Template talk:Authority control

ISNI/ ORCID confusion

I've just found - and fixed - articles (George Segal, Illeana Douglas) with ISNI's entered as ORCIDs (or twice, as each). Can we test for and fix this? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:49, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

One can (and should) stress the difference by enforcing the notation of ORCIDs in the official form with dashes (opposed to ISNIs with blanks as grouping character). -- Gymel (talk) 16:43, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

+1: One number system but different notations is quite confusing. BTW: Segal and Douglas are rare errors, since there are only 88 Wikipedia articles with ORCID identifiers. Funy are the cases where ORCID is used as personal homepage for non-scientists, see Mika'ela Fisher: ORCID 0000-0002-2923-5255. --Kolja21 (talk) 16:52, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

ORCID isn't just for scientists! It's for "researchers and contributors", with a main focus on academic publishing, which of course includes the humanities. I've checked all our (and Wikidata's) ORCID entries and removed all of the few that were plain ISNIs, but it would be good to trap future errors. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:19, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

That wouldn't stop someone putting in an ISNI-with-dashes (or ORCID-without-dashes). Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:19, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Can anyone help with this, please? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:04, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

I've just taken a look at the code and had a think about this. As I understand it there are two separate things that distinguish generic ISNIs from ORCIDs: (a) separate display and (b) separate allocation ranges. Should we be checking for both of these? Stuartyeates (talk) 22:38, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

@Stuartyeates: The number ranges are the important thing. I think the display is a convention rather than a reliable distinction - no harm in checking that too, though. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:17, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Where can I find which ISNI ranges are assigned to ORCID? Are there other ranges we should be checking for? Stuartyeates (talk) 22:56, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

@Stuartyeates: I've checked with tech support at ORCID; they're assigned the range 0000-0001-5000-0007 to 0000-0003-5000-0001 within ISNI. No other ranges to check. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:33, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

So if I'm reading that right, it's a block of 20 million, right? The very last digit is the check digit (which we already check for in the code). Seems like we should just be able to check the first 8 digits. Stuartyeates (talk) 21:12, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

If we only check the first 8 digits, how would you trap 0000-0001-4999-999Z or 0000-0003-5000-001Z (where Z is whatever the check digit would be)? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:37, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

@Stuartyeates: Also, please see http://support.orcid.org/knowledgebase/articles/116780 - Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:50, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

@Stuartyeates: Can you help, please? Should this validation also be done in Wikidata? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:03, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, took my eye off the ball here. If we do this in wikipedia, we can provide immediate feedback to users. There is no reason we can't check it in both places. I hope to look at the code in the next couple of days. Stuartyeates (talk) 21:18, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Not on mobile

Unresolved

This template is not displaying, on our mobile site, nor in the new Android app. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:16, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

Tpt, Legoktm, Docu: see also Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 127#Authority control template not showing in mobile. --Redrose64 (talk) 19:20, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

We need someone to address the styling issue described there. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:03, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Anyone? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 09:50, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Hiding empty templates

Can we make this template not display, if there is no data? That way, we could include it in articles and it would magically appear when a value is added to Wikidata. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:44, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

The requested code has been placed in the sandbox, in this edit. This request is fairly uncontroversial, given both that no-one has opposed to Andy´s request and that Edgars2007 posted the same request below at #Empty template.--Snaevar (talk) 16:13, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

As this page is HIGHLY used, please leave this open for a day or so to gather any comments first. — xaosflux ^Talk 23:21, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

The comment has already been made, that this proposal has been here since July without opposition. So I will make the change shortly unless there are any concerns. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:14, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

I suggest adding a (hidden) category for empty auth. control templates, so that they could be tracked down and fixed (by deleting them from articles or adding data). --Edgars2007 (talk/contribs) 18:28, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

The point of this request is that they should not be deleted; if a hidden, empty template sits in an article, and someone then adds a value to Wikidata, the populated template will then magically display. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:04, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Ok, then you can strike out the part about about deleting them. But still, I think there should be added category to track down such articles. --Edgars2007 (talk/contribs) 05:17, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

 Done — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:16, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

@MSGJ: Thank you. Could you also help with the styling issue discussed in #Not on mobile, above, please? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:12, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Empty template

I think there should be check in module if there is some data to show, so that articles with empty authority control could be tracked down and/or hidden. See this article for example. --Edgars2007 (talk/contribs) 10:51, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

Yes, see above (which I've just restored). Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:20, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

Botanical names

The inclusion of botanical names in this template duplicates that in {{Botanist}}. Please join discussion of how to resolve this. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 09:49, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Pleiades

What do you think about including Pleiades: [1]? See also someone's note down meta:Talk:Requests for comment/How to deal with open datasets. trespassers william (talk) 20:32, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Russian template

An interesting version of this template is being used on the Russian Wikipedia; for example on [2]. What do folk think of that? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:51, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

I think it would be a great standard for the English version. It would format most of the external links into a single format. Did you start an English version already. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 18:22, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Not yet; I'd like to see signs of emerging consensus, here, before doing so, and taking it to the wider community. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:56, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

I think we should migrate it over and convert it into English and just get a feel for what fields are there. It doesn't need to be added to any Wikipedia English biographies yet. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 04:58, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

External links have been a battlefield on en.wiki for a _very_ long time. Having a template that incorporates all external links is quite different from just links to authority control sources. If nothing else, some of those sources are full of trolls, mimic, impostors and spammers. Stuartyeates (talk) 07:22, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

There are two aspects to the Russian template: the style and the content. We could adapt the former, without the latter (or with only parts of the latter). Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:22, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

It seems that the Russians have chosen a standard set of external links for living and for dead people. Twitter and Facebook and the official homepage, the entry in a few standard databases like IMDB. It would not replace ALL external links, just the standard 10, and maybe 5 or 6 will be filled depending on if they are alive or dead, and what century they belonged to, and the rest null. I imaging living people would have the most standard references as per the Obama entry you found. For dead people we can have the link to Findagrave, Appletons, Congressional Biography, Britannica that are the standards for English entries. We can start by ranking what we think are the most important external links from top to bottom, so the most used ones are at top. Then as they get filled we can arrange the order to have the field with the most entries be the top one, and the fields with the most null entries at the bottom. If the list gets too big, we can always have just the first 5 or first 10 displayed, and the rest hidden but available by clicking "more" at the bottom. Or: the entire section can appear collapsed by default and clicked to be expanded. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 17:24, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Empty field displays

There is a field that displays as "(data)" but when you click on it, it shows a 404 error message. It is for the French National Library. If the person is not in the database we need to show nothing, not a link to a 404 message. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 18:07, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

On which article did you see this? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:55, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Michael Keaton was the last one I saw it on. I saw it on three biographies today. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 04:54, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. The other BNF link is OK (and so our data is correct), so I wonder whether they've changed their (data-) URL structure? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:01, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

They are still using the same URL structure as this template does, but his page on the data subdomain does not exist. If you try to follow said data link on Michael Keaton's page and then try to search for him, you won't find him. So, I think this is what needs to be done:

1. Agree on an name for an seperate argument for that data link.
2. File a request on Wikipedia:Bot requests, where an bot would fill in that argument for data links that do work.
3. Get an accepted bot flag for that request
4. Create that argument in the module sandbox and get that deployed to the main one.

Should the bot not be accepted, this request becomes stale... well, unless you are willing to do that manually, but that is something I doubt you would do.--Snaevar (talk) 11:09, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

Use in other Wikipedias

I'm working with a number of editors on non-English Wikipedias, to have {{Authority control}} and its sub-templates and module(s) imported into their projects. A couple are getting errors which they can't resolve (they both speak English, thankfully!). Could anyone kindly assist them, if I point them here? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:46, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Use on Wikispecies

A version of this template is now available, for taxonomic authors, and on user pages, on Wikispecies. As there is not yet any Wikidata integration with that project, values must be entered manually. Please see species:Template:Authority control. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:24, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

markup

The markup of the HTTPS link in this template looks confusing. VIAF link is HTTPS and is shown with a lock symbol. WorldCat and MusicBrainz are also HTTPS links BUT NO lock symbol?! Would be nice if somebody could dive into the source code and spot the error? 78.35.214.148 (talk) 21:54, 10 September 2014 (UTC)