cases it would be no issue, but I've noticed a few examples over the years (Disha Patani being one of them) of Indian actresses getting younger as time goes on. While I'd imagine that in most cases it wouldn't be an issue to use the self-identification, I wonder if we'd not inadvertently become shills for the subject's promo team if we were to repeat as gospel whatever information comes out of a subject's verified social media outlet. Would we normally just re-print what the primary source says, or go only with what reliable sources say, or some combination of the two? Thoughts? Thanks, Cyphoidbomb (talk) 11:36, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
That's a good point about people who become younger over time. WP:BLPSELFPUB says that the content shouldn't be self-serving or of doubtful authenticity, so I think that you'd be justified in removing a citation to social media if you felt it failed either of those criteria. In general, I think social media is OK to source a DOB, but if there's any contention, it's probably best to just leave the field blank. If some "reliable source" reported my details incorrectly, I'd be pretty frustrated if Wikipedia repeated the incorrect info, and if I lied about my DOB, that probably means that I don't want it publicly known. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 12:29, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
I am wondering about the appropriateness of the recent addition of family members (albeit, notable individuals with their own articles) to {{Carrie Fisher}}. Feels wrong to me.— TAnthonyTalk17:47, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
@TAnthony: Sorry, this talk page isn't too active. You might try a more central location, like one of the Village Pumps. Personally, I'd probably say family members don't belong in nav boxes, but I don't know what the consensus – if any – is on such things. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 08:06, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
A person incarcerated for over a year: What should be put down as the residence?
Jared Fogle is incarcerated at FCI Englewood. One Wikipedian argued that Fogle should have his residence as his last city of residence, since he is expected to be released when his 15 years are up. I thought that a person incarcerated long-term should have the prison itself as his/her residence until his/her release. What do you think?
Note that in most cases, the Infobox criminal template shouldn't even be used for people whose fame or notoriety derives primarily from something other than their criminal activity (Fogle is, of course, widely known for his Subway commercials, above all else). But if one is going to use that template, I submit that it would be redundant to place the person's location of imprisonment in both the "residence" and "conviction status" sections. Thus, either one of those sections must be deleted from Fogle's infobox, or each section must contain differing data. Having said that, what does the Wikipedia community think? @WhisperToMe:Greggens (talk) 02:28, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
The first point's definitely on point for someone who had committed maybe a lesser crime and is still most widely thought of as their previous/most well known occupation (Say Lil' Kim or Martha Stewart and the like). Unfortunately for Fogle his controversy quickly and radically changed his reputation and in his case I'd say he is best known for being a criminal. WhisperToMe (talk) 02:32, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
That's still up for debate in the forum of public opinion; but either way, it does not answer the original question about how to list an incarcerated person's residence in the infobox. Greggens (talk) 04:59, 31 December 2016 (UTC)
I think you are probably right, but in any event we don't use our best guess as to what his main source of notability is, we use the WP:WEIGHT of the sources. But as Greggens said, this is a separate issue from the one he is raising here. As to that issue, Greggens, I wonder if you have considered a third option here, specifically just not listing a residence at all. I agree with you that it just manifestly inaccurate to list his residence as a city he may or may not return to after a lengthy incarceration. And yet, while the prison is the place he technically resides at, the noun "residence" has taken on a slightly more idiomatic meaning in English, such as to generally refer to the place one adopts and regards as a home, so I'm not sure the prison entirely fits either. Furthermore, it just makes more sense to me to note which prison the inmate is held at (if it's really necessary for an encyclopedic summary of the subject at all) in the context of discussing the crime and sentence in the main body of the article prose. Probably something that ought to be discussed via RfC at the article though, with just notices here and elsewhere pointing to it. Feel free to ping me if you would like me to repeat the substance of my take anywhere. Snowlet's rap05:48, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
The Federal Census considers a prisoner's residence to be the place where they are incarcerated. However, for various legal purposes, most states define a prisoner's residence as the last place they lived prior to incarceration. Seems like there's precedence to go either way. One approach would be to change label to Prior Residence and then use that. Glendoremus (talk) 06:45, 31 December 2016 (UTC)
@WhisperToMe: Seems like there's been no movement on that request? Do you have any notion of their backlog/response time for that particular template talk? Or might it be worth taking to a noticeboard or other central forum at this point (assuming you have not already done so)? I'm honestly not sure where that would be in this scenario, but WP:VPP (followed by a request at WP:VPT if you didn't want to tinker with the template itself), might serve if no better option presents itself. I marginally favour this suggested solution, not having seen it when I proposed avoiding the field altogether above. Snowlet's rap02:05, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
I've listed Trenyce for peer review. This article is about an American singer and actress best known as a finalist on the second season of American Idol and for her work in musical theatre. I would like to get this article to the level of a Good Article sometime in the future. This is the first time that I have worked on this time of article (something on a living person). I would greatly appreciate any help on this. Comments would be greatly appreciated, at Wikipedia:Peer review/Trenyce/archive1. Thank you in advance! Aoba47 (talk) 22:58, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
is something going on with the biography articles?
if you look at Category:Biography articles of living people
or
Category:Living people
the total numbers are going down rapidly even when the pages are refreshed in a 5 minute window [edit: actually seems to be happening even more frequently; going down a few every minute]...
At first I thought it was a bot clearing out incorrectly tagged articles… but now I wonder if it's more suspicious… perhaps some nefarious person or bot is blanking biography pages?
I just thought I would mention it…; thanks in advance,
Hi. Some of you will be aware of an ongoing issue of BLP articles created by Sander.v.Ginkel. The background at ANI can be found here. The discussion on the cleanup can be found here. In short, 16,000 BLP articles are being moved out of the mainspace to draftspace. This has already started following a Bot Approval. This should be complete in the next 48hrs or so. Articles will remain in draft for 90 days. In that time, they can be checked, and if OK, moved back to the mainspace. Anything not checked after 90 days will be deleted automatically.
So how can you help? The BLPs are broken down by occupational area. If an one of these interests you, please help. Even if it is checking one article. Check the article that has been moved to draft that a) it meets the notability requirement of the occupational area in question and b) that the facts in the article are supported by the sources. This includes, but is not limited to, the dates of birth, who they represented, when they were active, etc. If there are elements that can not be supported by the sources, they must be removed. If you are happy with the article, then move it back into the mainspace. DO NOT move anything until you have checked the sources, or supplied other reliable sources to support information in the article that may not already be cited. More information can be found here.
This is not going to be an easy task. I don't think there's too much support to check 16,000+ articles and I suspect that most of them will be gone after 90 days. If you have any questions, please raise them here. Thanks. LugnutsPrecious bodily fluids 11:49, 20 January 2017 (UTC) - note: Lugnuts' message posted on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography by --Tagishsimon (talk) 03:25, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
I would appreciate if someone more experienced with biography articles than I could take a look at this revision to Brian Skerry. It's a massive expansion of a fairly short biography, and while it's sourced it seems somewhat promotional in tone. I'm also concerned because the user may have a COI. Thanks, Pi.1415926535 (talk) 16:16, 26 January 2017 (UTC)
That sure does smell strongly of COI editing. A new editor's second edit is to drop in a complete new biography. It's not the most promotional bio I've ever seen but it reads more like something from a PR department than from a biographer. There are sources, but most are not independent, and not all the gushing rhetoric is supported by those sources. First step would be ask the author on his talk page whether he has a COI. And maybe take it to WP:COIN. Kendall-K1 (talk) 18:25, 26 January 2017 (UTC)
No assertion of notability, and no reliable sources provided. Unable to find any further reliable sources that could be added. Fails WP:GNG and WP:BIO.
You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
Title case or sentence case, depending on context. The biographies in question are modern, with mottoes in ecclesiastical Latin, so the nonexistence of minuscules in classical Latin is irrelevant. If sentence case is good enough for the official Catholic Latin-language bible [1] it should be good enough for us. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:36, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
In response to a question by RAN on my talk: The church uses title case e.g. at [2] and [3] so that's what I'd go with in these cases, rather than sentence case. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:50, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
Seriously? All Latin should be written in caps only? Or only classical Latin? How about old German--do we need to use Gothic type? At least for the past couple hundred years, Latin text has been reproduced pretty consistently in mixed case. I vote we stick to the plan. Glendoremus (talk) 06:36, 20 December 2016 (UTC)
All caps is fine for transcribing ancient epigraphy, but for sentences in ecclesiastical or modern Latin, that would be a millennium or two off the mark. – Uanfala (talk)11:26, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
Title or sentence case, depending on context, and usually sentence case unless what's given is multi-part proper name. Fewer and fewer RS even use all-caps for epigraphy, and when they do they do it in small-caps. In modern works, I rarely see this for anything other than fragmentary inscriptions such as found at archaeological digs of Romano-Celtic graves and shrines, and even there the intent is historico-linguistic, to indicate the exact characters found inscribed, not to represent the the inscription as a "work" or stone "manuscript". I.e., the symbols are being addressed as things unto themselves, not as conveyors of meaning. For this exact type of case under discussion (heraldic mottoes): They are conventionally given in title case regardless of language, I believe, but WP:HERALDRY should comment, and I've notified its talk page of this discussion. — SMcCandlish ☺☏¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 09:28, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Enquiry via OTRS:2017012510011167. Subjects are described as "British-Indian businessmen" - well they were born in India, but have no other Indian ties to them - they are descendants of Iraqi parents. I would normally tell the poster to fix it themselves, but as this is a BLP I don't want to get it reverted, because of some obscure guideline I might have missed. Any suggestions if this is correct or should be changed? Ronhjones (Talk)19:18, 29 January 2017 (UTC)
Finding sources
Many of you may already know about this, but if you do not, please feel free to utilize our Resource Exchange to receive access to non-free sources. The Resource Exchange allows you to post a request for a specific journal article, excerpt of a book, or other source. Volunteers who have access to these materials through research and educational institutions are able to provide digital copies of most sources. This is a great resource for when you find a helpful citation somewhere but are unable to locate a copy of the source itself. Let me know if you have any questions!
Please note that these resources are shared only for use creating or improving specific identified Wikipedia articles, and we cannot provide full book scans or excessive amounts of material beyond what is necessary to improve an article. ~ Rob13Talk11:45, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
Hello... I decided to come here since there is little attention on the talk page in question and there is evidence of some vandalism.
I work for Citi and there is a statement about one of our executives, (Deborah Chase Hopkins), that is a pretty gratuitous swipe: “Hopkins then moved to Lucent Technologies as Chief Financial Officer. Within 18 months, the company lost 75% of its market capitalization.”
The statement implies cause/effect where none exists. (She was at Lucent for only a year, to say nothing of 18 months.) Also, the claim is not supported by the facts or the reference cited. It really does amount to an attempt at a smear. What’s the best way to fix this?
Also, the statement that she returned home from Michigan State due to financial difficulties is untrue and not supported by the referenced article.
@TSSF: I looked at the WSJ source that's cited in the article, but it's paywalled. I'd probably raise that issue at WP:BLPN, a noticeboard set up to handle possibly libelous statements found in biographies. The sources you cite at the bottom of your post look like press releases. Press releases aren't forbidden, but they do have to be used with some degree of caution. They can turn an article fairly promotional. If you wanted to, you could use {{Request edit}} to suggest that those sources be added. That will alert volunteers who are hopefully experienced with the topic. I'm more familiar with editing articles about actors and musicians, but if you don't get an answer from anyone, post something on my user talk page, and I'll look at adding the press releases. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 01:07, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
If these two events are not tied together in some way by the sources, then stating them together like this is prohibited by WP:SYNTH. I'll take a look. The rules are different for BLPs, so I would discuss this at WP:BLPN. Kendall-K1 (talk) 01:10, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
@Kendall-K1: -- Thanks for your help in the article, Kendall-K1. I think you greatly improved the article. One item, though: The article implies that Lucent’s troubles were due to Deborah’s work as CFO and was the reason she was fired. The two are concurrent, but not necessarily causal—a lot was going on around that time. Would you consider re-evaluating that statement? -- TSSF (talk) 00:02, 4 February 2017 (UTC)
User:Richardcheese2 is actively editing a number of articles under a conflict of interest. I'm not sure how to handle this properly - can someone please help out?
Hello Slashme -- Please don't be concerned, I am Mark Jonathan Davis and I am the creator of Richard Cheese. If you want to email me for verification, my email address is rc at richardcheese.com. Thank you. Richardcheese2 (talk) 12:32, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
@Richardcheese2: The problem isn't that I doubt that you're Richard Cheese: it's that Wikipedia is particularly vigilant when authors with a conflict of interest edit Wikipedia. Being the subject of an article is a severe conflict of interest, and we strongly advise Wikipedians against writing about themselves. I've dropped a few notes on your talk page about that topic. --Slashme (talk) 12:38, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
Hi, I'm Raffaella, media relations at EY. There is an edit request on CEO Mark Weinberger's Talk page, where I suggested a handful of simple, non-controversial changes. These are basic proposed edits to correct important details and bring the article's headings in line with other biographies. I will soon create another request to add a photo to the article, too. Can editors here assist? Thanks, RS at EY (talk) 18:42, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
The editor seems to have given too much credit to the the famous classical treatise (The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons), which supposedly inspires the way how Wang describes his study. However, it is reasonable to doubt whether the treatise is the only source that influences how Wang describes the style of his academic accomplishments. The treatise is “a highly influential work on Chinese literary aesthetics” , whose name suggests its emphasis on literary professionalism and delicacy. In traditional Chinese culture, the carve work requires elegant crafts and techniques, and carving a dragon is, without doubt, a time-consuming and highly professional work. On the other hand, the idiom“carving the warm” comes from an old story in Tang Dynasty when a person describes his limited, insignificant skills to carve the letters on the script(“warm” actually referred to the “bird-warm seal script). Later on, the phrase “carve the worm” is used to describe work without insignificant skills or minor accomplishments. Wang wrote a book called “龙(dragon)虫(warm)并(together)雕(carve)斋琐(trivial)语(talk)”, which is a collection of the prose he wrote during the war time. Wang used the phrase “carve the warm”to humbly refer to the stories he wrote that talk about the life, such as memories between his friends and him, reflection on people and the society, and some personal and emotional rumination. These works seems to be much less academically rigid, but are actually quiet profound, as he incorporated wisdom and knowledge into experience.
This paragraph might have overlooked the importance of Wang’s work (the prose collection mentioned above) that actually is a very strong representation of his work as “popular essays” (the editor’s original words). If the editor mentions the treatise which the name of Wang’s prose collection draws from, he or she should have mentioned the actual work “龙(dragon)虫(warm)并(together)雕(carve)斋琐(trivial)语(talk)”.
Eleanorge (talk) 05:31, 10 February 2017 (UTC)Eleanor ge
GA Reassessment
Stefanie Rabatsch, an article that you or your project may be interested in, has been nominated for a community good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Chris Troutman (talk)01:23, 15 February 2017 (UTC)
Bot-maintained list of red-linked entries at Deaths in 2017
Belle S. Spafford was nominated for a WP:GA in August 2016, I am Reviewing it for possible GA status and it is now "On Hold". Please see the Review page for issues that need to be corrected and adjusted before I can finish my Review. Shearonink (talk) 15:37, 16 February 2017 (UTC)
Here's the list of the sources I found that might be helpful as resources to add on to Wang Li's page:
1. A very detailed documentary of Wang Li, put up together by more than fifty scholars in the related area, including Wang Li's students, colleagues in universities and family members. The documentary consists interviews of Wang Li's students and family members, pictures of him and his works, etc. Link of the video: https://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNTU5MzkwNjk2.html------This documentary contains a lot of secondary resources about Wang Li's life and works. I hope to translate some of the useful information and use it in the biography
2. A detailed (but selected) written transcription (not exactly a transcription but contains lot of overlapping information) of the documentary from a Chinese newspaper that introduces Wang Li. http://book.sina.com.cn/news/c/2013-09-06/1457532708.shtml
Hi all. Just to let you know that there's now a page at User:Mike Peel/Guardian obits that tracks recent obituaries published by The Guardian, including matching them to possible Wikipedia articles, and fetching corresponding Wikidata links/dates of birth and death. It will be updated daily by my bot. I'm mentioning it in case it's of interest to anyone here. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 23:04, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
Help with Randal J. Kirk biography
Hi there, I'm looking for editors interested in biography articles to help improve Randal J. Kirk, the biotech investor and CEO of Intrexon. Mainly, I'm looking to improve the article's readability and reduce WP:NPOV issues. For the full details, you can see my edit request, but in short, the structure of the article is not standard for biographies and there are details included that strike me as not being encyclopedic, and are potentially promotional.
As disclosure, I do have a financial conflict of interest with this topic, as I am here as part of my work at Beutler Ink, consulting on behalf of Randal J. Kirk via Hill+Knowlton Strategies. As such, I do not intend to make any edits to the live article and hope other editors can review and make the changes they feel are appropriate. Thanks in advance! 16912 Rhiannon (Talk · COI) 20:43, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
Hello, I found that biography - that existed way before its Italian counterpart to be honest - and I have to say that it doesn't say much on the topic.
Since I have collected several sources on that businessman and have been building from zero an article on it.wiki, I guess that there's material enough for you to work on, I'm sure that there's someone here who can read Italian. Regards, -- SERGIOaka the Black Cat18:19, 3 March 2017 (UTC)
According to listing on page 88 its states that Daniel Finch, 2nd Earl of Nottingham, , 7th Earl of Winchilsea was First Lord of the Admiralty in 1741 and again in 1757, however in the First Lord of the Admiralty it lists the 8th Earl of Winchilsea. I am no expert but when reading the Debrett's section it appears that this article Thomas Finch, 2nd Earl of Winchilsea eldest son of the Elizabeth Finch, 1st Countess of Winchilsea has been named wrong he was the 1st Earl [1] which now affects all succeeding articles requesting further investigation from someone more qualified to double check. --Navops47 (talk) 04:50, 8 March 2017 (UTC)
Mystery initials to decipher: "IA ’43, MBA 2/’47, DCS ’58"
Hello. I am working on Stephen H. Fuller. On this webpage, it says, "IA ’43, MBA 2/’47, DCS ’58." I get that he earned a master in business administration in 1947, but does anyone know what IA and DCS stand for please? Also, 2/'47? What is 2? Please ping me when you reply. Thank you.Zigzig20s (talk) 10:59, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
IA is international affairs (hence the visiting professorship named for him at Ohio University's Center for International Studies). The date seems to be wrong, though. These two primary sources say he finished his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1941:
Hi, please comment at this RfC on Napoleon Hill. [4]. The article does not receive much traffic and is in need of comment. Thanks. SW3 5DL (talk) 15:38, 14 March 2017 (UTC)
Hi all. I'd like to invite you to participate in the Wikimedia Movement Strategy discussions, about our movement's overall goals, "What do we want to build or achieve together over the next 15 years?". It's currently in the first stage, of broad discussion. There are further details in the related metawiki pages (FAQ, lists of other simultaneous communities' discussions, etc). (Also, if you're interested in helping facilitate and summarize the discussions here, and to bring back here the summaries of what the other communities are discussing, please let me know. Thanks. :) Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 00:43, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
RfC Donald Trump talk regarding LGBT rights
Hi, please comment on this RfC here regarding whether or not to include a section on LGBT rights in the Domestic Policy section of the Donald Trump article. Thank you. SW3 5DL (talk) 01:39, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
April events at Women in Red
Welcome to Women in Red's
April 2017 worldwide online editathons.
Participation is welcome in any language.
Hi, I've posted some suggestions for improving Rick Bergman on the article's Talk page. The proposed updates include infobox improvements, removing a non-notable "Media coverage" section, and combining three small career-related sections into a more coherent narrative. All the changes are fully detailed and sourced. I have a COI—I work for a communications firm that represents Bergman's employer, Synaptics—so I won't be editing the article myself. I'd be grateful if someone else could take a look and offer feedback. Thank you! Mary Gaulke (talk) 19:32, 31 March 2017 (UTC)
"written like a resume"
User:Bri added "This biographical article is written like a résumé." tags to Stuart Popham and Horacio D. Rozanski. I would tend to disagree; they are biographical stubs, but a resume wouldn't have full sentences or a chronological order for example. In any case, is there a way to fix this please? I don't find the tags particularly constructive because they highlight a problem without fixing it.Zigzig20s (talk) 17:26, 31 March 2017 (UTC)
You should follow Wikipedia:Dispute resolution, just as you would for a content dispute. Your first step is to discuss the issue on the article talk page, and see if you can come to an agreement with the other editor. Unlike content disputes, I don't normally revert addition of tags while the discussion is in progress; otherwise the process is very similar. Kendall-K1 (talk) 18:27, 31 March 2017 (UTC)
It's not a personal matter. This just happened to these two articles but is bound to happen to more articles. Thus it is relevant to this WikiProject.Zigzig20s (talk) 18:39, 31 March 2017 (UTC)
Only use "resume" tags for articles that actually look like a resume (e.g. date > position. No sentences, etc.) and accept that these are stubs; possibly try to expand them. But we haven't banned stubs--we need to bear that in mind.Zigzig20s (talk) 18:48, 31 March 2017 (UTC)
No, I mean what do you want those of us who follow WikiProject Biography to do about it? I thought you were asking for advice, but apparently you want some kind of policy change? Kendall-K1 (talk) 21:12, 31 March 2017 (UTC)
Either remove the tags or ban all biographical stubs (good luck). The current tags seem undue. There also appears to be some confusion: "what importance is he to an encyclopedia?" on Popham's talkpage suggests a possible AFD, but not a resume tag. I don't see how an AFD would be successful given the number of RS about him.Zigzig20s (talk) 06:49, 1 April 2017 (UTC)
"is the Nth president" implies " is currently president"?
Does saying "Kabetate is the 7th President of Dokoka" indicate clearly that he is the current president of Dokoka? If so, "current" should be removed from a lot of current leaders' articles as superfluous. (Relevant discussions: hereSiuenti (talk) 00:09, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
Mentioning "current" looks generally superfluous, and discouraged by MOS:CURRENT. The "7th and current" phrasing for political leaders probably evolved out of habit. Any perceived ambiguity can be elegantly removed by adding "in office since August 2014". A former president should be designated for example as "a Syldavian politician who served as the 18th president from 1956 to 1962". — JFGtalk00:49, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
In this context, the word "current" is acceptable for two main reasons. First, if the page is regularly updated, then MOS:Current does not cause any problem, because that MOS starts out with the words "Except on pages updated regularly...." The second main reason why the word "current" is okay in this context is because we're not talking here about the weather which changes every day. People in political office typically serve for years. If, despite these two main reasons, people still feel uncomfortable with the word "current" then the word "incumbent" is a possible alternative which has a similar meaning but will not raise as many eyebrows (because we don't have an MOS:INCUMBENT). And, yes, the sentence "Kabetate is the 7th President of Dokoka" is a proper statement about a living person, but is ambiguous about whether s/he is still in office.Anythingyouwant (talk) 01:02, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
'Incumbent' is already in the infobox and there is no need for it to be inserted into Ad Orientem's sentence. There is also no need for "in office since. . ." because "assumed office January 2017" is also in the infobox. The infobox is there for a reason and repeating everything in the infobox defeats the purpose of having it. As for the example above, there is no ambiguity in "The 7th and current president." This sentence: "Syldavian politician who served as the 18th president from 1956 to 1962," sounds like everybody who becomes president of Dokoka takes a turn serving as the 18th president. "Syldavian politician. . ." is bad from the start. Name the subject directly. "Kabetate is the 7th president of Dokoka, and was in office from 1956 to 1962." "was" is the past tense of 'to be' and makes it very plain he's no longer the president, while at the same time, it makes clear that he is, and always will be, the 7th president of Dokoka. SW3 5DL (talk) 04:23, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
OK, it seems that in your view "he always will be the 7th president", so the phrase "is the 7th president" will still be true after he leaves office and doesn't particularly imply he is in office right now. Siuenti (talk) 05:25, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
Since "is" is is the present tense of the verb "to be," saying someone is the Nth president is saying they are the current president. Although saying they are the current president is redundant, it is not grating. Compare with "was the Nth president and is a former president." TFD (talk) 04:38, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
WP:MOSBIO#Tense suggests we use present tense for people who are still living. This would suggest either "is the 42nd President" or "is the former 42nd President". The latter seems wrong so I would use the former. Kendall-K1 (talk) 11:46, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
To a non-American it seems a completely valueless piece of information. What importance does anyone actually attach to this? AnthonyCamp (talk) 17:56, 2 April 2017 (UTC).
{e/c} This thread doesn't even belong here as it is referring to a specific article where the OP has already opened two threads on that talk page. Yet, OP has not participated in a thread that seeks to solve the very dilemma he posts here. Not sure if posting here was an attempt at seeking others to comment on his proposal? SW3 5DL (talk) 18:24, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
Is there something specific about Donald Trump that makes him different from other leaders such as Mr Kabetate? Siuenti (talk) 18:32, 2 April 2017 (UTC) and which thread, if you don't mind? Siuenti (talk) 18:33, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
As I said, if "currently" can be understood, we can take superfluous words out of the lead sentences of a lot of article. The lede sentence is where it's most important not to waste words. Siuenti (talk) 18:22, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
Hi, I uploaded a photo of Mark Weinberger, EY Global Chairman and CEO, to Wikimedia Commons. The file name is File:Mark Weinberger at the EY World Entrepreneur of the Year 2016.png. Can an editor add it to the infobox at Mark Weinberger?
A brief history: The photo was originally added to the page by NinjaRobotPirate, but it was deleted after Justlettersandnumbers requested suitable permission to OTRS. I have sent permissions through OTRS and the photo has been restored in Wikimedia Commons.
In a separate edit request, I am asking editors to consider changing "Ernst & Young" in the introduction to say EY, formerly known as Ernst & Young to reflect the company's current name.
On behalf of David Trone and Hickman Analytics, I have submitted a draft article about this American businessman as part of my work at Beutler Ink. Given my conflict of interest, I will not publish the article to the main space and ask independent editors to review this draft for accuracy, neutrality, and verifiability. Is there a WikiProject Biography member who will help move the draft into the main space? Thanks for your consideration. Inkian Jason (talk) 16:45, 15 March 2017 (UTC)
I have had to revert unreferenced content/a potential BLP violation twice from this article I created. Could someone please protect it?Zigzig20s (talk) 19:47, 8 April 2017 (UTC)
Thanks. I do think the article needs to be expanded, but obviously any expansion needs to be fully referenced!Zigzig20s (talk) 21:18, 8 April 2017 (UTC)
Proposed Change to the Template:Infobox Christian Leader
I would like to add the parameter "retired" to the Template "Infobox Christian Leader". When active Catholic bishops reach the age of 75, with few exceptions, they are required to submit their resignation to the Vatican, whereby they become a Bishop Emeritus. The parameters "term_start/term_end" address the start/end of a tenure at a diocese, but not whether he has retired or not (e.g. he could be moved into some administrative position).
Roberto221 (talk) 18:34, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
I have corresponded with Susie Lewis on Twitter and she has requested the following edits:
1. Remove "sometimes credited as Susie Lewis Lynn" as this is incorrect.
2. Modify credits: Producer on at least 40 episodes of Daria, and also was credited as a Creative Supervisor on those episodes as well.
3. For The Head - was not credited as Susie Lynn Lewis, and did not play herself.
4. Included the following list from her records:
DOCUMENTARY, DOCU-REALITY, & TALK •Supervising Producer, Sea Rescue – Seasons 4 & 5 (ABC Television/MTO Productions/Litton Entertainment), 2016 EMMY for Outstanding Children’s Series, May 2014 - October 2015 •Producer/Writer, TakePart Live – Season 1 (Pivot) – 2014 •Executive Producer, Icons (G4 Networks) - 2001 – 2003 MUSIC, NEWS, & ENTERTAINMENT STUDIO SERIES •Producer/Supervising Producer, AXSLive – Season 1 (AXS TV) – 2012 - 2013 •Senior Producer, The Seven (MTV Networks) - 2011 •Executive Producer, Hip Hop Shop (Fuse) – 2008 - 2010 •Executive Producer, Let it Rock (Fuse) – 2008 - 2010 •Executive Producer, Fuse On Tour (Fuse) – 2008 - 2010 •Executive Producer, Black Eyed Peas: Then & Now (Fuse) – 2010 •Executive Producer, Green Day: 21st Century Breakdown (Fuse) – 2010 •Executive Producer, The Artist Chronicles (Fuse) – 2010 •Executive Producer, Arena (G4 Networks) - 2001 – 2003 •Executive Producer, Cheat! (G4 Networks) - 2001 – 2003 •Executive Producer, Filter (G4 Networks) - 2001 – 2003 •Executive Producer, Pulse (G4 Networks) - 2001 – 2003 SCRIPTED SERIES & ANIMATION •Co-Creator & Producer, Daria – Seasons 1 – 4 (MTV Animation) - 1995 – 1999 •Casting & Voice Director, Aeon Flux (MTV Animation) - 1995 •Casting & Voice Director/Producer, The Maxx (MTV Animation) - 1995 •Co-Producer & Voice Director, Beavis & Butt-Head (MTV Animation) - 1993-1996 LIVE MUSIC SPECIALS & SERIES •Coordinating Producer, Country Music Television Awards (CMT) - 2006 •Coordinating Producer, MTV Video Music Awards for Latin America (MTVLA) - 2006 •Producer, http://Farmclub.com – Season 1 (USA Networks) - 1999-2001 GAME SHOWS •Executive Producer, You Rock, Let’s Roll – Season 1 (Fuse) - 2009 - 2010 •Senior Supervising Producer, Take The Cake – Season 1 (BET/Endemol) - 2007 •Producer, Midnight Money Madness – Season 1 & 2 (TBS/Endemol) - 2006 - 2007
"As far as personal info - I was born and raised in Oceanside, New York. I went to Temple University in Philadelphia PA on a gymnastics Division 1 scholarship. I have lived and worked in West Hollywood, CA since 1999, however I moved back to NY in 2008 for a Development gig at Fuse TV for a few years."-Personal Twitter message 4/3
I'm not sure if messages on twitter from the person themselves are acceptable as a source citation.
The relevant guideline is WP:BLPSELFPUB. If it's possible to verify the Twitter account belongs to her, it could be used for some of the above info. You would not use it as a source to include the entire list of credits, as that's unduly self-serving. The information she wants removed, I would check the cited sources (if any) and if they don't say that, it should be removed immediately per WP:BLPSOURCES. Kendall-K1 (talk) 13:22, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
Probably not notable?
I came across this article the other day, Günter Bechly, while he was a paleoentomologist that did a significant amount of work with Odonates, Im pretty sure he doesn't meet the notability criteria, and the article was almost entirely created by the subject himself. Also a majority of the article is referenced to his personal website, not a Reliable source at all, and there is now a conflict of interest as he is no longer active as a museum affiliate, but is now a member of the Discovery Institute. Is someone familiar with the process able to take this and stub or nom for deletion?--Kevmin§ 15:22, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
@Peter coxhead, FunkMonk, Plantdrew, and Casliber: thoughts? (cross posted from WP:Paleontology).--Kevmin§14:48, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
The problem I run into as a total lack of secondary sources that make mention of Bechly, which is a major requirement for BLP articles as I understand it.--Kevmin§15:12, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
I'm not really sure what to do. I think the notability standards for WP:ACADEMIC are pretty strict (far stricter than for football players), and when it comes to taxonomists, aren't really followed in practice. There are tons of articles on taxonomists that wouldn't pass; I don't see Bechly as less notable than many others. Having the subject create the article is a problem. Yu Ito is another taxonomist with a self created article; probably not really notable, but what about his colleague Nobuyuki Tanaka? Yu Ito didn't create article for Tanaka, but did contribute to it.
An underlying issue is that taxon articles tend to have information added in the following order: first, unlinked authority in taxobox; second, linked authority in taxobox; third, article body mentioning who described the taxon. As long as taxobox authority links are relatively prevalent, there's incentive to create articles on not very notable taxonomists. Plantdrew (talk) 16:39, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
The notability standards at WP:ACADEMIC don't account very well for taxon authors or taxonomists with species named after them. My view is that Bechly is notable for these reasons. His views on intelligent design are not notable, beyond a sentence perhaps. Nor are his family notable. So if the article is reduced I think it will be ok. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:50, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
Fortunately you aren't actually edit warring yet, but I would stop there because this can get you blocked. But you are right that a shopping web site is not RS. I will revert and watchlist the article. Kendall-K1 (talk) 12:13, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
Actually I take that back. This person (who I have never heard of) is apparently still living, which makes it a BLP issue. So go ahead and revert if it happens again. Kendall-K1 (talk) 12:20, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
Amb. Robert A. Mandell
Hello, all. I've posted an edit request for assistance on the Robert A. Mandell article. The current article is fairly short and a bit haphazard. My draft expands on Mr. Mandell's life, career and ambassadorship while cleaning up existing content, and overall I believe is a better Wikipedia article. The reason I'm here asking for another editor to review and consider implementing it is because I am working on behalf of Mr. Mandell, as I've disclosed on the article's discussion page. Please let me know if you have any questions at all. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 14:20, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
Should we stop classifying "songs by artist" categories by genre?
I'm not sure where else to discuss this, so I'll just post here and see what happens. Very often, when viewing a category for songs by a particular artist, you will see genre categories. For example, Category:Lady Gaga songs is a subcategory of Category:Electropop songs. But not all of the songs in the Lady Gaga category are electropop songs. Certainly "The Lady Is a Tramp" isn't electropop.
I uploaded a full draft of an updated and expanded Mark Weinberger article in my user space. Perhaps members of WikiProject Biography are interested in reviewing it. Disclosure: I have a WP:COI as I work in media relations at Mr. Weinberger's company EY, so I created an edit request on the article discussion page.
The article is currently marked {{third party}} because it relies too much on primary sources. It is my hope that my draft fixes that. It can be reviewed at once, or piece-by-piece. You can reach out to me here or on the Mark Weinberger Talk page if you have questions. Thanks, RS at EY (talk) 10:50, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
Opening sentences like "Joe Bob is an American used car salesman and reality television star"
I was just looking at our article on John P. Meier and wondered why it listed him as an American Roman Catholic priest and biblical scholar, when he is notable as a biblical scholar, not as a Roman Catholic priest (there are thousands of Catholic priests). I considered just inverting them to put the piece of information that's most important for our encyclopedia article before the career information -- I'm not even sure that if you asked him what his job was he would say "priest", since he lectures at Notre Dame in his capacity as a scholar, not a priest.
But I thought there might be some technical reason it is written as it is that I might be missing, so figured I'd ask here. The talk page has essentially no watchers, and has been posted to twice in six years, so I didn't think I'd get much traction there, and it's more of a general question about biographical articles anyway.
I would go with what mosbio says: "The lead sentence should describe the person as he or she is commonly described in reliable sources. The notable position(s) or role(s) the person held should usually be stated in the opening paragraph." In this case there aren't a lot of independent sources cited, but the ones we have describe him as scholar or professor, not priest. So I would at least invert it, or even remove "priest" from the first sentence. Kendall-K1 (talk) 03:48, 2 May 2017 (UTC)
Free accounts for Who's Who (Bloomsbury) now available
Since when has the Bloomsbury version of Who's Who—in which the entries are written by the article subjects—been remotely appropriate as a source for Wikipedia (except using the tortured grammar of "according to her autobiography in Who's Who she describes herself as…")? WW is the kind of source we routinely remove when we see people using it as a source. ‑ Iridescent20:11, 2 May 2017 (UTC)
Women are murderers, men are traitors?
A number of women in the United Kingdom were burned at the stake for treason, usually petit treason for killing their husbands and sometimes their master, and are referenced in their articles as murderers instead of traitors. (See Burning of women in England.) Female traitors were burned alive--male traitors were hanged drawn and quartered, and both male and female murderers were simply hanged.
Male traitors do not seem to be referred to as murderers in their bios, even though murder was a core component of their treason, whereas many of these female traitors are referred to primarily as murderers in their article introduction. What is the WP:BIO standard for calling people murderers where they were never accused of, much less convicted for, murder?
I think its important to be clear in bio articles that these women were not burned alive because they murdered someone, they were burned alive because they committed treason. And that treason was that they killed their husband. Murder at common law has certain defenses like "he was going to murder me", whereas petit treason does not. When murder charges are never laid against a defendant, they would not even be allowed to say "because he was going to murder me", because that is not a defense against a charge of treason. int21h (talk · contribs · email) 05:32, 3 May 2017 (UTC) int21h (talk · contribs · email) 05:44, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
Sorry, this just isn't true; when you say Female traitors were burned alive--male traitors were hanged drawn and quartered, and both male and female murderers were simply hanged you're conflating petty treason with high treason, while When murder charges are never laid against a defendant, they would not even be allowed to say "because he was going to murder me", because that is not a defense against a charge of treason just isn't true; as the article you link makes clear, the defence of provocation ("he was going to murder me") was always available in petty treason cases. ‑ Iridescent08:39, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
Can you give some examples? And is there some reason not to just say what the reliable sources say? This sounds like WP:OR to me. Kendall-K1 (talk) 11:13, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
Resolved
