Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography/Archive 19

message: The above WikiProject has 7 articles nominated at WP:GAN.
* Randy Orton 
* WrestleMania III 
* Don Kent (wrestler) 
* Amy Dumas 
* Mickie James
* Royal Rumble (1994) 
* Briscoe Brothers 
If someone is interested in reviewing the articles, please do so; as members of the WikiProject to not want to review the articles, because of accusations of conflict of interest. Lex  T/C Guest Book  17:32, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Professional Wrestling|Pro Wrestling WikiProject]] 

message: Talk:Chris Crocker (Internet celebrity) Content dispute if source of content is considered reliable to subject, need outside opinions. Posting to both wikiprojects associated with article. Benjiboi 20:51, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Putting out another call for help as article has been locked for nearly a month. Please consider offering a comment it should only take a few minutes. Benjiboi 05:18, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Content dispute RfC on [[Talk:Chris Crocker (Internet celebrity)|Chris Crocker]] 

message: Talk:Pearl_S._Buck Conflict over addition of "illustrators" heading. Question as to whether this is important enough to merit inclusion, and believe it was done to promote one particular artist. A full, or even partial, documenting of artists who illustrated Buck's stories would be a long list indeed. Is there value or precedent in such a heading? JNW (talk) 22:02, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Biographical conflict

message: I'm no good at writing biographies, and I was wondering if anyone would be willing to improve Marvin Hawkins? I started it on the grounds that he is notable as the third author of the Pons-Fleischmann cold fusion experiment whose name was accidentally left off. (I know this sounds bizarre, but I've backed this up with several reliable sources. Also, I remember learning about it in the late 80's in a nuclear physics class at Georgia Tech.) On the talk page I provided a clue that might help, but it might not. Ben Hocking (talk|contribs) 16:47, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Marvin Hawkins 

message: Giacomo Casanova ("the" Casanova) is currently tagged "written like a personal reflection or essay and may require cleanup", as well as "needs additional citations for verification". (I myself have no competence in this subject.) -- 201.37.229.117 20:24, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Casanova]] needs your help

message: Hi, this article was a wreck. I didn't have much time, but I tried to make some fairly radical changes to bring it back to a decent state, after a series of edits by Attila Lajos (who wrote his PhD thesis on Wallenberg ) that gave the article a rather non-neutral point of view. I hope that by posting here I can draw some attention to it so that someone might be able to give it the time it deserves. –Joke 21:43, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Raoul Wallenberg]] 

message: I'm doing new-page patrol and I'd like to know if there's anything special I should do when I happen to run across a biography among the new pages.  Am I supposed to insert ?  Am I supposed to put   on the talk page?  Would it be helpful to fill out a persondata template?  Anything else?  Are these instructions summarized anywhere?  Thanks.  --Coppertwig 20:00, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Adding the , and maybe indicating "living=yes/no", whichever is appropriate, would certainly be appreciated. If you wanted to go further and add anything further, like you mentioned above, I very seriously doubt anyone would have any objections. John Carter 14:04, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Any actions needed for new biography articles? 

message: Hallo, when I nested the templates at Talk:Tempest Anderson, the info about automatic stub designation in the Biography Project template didn't shrink.  Should it?  PamD 13:30, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  nesting project templates 

message: I just found out that this article's GA nominator is on vacation.  Could someone else take a look at the GA review, and make necessary changes?  If you have queries, leave a note on my talk page.  Cheers, Dihydrogen Monoxide ♫ 06:47, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[The Corrs]] 

message: Ilya Prigogine is still basically a stub. Can anyone add to this? -- Writtenonsand (talk) 11:21, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *You're welcome to expand any article as long as the additions are sourced, preferably with complete inline citations (so a future editor doesn't need to re-retrieve everything). Are you familiar with WP:CITET? -Susanlesch (talk) 14:14, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Ilya Prigogine]] needs expansion 

message: Hi.
As I am very novice at making infoboxes, can someone in this WikiProject Make a infobox for a general athlete or a table tennis player (as I am doing a article on one)? Thanks and also please reply me on my talk page. --Jackl 08:50, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Infobox for general athlete? 

message: Currently the page on Henry Schultz, economist, is at Henry Schultz (economist), although there is no page on another person with the same name on WP. Henry Schultz redirects to Henry Shultz, a page on someone else (not clear who from the article?). I think that the page on the economist should be moved to Henry Schultz with notices at the top of both articles to disambig. I would move it myself but I think I need the help of an admin to first erase the existing redirect article. BTW, if you check "what links here" on the Henry Shultz page, most links are for the economist through the redirect, so people have a hard time finding the correct page with the current setup AdamSmithee 09:52, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Long story short, I need a little help from an admin and I'll take care of the rest AdamSmithee 15:37, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I have taken care of this page move. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 05:11, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

text: Thanks a lot! I'll take care of it now AdamSmithee (talk) 07:45, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Henry Shultz vs. Henry Schultz

message: I'm new here but I noticed that the newsletter has not been issued since September. Has the newsletter system stopped. Just curious. --King of the Apes (talk) 03:41, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Newsletter 

message: I am listing a discussion begun at User_talk:Damslerset and at Wikipedia_talk:Copyright_problems#Virtualology
According to the Virtualology site, which is a copy & attempted revision of the notoriously unreliable Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography,  its revised biographies are arranged separately, as explained there "If you would like to edit this biography please submit a rewritten biography in text form . If acceptable, the new biography will be published above the 19th Century Appleton's Cyclopedia Biography citing the volunteer editor." from, e.g. [1] However, I see no firm indication that this is in fact the case, and would like to see some examples of this. Ones directly from Appletons are not copyvios. Ones modified from Appleton's are copyvios, because the Virtualology site is copyrighted. Unfortunately, the original ones are also known not to be reliable or accurate.( It is additionally plagiarism to use them with just the tag at the bottom, without indicating that the entire article was copied and what the exact source is.) I therefore doubt that any material from this site can ever be incorporated in Wikipedia. If unmodified, they are not reliable. If modified, they are not public domain. DGG (talk) 01:19, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: — 71.42.169.223 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. 
I furthermore do not think the material is always being added carefully. there was already a good article on Benjamin Alvord (mathematician) (1813-1884), using Appleton as well as other more authoritative sources. You added an article for his son, Benjamin Alford Jr., unfortunately called Benjamin Alvord (general) --unfortunately because the father was also a general--and copied the information from the bio of his parent as a direct cut and paste from the Appleton web site. (I deleted it as a duplicate, but I can make a copy available--actually I hardly need to, because it is an exact literal character-by-character copy of the one on your own web site [2] without any attempt whatsoever to modify it into the appropriate style for wikipedia--not even inverting the name from its "ALVORD, Benjamin," to what we would call "Benjamin Alvord." Not writing appropriately with respect to style, is a minor matter and easily fixable--though a nuisance if you intend to do many contributions. But you did not check to see that you were copy-pasting about the right person!
I think this casts doubt on all contributions derived from this source, , and I urge you not to add further material until this has been worked out according to consensus. I apologize if this has sounded a little sharp, but I want to make certain that this gets clarified before things get more complicated. DGG (talk) 01:20, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Use of Appleton's and its derivative sites

message: There have already been a variety of related discussions about spam, coi, copyright, and link quality in different places, so I started a more centralized discussion of all aspects at:
*Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Virtualology and Stanley L. Klos -- boon to our historical articles or just a bain of spam? (permanent link)
--A. B. (talk)  21:03, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Virtualology]] and [[Stanley L. Klos]] discussion on [[WP:AN]] 

message: Hello Project members. I need your help on the following questions- 1) Should all PM bio infoboxes have the same info 2) If so, should they have their Head of State & Elections included (see talk: Kevin Rudd) and 3)If it's a Commonwealth realm PM, should Elizabeth II be included? Or the Governor General (or both)? GoodDay (talk) 16:38, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I actually never said I changed my position on eliminating the Head of States from the infoboxes, just as a compromise for Prime Minister Rudd's pages. I am firmly with keeping the Heads of State and firmly against keeping the elections. I feel that the Governor Generals can be sacrificed, because they aren't truly the Head of State. Therequiembellishere (talk) 17:06, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

text: What we need is a consistency of style for PM infoboxes across the project, rather than (as Gazzster suggests) leaving it up to individual editors.  This will give the project the professional look that it desires, something that we have MOS and templates for.  I do note that Gazzster once again resorts to an odd "the monarch is irrelevant" and "there is a clique of monarchists" to push his POV.  Simply put, there is a field for president/monarch in the infobox, it is used in a majority of instances.  What is being discussed is consistency of style.  IMO, I don't really mind eitherway, but the project should adopt a consistent professional style.  Shot info (talk) 00:06, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

text: No, because politicians of a Prime Minister's level are equal with each other and they should both be there. A cardinal is nowhere close to the Pope's level of authority, of the Governor is as the Vatican's Head of Government. I believe that the head of state is necessary, because as they others' equal and how closest they generally work, it is short and succinct. I mean, it's just a name. The elections should entirely be incorporated into the articles, if I see this, I'll rectify it and if anyone else sees it, they can fix it or I can come over and help, elections are definetely not always short, especially in cases such as Menzies. The way they do it there completely ruins the point of having them mentioned at all because there is no link to them several of them, despite it being "short". Therequiembellishere (talk) 00:27, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

text: Let's limit the infoboxes to information directly about the person who the article is about, (eg the Australian Prime Minister). Adding other extraneous information about Queens, Popes, Governer Gererals, Flags, anthems etc etc makes it harder to easily see the information about the PM. If the other information was relevant, it would be in the article text, which it usually isn't. What other countries do with Wiki articles about their leaders is irrelevant, as their political situations are different with different emphasis.Lester 00:57, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

text: A cardinal is not a head of government, that's essentially what I was saying. Therequiembellishere (talk) 01:34, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

text: Without repeating myself from Talk:Kevin Rudd, I basically agree with JPD's and Gazzster's contributions to this discussion. I think conformity for conformity's sake which reduces usability or accuracy is not something we should aim for. Orderinchaos 14:35, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

text: Well, technically no article is owned by anybody...including a project.  Why is it that you expect consistency of (say) Australian PMs, but not PMs.  After all, isn't this just consistency for the sake of consistency?  And if it's more than that, why cannot this be extended to all of Wikipedia?  It's only electronic after all?  Shot info (talk) 12:17, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Very simple - set of related articles. PMs in different countries are not related articles. Note I'm not saying "Australia vs the world", nor I think are any of the contributors, but more an "each country decides on its own standards and goes from there". In some cases, two or more groups of those may choose to blend their ideas either for efficiency or other reasons, but it's senseless just saying the words "Prime Minister", which mean vastly different things in different jurisdictions, means all of a sudden everything should be exactly the same no matter where it appears. Orderinchaos 14:37, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: "PMs in different countries are not related articles." Do tell? If they are all using the PM template, then there's a link right there, a link that's plain to everyone else. We've got templates for musicians, scientists, soccer players, but somehow you think that Prime Ministers aren't exclusive enough???? --Pete (talk) 23:55, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I guess there is just different forms of "consistency".  Pete has a very good point.  This "related" logic can be drawn to anything really, authors in Togo versus authors in Australia.  Why not BLP?  BLP_UK and BLP_Oz.  This is why the project has MOS and templates, to help with the consistency across the project, except where we don't want to.  And if we don't want to, why bother making any article similar to any other vaguely related article (as Goodday articulates below)?  Why bother following anything that is used within WP if it means that an editor's particular POV button is pushed?  Shot info (talk) 02:56, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

text: Of course Kevin Rudd's infobox can be different from John Howard's, etc, if the relevant editors see good reason for having a difference. There may indeed be reasons for significant differences in some cases, as the fact that two people were PM doesn't tell us that the infobox-worthy facts about them are exactly the same (to take an extreme example - who decides that Peter Garrett's infobox looks like Julia Gillard's, rather than Bono's, and why?). However, the reasons for consistency within Australian PMs are much stronger than the reasons for consistency between PMs from different countries. Consistency can be helpful, and it can be unhelpful. The MOS sets some standards at a much more basic level than this discussion. Templates allow a similar style wherever editors agree that this is helpful. The better templates (for scientists, politicians, or whoever) allow for a fair bit of flexibility in their use, so that different sorts of articles can be different while still having the same basic style. We don't need to invoke WP:IAR to do this or even ignore the infobox, because WikiProject template guidelines are not in any sense rules, but simply collaborative efforts that are generally a good thing. OIC has rightly pointed out that PM means vastly different things in different places. The arguments for and against monarchs/elections in PM infoboxes may indeed be almost the same in Australia as in Canada, but they definitely aren't relevant to the French PM case. This means it's much better to point out the (similar) arguments, than to simply call for "consistency". JPD (talk) 15:10, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

text: I like that idea GoodDay! I fully support it. Therequiembellishere (talk) 01:05, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Infobox for Prime Minister bios

message: Please assess the rest of your articles.  Thank you.  --The WP:1.0 team  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.15.161.187 (talk) 21:49, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Assessment 

message: A pending biography MOS guideline amendment needs opinions and help with clarity and accuracy: Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_%28biographies%29#Amendment_to_.22Subsequent_uses_of_names.22_section. Also see the above section. --Melty girl (talk) 21:52, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposed biography MOS change needs expertise and copyediting

message: I am having a debate with a group of authors who maintain fraternity articles. Talk:Sigma Alpha Mu  They are arguing that if a fraternity publishes a list of living people who they claim are members, we should accept this as a primary source and proceed to associate these living people with that fraternity.  They have opened an RFC on the matter anyone interested in weighing in on the discussion it would be useful. Alan.ca (talk) 00:40, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fraternity membership 

message: Recently I requested peer reviews for the article Slipknot (band), seeing as it's listed within your project I was wondering if a participant of the project could leave a review here. Rezter (talk) 14:37, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Slipknot Peer Review

message: Editor Billy Hathorn has been a prolific creator of biographies of lesser-known Louisiana political figures. Many of these articles have been deleted on grounds of notability. At issue has been the availability of references that meet the requirements of our Notability Guideline for Biographies. Additionally, many have cited Mr. Hathorn's master's thesis, which raises issues relating to our Original Research Policy and our Conflict of Interest Guideline. Complicating everything is the shortage of online references for politicans of 50 to 80 years ago; paper is just as acceptable per our Reliable Sources and Verifiability rules, but as we all know, it's much easier to assert notability in an AfD when discussing a current newsmaker with online references than it is for a long-dead historical figure.
Here's the current crop of Articles for Deletion (AfD) discussions; your input pro or con is invited:
*Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Roy R. Theriot
*Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Allison Kolb
*Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Charles and Virginia de Gravelles
*Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ben C. Toledano
*Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Roderick Miller
*Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hall M. Lyons
*Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Willis Ricketts
*Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Billy J. Guin
A concise summary of all of the Louisiana AfDs underway can be found at 
*Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Louisiana
More general discussions of Mr. Hathorn's articles can be found at:
*User talk:Billy Hathorn
**Includes deletion notices for many more of his articles
*Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive114#User:Billy Hathorn
*Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Billy Hathorn
It would be good if we can somehow use this prolific body of work while staying within our content guidelines.--A. B. (talk)  00:09, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  8 Louisiana-related biographies currently at AfD 

message: Are Muhammad_Bashmilah and Mohamed Farag Ahmad Bashmilah the same person? If so, they need to be merged. Also, Muhammad_Bashmilah needs a new title since it refers to three people not just one (there were previously three copies of the article, one at each name.) —Random832 21:39, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[:Muhammad_Bashmilah]] 

message: In Alan Cumming‎: "In 1985, he married Hilary Lyon. However, they divorced in 1993" [Then suddenly, out of the blue --] "following his mental breakdown" --  "His mental breakdown" is mentioned nowhere else in the article. Is this vandalism or just crap editing or what? If the latter, could we please add a line or two on this elsewhere in the article. (And, you know, a cite - Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons#Sources .) - 201.37.229.117 (talk) 20:29, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Alan Cumming‎]]: Mental breakdown?