Template talk:Authority control

de:Vorlage Diskussion:Normdaten eo:Ŝablono-Diskuto:Bibliotekoj

This template was considered for deletion on 24 July 2010. The result of the discussion was "keep".

More documentation

I noticed that an editor added this template to the articles of several actors. The additions made little sense to me, but I didn't see any documented basis for reverting the changes. Another editor (bolder than I) reverted them. See, for example, here. I asked the editor about the reversion, and he responded on my Talk page: "The Authority control, mainly used by libraries, is a way to disambiguate bibliography with similar or identical titles. Or to quote its convoluted wiki article, "Authority control is the practice of creating and maintaining index terms for bibliographic material in a catalog in library and information science... Although theoretically, any piece of information on a given book is amenable to authority control, catalogers typically focus on authors and titles."

Couldn't we add something to the template's documentation about its use in articles? It would make reversion of inappropriate additions much easier.--Bbb23 (talk) 15:26, 1 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This template isn't just for book authors or titles, it's intended for all persons where such entries in the authority files of national libraries like the Library of Congress exist. If such entries in the authority files are created, it means that either works (books, DVDs, music albums) by this person or about this person exist and can be found via the LCCN, PND or VIAF. So there's no need to remove it from articles of actors. --Kam Solusar (talk) 21:35, 1 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the response, but I think the more important question is not whether there's any "need" to remove it from an actor's article, but whether it should be included in the first instance. Let's take the Matt LeBlanc example again. I looked at the LOC record for LeBlanc, and it adds nothing to the article. It essentially has two entries, one for IMDb, which I assume just about every actor will have, and one for a video he did called Burning Up, which is no big deal and isn't even in the article directly. Now, if LeBlanc wrote a book, and if he were notable for having written that book, including the template makes some sense. Otherwise, I don't see it.--Bbb23 (talk) 22:09, 1 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The links are not the important part of the template, they are just added as additional value so the readers don't have to stare at the bare numbers. The LCCN links to the Linked Authority File (which uses information from the LoC) because there's not really a good alternative at the moment (as Worldcat doesn't have entries for all LCCNs AFAIK). In the long run, there's probably going to be a page like Special:BookSources linking to all kinds of databases that use these identifiers. It's not only useful to find books that LeBlanc might write, but also to find all the works in libraries worldwide that are written about him and works where he took part in creating.

The info in the Linked Authority File isn't a representation of all works by or about this person like the IMDb, it's just information from the LoC's authority file that shows what information about that person is included in the database and where it came from (in this case, the video is the reason why LeBlanc was added and the IMDb reference shows where they got that information). As I said, not the best link target, but better than no link at all for the moment. --Kam Solusar (talk) 13:54, 2 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In response to Kam Solusar, authority control is a modern practice employed by libraries to disambiguate bibliography with similar or identical titles. This template is only useful for authors or titles with disambiguation needs. Yes, many pop culture figures are likely to have their entries in the national library system, but that does not create a need for authority control. As Bbb23 pointed out, they do not add anything meaningful to their articles. And please refrain from adding them to actors and singers alike. - Artoasis (talk) 02:12, 2 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it's used by libraries to categorize works (books, CD-ROMs, DVDs, music albums, etc.., even computer games nowadays) by their authors, but also by their subjects. So while those actors might not have written books themselves, there are often works by them or about them (otherwise the libraries wouldn't have created a LCCN / other identifier for that person). And this template is used to link our articles to the library catalogues and other databases to look up all the works created by or about these persons, not just book authors. --13:54, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Kam Solusar wrote: "So there's no need to remove it from articles of actors." I'd argue there's no need to add this template to any article. The external link it provides fails Wikipedia's guidelines in not providing any additional encyclopedic information and it fails WP:LAYOUT for its strict placement requirement and intrusive display. If it has any raison d'être, its proper place is hidden in the code, similar to {{Persondata}} – that's how meta data should be treated.. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 06:35, 2 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As I said before, the template's main purpose is the addition of meaninful metadata to our articles, the links are just added as additional value for the readers. The German Wikipedia for example alreadys uses this template in over >150000 articles. Originally it was requested by the library community to link our content and their databases, as both gain benefits from this cooperation. The German National Library for example uses this metata to add links to the corresponding Wikipedia articles to their database: example. If this template gained more traction and was added to more articles, the WMF could talk to the Library of Congress for example to see if there could be a similar cooperation. --Kam Solusar (talk) 13:54, 2 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(squeeze) Exactly, metadata. How the links represent "additional value for the readers" escapes me. The template should not produce any visible output. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 16:04, 2 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

So you don't oppose the existence and use of the template, just the way it is displayed? I think it was already mentioned in the deletion discussion, that this is something that can be easily changed if the community wants it to be invisible (like the Persondata template for example). --Kam Solusar (talk) 17:54, 2 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Please use common sense on this issue. Does the template really add anything valuable to the English articles about celebrities? The template is essentially a cooperation between the German National Library and Library of Congress to direct readers to their websites, which btw, contains very little bibliographic material on certain subjects (eg. Matt LeBlanc). It's hard to imagine someone who followed the link would then take a trip to these two libraries to pick up all those books. And if they're already in the library, it would be much earlier to simply search the celebrities' name in the library system. The existence of this temp doesn't justify its usage on so many pages. - Artoasis (talk) 15:33, 2 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Artoasis and will revert the addition of the template to articles to which it adds little or no value. If I can't get a documentation change to clarify its use on English Wikipedia, then I'll just rely on existing guidelines, policies, and editorial judgment.--Bbb23 (talk) 16:46, 2 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

So you really think it's a bad idea for an encyclopedia to connect its contents with the vast resources of national libraries and other GLAM organizations from all around the globe (and probably hundreds more that use the same identifiers) covering the same subject? There are huge efforts from dedicated editors, people in the GLAM community and the Foundation to foster closer relations and cooperations between Wikipedia and the GLAM community. And here we have the chance to add meaningful metadata that provides the GLAM organizations with a way to easily identify the subjects of our articles and extract information from them to combine them with their own databases and archives on their websites and other projects, as well as a means to create automatic processes that help Wikipedia editors and readers with getting access to more and specific information about these persons. This is not just about what can be done with this metadata now, it's important to consider what can be done with it once it is widely used and developers devote time to develop new tools (just like {{Persondata}}).

And I repeat: this template is not about the links. If there's a concensus in the community that they are not needed, they can be removed or changed to better sites. Or the template can be turned invisible. But the metadata is needed and if you remove it now, it will only take more work to add it back in the future.

And concerning LeBlanc: please don't get so hung up over one of hundreds of thousands of articles about persons that will eventually be tagged with this template. Maybe there aren't many books about LeBlanc at the moment. But via the LCCN, PND and other library identifiers linked on VIAF, it's possible for every editor and reader to check for themselves in the national library (or other libraries and online databases) of their respective country whether literature by or about LeBlanc exist, be it in English or in their native language. Just like we add coordinates to all articles about places even though it might not be particularly usefull in some cases (long-time destroyed buildings, areas where only crappy satellite photos exist, etc..). Would it make you happy, if the template was changed to be invisible? --Kam Solusar (talk) 17:54, 2 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You make too many colliding macro/micro points for me to address each one - and try to avoid the somewhat ranting style, including veiled innuendo like "would it make you happy". I favor better documenting the proper use of the template. I think I favor creating a parameter that permits the editor inserting the template to make it invisible when appropriate, but I'm not as sure of my ground on that one.--Bbb23 (talk) 18:54, 2 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry if that sounded like some kind of innuendo, that really wasn't my intention. Visiblity via parameters could be somewhat problematic, if editors get to choose per article whether to display it in "their" article or not (WP:OWN). --Kam Solusar (talk) 19:09, 4 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I work a lot with maintenance of people categories on commons. Commons like wikipedia has a lot of issues with disambiguation of people with same name, and VIAF or some other unique authority control ID is essential for keeping then straight. Titles of biography article often change, as do names of categories on Commons, as a result interwiki links (in both directions) are often broken. Also in many cases article with some title on Wikipedia and category with the same title on Commons, but they refer to different people. A lot of those problems can be fixed by tagging all biographies ( and people categories on commons) with unique ID's like VIAF the way German Wikipedia did it. May be even creating some lookup service that would allow to link to an article not by title but by VIAF ID so the interwiki links do not break each time someone renames an article. --Jarekt (talk) 13:19, 7 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Placement/formatting

If this template is metadata and not an external link, why is it being added to the external links sections of articles rather than added to the metadata at the end? Currently, it cuts right across the page separating the succession and navboxes from the rest of the article. This formatting is inappropriate and intrusive. DrKiernan (talk) 14:44, 4 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"separating the succession and navboxes from the rest of the article" - The template is usually placed after all the article content, right before the persondata template (I guess because categories and interwiki links should always be at the end of the source code, and the persondata template is invisible for most people). I'm not too sure about the current layout of the template myself. The template here on :en (both in Vector and Monobook skins) resembles the Vector version on the German Wikipedia. I'm more used to the German Wikipedia's Monobook version, which resembles the layout of the category list: [1]. But I'm just one of the editors who uses it, not the one who maintains the template. I wouldn't mind a better looking layout. --Kam Solusar (talk) 19:17, 4 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'll talk to FeanorStar who is adding it before the navboxes and ask her to put it immediately before the persondata. DrKiernan (talk) 19:30, 4 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hello: I saw a message about this on my talk page. I have been adding the template after the external links because to me it is an external link; it links to an external source (LC). I do think it is useful to have the template for the reasons stated above and also in certain cases (historical figures), it provides a listing of variant names used by other writers in various languages about the subject(s). I hope this makes sense. I will hold off on adding anymore until this has been resolved. Signed by FeanorStar7 (male).--FeanorStar7 (talk) 00:08, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Since I have not heard anything and if there is no objection, I will go ahead and change the location of template and put it before the persondata from now on. I will try to go back and move the old ones around as well.--FeanorStar7 (talk) 09:36, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hold on, I don't quite get what the change is supposed to be. Hekerui (talk) 11:36, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There's confusion over where is the best place to put the template. Should it be above or below navboxes? In the external links section or with the metadata? They don't seem to have navboxes at the German wiki, so the question doesn't seem to have arisen there.

If it's above the navboxes then are we happy with a look like this example, or should we try to develop a less intrusive format? DrKiernan (talk) 12:11, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A less intrusive format would be good, preferrably display:none;. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 12:22, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your responses. I am less interested in the coding than in getting the information to the user. Whatever you all want to decide is fine with me; once I know what the consensus regarding how and where the template should appear, I can go from there. Hope that's not a problem.--FeanorStar7 (talk) 23:57, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

How about a minimal change, such as cutting out the "navbox" and "catlinks" formatting so that it looks like a left-aligned infobox like the below? It's less intrusive than the full bar version but is only slightly different from the current version. It's a only a slight change, so unlikely to be resisted, but it makes the template more subtle than the current version. DrKiernan (talk) 13:18, 8 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

After looking at the example I supporting putting this lower on the page. It's a control. Hekerui (talk) 14:03, 8 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

a dream comes true

Dear friends; during the last years I was searching for methods to be able to see the works of authors in languages of my interest. I found this interesting and very usefull template which contains all information to link to "WorldCat identities". Please take a look at test:template:Normdaten and test:category:Authority control for possible improvements of this template. Best regards
‫·‏לערי ריינהארט‏·‏T‏·‏m‏:‏Th‏·‏T‏·‏email me‏·‏‬ 03:05, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Bot support required

Moved to Wikipedia:Bot requests/Archive 43 § Authority control

Dear friends, during last weeks I was involved mainly in adding the German version of this template de:template:Normdaten to dozens of pages; adding the required parameters where required. Today, I activated the linking to WorldCat identities containing the works from / about authors. I never have seen trailing zeros as template parameters to the third part of parameter LCCN.
example: Abraham Lincoln#normdaten contains now the link http://www.worldcat.org/identities/lccn-n79-6779 Lincoln, Abraham 1809-1865
Works: 22,532 works in 36,882 publications in 66 languages and 1,323,107 library holdings
This information is very important for readers. They will find books in smaller languages.
The template did not work from the beginning. It was necessary to remove the leading zeros before the third subpart of parameter LCCN:
{{Normdaten|LCCN=n/79/006779}} changed to {{Normdaten|LCCN=n/79/6779}})

Bot support request: Please remove such leading zeros at all pages using template:Authority control. Thanks in advance!

From 9th to 11th of September The Austrian, German and Swiss WikiMedia chapters will have a conference in Nürnberg. I plan to talk about "VIAF inter project linking". See commons:category:VIAF inter project linking with screenshots about a Greasemonkey script that multiplicates links using VIAF numbers at many sites. Please do not hesitate to contact me about if interested.

news: while WorldCat id's do not accept trailing zeros (today), the other LoC link generated by the template does (today):

The day before yesterday I was notified about newer LoC links

http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n79006779.html
anyway http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n796779.html without padding zeros would not work

Best regards Gangleri ‫·‏לערי ריינהארט‏·‏T‏·‏m‏:‏Th‏·‏T‏·‏email me‏·‏‬ 02:16, 18 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

See Wikipedia:Bot requests/Archive 43#Authority control Chzz ► 05:51, 18 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This has been

Done. For reference, the regex I used to find these errors is {{Normdaten(.*)LCCN(.*)/(.*)/0(.*)}} ^Avic_ennasis @ 08:47, 18 Av 5771 / 08:47, 18 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much! Best regards user:Gangleri ‫·‏לערי ריינהארט‏·‏T‏·‏m‏:‏Th‏·‏T‏·‏email me‏·‏‬ 08:57, 18 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

known bugs

:de: #bekannte Fehler :eo: #cimoj

001: template talk:Authority control#Bot_support_required - fixed

002: 16:47, 20 Aŭg. 2011 (UTC: Hi! eo:Kategorio:Ligoj al bibliotekoj lists alle pages containing the Esperanto equivalent of the template "Authority control". While inserting the template in parallel at English and Esperanto Wikipedias I noticed that the template must be insertef before all "Link GA" and "Link FA" templates. If either a "Link GA" or a "Link GA" template is preceding the "Authority control" template no output will be visible to users. Example : eo:Oskar Lafontaine. After relocating the template {{LigoLeginda|de}} (a "Link GA" equivalent) the output was OK, see:diff=3780229&oldid=3780163. I noticed the relation to the insertion place while adding "Authority control" to eo:Nelson Mandela.
Questions:

Is this known here / at Wikipedia in German?
Is there a description where to insert "Authority control"? Inserting "Authority control" after categories and before all "Link GA" and "Link FA" templates (which normaly are folllowed by interwiki links) was allways successfull until now.
Has anybody written a / some bot scripts about positioning / repositioning the template "Authority control"? If so who runs such bots / scripts?

Regards ‫·‏לערי ריינהארט‏·‏T‏·‏m‏:‏Th‏·‏T‏·‏email me‏·‏‬ 22:23, 20 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

003: 21:32, 21 August 2011 (UTC): At de:Jimmy Wales I changed
{{Normdaten|PND=|LCCN=no/20/09117557|VIAF=96800423}} to
{{Normdaten|LCCN=no/2009/117557|VIAF=96800423}}
I hav never seen specifications but compare
http://www.worldcat.org/identities/lccn-no20-09117557 404: Document not found with
http://www.worldcat.org/identities/lccn-no2009-117557 Wales, Jimmy
From my exprience I did understand that every number starting with 2 is a four digit year (the millennium bug).
consequences:' In a week or two a bot should scan all Wikipeidas about such wrong parameters. Maybe one can also

remove empty parameters as PND=| in the example from above
resort parameters to a standard order (preferable by ther internationalisation degree)
watch newly entered datas causing bug 001 (see the RegEx expresion available there)

special cases

Hi! Just posting some links comments:

fullurl:Józef Ulma|action=historysubmit&diff=445593324&oldid=298864617 shows:

#REDIRECT Józef and Wiktoria Ulma

{{Authority control|LCCN=no/2005/116353|VIAF=58824808|TSURL=N/A|NOTES: template at REDIRECT page}}

fullurl:Wiktoria Ulma|action=historysubmit&diff=445593958&oldid=298864703 shows:

#REDIRECT Józef and Wiktoria Ulma

{{Authority control|LCCN=no/2005/116355|TSURL=N/A|NOTES: template at REDIRECT page}}

draft: see comments Sonderfälle at de:template talk:Normdaten ‫·‏לערי ריינהארט‏·‏T‏·‏m‏:‏Th‏·‏T‏·‏email me‏·‏‬ 03:03, 19 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. Rendering looks strange here. I have no clue why. ‫·‏לערי ריינהארט‏·‏T‏·‏m‏:‏Th‏·‏T‏·‏email me‏·‏‬ 21:17, 20 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

gadgets (also Greasemonkey JavaScript)

FYI: svn.wikimedia.org: viaf download (Greasemonkey JavaScript). Screenshots, examples and test links are available at commons:category:VIAF inter project linking. Regards gangleri ‫·‏לערי ריינהארט‏·‏T‏·‏m‏:‏Th‏·‏T‏·‏email me‏·‏‬ 12:05, 24 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

world cat link

Why is the world cat link enclosed in sup.../sup tags? It looks strange like that. --Mirokado (talk) 23:40, 20 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have removed those tags. --Mirokado (talk) 11:22, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Move to infoboxes

I think this would be better included in the foot of biographical infoboxes (compare taxonomic authorities in {{Taxobox}}), thereby making it easier to include in the emitted metadata and (presumably) available to DBpedia. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:33, 25 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The metadata in this template isn't intended just for the use in biographical articles. The German Wikipedia for example also uses it for organizations, companies (Gemeinsame Körperschaftsdatei) and keywords (Schlagwortnormdatei). Seems nobody thought of including Library of Congress Subject Headings or similar information yet. --91.67.132.42 (talk) 22:52, 6 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

OpenCorporates

What about using OpenCorporates as an authority for companies? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:39, 25 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

proposed new argument: hidden

Reading through the discussion at above, it seems that some people have a concern that this template clutters up some of the longer pages. A solution to this might be to add a parameter than causes the template to suppress all HTML output in the displayed page. The information would still be available for linked-data purposes. Stuartyeates (talk) 20:12, 4 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed; and make it the default. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 04:45, 5 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure I'm keen on it being the default in all cases. Where articles are stub or start-class it may well add considerably to the information content of the article. Stuartyeates (talk) 07:03, 5 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Authority control databases
International	VIAF
National
Warning	Local parameters are deprecated.

Authority control databases
National
Warning	Local parameters are deprecated.