Wikipedia talk:Authority control

See also Template talk:Authority control

Use in an infobox

Marshall Goldsmith
Born	(1949-03-20) March 20, 1949 Valley Station, Kentucky
Alma mater	Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology Indiana University, Kelley School of Business UCLA Anderson School of Management
Occupations	Author Professor Executive Educator Coach
Spouse	Dr Lyda Goldsmith
Website	marshallgoldsmith.com

An example of the use of {{Authority control}} in an infobox can be found on Marshall Goldsmith; I reproduce it here (without the photo). For articles with no infobox (yet!), the AC template can still be used in the footer. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:37, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

I suggest that you take steps to make it more integrated into the infobox. In the past there have been discussions which have concluded that all fields in the infobox were equal. See for example WP:INFOBOXFLAG. Would it be possible to have it appear more like Alma mater does in this example? Stuartyeates (talk) 11:09, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

While I would prefer that visual presentation, I'm not sure that it's possible, without either a) making separate AC parameter(s) to each biographical infobox or b) making a separate template for use in infoboxes, while retaining the original template for use outside infoboxes. Anyone else got any thoughts? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:36, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

I've now added the relevant hCard microformat markup to the AC template; when it's used in an infobox, the first-found UID will be emitted as part of the infobox's microformat. For that reason, I've moved VIAF into the first position. Once we decide on a solution, it can also be mapped in DBpedia. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:39, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Any thoughts on moving this forward? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:37, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

I don't understand what you propose or what is illustrated here. To wit, the authority control module(?) of {{infobox person}} in our biography Marshall Goldsmith displays ISNI: (on two lines, for me), BNF: and (data) links as well as VIAF: and GND: [2 plus the label] that are displayed here in talk space, for me now. I don't know how you have effected that difference technically or what you propose in this regard.

Btw, no value is provided for parameter LCCN in either of those two locations, nor at WikiData: Marshall Goldsmith. That may change, whence WorldCat: and LCCN: links may or may not be displayed here.

Btw and fwiw, many many uses of template {{worldcat id}} occur in External links sections of our biographies wherein the same WorldCat link is displayed by template {{authority control}}. There may be little redundancy in effect, for most visitors, and I feel sure there is none in big sections. For instance see Aristotle#External links (whose worldcat links are broken for me now).

--P64 (talk) 19:21, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

The example here is a mockup, created in 2012; the issue under discussion is the style of presentation, not the specific content. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:42, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Auto-archiving?

It might be time to think about auto-archiving, perhaps by year; if I'm reading this correctly, {{Automatic archive navigator}} can handle such archives. —SamB (talk) 17:59, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

Done; using Miszabot. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:36, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

That worked! 30 topics were archived. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:18, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

14 days seems short to me. In the event, however, the latest activity in Archive 1 is almost 90 days old, 4 December 2013.

Can it be advanced manually to Archive 2 now? --in effect, turnover with the new year as SamB suggests above. --P64 (talk) 19:42, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

It's 14 days or three threads, but feel free to extend it if you think that's better. I don't see any need to manually bump the archive page number, we don't do that for other pages which are similarly archived by a bot; and besides the archives are searchable. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:58, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Check digits

Please see a suggestion I have made, at Template talk:Authority control#Check digits. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:24, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Contradictions in instructions in this article

The section on LCCN says "leading zeros of the serial number have to be removed", but the last example given does not remove them. Why not? Softlavender (talk) 22:01, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

DAAO record (Australian artists)

Please see discussion at Template talk:Infobox artist#DAAO record in infobox. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:46, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Suggestion for EIDR to be added to Authority control

I would like to suggest that the EIDR schema is added to the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Authority_control. EIDR is an industry-standard database (see http://eidr.org/membership/) that might provide a controlled vocabulary for media assets. ISAN is part of many of the cross-referenced IDs. BrillLyle (talk) 20:57, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Is there a large public database where we can look up, check and validate EIDR numbers? Stuartyeates (talk) 02:40, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

There is! https://ui.eidr.org/search, and click on "Show More Fields" BrillLyle (talk) 15:47, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

ORCID outreach event/ codefest

I shall be attending the ORCID Outreach Meeting and Codefest in Chicago on 21-22 May; in part to speak about the use of ORCID in Wikipedia & Wikidata. If anyone has any suggestions or questions, I'll be happy to raise them there. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:00, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Here's the poster I presented there (pdf). As a result of it, the figures it contains are now out of date! Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:27, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

Bot

Is there any reason we can't get a bot to move AC values from the {{authority control}} template to Wikidata? Can User:Magnus Manske help? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:09, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

ResearcherID

The ResearcherID and |MBA= parameters have to be entered on Wikipedia; they're seemingly not populating from Wikidata. Can we fix that? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:03, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

This template is now also on Wikidata

A version of {{Authority control}} is now on Wikidata, for use on the user pages of those of you who edit there. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:21, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedian in Residence

As of today, I am Wikipedian in Residence at ORCID. The role is described in Announcing ORCID's Wikipedian-in-Residence. Please let me know if I can assist you, in that or any other capacity. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:28, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Issue with LCCN

I have difficulties figuring out the right code in the template for Aurora Cornu (n 00022962‏). Can someone help ? 90.18.140.37 (talk) 11:46, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Done. Did you see the section on LCCN? the syntax in this case would be: LCCN=n/00/022962. -- kosboot (talk) 12:11, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Template talk page

There are a few unresolved issues on Template talk:Authority control. Please take a look; and ensure that it is on your watchlist. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 09:52, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Liaison with VIAF

Moved from my talk page to facilitate wider discussion. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:00, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Hi Andy!

I'm part of the VIAF team. We'd be pleased to work with someone on feeding the Wikipedia suggestions for changes into our database. We've also gotten a message from Sergey Vladimirov who suggested he'd like to know when we've made corrections to our pages. I sent an email to him a few weeks ago but haven't heard anything since.

I'd like to:

• understand the sources of the correction data so we can figure out how to weight it in our processing
• reach some agreements on the format and location of the suggestions
• reach some agreements on the format and location of any feedback you'd like from us.

Sergey pointed us at this page in wikidata: [1]

I'm looking forward to a successful feedback loop here!

Ralph Ralphlevan (talk) 14:11, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Hi, Ralph, and thanks for reaching out. Have you seen our page at Wikipedia:VIAF/errors? We find errors in two ways.
Firstly, as on that page, by observation while researching an article. Most of the errors there are self evident (two or more numbers for the same person), or are explained by comments from those reporting them. Of course, those are only for articles on the English Wikipedia. Is there a format for reporting which we could use, on this Wikipedia, that would help you? Secondly, the automatically-generated report at Wikidata covers all languages, and again the majority are self explanatory as duplicate values for one person (under the '"Single value" violations' heading). Those under the other headings are more likely errors on our part, requiring manual checking and resolution (several have already been fixed).
As to how you could notify us of fixes, you could update the error page on this wiki with a note saying what you have done; optionally, you could update the Wikipedia articles too. You could also update Wikidata entries yourselves. Let me know if you need guidance on that. If that's too onerous, you could publish a list of amendments on your website, preferably with an accompanying RSS feed and/ or XML, which e could run a script against, at our end. Most changes should be routine fixes (merging duplicates), but there may be ssme instances that need annotations, such as when one VIAF covers two names, because one name is a pseudonym for another; or when an identity is split in two, and we need to know which is which; or when we have made fas reports. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:46, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

There's lots to consider here and I'm afraid I'd spend a week trying to make a comprehensive reply. Instead, I'll pick a couple low-hanging fruit.

On the Wikipedia:VIAF/errors page:

1. Is there any chance of a template being used for those reports? They look like free text with good links in them. But, I'd have to infer the action to be taken. It would be lovely if the request was more explicit/consistent.
2. Lots of "not VIAF" notes there. Is this our problem or yours? Picking the first one: Michael Peterson (murder suspect) - not VIAF 111595726, it looks like we saw that VIAF ID in your page (we download your pages monthly) and merged it into our cluster. We need for the ID to leave your page for us to correct our cluster. I don't think we're responsible for that link, though perhaps Max's bot put it there. As far as I'm concerned, you should just remove the offending link. I think your editors should just feel free to delete them whenever they like rather than reporting them as errors. Is there something we can provide to help?
3. 2 or more IDs for the same article. Are you suggesting that the VIAF cluster records listed should be merged? If a trustworthy person made that suggestion, then we'd probably just take it and merge them. We merge on weaker evidence than that. Again, some indication of unambiguous intent would help us detect those suggestions. The first example: VIAF 38044491 (more detailed) & * VIAF 305133334 = Leslie Baily is clearly correct.
4. "VIAF merges different identities" is more of the same. Agreement on clear intent and probably the form of the name or better yet the source of the incorrect form of the name would allow us to split those clusters.
5. Parallel VIAF Clusters: How is this not the same as "2 or more IDs for the same article"? Your first example for the Duchess Henrietta is clearly a case of two clusters needing to be brought together.
6. Articles about multiple people with a single VIAF ID is clearly your problem. Why not just make the change rather than report it. (I guess this is me trying to understand your process as much as anything.)
7. Other errors looks like something we might glance at occasionally.

As we accept these suggestions, how would you like to hear back from us? Can we get a bot authorized to edit that page? Is there some other automated way to provide that feedback? I like marking things as done, but I'd hope that they age away rather than slowly filling the page. Otherwise, we could just make the suggestions go away as we implement them.

All the same questions apply to the wikidata error page. Do you have a suggestion on how we should progress that conversation?

What's the mechanism for including other people into this conversation? I've got three co-workers that would probably like to be involved and I'd like to get Sergey Vladimirov included too. For now, I'm just going to copy all this and mail it to them.

Thanks!

Ralph Ralphlevan (talk) 19:34, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

@Ralphlevan: I've moved this from my talk page (and numbered your questions) to facilitate a wider discussion. Quick answers; more later:

1. Could do, though anything too complex might put people off making reports. What should it include?
2. I suspect some editors are reluctant to remove VIAFs because they don't know how to, or they're not sure where the error lies.
3. Yes, I read these as requests to merge; I would advise you to sanity-check.
4. We may not know incorrect sources.
5. I've often wondered the same thing!
6. Having researched this further, over the last few hour, I'm not sure it's always our problem (perhaps about 30% are, on a small sample). For example, at the foot of the Wikidata report is VIAF 96139163, which apparently conflates two people, de:Chen Kuen Lee (an architect) and Chen-Yuan Lee (a pharmacologist).
7. OK.

I don't think a bot could edit the current page, as it's too unstructured. Your colleagues would be welcome to sign up for accounts and join in here. I agree that resolved issues should be removed - at first to separate section, for review, them removed completely after, say, a month. Paging User:Maximilianklein and User:Andrew Gray for their views. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:19, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

-- Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:19, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

• Quick note to say I've seen this (and excited!) but currently busy - will reply shortly! Andrew Gray (talk) 20:00, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Way forward

@Ralphlevan and Pigsonthewing: - some thoughts on ways forward, based on the errors page lists

1 - WP not the same as originally linked VIAF identity.

These are mainly logged to ensure that the data is successfully removed from VIAF (though we probably need to make sure they're not hanging around in WP/Wikidata as well). From what you're saying above, it sounds like some of these links may no longer be in the database - the example given definitely used to be! - but I'm not sure of quite how this mechanism works. If we were to render it down to a simple list of VIAF cluster IDs and named Wikipedia pages that they are known not to match (and confirm that they've all been removed here), would this be suitable for you to remove any lingering matches at your end?

We could do this in one fell swoop (basically, Andy and I do the checking here, we send you a list of codes, we clear the entire section and archive it somewhere)

2 - Two VIAF identities for the same article (ie, same person)

4 - Parallel VIAF clusters for one identity

As far as I can see these are the same thing (but confused now...) - two numbers refer to the same author.

These need a merge at your end. Most are fairly unambiguous and won't need supporting evidence, I think. Perhaps you could run through these and mark them when done? (eg with strikeouts) and we'll then archive it after checking WP has the updated number.

3 - VIAF merging different identities

From what you say above these splitting is a bit more complicated than merging. Perhaps deal with this after the two above? I'll have a look at it over the next few days and figure out how best to handle it.

5 - Wikipedia link inside VIAF is out of date

All gone now :-). And from what you say above this should be happening automatically on a rolling basis, so we can probably remove the section entirely.

6 - Articles about multiple people assigned the VIAF identity for one of them

7 - Other errors

Complicated and may be worth parking for now. (we probably do want to track the individual IDs for single authors who WP deals with as a duo, but not immediately clear how best we can do this - especially since we often have a duo page on some wikis and individual pages on others) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Andrew Gray (talk • contribs) 18:55, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

All looks good to me. Regarding Wikipedia links inside VIAF, it might be worth VIAF starting to think about switching to using Wikidata. Once we've cleared this backlog, we can look at improving the model (templates, etc) for future reporting. I've also done some work to resolve errors from the Wikidata report; but some are ambiguous (e.g. VIAF 145018975; used on both Q752431, Q1979542 - which appear to be the same entity, but have different articles in German.).Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:30, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

This section is difficult to read, for poor use of left-marginal whitespace and poor identification of participants (employees where, Wikipedians in residence, WikiData movers and shakers).

Why not extend coverage to our Redirects from individual people? Complete the template {{Authority control}} on those pages. Include those pages in VIAF bundles. Are we waiting for decisions about Wikidata design? For Wikimedia software upgrade? (--presumably one that links from pages such as joint biographies to incoming redirects such as those from people)

What does VIAF.org update frequently by reference to Wikipedia pages? VIAF 104887034 unusually fits our joint biography Brothers Hildebrandt, whose footer I linked to that bundle in March, using the template. But VIAF.org still includes that page in its Tim Hildebrandt bundle VIAF 49344720.

--P64 (talk) 20:21, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Hi P64. This conversation looks a bit odd because it span out of a conversation Andy and I had with someone from OCLC at Wikimania last week, so not all the backstory is on the page :-)

Regarding matching VIAFs to redirects, this seems reasonable - though including the template might be a bit odd if we're not expecting readers to actually look at those pages. I know that Wikidata often has three entries (A, B, A+B) so putting the data there might seem the most sensible approach; however, this assumes that A/B exist on another wiki. So perhaps starting with redirect pages is the way to go (and we can always migrate later).

People represented here by redirects, continued.

Hi Andrew Gray. I don't believe I have visited any A+B page at Wikidata. I'll check some of my examples.

I suppose that Wikidata should have a page for everyone with a biography or a personal redirect at some Wikipedia, among other people. Does anyone know where at Wikidata to find discussion of whether to go ahead --to create and expand WD pages for those people, regardless whether this template is to be displayed at the WP redirects. (Once I found warnings against going and pleas not to go ahead, but I didn't note the location, merely decided not to go ahead.)

Yes, the template is less valuable at our personal redirects, if we expect no one to visit those pages. The same is true, and moreso, concerning interlanguage links. Yet moreso concerning personal categories such as Illustrators and Writers on the personal redirects for a husband-and-wife illustrator-writer team. If not a software upgrade we "need" See also in the Categories list, in effect (but only a software upgrade would give us See also in the Languages sidebar menu, I presume).

--P64 (talk) 16:57, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

Ralphlevan, I've started aggregating the easiest class of entries - VIAF-Wikipedia links originally assigned by the bot which we definitely know to be incorrect - and listing these at Wikipedia:VIAF/errors#Sent_to_OCLC. The format there is basic tab-separated, one column for number and one for the page it doesn't match. Could you run these through your system and check they're all removed from within VIAF, then either delete the lines when you've done or mark them as complete? (I don't know whether it'll be useful to have an archive to consult in future) Andrew Gray (talk) 21:50, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

If it's a purpose of VIAF.org to improve data integrity at the authorities such as national libraries LC and DNB (US and Germany), some archive may be useful.

When one of the authority records mixes data concerning two people, or two records divide data concerning one person, it may be no true VIAF "error" that its bundles do not match people, but I feel sure that many such problems have generated listings on our VIAF errors page (as well "bad" assignments of parameter values in our biography footers that have not been listed there). So "bad" bundles at VIAF may --presumably by hardworking humans-- be mined for errors by the authorities, such as mistaken assignment of books, birthyears, or middlenames to writers who share firstname lastname.

--P64 (talk) 16:58, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

International Standard Name Identifier (ISNI)

How does the International Standard Name Identifier fit into this approach?--DThomsen8 (talk) 14:37, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Issues with LCCNs not being valid

I keep having difficulties adding a LCCN number to the template. I am formatting them correctly, (i.e., LCCN=no/2014/028264‏‏) but I keep error messages that the LCCN is not valid. This has been happening for a while now. I find that if I keep copy/pasting the number eventually it will accept it but I don't know why it's so buggy. Thanks for any insight! Nashona (talk) 15:38, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

You may be inadvertently copying hidden control characters from your source. Try manually typing the number. Better still, add the values to the corresponding entry in Wikidata, and not here. That way, they are magically included here, but are also available to Wikipedias in up to 280+ languages. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:59, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

I have also manually typed the data. Still doesn't like it sometimes. So how do you add this info in Wikidata? Been looking at Wikidata for an hour and can't figure it out. Thanks. Nashona (talk) 22:45, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

Try wikidata:Wikidata:Tours; let me know (on my talk page, rather than here) if you have any questions, after running through the tutorials there. Don't forget, once you've got the data into Wikidata, you need {{Authority control}}, with no parameters set, in the article here, to make the data visible. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 07:59, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

Authority Control Query

Hello, How do I assign an Authority Control to a biographical page and what should be the process. Please adviseRyder212 (talk) 19:16, 26 November 2014 (UTC)