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[edit] Category:Biography articles with listas parameter

It seems silly to have this huge category (0 pages) that almost entirely duplicates the list of pages to which this template is applied. Since, like the living parameter, the listas parameter should almost always be there, wouldn't it be better to do the same thing that is done with the living parameter, get rid of this category and only categorize those that don't have it (i.e. keep Category:Biography articles without listas parameter) so that people can go through that and add the parameter? Gurch (talk) 10:20, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

I was thinking to propose the same but let's don't rush it. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:10, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

The only reasons to have the category are because it can be created and, more importantly, so that editors who have way too much time on their hands have a list to use to verify the the listas parameter is correct and that it matches the DEFAULTSORT value on the main page.

It only has about 93% of the pages that have this template. There are still 33,518 pages that lack a listas parameter and even though that latter number is shrinking, it is shrinking very slowly, by only 13 pages since I started typing this.

JimCubb (talk) 20:46, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

By the way, I strongly encourage both of you to do a few (or a few hundred) of the articles in Category:Biography articles without listas parameter each day. If you would also add DEFAULTSORT values to the article pages and do whatever clean-up needs to be done about the banners (living parameter, verify Stub status, apply WPBS if it is warranted), that would be wonderful.

JimCubb (talk) 21:45, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the invitation. I would like to invite you in Wikipedia:Uncategorized biographies of living people/BLPPotential. :) . -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:07, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

As this category is being depopulated (down to 8,911 pages as I write this) there are four pages on the first page that clearly have the wrong value, although one is not a biography. As I indicated above Category:Biography articles with listas parameter is the only way to check that articles have the correct sort value.

As soon as Category:Biography articles without listas parameter has fewer than 200 articles in it (it now has more than 52,000) I will be happy to address the few hundred articles that will remain in Category:Biography articles without living parameter as many of the pages I see in Category:Biography articles without listas parameter lack both parameters.

I am really sorry to see this category go. I would much rather that sloppiness be evident and corrected instead of hidden and regretted.

JimCubb (talk) 18:49, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

JimCubb left me a talk page message telling me about this change that has just taken place ("depopulate Category:Biography articles with listas parameter, not needed"). I wasn't aware of the above discussion, but if I had been, I would have contested the proposed change. I was the editor who originally asked for this category (and several others) to be populated, back in August 2007. Please see the talk page section here. The reason given at the time for that category was "to demonstrate the utility of a category sorting all biographical articles". I think the category is still needed for that purpose, as it is currently (as far as I'm aware) the only way to generate an alphabetical list of all biography articles. If there is an alternative way to generate an alphabetical list of all biographical articles, please can this be implemented to reliably replace the current system? Having such a list has numerous uses. One use is to allow work to be done on surname disambiguation pages. The other, as JimCubb has pointed out, is spotting and correcting the articles where mistakes have been made with the listas parameter. There are other uses as well. I am going to alert all the above participants in the discussion to this objection I am raising, and also the admin who made the change. Hopefully, we can discuss what can be done here. Carcharoth (talk) 22:09, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

This is my opinion in brief, because I was about to go to sleep:

I think the category sooner or later will have all the articles of WPBiography.
"to demonstrate the utility of a category sorting all biographical articles" it's not a strong reason to have this category. It's impossible for editors to check 700k+ articles. The main job can only be done by bots. Having less than 0.001% of mistakes is not a big deal and quite impossible to locate them all.
Removing the category was a mistake. Any changes to this template must have a strong consensus. It affects 700k+ articles. In the discussion above I didn't fully agree with removing this category since right now people are still correcting mistakes in the categorisation. I think it can serve a purpose for some time more, until ListasBot makes one more run and editors check that the job is done correctly.

I hope I helped. Tomorrow, I'll be back. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:28, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Is it worth having a separate category for where the listas value is the same as {{PAGENAME}}? -- WOSlinker (talk) 22:42, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Sorry for any inconvenience, I have reverted my edit for the moment. I had read a consensus on the discussion about this and hadn't interpreted JimCubb's comments as dissent (normally he states his position much more strongly when he disagrees!) I must say that I can't for the life of me see how this category is useful and the explanations above and the link provided by Carcharoth don't really help me to understand. But if some editors are using it then of course it should stay until we find a better way to achieve the required purpose. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 23:30, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

I also fail to see the value in having such a category. If it is seen as useful to have a top-level category containing all articles tagged for this project, then it should be fairly easy to implement without being tied to the |listas= parameter. PC78 (talk) 23:03, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree with that. I can't really understand why a top-level category is needed, but if people find it useful then it should be Category:WikiProject Biography articles or similar and not related to listas at all. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:02, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

After 3 months from my last comment, I can say that I now agree as well. It's no reason to keep this category. The "without listas" can do the job. Let's delete it. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:55, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Let's look at this again.

I can't really understand why a top-level category is needed, but if people find it useful then it should be Category:WikiProject Biography articles . . .

Apparently some people can understand why a top-level category is needed and can even understand why the name is important.

Having less than 0.001% of mistakes is not a big deal and quite impossible to locate them all.

Having one error that is easy to locate and somewhat easy to correct is a big deal. (Go to the end of the category, "Zz" and beyond. There are 577 pages there with incorrect listas values from |listas=Zápotočný, Tomáš to |listas=Ávila, António José de Ávila, Duke of. If the first letter former were other than "Z" how would a bot locate it? Is your bot going to put the {{blp}} banner at the top of the page where it belongs?) Actually, having one error that is easy to locate and somewhat easy to correct is one error too many.

I think the category sooner or later will have all the articles of WPBiography.

As long as people continue to write article about other people (or groups of people) and fail to include a value for |listas= or leave off the project banner and the bot that tags them fails to include a value for |listas= this category will never have all the articles in this project. Recently a bot tagged approximately 14,000 articles for this project. As a result of this Category:Biography articles without listas parameter increased in size by 14,000 articles because the bot's owner has said repeatedly in many places that he/she is not concerned about |listas=.

Category:Biography articles with listas parameter is not broken. There is no need to fix it. Some feel it serves a useful purpose. Others do not understand this and, because of their lack of understanding, seek to destroy the category. Those in the latter group really should confine their opinions to things they understand.

The 29,143 pages in Category:Biography articles without listas parameter and the 577 error-laden pages at the end of Category:Biography articles with listas parameter eagerly await your attention. If you would also concern yourselves with the |living= and the sort value on the article page, that would be extremely helpful. Happy Editing! JimCubb (talk) 20:16, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

With respect Jim, I think it's just you who sees the value in this category. Carcharoth originally asked for this category to "demonstrate the utility of a category sorting all biographical articles", except it doesn't do that, it only includes articles with listas. A category that actually included all biographical articles would be simple to set up if necessay. That said, I have no great wish to change things if you find the current category useful. PC78 (talk) 23:07, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

I have removed this category from the sandbox version, so it will start emptying when the update is done. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:08, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Respectfully, I am firmly in the camp of those who believe the category is useful for the reasons set out above. I have found a number of errors in the living and listas tags (e.g. Yobot for some reason thinks that a number of dead people are actually alive); one of the few ways to find these articles is thru a listing (however imperfect; and it is). But I'd rather have that imperfection and know it's there rather than stumble blindly thru each biography as I do cleanup on both its talk page and the article itself. I hope this makes sense. Also, I think a warning that the listas category was going to be depopulated in the near future would have been helpful. I was surprised to find it had happened (I discovered it yesterday). Again, this is my opinion. I remain, yr humble, --FeanorStar7 (talk) 10:23, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

From what you are saying, it seems that you would probably find a category of all biography talk pages more useful, for example Category:All WikiProject biography articles. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:13, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

I will try very hard to be calm even though MSGJ stated on 24 July 2009

I had read a consensus on the discussion about this and hadn't interpreted JimCubb's comments as dissent (normally he states his position much more strongly when he disagrees!) [emphasis added]

I cannot promise to avoid my appreciation of irony to peek through.

Here is what I see in this discussion and the discussion on Category talk:Biography articles with listas parameter. There may also be points from other discussions.

On 5 June 2009 User:Gurch and User:Magioladitis agreed that the category was useless. My comment was neither substantial nor helpful.
On 24 July 2009 MSGJ edited the template so as to cause the depopulation of the category. Carcharoth and I objected and gave reasons for our objections. User:Magioladitis also objected but changed his mind later. The category was repopulated.
On 13 September 2009 User:PC78 wrote that an upper-level category of this sort was not necessary Why not? but if one were deemed necessary it should not be dependent upon the |listas= Why not? and an alternative would be easy to generate. Note that Carcharoth had asked for such a category two years before and it had not yet been generated.
On 29 September User:Magioladitis changed his mind from his post of 24 July, two months and ten days before and began his post with the words, "After 3 months from my last comment". Three months after 24 July would be 24 October, next Saturday, as I write this.
On 2 October User:PC78 wrote

A category that actually included all biographical articles would be simple to set up if necessay. That said, I have no great wish to change things if you find the current category useful.

On 16 October MSGJ edited the template to depopulate the category again. I threw a fit.
On 17 October User:Roman Spinner objected to the depopulation of the category.
On 19 October User:FeanorStar7 posted with both justification for the category and regret that there was not notice of its depopulation. Also User:R'n'B denied the speedy deletion of the category because of the controversy over its depopulation.

I am certain that the folks who want to eliminate the category will respond to this very soon to nitpick it as best they can. The clear fact remains that the value of the category has been established, no alternative category has been established for the category despite the reputed ease of doing so and there is no consensus for depopulating the category.

JimCubb (talk) 06:56, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

A few comments:

I think your summary above is quite accurate.
I would like to point out that at the time I depopulated the category there was a strong consensus to do so. (This was before Roman Spinner and FeanorStar7 had turned up and Carcharoth had not returned to the discussion, so it was only you who was still arguing for this category.)
I still find thr arguments for this category extremely unconvincing.
I believe there is provision in the sandbox version for a category of all biography articles. Personally I don't think this is necessary (I still think a bot-generated list could be more useful); however I will not oppose it as there are clearly a significant number of editors who want this.

— Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:45, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

My objections above still stand, though before we go back-and-forth again, can we please try and get a proper consensus and plan in place? This is a massively used template, and switching this category on and off does actually (as far as I'm aware) put some sort of load on the job queue. I think that is the point of notice on this template that says: "To avoid large-scale disruption and unnecessary server load..." My point about a category for all biographical articles is that it provides a dynamically updated list that can be linked into. A bot-generated list would be one option. A manual listing would end up with what was deleted at an MfD at some point about a year or so ago. My point here is that reference books have alphabetical listings of their articles. Wikipedia has alphabetical listings of all its articles, but why not alphabetical listings of subgroups, such as the WPBiography articles? That can only happen if all the biographical articles have DEFAULTSORT values, and currently it seems that you have to duplicate DEFAULTSORT using listas (I've found no way of getting the talk page templates to detect and recognise the DEFAULTSORT value used on the article). If someone comes up with another way to do this, please start that going before removing this one. Carcharoth (talk) 14:32, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. We should all strive to be accurate.
Gurch only appeared once. Magioladitis has waffled between depopulating and leaving things alone and it could be that he/she will switch sides again.. PC78 wrote that the category should stay if it is found to be useful. I learned about the initial depopulation by accident. I honestly felt that if a reason were given to those who saw no reason, that would be enough. I stuck around because it was easy to do. Carcharoth wrote that he was going to contact other editors who were around at the creation of the category but apparently he was ignored. He would not have known about the initial depopulation had I not told him about it. He would not have known about the current depopulation had I not told him about it. Now, after the second, unannounced depopulation, Carcharoth has returned; Roman Spinner and FeanorStar7 found the discussion by accident and R'n'B denied the speedy deletion of the template because of the controversy. Now that people have found that the category is gone, people who had no way of knowing that it was in danger, there is no consensus for the category's depopulation and deletion. (Had the correct procedures been followed, such as a CfD discussion, I suspect that the consensus for keeping the category would have been much stronger. Note that one of the exceptions for a speedy deletion of a category is that no CfD discussion was held.)
At least there are reasons given for keepting the category. The only arguments that have been given for deleting the category are lack of understanding of the reasons and personal preference. The former is an AGF issue as you seem to assume that the reasons that have been given for the retention of the category are without merit and the latter smacks of ownership.
It took several days for Listasbot (or Defaultsortbot, I do not remember which) to go through CATEGORY:Biography articles without listas parameter on its last pass and there were only about 60,000 pages in it. it would take several weeks for a bot to go through a 3,000,000+ articles to rebuild a list. The list would never be accurate. It may be possible to generate a category of all biographical articles strictly by populating it with articles that have the template. After CATEGORY:Biography articles with listas parameter is repopulated it will be easy to check the new list or category for comprehensiveness by adding the number of pages in CATEGORY:Biography articles without listas parameter to the number of pages in CATEGORY:Biography articles with listas parameter. Also, would a bot generated list be sorted by the sort value of the page as a category would be sorted by definition? If not, a list would be completely worthless, as most lists seem to be.

JimCubb (talk) 21:58, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Since my comment at Category talk:Biography articles with listas parameter is eventually likely to vanish along with the entire category talk and the now-empty category, I feel it necessary to add a similar note here if only for the historical record of this process. Joining the comments from JimCubb, FeanorStar7 and Carcharoth, I was at first dismayed and, ultimately, regretful that this category, which I have been using for over two years as a table of contents/index/guidepost in repairing the thousands of misalphabetized, misspelled and missorted entries in "listas=" has been emptied before the hopeful, but still uncertain, attainment of some version of Category:All WikiProject biography articles, mentioned above by Martin (MSGJ). As JimCubb, who has done the lion's share of work in this area, pointed out, we are now bereft of any tracking device for the entire compendium of combined biographical entries which, together with those compiled in the analogous Category:Biography articles without listas parameter, comprise nearly 800,000 and, within a couple of/few years, will likely reach a million.

While the article-page Category:Living people (412,322 entries as of this writing) and talk-page Category:Biography articles of living people (436,550 entries as of this writing) have kept track of that (somewhat larger) portion of biographical entries, Category:Biography articles with listas parameter, although described by PC78 as "no more than a listing of pages using a certain parameter in the banner", had been, along with Category:Biography articles without listas parameter, the nearest entity, by default, to present a grouping of nearly all biographical entries, with the obvious exception in that grouping of the relatively small number of talk pages missing the "WPBiography" banner.

To support this category's usefulness, specifics underscored by JimCubb may be elucidated to a greater degree. Category:Living people, which has as its final entry, Todd Zywicki, was once filled with scores of post-Zywicki entries sorted under all manner of unicode symbols. In the past (approximately) 18 months, increased maintenance of DEFAULTSORT has mostly eliminated the problem with, as of this writing, only two (newly-created) entries following Zywicki----Chipmunk (rapper), misindexed under lower-case "c", and Águila Solitaria, misindexed under "Á" (again, as JimCubb has pointed out, a bot-generated list would improperly place this individual's professional/stage name as Solitaria, Águila). Although some DEFAULTSORT indicators are similarly misunderstood and misplaced, those are, for the most part corrected by knowledgeable editors and used as an example by a bot which has been utilizing DEFAULTSORT as a guidepost for adding "listas=". Unfortunately, no bot has attended to the thousands of entries with "listas=" which are misalphabetized and, taken as a combined unit, could only be spotted in Category:Biography articles with listas parameter.

The final entry in almost any list of notables is Wojciech Żywny (alphabetized as Zywny, Wojciech), but Category:Biography articles with listas parameter was the sole venue to see instantly that Żywny was followed (at the end of the "Z" listings, as of this category's last appearance) by Piotr Żyła, Jan Zábrana, Šárka Záhrobská, Gundis Zámbó, Tomáš Zápotočný, Manuel Ortiz de Zárate, José María Zárraga, František Záviška, Tom Zé, Venance Zézé, Tomáš Zíb, Ladislav Zívr, Antje Zöllkau, Felipe de Zúñiga y Ontiveros, Andreas Zülow and Ernst Zündel. These names were further followed (and preceded, at the end of each previous letter of the alphabet) by at least two thousand others, listed under various unicode symbols and lower-case letters, most of which contain surnames joined with "de" and "von" which, unless the subject is referenced under American name format, should be listed under the main part of the surname. Inconsistencies created by editors and bots abound (DEFAULTSORT:Catherine de' Medici --- Persondata NAME=Medici, Catherine de' --- listas=De' Medici, Catherine). Since some of the above-linked are living, their names may also be found similarly misfiled within Category:Biography articles of living people, but the majority of names was only visible in the now-lost Category:Biography articles with listas parameter, including names listed under "listas={", "listas=[" and "listas=yes".

To conclude this already-overlong posting, since the likelihood of this category's reappearance has been described as remote at best, and no list, whether updated by editors or bots, could deal with the soon-to-be million biographical entries, if/when "Category:All WikiProject biography articles" is created, taking into account the difficulty of getting the talk page templates to detect and recognize the DEFAULTSORT value used on the article, as described by Carcharoth in the posting immediately before this one, the best we can hope for/expect, if at all, is something very similar to what we had in the deprecated category --- a listing still based on "listas=". Like the other posters, I hope to be pleasantly surprised, but a procedure intent upon recreating/duplicating a listing of this size has the aura of a Sisyphean task.—Roman Spinner (talk) 02:30, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

I've added a new category in the sandbox (actually the existing Cat:WikiProject Biography articles) which will include all biography articles. This should allow Jim to carry on what he was doing, and it will be the category that Carcharoth originally wanted and which others have said would be useful. Hopefully this will please everyone and we can all go about our buisness. PC78 (talk) 16:09, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Just how deep into the category tree presented in Category:WikiProject Biography articles must I go in order to find the sub-sub-category that includes all biography articles? All I see are the empty Category:Biography articles with listas parameter, the very troublesome Category:Biography articles without listas parameter and a bunch of other categories, none of which are negatives of each other.

Other than your personal preference is there any good reason not to have a top-level category based on the presence of a value of a parameter? Is there a policy or a guideline regarding this? Is your objection strictly with Category:Biography articles with listas parameter or does it include such categories as Category:Biography articles without listas parameter and Category:Biography articles without living parameter? It appear to me that Category:Biography articles with listas parameter is and always has been a sub-category of Category:WikiProject Biography articles and not a top-level category at all. What am I missing?

The only answer appears to be for an admin to revert the change that was made to this template that depopulated Category:Biography articles with listas parameter and initiate a CfD on the category. If I did it I would probably be banned by one of the admins who fails to see any value to the category and dismisses the reasons that have been given for keeping it as worthless.

JimCubb (talk) 23:55, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Nothing has been implemented yet, so you're looking for something that isn't yet there. Since I am unable to edit the template myself, any changes will be down to Martin or another admin. Any category based on the listas parameter will only ever contain those articles with a listas parameter, i.e. not all biography articles; am I the only one who sees the blinding obviousness of this? Frankly I'm not sure what else you want me to say. You can either pester Martin into moving things along or you can display a greater level of patience than what you have so far. Last I checked the world had not stopped turning, so I can only conclude that this is not the matter of grave importance that the amount of commentary above would tend to suggest. PC78 (talk) 00:19, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Twelve hours ago as I write this you wrote

I've added a new category in the sandbox (actually the existing Cat:WikiProject Biography articles) which will include all biography articles.

The perfect tense indicates an action that has been completed. You wrote that the category had been added. When will this category be added? It has been almost three weeks since you wrote that it would be simple to do.

As stated above, Category:Biography articles with listas parameter contained roughly 97% of the Biography articles. As also stated above, User:Carcharoth asked two years ago for a category that contained all the Biography articles and could not get one. We have been satisfied with Category:Biography articles with listas parameter. We like Category:Biography articles with listas parameter.

Your failure to understand the reasons given for Category:Biography articles with listas parameter and the importance that some editors place on this issue is your failure. If you cannot understand the latter from the fact that User:Carcharoth took time away from his ArbCom duties to address this issue and that User:Roman Spinner took the time to provide an extensive explanation of the need for Category:Biography articles with listas parameter with examples of the problems with the integrity of the encyclopedia that the category exposed.

You still have not given any justification for your dislike of Category:Biography articles with listas parameter. You still have not created the category that you said had been created.

I eagerly await your accomplishment of the task you have set for yourself although experience indicates that I will be disappointed. JimCubb (talk) 05:23, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

"The perfect tense indicates an action that has been completed. You wrote that the category had been added." PC78 wrote that the category has been added to the sandbox (the test environment). That action has been completed and agrees with the tense used in the statement. PC78 also wrote that an admin will need to transfer the sandbox code to the live template due to page protection.

It seems a little inconsistent that you were demanding the banning of members the other week because a glitch slipped through the testing process unnoticed and then this week expect changes to get rushed through the testing process. Either we go through a testing procedure and catch problems before they occur or we rush things through and hope for the best. You can't really have it both ways. Road Wizard (talk) 07:03, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

This point has already been mentioned but, to focus on it specifically, yes, of course, by its very nature, "any category based on the listas parameter will only ever contain those articles with a listas parameter, i.e. not all biography articles", but that key specific should not be perceived as a shortcoming in compiling a complete list of biographical entries (both articles and stubs) based on listas, but as a strong point. As in the case of article-page DEFAULTSORT, discussion-page listas is expected to accompany all biographical entries, including those of individuals known by a single name, such as Tacitus, or others, such as Chiang Kai-shek, who come from a culture in which the placement of a name for alphabetical sorting leaves it unchanged from its standard form.

Just over a year ago, on October 12, 2008, Category:Biography articles without listas parameter contained 332,845 entries and, as of this writing, has diminished by more than 90% to 29,607, much of this decrease thanks to JimCubb and one or more bots. Within a relatively brief period, optimistically speaking, the "without" category is slated to be empty, but always at the ready to receive new batches of "WPBiography" entries. All of those talk pages to which listas is being appended and which, until very recently, could be observed as they moved from Category:Biography articles without listas parameter to Category:Biography articles with listas parameter plus all those once contained in the now-depopulated "with" category do, indeed, constitute a list of all biographical entries in Wikipedia, with the obvious exception of those entries awaiting categorization and tagging. Also, since some editors have been under the impression that DEFAULTSORT and listas are appended to subjects other than biographies, it was possible, during the active existence of Category:Biography articles with listas parameter to spot such talk-page anomalies, correct them and examine the accompanying article to see whether its DEFAULTSORT was also in need of adjustment.

Ultimately, given the hope of an all-biography category, I will patiently await its appearance, but it should also be noted that, while not all matters or subjects are equally important, to those editors who devote hours, days, months and years of their lives to the development and improvement of Wikipedia in general and their specific niche in particular, the perception that they are contributing their share to the compendium of world's knowledge gives justification and meaning to the intensity with which they approach their work.—Roman Spinner (talk) 09:17, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

JimCubb, I've just about had it with your attitude. If you can't be bothered to read and understand what I say before flying off the handle about this, that or the other, then you and I have nothing further to discuss. In short: the perceived problem here was not of my making, and despite the abuse and accustations you have thrown my way I've done all I can to seek a compromise that we can all be happy with. If you find that unsatisfactory, then tough. It's no wonder you find yourself disappointed when you seem to expect the moon on a stick. Your recent conduct here leaves much to be desired. PC78 (talk) 18:29, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] List of pages with duplicate banners

List of pages with duplicate banners

~~Talk:Aaron Abba ben Johanan ha-Levi~~
Talk:Abnuceals Emuukha Electric Symphony Orchestra (do we tag this article for the project or not?)
~~Talk:Albert Brackmann~~
~~Talk:Aretha Franklin~~
~~Talk:Aziz M. Osman~~
~~Talk:Camilo Sabio~~
~~Talk:Catullus~~
~~Talk:Coleman Young~~
~~Talk:David William Cohen~~
~~Talk:Earl Washington~~
~~Talk:Eero Mäkelä~~
~~Talk:Elizabeth Báthory~~
~~Talk:Fatma Ceren Necipoğlu~~
~~Talk:Gene Callahan (economist)~~
~~Talk:Harry Snyder~~
~~Talk:Helvi Sipilä~~
~~Talk:Howard T. Odum~~
~~Talk:Jack O'Neill (baseball)~~
~~Talk:Jacqueline Lichtenberg~~
~~Talk:Jenny Oropeza~~
~~Talk:Jethro Tull (band)~~
~~Talk:Joey Tempest~~
~~Talk:John Lehr~~
~~Talk:John Richard Packer~~
~~Talk:Knut S. Heier~~
~~Talk:Mark McCormack~~
~~Talk:Matt Slick~~
~~Talk:Maurice Benyovszky~~
~~Talk:Mick Karn~~
~~Talk:Mohammad Afzal Cheema~~
~~Talk:Orelsan~~
~~Talk:Peter Brown (music industry)~~
~~Talk:Peter Elliott~~
~~Talk:Prince Christian Victor of Schleswig-Holstein~~
~~Talk:Prince Karl Emich of Leiningen~~
~~Talk:Rick Comegy~~
~~Talk:Rim'K~~
~~Talk:Sam Stern~~
~~Talk:Stephen C. Johnson~~
~~Talk:Stiff Little Fingers~~
~~Talk:Tara Sharma~~
~~Talk:Yang Wei (gymnast)~~
~~Talk:Amália Rodrigues~~
~~Talk:Andrea Corr~~
~~Talk:Basil Rathbone~~
~~Talk:Cesare Battisti (1954-)~~
~~Talk:Duke Kahanamoku~~
~~Talk:Elfi Schlegel~~
~~Talk:Eminem~~
~~Talk:James Brown~~
~~Talk:Janet Jackson~~
~~Talk:Jim Brown~~
~~Talk:Jonny Lang~~
~~Talk:Joseph Estrada~~
~~Talk:Kenny Rogers~~
~~Talk:Lucia Rijker~~
~~Talk:Michael Jackson~~
~~Talk:Mikhail Baryshnikov~~
~~Talk:Pat Boone~~
~~Talk:Pierre Richard~~
~~Talk:Prince (musician)~~
~~Talk:Quincy Jones~~
~~Talk:Samuel L. Jackson~~
~~Talk:Tina Turner~~
~~Talk:Tupac Shakur~~
~~Talk:Whitney Houston~~

I've already been through the first twenty or so. Many are just redundant duplicates that have probably been added by bots, but others are symptoms of the problem outlined above, i.e. two banners being used to give different priority ratings for different work groups. These can be taken care of once the new version of the banner is implemented. PC78 (talk) 00:41, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

I did 29 more. All added by mistake. -- Magioladitis (talk) 06:24, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! :) PC78 (talk) 16:53, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

All done. PC78 (talk) 12:32, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Make auto=yes less obtrusive

There's 167,398 articles and counting in Category:Automatically assessed biography articles, so I'd suggest making the "auto=yes" display less intrusive. Right now it makes a separate box, I'd suggest a line item in the template proper, the way it is done by {{WPBannerMeta}}. –xeno^talk 20:34, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

A {{WPBannerMeta}} version of this template is in progress. :) PC78 (talk) 20:59, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

kk, good to know. =) –xeno^talk 21:00, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] category name for inheritance based auto-assessment

Category:Biography articles with inherited assessments (current) matches the maintenance cats but not the other auto-assessment cats. I'd suggest something more along the lines of

Category:Automatically assessed (via inheritance) biography articles.

Thoughts? –xeno^talk 15:49, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

It's not terribly important, thoght to be honest the code I wrote for this is actually a bit half arsed. The whole thing needs more thought and more discussion, IMO. Perhaps best to continue this at Template talk:WPBannerMeta (where we've already had some discussion), since this is something that will ultimately affect other banners? PC78 (talk) 02:09, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Biography articles needing priority parameter replacement

was Did I Miss Something?

There is a category, Category:Biography articles needing priority parameter replacement that is populated by “{{WPBiography}}-tagged talk pages have an active |importance= parameter which needs to be changed to |priority=.” I have been taking care of the pages that drop into the category from time to time, no more than five in a day.

There are now more than 56,000 pages in the category and the number is growing. I have looked at five pages to verify that that many could have been lurking waiting to be found. None of the pages has a |importance= parameter and each has a |priority=. Did one of the many programmers and template "experts" screw up again? How quickly will the category be de-populated? JimCubb (talk) 20:03, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Probably an error in the swap to WPBannerMeta, when its fixed it should depopulate about as fast as it populated... –xeno^talk 20:09, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I think perhaps this category has been repurposed to show all the pages which could use a taskforce-specific priority parameter (see discussion higher up). I'm not too sure, but PC78 will be able to clarify and I'm sure he'll be along here soon. It might not be the best idea to use the same category for a different purpose ... but let's wait to see his response. Anyway, I do not consider this to be an urgent problem. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:35, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Did the same mega-vandal cause Category-class articles to appear in Category:Biography articles without listas parameter? Can the offender be banned?

There have not been any vandals who have managed to screw up 60,000 pages and allowed to continue editing. JimCubb (talk) 20:12, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Vandalism is a deliberate attempt to damage the encyclopedia, whereas this is apparently an innocent coding error. A little good faith, perhaps? –xeno^talk 20:13, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

The assumption of good faith is just that, an assumption. When categories are over-populated or depopulated because of "errors" in programming the assumption is severely challenged. Maybe the error-prone programmers should leave well enough alone until better programmers can be put on the tasks. JimCubb (talk) 20:33, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your error reports, but your tone is entirely unhelpful. Let's not forget that these are banners on talk pages, and internal maintenance categories - really - no big deal –xeno^talk 20:40, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I second that. If you want to be taken seriously here, you need to be constructive and certainly not offensive. The discussion about the redesign of the banner was taking place for months and it would have been better to contribute to that and help with the testing rather than to come here complaining. Perhaps you are not aware of the considerable care and hard work that has gone into designing the new version (mainly by PC78). — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:45, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I was aware of the discussion. I am aware that the same level of care and hard work has gone into this conversion as went into the disabling of the |listas= a few months ago and the recent depopulation of Category:Biography articles with listas parameter because an editor did not not understand the need for the category and had it in his power to make the change. The more bandages that have to be applied after the fact, the better one will be able to appreciate the level of care that has gone into the conversion.

These internal maintenance categories you so blithely dismiss are also part of the infrastructure and it should be as big a deal to you as it is to those who are trying to keep the categories clean. JimCubb (talk) 21:14, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

So let's get this right. You believe that this unexpected categorisation is a result of "a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of Wikipedia" (emphasis original). That is, you believe that, in making this conversion, PC78 and Martin ran through the deliberate thought process of "I know, let's depopulate a tracking category, that will damage the encyclopedia nicely". That is what you are saying by calling someone a "vandal". Is that what you intend to say? Happy‑melon 21:30, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I'm not dismissing them, but I don't understand the histrionics. Report the errors calmly and politely - they shall be fixed swiftly. (As you can see the listas category is already being depopulated by the job queue and should be back to normal shortly) –xeno^talk 21:32, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Seems like someone needs a healthy dose of WP:AGF and WP:CIVIL. Regarding Cat:Biography articles needing priority parameter replacement, concensus was to deprecate |priority= in favour of seperate parameters for each work group, so as Martin correctly surmises above the category now contains articles that use |priority= in conjunction with one or more of the work group parameters. The only thing that needs changing is the category text, which I shall now promptly do. Regarding categories in Cat:Biography articles without listas parameter, I'll look into that ASAP. PC78 (talk) 22:35, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

The listas issue is fixed. It looks like this swap-over is going to require botting, perhaps you could explain what needs done and I can see if Xenobot can help? –xeno^talk 22:37, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Basically if an article in the arts and entertainment workgroup is using |priority=high then it can be changed to |a&e-priority=high. This allows workgroups to have separate priorities. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:49, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Articles tagged for more than one work group will need |priority= replacing with more than one parameter, i.e.

 {{WPBiography|priority=Low|filmbio-work-group=yes|politician-work-group=yes}}

should be changed to

 {{WPBiography|filmbio-work-group=yes|filmbio-priority=Low|politician-work-group=yes|politician-priority=Low}}

etc. May be best to leave it a week or so and let the dust settle. It's not something that requires immediate attention. PC78 (talk) 12:05, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

As far as I understand we ll allow the new parameters ONLY if the article is subject of more than 1 (i.e. more or equal to 2) projects. Moreover, we still replace a&e in favor of filmbio of the article is about an actor that plays in at least one film. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:16, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

And I am sure we agreed we won't change 700k+ banners in favor of 20. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:20, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Only 97k+ according to the category. |priority= is still supported by the banner, but it shouldn't be added to any more pages. While there's no great need to replace the parameter in those 97k articles, I do think it would be appropriate to do so. PC78 (talk) 13:28, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Why shouldn't be added to new pages? And what happens with the rest articles? Don#t they have a priority parameter or someone already went and plecaded it?-- Magioladitis (talk) 13:31, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

I guess it is preferable to use the new parameter names on new pages because it will take less time to sort out later if more than one workgroup is added. Using the workgroup-specific parameters will override the standard priority, if given, i.e. the following is fine:

 {{WPBiography |politician-work-group=yes|priority=low |military-work-group=yes|military-priority=high }}

But the following would be clearer, and be easier to understand for people who look at the code:

 {{WPBiography |politician-work-group=yes|politician-priority=low |military-work-group=yes|military-priority=high }}

I agree that this is very non-urgent, but it might as well be done. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:31, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Agree that it's non urgent, in fact, perhaps the bulk of the articles should be put into "Biography articles using generic priority parameter" and the maintenance cat would be for pages using importance=, or having two or more work groups and using priority. –xeno^talk 17:16, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, much better to sort out those banners with 2 of more workgroups first. Should be a smaller list. (Change for note 1 below.) -- WOSlinker (talk) 19:27, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

 |note 1={{#ifexpr:{{yesno|{{{a&e-work-group|}}}|yes=1|no=0}}+{{yesno|{{{filmbio-work-group|}}}|yes=1|no=0}}+{{yesno|{{{musician-work-group|}}}|yes=1|no=0}}+{{yesno|{{{military-work-group|{{{military-task-force|}}}}}}|yes=1|no=0}}+{{yesno|{{{peerage-work-group|{{{baronet-work-group|}}}}}}|yes=1|no=0}}+{{yesno|{{{living|}}}|yes={{yesno|{{{activepol|}}}|yes=1|no=0}}}}+{{yesno|{{{politician-work-group|}}}|yes=1|no=0}}+{{yesno|{{{royalty-work-group|}}}|yes=1|no=0}}+{{yesno|{{{sports-work-group|}}}|yes=1|no=0}}+{{yesno|{{{s&a-work-group|}}}|yes=1|no=0}}>1|{{{priority|}}}}}{{{importance|}}}

I think we have to agree that if the article belongs only in one working group we should not replace priority parameter with the new ones. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:24, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

I think for now, not making 70,000 edits that aren't strictly necessary should be our default position. But, we could tweak the WPBio module of WP:Plugin++ to make this change so its done gradually over time. –xeno^talk 13:26, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

There are three reasons for which I disagree: a) Since I think we did a lot of effort for only 20-25 articles I still believe there is a possibility that we go back in some years. b) The KISS principle. Editors will start to change and produce errors. c) It's more felxible to just change working group than working group AND priority in the case it's needed. For example filmbios. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:39, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

This was not something that was done for the benefit of twenty or so articles; this was done for the benefit of all articles using this banner, and for the benefit of those work groups that the banner provides priority assessments for. Why do you think we would go back on this at some point in the future? That would be like trading in your PC for a ZX81, i.e. a step backwards. I appreciate that there are a lot of articles to work through, but this is no different to having bots change |importance= to |priority=, and I don't recall you having a problem with that. Why do you think editors would "produce errors"? Why do you think the old way is "more flexible"? I don't really understand you point of view on this issue. I do, however, agree with the above suggestion to segregate those articles with more than one work group and deal with them first. A more measured approach would perhaps be prudent. PC78 (talk) 23:46, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

So, is everyone happy if I implement WOSlinker's idea above so that the tracking category will only contain those articles in more than one workgroup using the generic priority parameter? This can be changed again later as needed. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:11, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Preferable to do it as a seperate subcategory then we're not chopping and changing, but yeah. I need to tweak one or two things anyway, so I'll try and sandbox something in a bit. PC78 (talk) 19:50, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Could I suggest that you might like to sort the category based on the number of workgroups, then the more urgent cases can be tackled first. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:46, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

If you think it would be useful then be my guest, but I'm rather hoping that articles with two or more work groups will be dealt with by a bot. PC78 (talk) 22:03, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

OK then, Category:Biography articles with more than one work group needing priority parameter replacement contains a more modest 3,891 articles. Would there be any objections to having a bot update the priority parameters for these articles? PC78 (talk) 13:54, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Is A Correct Sort Value Important?

Category:Biography articles with listas parameter is being depopulated. Some editors do not see a use for the category and wanted it to be deleted. One of those has changed the the template so that it no longer populates the category. The alternative that has been offered is a "regularly-updated list". Who has the time to maintain such a list?

There is no category of Category:WPBiography articles. Why not? Other projects have a category that is populated by the talk pages of all the articles in the project.

Does anyone else care that the category is going away?

JimCubb (talk) 06:57, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Category:WPBiography articles may be useful but could possibly be even more useful with a bot report that just lists the pagenames and the listas values. Would have to be something that is downloaded and analysed offline though as would be quite big. Also, there are two items left in Category:Biography articles with listas parameter which need fixing. (Talk:Nu Jerzey Devil & Talk:P.M. (musician)). -- WOSlinker (talk) 09:26, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Also, with the Category:Biography articles without listas parameter would it be worth finding someone to do a bot which would take those articles with just two words in the titles & automatically adding listas parameters for them be swapping those words and adding a comma inbetween? -- WOSlinker (talk) 09:31, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

To your first message -- There were somewhere around 2,000 articles in Category:Biography articles with listas parameter that had values for |listas= that were clearly wrong. The 600+ that came after "Zz" and the ones that had invalid characters in the second position. (The ones between "Az" and "B", between "Bz" and "C", etc.) I merely took the time to count them. I did not list them and now they cannot be found. The category has been successfully depopulated and has been marked for speedy deletion by teh

I do not understand the fascination with lists as opposed to categories. Lists have to be maintained manually. There are more than 700,000 articles in WPBiography. Who has the time to maintain properly a list of that size? Who has the time to analyse it when an editor adds 14,000 articles to the project in a weekend?

How many pages were left in the category when you spotted the problem pages? I have fixed the first and will fix the second some time.

To your second message -- If a bot were to do what you ask it would result in all the bands with two-word names, many Arabs and many east Asians having sort values that were completely wrong. Talk:Pink Floyd would be sorted as "Floyd, Pink", Talk:Abu Akash would be sorted as "Akash, Abu" and Talk:Wang Zhengwei would be sorted as Zhengwei, Wang". (All of those are in the category.) This would be worse than when an editor assigned sort values to the Ptolemaic kings on the assumption that Ptolemy was the given name, the Roman Numeral that indicated the king's order in the dynasty was the "middle name" and the king's "title" was the surname. Talk:Ptolemy I Soter was sorted as "Soter, Ptolemy I". I only found it because it created a Defaultsort conflict. There is no longer any way to find articles with incorrect sort values.

JimCubb (talk) 02:55, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Is the article trancluded in the talk page?

I noticed that WhatLinksHere appears the article to be transcluded in the talk when WPBiography is present. Is something wrong? -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:51, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

That is due to the banner code using the PAGESIZE function ({{PAGESIZE:{{SUBJECTPAGENAME}}|R}}) to decide when to populate Category:Unassessed biography articles smaller than 1,500 bytes. See bug 18188 for more info. -- WOSlinker (talk) 19:05, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

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