Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography/Archive 4

message: Hello all! Our project has got some healthy activity now and I thought I'd see if everyone could pitch in and help with any peer reviews that get added. These are articles that fellow members have asked us to give feedback on....Also, a more informal task is assessing the class of an article that fellow members have requested. Thanks! plange 19:30, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If anyone has a bit of free time, we've several peer review requests that could use more attention; having me being the only one to answer is probably limiting the feedback there somewhat :-) plange 05:18, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Have a back log now, can anyone help? Also, if you nominate one, can you review another? plange 18:50, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Still need help here :-) Pretty please? Especially if you've asked to have a review... We have 2 still needing attention (one is mine and the other I don't feel qualified to review) -- there are others there too who've only had one reviewer and it would be nice to have more than one... Thanks! plange 03:37, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Peer reviews 

message: Okay, I went ahead and presumed the Politics one was going to be created so we could work out the page structure and also give everyone an idea of what a task force is. Here's the first go at the Politics and Government Work Group
You'll notice that this work group I divided by country as that seemed the most logical for this work group. However I'd see the bulk of the others breaking down their Work Group into disciplines, i.e. Arts and Entertainment could be divided by Actors, directors, Musicians, etc.
Let me know what you think and what suggestions you'd have for improvement. To give everyone a taste of what you can do, I collected here and there stubs, templates, etc., and put them on the page, and then I fleshed out China (picked this arbitrarily) and then since the US was already so huge, I made it a subpage so you can see what could transpire if another country/region gets that large too. And then within the US, I expanded Virginia (because that's my interest)... Before anyone gets mad at me for how I divided up the world, I went by how Wikipedia organized the :Category:Politicians by country category. And then the decision on which country got a subhead was solely based on whether it had any politician stubs, since that's a pretty good barometer of how many articles there are (since I think you have to have at least 60 stub articles to be approved for a stub template). Anyway, please assume good faith and know that I did not intentionally mean to hurt any national pride, I was just attempting to get this started. I've made a template to assist in organizing a particular country, and how I picture this is that whoever is interested in that region will take it from here in organizing the rest.... Cheers! plange 03:07, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Also, did we decide to go with "work group" or "task force"? plange 04:00, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Sorry, another note: So that you can also see how project banners will display (and why we need to nail down what it will be called) I added politician-task-force=yes into just this one article I've worked on. Don't use this yet, as it might change to politician-work-group=yes. If we go with task force, I'll need to change language to that, and vice versa....plange 04:05, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well personally I like "work group", sounds more homey and personal. "Task force" sounds like we're ready to blast off in our jet-powered backpacks. Wjhonson 05:10, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Me, too. Maurreen 05:14, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, work group it is -- more importantly, what do you guys think of the structure of the Work Group page? plange 03:49, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Smells good. ....(Complain)(Let us to it pell-mell) 05:56, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Okay, hearing no objections or comments otherwise, I'll start stubbing out the other work groups that got more than one nom plange 19:58, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Okay, have also now made Royalty and nobility work group. It needs fleshing out, so whoever voted for this you're welcome to take over! plange 05:01, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sneak peek at new work group page 

message: There is no consensus amongst editors to add infoboxes to all biographies of people. In some cases the overwhelming consensus among editors of a given article is not to include an infobox. For articles with lots of regular editors (Albert Einstein, Charles Darwin) I think it would be highly advisable to ask on the talk page before creating an infobox. Just a note from someone who doesn't find infoboxes for scientists useful, and is somewhat irked by this project's apparent determination to add infoboxes even where they are not wanted. --Fastfission 22:17, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The scope of this Project is massive, and "we" can't be everywhere or control everything, so I wouldn't be too concerned if I was you. What I would most heartily recommend, however, is signing up as a participant and helping to dictate policy yourself. There's no need for an "us and them" approach; most Wikipedians have edited a biography at some time and have some interest in what this project is about, I think. For me, I think it's helpful to have guidelines and also a central point for WP1.0 work but the scope is too large to try and control articles. --kingboyk 22:21, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, I wouldn't worry about the tag being placed just yet, we're still a long way to getting around to that, it's just a housekeeping note right now. We welcome discussion of this and perhaps we can work out which types of articles get these. If for scientists it just doesn't make sense, that's fine. Perhaps we also talk about if this is not an article you are a regular editor of, we ask first on the Talk page. Should we start a guideline discussion? plange 18:28, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Don't forget I've already started mass tagging (and still maintan it will be easier to weed out a few false positives later than to do the whole thing manually). I've had a few queries on my user talk and a few reservations have been expressed below of course but considering I've tagged several thousand now there's been no great commotion, which is good. I'm trying to help, so the last thing I want is to annoy. --kingboyk 18:40, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, I should have been more explicit, I didn't mean the tagging you're doing (keep going!) -- I meant the needs-infobox=yes parameter we manually put in if we don't see one. Sorry for the confusion! I meant to say not to worry if one has that parameter because I doubt we'll get around to adding infoboxes anytime soon. My whole comment was relative to that only (whether we should add infoboxes, etc) plange 19:14, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Infoboxes when not wanted

message: Attempts to bring this article to compliance of the project request for inline citation are being disrupted by the additions of user Spinoza1111, who has considered my warnings as "authoritarian".  I am tired of arguing with him and am beside myself as to what to do. Amerindianarts 00:39, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Have you referred him/her to WP:CITE? If it's gotten out of hand, it sounds like you need a mediator (I'm not one, sorry) plange 04:15, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Another user complained about his name calling directed towards third parties; me, I think.  I will proceed according to seeking peer review, and if I have further problems consider WP:CITE.  Thanks.  Amerindianarts 04:22, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think peer review might be a little too early for this article. You should first get it in line with GA criteria and get the GA nom, and then get a peer review in prep for FA. WP:CITE isn't something to consider, it's a guideline on how to properly mark inline citations, etc...plange 04:26, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

text: oops, sorry, didn't mean to thrown acronyms around without linking. GA is the process of getting an article listed as a Good Article and to be designated as such a reviewer looks for it to meet these criteria. You can nominate it by following the instructions on the Candidate page. FA means it has gone through a rigorous peer review/vote and is selected as a Featured Article on the Main page of WP. Hope this helps and good luck! plange 05:13, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Immanuel Kant]]

message: I think you should check the following articles and evaluate them, adding the Wiki-project biography template: Pericles, Demosthenes, Alcibiades. I'm working on all these three articles and I soon intend to submit them for FA. After all, these were very important personalities and I think that your project should be interested in.--Yannismarou 07:16, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Pericles, Alcibiades, Demosthenes

message: We need volunteers to help keep this portal fresh. We are now accepting nominations for selected articles - add your nomination now or vote on nominations that have been added. Only FA or GA articles should be nominated. Also we've added a Portal Upkeep department plange 05:33, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No one has any articles to nominate? That can't be possible :-) plange 02:58, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Portal:Biography upkeep 

message: It seems to me that the WPBiography template takes up an excessive amount of space. See this page for example. Maybe we should remove some of the less-needed content from the template. Personally, I don't think we need the link to the Biography Portal or the Biography to-do list in the template. What do the rest of you think? Kaldari 21:51, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The problem is, in that example you gave, taking out the portal and to-do really won't help since it's the transcluded  template that takes up most of it, or at least half...plange 00:23, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, the living person template is a bit of a space hog. Maybe we could come up with a reduced-size version to include in the WPBiography template. Kaldari 00:40, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I did have one, but it was deemed necessary to directly transclude theirs instead of having our own version, since the wording was still in flux. plange 00:49, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: See what you think of the version I just saved. You can see it in action here. Kaldari 00:51, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I appreciate your effort, and the funny thing is, that's pretty much how I designed it in the beginning (warning symbol and all!) but the folks at BLP complained it wasn't prominent enough and wanted me to put it at the top, and so I did and I had it nice and compact though, but someone else was the one that said we should transclude it directly... Let me see if I can talk to the BLP people and see if we can both transclude common text.plange 00:54, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  WPBiography template too large 

message: This article is having a bad time. I have stepped in as an admin with the view of enforcing policy, but it would be extremely useful if any experienced editors could take a look in here with a view to achieving consensus for a NPOV result. The article itself is protected at the moment to give things a chance to settle down, but this can be lifted if there is a reassurance of good input. I will still be available if/when needed. Tyrenius 13:21, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Wow that looks like a mess-- not sure how much help I can offer, maybe more experienced editors here can pitch in... Anyone here able to help? plange 06:41, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Michael Ignatieff]]

message: The BioWikiProject template no longer shows an articles importance ....(Complain)(Let us to it pell-mell) 00:11, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yep, I changed it to only show Top, since we decided not to worry about classifying people other than for that level. You can still rate the others and it will show in the work list plange 01:46, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Something Broke

message: I'm now up to J, about half way through. --kingboyk 13:53, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Woohoo! plange 14:35, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tagging living people 

message: I am trying to get some advice on a potentially-controversial issue. I have initiated a discussion on the Talk page for James E. Edmondson, on the possible inclusion of information relating to his daughter Sarah Edmondson in the article. See Talk:James E. Edmondson and share any thoughts on the matter on that Talk page. --TommyBoy 15:41, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Advice Wanted

message: has begun here about biographies written about academics and artists-- thought you guys might be interested in it....plange 02:17, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  New essay 

message: A few days ago, I created the article for Chris Regina and, even though I'm pretty proud of how it has turned out, was wondering what categories he should be placed in, &c. DrWho42 09:18, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Something under "science fiction" and "television"? Maurreen 15:55, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Category:American television producers? plange 06:12, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

text: oops, I guess he's not really a producer, so perhaps :Category:American television? plange 06:15, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

text: That would be just about right. DrWho42 20:31, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Sci Fi Channel (United States)|SciFi Channel]] programming guy.