Portal talk:Biography/Archive 1

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Archive This page is an archive. Please do not edit the contents of this page. Direct any additional comments to the current talk page.

Contents

Misc

Things you can do to help the Biography portal:

  • Play with it untill you cant fix it anymore. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Winkepledia (talk • contribs) 20:00, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Change it any way you'd like to make it better.
I just resized the boxes, cause they were overlapping a lot (on my screen). Weren't they on your screen or are the instruction unclear or is there another reason?--MarSch 17:30, 20 May 2005 (UTC)
They weren't on my scren, but it still looks fine to me, so your changes are good. I had done very little modification from the portal skeleton, so I don't know why it looked bad on your screen. perhaps you should check to see if the other portals look ok and if not, then maybe mentioning it to someone. Matt 22:41, 20 May 2005 (UTC)
  • Create or edit On this day... pages found at Template:Biography portal/OnThisDay/Month_Day (e.g. May_19)
  • I would definitely like to see a toolbox of templates and Wiki conventions for writing biographies GSchjetne 16:07, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Is it just me or is this page missing a links to Biography by alpha list? I cannot find any reasonable way to get to that from here Jakking 22:54, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Title of Featured Article

Why isn't the title of the featured article a link to the article itself, just like on the mainpage? I changed it for the Benjamin Franklin article. Mystman666 13:46, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Actually make that intended to change that. (seems the changes aren't immediatly applied to the page?). Still, I think that making this portal more consistent with the main page isn't a bad idea. Mystman666 13:49, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

You usually have to purge the cache to see changes to the portal boxes.--cj | talk 14:02, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

academic genealogies

I may have just not found it or it may have already died... but... has anyone started looking into a sort of academic genealogy tree project within the Wikipedia environment? I know there are independent projects/databases run by some Universities but that is usually very limited and not searchable/updateable through the web. Collaborations welcome!

I am a scientist/science historian but can't do the software (maybe like Wikitree?). Given a development of a code of conduct and some sets of rules (sources to be rigorously trackable, what constitutes a student-mentor tie (PhD?)) I could see this to be a very useful encyclopedic tool. While sifting through orbituaries and books for an article about a German chemist of the 1800's I found that the information on who did his PhD where was usually retained in the sources about the students, not in the sources about the mentor. An on-line tool would even out that gap (e.g., I want to know who studied with (name)).

--Carboxen 22:17, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Dabbing "French"

User talk:Deville has been using a robot to disambiguate "French" to "French people" instead of the standard "France". Has there been a change of policy? All other countries bio references disambig to the country article, not to the (in many cases rather crappy) "people" articles. This is especially concerning re the French people article because it is so controversial.--Mais oui! 05:31, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

My feel toward that is that for some cultural or language-group adjectives such as French, English, and German, a clear disambiguation exists: The Québécois surely speak French and are French, but not citizens of France. the same could be said for the Austrians (they don't speak Austrian, they speak German), or the Americans, who speak English but are not from Britain. French People takes the Québécois into account and is thus more accurate. It makes much more sense! And if the convention does not allow for that then it is not a good convention and needs adjusting - or do you want to be called a citizen of the UK even though you are American? So far my humble opinion. Carboxen 00:57, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Birthplaces and Deathplaces at beginning?

I've noticed that at least the French and German Wikipedias, on any biography article, give the birthplace and deathplace at the beginning of the article, rather than merely the year of birth and death. That is, they give it of the form "Billy Bob Williams (born December 12, 1969 in Hicksville, Alabama; died November 6, 2003 in Gator's Creek Georgia)". English Wikipedia articles of course, give those places somewhere in the article, but not at the very beginning like that. Why isn't that a standard for the English Wikipedia? Or even better, why is it a standard for those other Wikpidias? (I tried asking on the German one, but they just directed me to tutorials that tell you that it must be done, but not why.) MrVoluntarist 05:16, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

I always liked that style too. Its the Encyclopedia Britannica style. I have to search to find where someone is born or died, and sometimes its not in the biography. Sometimes the death place isn't in the last paragraph, its in the last sentence of the first paragraph. I guess its too late to change. Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 04:14, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
While convenient for its specific purpose, I find the birth and death places distracting from the primary goal of showing the lifespan of the person. It leads to blurs such as (January 17, 1901 in Kyiv, Ukraine (then Kiev, Russian Empire)-December 27, 1986 in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina (then Yugoslavia)) ...and I think I've seen worse.
Maybe it works better in French and German, but I have to agree with the guidelines under WP:DATE. I often dive in and rework openings to the WP:DATE standard.
That being said, I am careful to keep the information in the article. Infoboxes handle it best, but I often find the information is repeated in the text, anyway. Where it is not, I add it clearly in chronological order, usually under "Early life" and "Death"—then it's findable in the TOC. -- Yamara 14:47, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Missing middle names, only initial

I have a wikiproject: Wikipedia:Wikiproject Middle Name to store names where I can't find the person's middle name. Perhaps someone with better skills can find them. Add your name when you find the missing name, and add new names as you write biographys, or edit old ones. A lot of disambiguation is solved with the addition of the missing name Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 04:17, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Good biographies

I have set up a category for biographies designated WP:GA. Maurreen 22:27, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Release version work

I am interested in working on high-importance biographies toward a release version of WP. Is anyone interested in helping with this? Maurreen 20:08, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Bernhard Heitz (Freiburg, Germany, October 1, 1962)

Bernhard Heitz, born October 1, 1962 in freiburg germany, suffered extensive burns of second, third and fourth degrees after a plane crash in nothern British Columbia, Canada on June 2, 1997. After a two year rehabilitation period he was co-founder in 1999 of the German based burn support organization Phoenix Deutschland (http://www.phoenix-deutschland.de). In 2002 he was sinstrumental in realizing the World Burn Foundation (http://www.burnsurvivorsonline.com). The World Burn Foundation has offices in Los Angeles (USA), Leipzig (GER), Johannesburg (RSA), Edmonton (CND), London (ENG), Sydney (AUS).

Project

Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography is re-energized and discussing core bios and task forces. Maurreen 04:56, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Indeed. The arts/entertainment task force has been created. Voting is still happening on the others. Michael 05:48, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Now accepting nominations

for selected article! Go here to nominate and/or vote! plange 05:49, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Meaning of Nationality in Categories

Not sure about the use of Category:Nationalities by occupation. For instance I found Shai Agassi been categorized as American entrepreneur though he is Israeli and Chief Executive of a German company, been only for some years CEO of an American Company. But as far as I know hasn't attended American nationality.

So my question. What is more important: Nationality or location of business?--Peter Eisenburger 14:45, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

My opinion is, that in today's day and age of globalization, such distinctions are often fading among people of public exposure/interest - especially for artists, scientists, managers. For instance, for cases or people who live for >10-15 years in a country different from their citizenship, like the Canadian artist in the US, the American engineer in Germany, the said CEO of a company in the US, this definitely needs to be addressed.
I have no problem calling somebody living and working in the US in occupation XY an American XY-ist or so, irrespective of nationality/citizenship. However, for some people that only works one way: Americans are more accepting to calling people in their country Americans irrespective of citizenship, but are probably more reluctant to do so for their own kin abroad (is the American businessman in Dubai an Arab businessman?). All should be treated by the same standard here. Carboxen 00:42, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Guidelines for biographies

I've just signed up for Wikipedia:WikiProject_Biography and will be keeping a close eye on this portal and its associated pages. Are there any specific guidelines regarding biographies that are not obvious? – I haven't seen anything mentioned anywhere.

I also notice that lists of biographies linked from here have no mention of many that I have created or contributed to, so obviously this is not an automatic process. Can someone clarify the procedure for listing, please?

Many thanks – Agendum 07:44, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

The guidelines are on the Biography WikiProject page here. Which links on the portal were you not seeing your articles? If it's from the categories area, you need to make sure your articles are using the appropriate categories. --plange 14:35, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Biography Homepage birthdays

The date at the top of this section changes every day, but the names stay the same. - Triviaa 22:15, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Yep, the person who was compiling them has stopped. I'm hoping to find the time to make the rest of the days we're missing. Want to tackle this? --plange 22:54, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
Unfortunately, the amount of time I have for Wikipedia has declined and don't have time to do these everyday. What time I do have is best spent on other things - writing articles for neglected topics, monitoring the 9/11 articles, making maps, etc. If others would help or take over the task of updating the portal, that would be wonderful. To create the birthdays, you just need to look at the date pages (e.g. October 4) and pick out some of the more notable people. --Aude (talk) 23:54, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
Thanks AudeVivere! Unless someone else steps in, I'd be willing to take this on-- I know your hands have been full trying to keep all portals afloat! I did it for one day, but then forgot after that day ended :-P --plange 03:50, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
I can help; I don't know how much time I can dedicate to this, but I'll do what I can. - Triviaa 19:31, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
Cool, I've populated up to the 7 or 8th I think-- you can tell if you go to edit the current one and then replace the number with the next day, etc., and see if it shows content or not. I then have a second window open for the date itself, i.e. October 8, and cut and paste it into the new page and trim-- I didn't do the exhaustive method AudeVivere used, but rather just kind of judged their importance and trimmed out ones I didn't think anyone would have heard of. --plange 20:27, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Triviaa! I see you've populated some! Leave a note here what day you leave off with so we can make sure we're covered... Thanks a bunch! --plange 19:45, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

For now, I've done through October 21. I can do more later if no one else volunteers. - Triviaa 19:47, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
I will finish October, and if I don't hear anything else, I'll begin November in a couple weeks. - Triviaa 18:34, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
I've begun on November; I'll continue populating indefinitely, until they are finished or someone else volunteers. - Triviaa 21:31, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for working on these. I have one minor suggestion. Where you put the picture, if you omit the "thumb" and "right" parameters, it should push the text up to the top of the box, alongside the picture. Aside from that minor suggestion, everything looks great. --Aude (talk) 21:36, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Conventions for biographies

As first suggested originally by GSchjetne at the very top of this page, a guide to Wikipedia conventions for the writing of biographies would be a very good idea – nay, an essential feature of the Portal, IMHO. At the moment, everyone appears to be doing it their own way, and there seems to be very little consistency. And some idea of what would be the right stage to submit an article for Peer Review would be good, too. – Agendum 22:01, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Actually portals are guides to articles already written-- however, WP:BIOGRAPHY already has a guideline on how to structure an article etc... Hope that helps! --plange 22:03, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
Aaah - that's useful! Wish I'd seen that a year or more ago. With my slow dial-up connection it's not easy to wade my way through all the interminable lists of so-called informative articles (half of which I can't understand when they do load). By the way – have the Wikipedia servers slowed just recently, or is it just me? – Agendum 22:42, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
Sorry you didn't know (BTW, I answered you above with the same info last month but I guess you didn't see it). Speed definitely does vary sometimes. Right now seems ok --plange 22:50, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

"random biography" function

I am not sure if this exists yet... in the same way that the Wikipedia main menu on the very left has the "Random article" function, I think it would be cool to have some way to do that for biographies as well, maybe from the portal page. Issue: the "random biography" link/selector would probably dissapear with the first loaded request, together with the portal. Any ideas? Carboxen 00:32, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Biography as opening header

Is labeling the first paragraph in a biographical article as "biography" redundant? I don't see other encyclopedias using this convention. See Theodorus Jacobus Frelinghuysen. A quick decision would be helpful since someone is going through and changing them. See Frederick Frelinghuysen (1788–1820) and Frederick Frelinghuysen (1753–1804). A ruling would be helpful, and it then the decision can be added to the MoS.

The place to ask these questions is at WP:BIOGRAPHY, but to answer, yes, it's redundant for short biographies where that is all the article is. It only makes sense when there's much more to discuss about the person, like their achievements/works etc., like Max Weber --plange 15:41, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Biography vs genealogy

What constitutes "genealogical fluff" versus a thorough biography? Please see John Frelinghuysen (1727-1754) history and leave a comment. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 15:26, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

To be honest, you also need to establish the notability of this guy, why is there an article about him? Does he meet WP:BIO? Likewise, if the children aren't notable, they shouldn't be included either. For instance, John W. Johnston, an article I wrote, I only included the children that were either notable in their own right, or married someone notable. I left out all of his other children. --plange 15:48, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
I think that is 100% wrong! Notability determines whether you get an article in Wikipedia, not whether you get mentioned as a child of someone notable. If someone consults the article they may assume incorrectly that the person only had one child, the famous one. Once a person is notable the names of their children should be included in a biography. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 05:03, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Be that as it may, you'll have a hard time getting FA -- I was asked to remove all non-notable children on the Johnston FAC ---plange 23:57, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Hang on a minute. What's the aim here? Is it to get FA status or to create a worthy encyclopedia article? I'm beginning to wonder whether we're getting too obsessed with creating a 'Featured Article' – whereas the end result should be to produce a useable, professional, well-written and accurate work for the end-user to refer to. That's my goal. – Agendum 00:23, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Experts needed

A category for articles that need expert assistance from those with knowledge of Arts has been created and articles are being sorted into the category (Category:Pages needing expert attention from the Biography Portal). I would like to propose adding a reference to this on the portal page, perhaps in the Projects section so that those with expertise in Biogrphies would be made aware of it and would have a link to it.

Make that Category:Pages needing expert attention from Biography experts. --Brad Beattie (talk) 12:21, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

tempera

rock music band, originated in Torino Italy, now living in wilmington,north carolina USA style: alternative rock, pop rock, rock original songs written by Tempera, website [[1]] band member:Roberto Giambra lead vocals and drums Angelo Giambra: vocals ,bass guitar and piano Alessandro Giambra: acustic, electric guitar

James Clerk Maxwell

Hey Folks,

I'm trying to bring the Maxwell article up to featured article status. If anyone wants to help, especially those with a physics background (but not necessarily), visit the talk page and leave a message, or message me on my talkpage to talk about this further. All the best, and Merry Christmas! --JE.at.UWOU|T 03:01, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

books

“Fast Sam, Cool Clyde and Stuff,”

Stub that is going to need looking after...

Hello,

I'm a participant on the Comics Project and I've got a stub that is going to need someone from this project to flesh out.

The article is for Eric Strauss, PhD, Director of Environmental Studies at Boston College.

Someone set up Eric Strauss as a redirect page to the article for the comic book character Doctor Fate. While there is a fictional Eric Strauss associated with the character, the article shouldn't link there.

I think Dr. Strauss has tried, as an anonymous user, to un-hijack his name, to little positive result.

I'm going to try and convert the article as best I can, but I'm unfamiliar with the specific style guides and templates used for this project. If someone can take a look and nail down thing I'd appreciate it.

Thanks for listening... − J Greb 06:50, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Sorry about this... I think I posted to the wrong talk page... — J Greb 06:52, 25 December 2006 (UTC)


A surname pronunciation

A phonetic transcription (IPA for English) how to pronounce the surnames of the personalities located somewhere near to the surname would help me. Would it be useful? I understand that there is variety of pronunciations of the same word but it is just one minimaly for the surname in English, isn't it? --VaM 23:14, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps use Wikipedia:Reference desk/Language for this question? feydey 02:17, 31 December 2006 (UTC)


Portal Quote of the Week

Is there a stash of quotes somewhere? There doesn't seem to be a set quote this week. - Triviaa 16:13, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

I had picked some out from Wikiquote, from q:Quote of the Day archive. --Aude (talk) 22:05, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Raoul Wallenberg

I am trying to bring Raoul Wallenberg to featured article status, please have a good read, and bring criticism. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 03:54, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Article Rating

Someone from this portal may want to take another look at the article Archimedes Plutonium. The sources it has right now are primarily either Plutonium's own sites or threads in Google Group discussions. There is one article from Discover, where a few sentences speak about Plutonium. I find it hard to believe that this all adds up to a B rating ... Just my two cents. --Keesiewonder talk 19:27, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Richard Walter - Fraudulent Article

Richard Walter seems to have been created with a large amount of false information, perhaps gathered from a phony/ anonymous press release posted at "www.richarddwalter.com". Walters's false testimony was actually confirmed in NY v. Robie Drake. In 2003 and again in 2006 his testimony was determined to be false, misleading and could be presumed perjurious on at least one point (perjury being a very specific type of false testimony) by a fedeal judge.

This is all confirmed in the judge's ruling at: "NY v. Robie Drake" (2006). The acrobat file here was obtained from United States District Court, Western District of New York. Just select judge John Elfvin's rulings for March 2006 re: the Drake case. You'll need to select more than 100 documents per page to see it. Get the drake file.

I editted the many factual inaccurancies in the page with references to the court record online and articles regarding Mr. Walter's false testimony. However an anonymous editor immediately swooped in and removed those edits. I have reverted the page and posted a warning to the anonymous editor. Now Buzzle45 (talk · contribs), an original anonymous creator of this false information page designed to rescue Walters flailing credibility, has stepped in to replace anonymous editor 24.240.17.187 (talk • contribs • info • WHOIS). I am not certain these are two separate individuals.

At any rate, I expected that whoever created the page would change the edits and that this issue would become something that needed an official look - as there are quite a few dedicated and obsessed people determined to keep the actual substance of this court ruling from being public. It hurts Walter, and it hurts more than a few because of their association with him.

Anonymous editor 24.240.17.187 has removed the Richard Walter page at least six times aleady and has also removed this section from the Talk: Richard Walter page at least six times, since 3/18/07 to prevent me from even having a civil discussion about it with others. Buzzle45 (talk · contribs) has done the same. Not exactly actions that are conducive to resolution, let alone communication. They just don't want the ruling public because of their hero worship (that's assuming that one of the individuals is not actually Richard Walter -this a very distinct possibility).

This information is not libelous. It is corrective. It is the posting of a court's ruling using the court's own document. The Wikipedia entry currently states that Walters was exonnerated by the judge in the Drake case. This is not just false, it is beligerantly deceptive at this point.

Note please that I am the only person in this dispute who must testify in court on a regular basis, under oath - and that I am also the only one willing to be identified.

As it stands, the article is full of false and bloated information about Walters that is designed to prop him up despite the court ruling - so that those who use Wikipedia as their primary nfo source (and there are many too many) will be misled. It is a disgrace to the professional community, and it is the furtherance of a weakly crafted fraud.

Do not hesitate to contact me for further assistance.

Brent E. Turvey, MS - Forensic Scientist Bturvey 23:36, 19 March 2007 (UTC)


Richard Walter article - Libel

Brent continues to write libel.

To accuse someone of perjury is a serious charge. Mr. Turvey makes that claim on his own websites, but that is a matter between Mr. Walter and Mr. Turvey to settle in civil court.

I hold Wikipedia to a higher standard.

In reading the court document, in the final ruling in the Drake case, the judge overturns the appeal.

In his opinion, the judge states that Mr. Walter "may" have committed perjury (which he did not), but he rules that such an issue is a moot point because Mr. Drake does not have the basis for appeal.

Thus, Drake's appeal, and all of its allegations are ruled false.

I welcome you to read the decision on Lexis-Nexis and not Mr. Turvey's version on his websites.

While on Lexis-Nexis, I would also encourage you to read about Mr. Turvey's false statements under oath in Mississippi last year and his previous false statements under oath regarding his employment by the Sitka, Alaska Police Department as a detective. (Mr. Turvey lost in court in his bid to claim that he was employed as a detective in Sitka).

Because Mr. Turvey was not allowed into the AAFS, he has spent his short career creating his own organizations and schools. His organizations are nothing more than him and a few of his former "students" posing as a substitute for the AAFS.

Still, the bitterness of rejection has never been exorcised from his soul. He maintains a website that lists several well-respected forensic pathologists as "frauds" (Mr. Walter is not his only victim).

With all due respect, his situation reminds me of a jealous child in the playground who wants to "take his toys and play on his own".


I suggest that the Richard Walter page remain permanently locked in its pre-March 17th state.

Please disregard Bturvey's threat to "show why wikipedia can't be trusted as a source in my class". He has many more enemies than friends; no one will stand in his defense. 02:37, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

{user|Buzzle45}

Jews

Why do many biographies here mention the fact that the man is Jew (e.g. Jean-Pierre Melville) ? I can't figure out why this is of any interest. Arronax · talk 23:52, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Updates

Updates are required for the Quotes section. If they are not provided soon, this portal will be eligible to have its featured status removed. Thanks,--cj | talk 02:05, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Question

Hi fellows.

Is there a standard form to begin a biography? is it "born in Buenos Aires, May 20, 1980" or "born May 20 1980 in Buenos Aires"? --Damifb 10:44, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography. And "Name (born May 20 1980 in Buenos Aires)" is used. feydey 10:54, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
Thanks.--Damifb 19:20, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Assistance with Portal Spaceflight biographies

On behalf of Portal:Spaceflight I would like to request assistance from the maintainers of Portal:Biography. Part of the Spaceflight portal is a Selected biography section, but it hasn't been updated very frequently. Could someone involved with Portal:Biography help us find a few good biographies to use, or even better, help put in place a mechanism allowing us to find them ourselves? Comments at Portal talk:Spaceflight#Assistance with Portal Spaceflight biographies would be greatly appreciated! (Sdsds - Talk) 01:03, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

US-centric anniversaries

Portal:Biography/Selected anniversaries/May 16

Is it just me or are the links to people who were born or who died on today's date a bit US-centric? The majority of today's list are Americans. --Studiosonic 13:07, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

  • Yes, I thought the same. We should've edited it then. I've edited it now to reduce the number of Americans and added a color picture. DrKiernan 17:49, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Selected portraits

Whilst we're on the subject of centrism, 5 of the 7 selected portraits are of white men. I just used the 6 previous images from the archive and added the only picture of a named black man at Wikipedia:Featured pictures/People I could find. I think we should replace Thomas Young with a woman. I choose that image to replace because it doesn't have a source and the name of the artist is unknown. Any nominations for a good picture of a woman with source and creator information? I think we should exclude musicians and scientists because we already have two of each (Tyner and Chopin: Monday and Thursday - Aldrin and Einstein: Wednesday and Sunday). DrKiernan 17:49, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Sorry it took so long to get back to you, after your request. I was going to suggest George Sand, she has a couple good ones, but you already have Chopin, and it might seem a bit... internecine. So, may I recommend a Dame I've come across today, Simone Veil, first President of the European Parliament. That should set the right tone. -- Yamara 01:47, 19 June 2007 (UTC) PS-- Congrats on the adminship!
Thanks, however it's been tagged for deletion because of a discussion over copyright! The European Union permits reproduction, but not modification, of its images so they're incompatible with GFDL. DrKiernan 08:18, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Necessarily "book-length"? WP can have no biographies by that definition

Portal intro currently says, "[…] As opposed to summaries of people's lives, such as profiles or curriculum vitae, a biography is a book-length, […]"

If being book-length is a differentiating attribute, then WP can have no biographies by that name, only profiles or curriculum vitae.

I personally don't think it has to be book-length to be nominally a biography.

— Lumbercutter 14:54, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

  • Thanks for pointing that out! I've amended it. DrKiernan 15:34, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

New Rating Suggestion

I suggest adding a "Not Really a Biography" rating for biography websites. The reason is that some (I suspect many) of the web pages that have been labled as biographies are not actually biographies. My guess is that there are a lot of sites that provide profiles of notable people - i.e. just brief information that is directly related to the reason that they are notable. The difference between a biography and a profile (and other types of sets of information about people) is provided on the biography page, which is linked to the Biography project page to define the scope of the biography project. The biography page makes a specific point that profiles (and other things) are not biographies. I think this is more than just picking. What is the purpose of rating a site as a Start-Class biography when it already contains (as intended) a complete profile? --Rogerfgay 14:49, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

But isn't that just a "stub-class biography"? DrKiernan 15:17, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure if you're joking? The serious point here is that not every page about a person is meant to contain a full biography as it's defined for the purpose of rating the websites. --Rogerfgay 16:27, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
If a Wikipedia article under a person's name exists on Wikipedia, it's a biography. Not a website. Not a profile. This is an encyclopedia. We don't do websites or profiles. And you've mistaken biography for a Wikipedia policy. That's a Wikipedia article on what a biography might be. The actual Wikipedia guideline on biographies is Wikipedia:Biographies. I ask you once again, please learn how Wikipedia works before you try to change it. -N 23:31, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
N Really please don't stalk me. I'm quite serious about this discussion, and this is an appropriate place to talk about the issue that I've raised. DrKiernan is a highly qualified and well respected member of the Wikipedia community who has done a lot of work in this area. I'm sure that he can handle a conversation. --Rogerfgay 08:23, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
DrKiernan - It seems to me that profiles provide valuable contributions to the encyclopedia, that remain within the scope of interest that readers have. There are some people who are worthy of inclusion because of specific contributions and activities. A profile - focusing on information related to those contributions - is just the ticket, imo. I don't see this at present as being a huge practical problem. If someone can find more information about a person, and wants to expand an article toward a more complete biography, ok. Perhaps that's an indication in itself that readers might also be interested in more information. But these classifications have been defined to indicate that work should be done; which effects prioritization of work. Wouldn't it be better to use a different test for whether an article on a person should shift from profile to full-blown biography - for example, when an notable inventor's inventions have such a great impact on the world that we have another Alexander Graham Bell, for instance? In making this suggestion, I note that full-blown biographies on lesser known people that are fully accurate and well-written are not so easy to produce. In such a case as Bell, researchers and historians have actually received funding to study his life, write books, and sufficient scholarly debate takes place. If that's the way good biographies need to be created, then pressure within Wikipedia to push beyond the activities in the outside world is not the way to go. --Rogerfgay 08:46, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
I think I may have misunderstood you, then. My point was that an article rated as a "stub-class biography" isn't really a biography as such, i.e. it isn't a comprehensive explanation of a person's life and achievements in the context of the time, its usually "just brief information that is directly related to the reason that they are notable", which is how I thought you'd defined your suggested new category. But, now I see you're suggesting we have a new category of "Profiles" for articles with complete information of a person's career that are not written as prose text. I'm not convinced that the idea would be popular, I imagine people would use the category in the same way as "Start" and it would end up serving the same function. Maybe, you could propose the idea at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography/Assessment and see how other people respond. DrKiernan 09:14, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
I want to be sure that I'm clear first. This is my first effort to contribute to a project such as this; so I also want to have some discussion first, rather than just jumping in with both feet and perhaps merely creating extra work for others. I did not indicate that profiles should not be written as prose text. I have written a profile on Peter Nordin in prose text; but other editors seem to be struggling with the biography classification, and the whole concept of writing within the scope of the reason the person is notable (and within the scope of available information). Other (related) issues have now been dragged into this example, but it does not suffer from being in non-prose form, such as embedded list. --Rogerfgay 11:11, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
Well, I doubt there's much of a problem with the prose part. I think the other editors of that page are just concerned about the lists, in their view there should be no need to list things if the same information can be imparted by saying "He has published extensively in the scientific literature, among his most seminal works are...", and that kind of thing. DrKiernan 11:37, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
Yes. I'm not having difficulty understanding what other editors are concerned about. I have a different POV based on understanding the subject. For example, I've been through the list of articles. They're all gems, some of which have won awards; typically cited many times - having an impact on the field. But to me, they look like an integrated whole that could be nicely consolidated into one or two books, that unfortunetly today can only be described by listing all the chapters (so to speak). Replacing with a summary statement - he's written a bunch of papers - reduces the useful information significantly rather than merely summarizing. I guess the only way that might fit this discussion however, is that on matters of classification the POV of a content provider can be very different than that of a general editor who does not have knowledge of the subject. The list is gone now, and I expect it would be a futile effort to try to put it back. I wouldn't like to select a smaller set of articles over another set, and think the more general statement of his contributions is already made in the Profile section. --Rogerfgay 13:37, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
The Corporate Spin-offs section has now also been deleted, after it had been incorrectly classified as an embedded list. The guy has 21 companies that are spin-offs of his academic work. Listing is the correct format, not incorporation into prose.
Now that I better understand your comment on stub-class, I'm thinking that the current classification of the Peter Nordin article as Start-Class may be the problem. Do you think that stub-class would have the effect that I'm looking for? What secondary effects might these classifications have? --Rogerfgay 11:16, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
I don't think stub-class is appropriate for that article as it is far more comprehensive than that. DrKiernan 11:37, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Friedrich Löffler - wrong lemma

Right now Friedrich Loeffler ist a redirect to Friedrich Löffler, but it should be the other way round if any, because the man has got no umlaut in his name. See also: de:Friedrich Loeffler and the homepage of the Friedrich Loeffler Institute. --M.Ottenbruch (talk) 09:37, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Moved. DrKiernan (talk) 10:14, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Thx for your fast reaction. --M.Ottenbruch (talk) 11:54, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

xul4wikipedia

FYI. I've created a simple web form at http://lindenb.integragen.org/xul4wikipedia/xul4wikipedia.cgi to create on the fly a [firefox] extension. This add-on will append some custom items in the contextual popup menu when editing an article in wikipedia. Each of those items is used to insert a custom text in the textarea of the edited article, for example, you won't have to find, copy and paste your favorite Template:Infobox Person, this template will now be always available in your menu.--Plindenbaum (talk) 05:55, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Vandalism.....

Check on this portal's page -
Tsi Wut was an Indian/Muslim politician and statesman who led the Muslim League and founded Pakistan,
Somebody did Vandalism....removed Jinnah's name and looks like replaced his. Please revert fast. gppande «talk» 14:45, 22 March 2008 (UTC)