Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography

Request for deletion of page Rehmat Khan Bhatti

Dear all, this page does not seem to me at all to meet Wiki notability and/or general quality standards; rather, its been put up by someone to simply aggrandize a family member and/or tribal elder etc. I would very strongly recommend that the page be deleted/removed, please. Thank you --Khani100 —Preceding undated comment added 08:38, November 22, 2011‎ (UTC).

Typo in the article on Ruy Diaz Melgarejo

"In 1855, Melgarejo returned to Asunción ..." - This date seem highly unlikely. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.218.199.93 (talk) 16:02, January 1, 2012‎ (UTC)

Dan Leno

Dan Leno, the well-known Victorian actor, comedian and star of British music hall and musical comedy of the 1890s, has recently been expanded and is headed for WP:FA consideration. As a result, I am seeking comments in this Peer Review and I would be most greatful for any comments recieved. Thanks! -- Cassianto (talk) 01:00, 14 February 2012 (UTC

Tina May biographical stub - Help?

Hello, I am Tina May's son and was trying to modify her wikipedia page as subsequent edits have reduced it to a stub. There is pertinent professional information missing (awards, recordings) which leave the notability of the page at an innaccurate level of specificity. Literally the last ten years are missing. I hoped to solicit any assistence in editing the page as I am not myself experienced in the wiki-format. My meagre attempts would be rather akin to a bull-in-a-china-shop. Any such help or pointers would be welcome. (Tina May) — Preceding unsigned comment added by TinaMay1961 (talk • contribs) 17:30, July 4, 2012‎ (UTC)

Maria Pasquinelli

I received a rather insistent message at OTRS asserting that Maria Pasquinelli is alive and just celebrated her 100th birthday. I don't know Italian, so I can't check most sources. I'm doing my due diligence asking here. Andrew³²⁷ 02:49, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

She is still alive, as the Italian link I added (with a photo of her on her 100th birtday) confirms.195.158.72.207 (talk) 17:44, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Suggestions for Pete Snyder

I'd like to recommend a few updates and improvements to the article Pete Snyder. He's formerly my boss, and I've contributed to his current political campaign, so I feel like I shouldn't be editing the page directly. I've posted a note about two suggestions, along with prepared markup language, on the article's Talk page. Anyone here willing to help out? Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 14:44, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Y Done--Canoe1967 (talk) 21:56, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Review of new Ping Fu draft

Hi, as some of you watching this page may know, Ping Fu's article has seen a lot of activity over the last couple of months relating to press coverage of her memoir and subsequent online attack. I was asked by Geomagic (the company founded by Ping Fu) to look at the article, check that the facts are correct and write an updated version based on reliable sources. On behalf of the company, I've carefully gone through the sources and written a new draft based on information that I was able to verify and that was confirmed as correct by Ping and her team.

I'd like to ask editors from this WikiProject, and those who've been productive in protecting and improving the article (I'll invite them to this page), to review the draft and use information from it or take the whole draft live, as they find appropriate. Here's the link to the draft: User:16912_Rhiannon/Ping_Fu

A few notes about issues with the current article:

• As multiple editors have worked on the current article, some of the sourcing has become mixed up so that cited sources don't support the information. For instance the Inc. magazine article cited to support that Ping "attended study sessions of Mao's Little Red Book led by Red Guards, performed mandatory military service, and worked on farms and in factories" does not actually include this information.
• The first two sections of the article rely on just two sources: Bend, Not Break and the aforementioned Inc. magazine article.
• Some details are included without any citation, including a sentence noting that: "Fu graduated with an MS from UIUC May 1990 and her advisor was Jane Liu."
• The awards section is a list, rather than prose as MOS recommends, and some of the awards are cited only to press releases from Geomagic.

With my draft, I've aimed to address the above issues but also focus on the issue of how to deal with facts that have been disputed and have conflicting references. Ultimately, I think it's best to reduce the detail on Ping's early life and education, where sources are not in agreement and some facts have been called into question. The draft I've written offers a pared down version of the information currently in the article regarding Ping's early life and first years in the U.S., with more robust sourcing. In particular, where I've used Bend, Not Break, I've cited to specific page numbers for more clarity to readers about where the information comes from.

Any constructive feedback is welcome, as are productive edits to the draft. Please ask any questions here or the Talk page of the draft. Thanks, 16912 Rhiannon (Talk · COI) 14:17, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

• Looks good to me, but given the issues that surround this article, I suggest posting at WP:BLPN and WP:COIN, asking editors from those areas to comment here. GiantSnowman 14:59, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
• Seems clean, with good balance. Fearofreprisal (talk) 17:12, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
  • Thanks both of you, it's great to get your feedback. Snowman, thanks for the advice, I'll go to WP:BLPN and WP:COIN next to see if folks there would mind taking a look. Thanks, 16912 Rhiannon (Talk · COI) 21:28, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
    • I don't see any big problems, but I'm going to post some comments about the Memoir section, at the article talk page, User_talk:16912_Rhiannon/Ping_Fu. Fearofreprisal (talk) 00:24, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
• Rhiannon. Thanks for your effort. I do have one serious objection. By using personal interaction with Ms Ping Fu, you have introduced original research. If Ms Ping Fu wishes to offer updates (including conflict resolution) on her versions of events, she should do that through public statements. Only after public statements are made may the wiki article use that content. Majiaerhao (talk) 11:44, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
  • Hi Majiaerhao, thanks for your comment. I'd like to clarify that all the information in the draft is from reliable sources, I just checked with Ping and her team that the details from the source was correct. I've not included anything in the draft that isn't cited to a reliable source. 16912 Rhiannon (Talk · COI) 13:18, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
    • Hi there. First of all, “reliable source” means different things in different contexts. When it comes to Ms Ping Fu's experiences in China, the “reliable sources” referenced here are only reliable insofar as describing what Ms Ping Fu herself said to have happened to her.
    • Secondly, the problem of orginal research arises when there are conflicts between sources. Deciding what to include and what not include on the wiki article should not be influenced by original research. For example, over the years, Ms Ping Fu has told an evolving series of stories about the infanticide research she allegedly conducted for her college thesis. The source of these varying claims is Ms Ping Fu herself. If Ms Ping Fu thinks there exists a coherent story about the infanticide research, its impact and her subsequent persecution that has yet to be articulated, she should make a detailed public statement about it. Until then, if the Wiki article includes Ms Ping Fu's claims of one child policy research, these conflicts should not be omitted.
    • WP:Conflicting_sources
      • Do not remove the conflicting sources just because they contradict the current sources.
      • Do not choose which one is "true" and discard the others as incorrect.
      • Do not cite (the lack of) official announcements by the subject of the article or people related to it as a reason why a source is unreliable.
    • Majiaerhao (talk) 00:28, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
      • Majiaerhao: You spent the month of March posting comments on the Ping Fu Talk page, telling everyone how wrong it was, but not actually contributing anything towards the article. If you want to contribute, then do so. Fearofreprisal (talk) 00:45, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
        • I thought it's nice for us to exchange ideas on the talk page? If people find the points I make reasonable, then that's good enough a small progress for me. Would you like to substantively respond to the points I made? Or do you just prefer changing the subject? Majiaerhao (talk) 03:22, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
          • Majiaerhao: Substantively respond to the points you made? You didn't really make any points, other than to talk in general terms about WP:RS, WP:OR, and WP:Conflicting Sources. Maybe you should go to User talk:16912 Rhiannon/Ping Fu and provide some detail there. This is not really the place for detailed discussion about the article. Fearofreprisal (talk) 04:38, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

"Frank Burns"

The usage of Frank Burns is under discussion, see talk:Frank Burns (disambiguation) -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 13:07, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Possible page move

Today I came across this article John Waters (1934 Academy Award winner). The qualifier seems rather clunky to me. I'm not sure whether it is a correct use of the naming conventions but I would have thought that "John Waters (born 1893)" would be the more appropriate title for the article. I wanted to get feedback from the members of this project before attempting any move. Thanks ahead of time for your input. MarnetteD | Talk 19:12, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

I prefer the use of the man's notability to the year he was born. Seems a lot clearer to me. But I also think this discussion belongs on his talk page, with maybe a RFC somewhere else.GeorgeLouis (talk) 03:07, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your response. I will do as you advise but I am not sure how much response we get as it looks like only one other active editor has the page on their watchlist. MarnetteD | Talk 22:03, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Adrian Dix needs semi-protect or full-protect

This is my latest reversion of highly POV content being added to this article repeatedly by IP address users.....in the time it took me to write a similar post on WP:CANTALK the same IP user (64.x.x.x) re-inserted the same copy, and similar have been tried from various IP users/addresses in the last week or two. Dix is the leader of the New Democratic Party in British Columbia, which is facing an election he is anticipated to bury the current government when the day comes; the re-inserted material is a standard talking-point of the BC Liberal Party spin machine and is meant as defamatory and all such content added has been tainted by POV, even when cited.Skookum1 (talk) 02:51, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Colmar

Colmar was never in the Lorraine duchy, it was always part of Alsace! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.237.240.248 (talk) 00:39, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

£20 bounty on Linvoy Primus

If anyone fancies the challenge of getting Linvoy Primus to FA, I have placed a £20 bounty towards Wikimedia foundation if it happens. There will be the possibility of the money going through, anyway, if it turns out that there just isn't enough information out there to get his article there. It is a GA at the moment and not much has changed since that GA status was confirmed, given that it went through around about the time he retired.

Leave a message on my talk page if you're up for the challenge. Spiderone 09:26, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Jürgen Ehlers FAC

I've just put up Jürgen Ehlers as an FA candidate. Ehlers was a theoretical physicist specializing in Einstein's theories of relativity. Any contributions to the candidacy discussion welcome here. Markus Pössel (talk) 11:09, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Article titles for persons from the Tudor period

Could editors involved with this project please have a look at these two page move requests, [1] and [2]. Wikipedia policy doesn't prohibit article titles disambiguated by date of death, and in some cases, such disambiguation seems warranted, particularly with respect to people from the Tudor period who wore many occupational 'hats' during their lifetimes and whom it's very difficult to classify accurately under an alleged 'profession'. Thanks for your help. NinaGreen (talk) 20:47, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

John Dee

I feel that John Dee has problems that make it no longer worthy of FA status. Please see discussion here. If these problems are not addressed, I will take the article to WP:FAR. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 23:00, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

photo? Jack Whicher or William Saville-Kent

The photo appears the same... Jack Whicher or William Saville-Kent — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.60.130.219 (talk) 00:11, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Mallory Hagan copyedit request

The reviewer at Talk:Mallory Hagan/GA1 suggested that I request a copyedit.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 16:44, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

RFC-birth date format conformity when used to disambiguate

I have closed my own discussion at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (people)#RFC-birth date format conformity when used to disambiguate. Please feel free to take any action necessary to modify the closure of my own discussion to make it appear more Kosher.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 21:59, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Full names

A person's full name is mentioned in the opening of a biography. Since the lead of an article is supposed to summarize the rest of the article, should the name be repeated later in the article like it is in George W. Bush or should the early life section of the article use only the last name, like in Nikita Khrushchev. Interestingly, Nikita Khrushchev is a featured article, and at times it alternates between just calling him Nikita and using his first and last name, which doesn't seem appropriate at all. Ryan Vesey 16:15, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Look at WP:FULLNAME and WP:SURNAME. You're right, as you describe it the article is wrong. Revent (talk)

Deaths in... articles

I'm sure there's a good reason, but why do the articles Deaths in 2002, Deaths in 1997, etc. only start in 1996? -- Ypnypn (talk) 22:13, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

The good reason is probably that nobody has fixed it. :) Revent (talk) 04:07, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Aristotelian Society

“

Hi, I've created and populated a category for the presidents of the Aristotelian Society, referring to the links in the list on that page as a 'source'. The list itself isn't sourced (but the Soc. website is in 'External Links', and /is/ the obvious source) and a lot of the articles are stubs that don't mention the Society, or don't source the statement that they were a president. This is bad. 8(

”

I'm starting a thread about this at WikiProject_Organizations#Aristotelian_Society. Revent (talk) 03:19, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Etymology/Name

For individual sections in a biographical article regarding a person's name, should the heading be "Etymology" or "Name"? I am unclear as to this. Thanks! Illegitimate Barrister (talk) 08:04, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Connection between notable people

In the light of this ongoing debate regarding a connection between basketball player Jason Collins and actor Jason Segel, I was wondering if there are any established guidelines on Wikipedia on how to handle this topic, which is essentially:

Notable person A is connected to notable person B, thru something unrelated to their other biography

For instance, two people being classmates in high school or college. Examples:

• wrestler/actor Dwayne Johnson played college football with Warren Sapp, among others
• MLB's Clayton Kershaw played high school baseball with Detroit Lions quarterback Matt Stafford
• actor John Goodman attended university with fellow actress Kathleen Turner

Has there any sort of standard been established on whether we include these kinds of information, or do we exclude it per WP:HTRIV? --bender235 (talk) 17:34, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

VisualEditor is coming

The WP:VisualEditor is designed to let people edit without needing to learn wikitext syntax. The articles will look (nearly) the same in the new edit "window" as when you read them (aka WYSIWYG), and changes will show up as you type them, very much like writing a document in a modern word processor. The devs currently expect to deploy the VisualEditor as the new site-wide default editing system in early July 2013.

About 2,000 editors have tried out this early test version so far, and feedback overall has been positive. Right now, the VisualEditor is available only to registered users who opt-in, and it's a bit slow and limited in features. You can do all the basic things like writing or changing sentences, creating or changing section headings, and editing simple bulleted lists. It currently can't either add or remove templates (like fact tags), ref tags, images, categories, or tables (and it will not be turned on for new users until common reference styles and citation templates are supported). These more complex features are being worked on, and the code will be updated as things are worked out. Also, right now you can only use it for articles and user pages. When it's deployed in July, the old editor will still be available and, in fact, the old edit window will be the only option for talk pages (I believe that WP:Notifications (aka Echo) is ultimately supposed to deal with talk pages).

The developers are asking editors like you to join the alpha testing for the VisualEditor. Please go to Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing and tick the box at the end of the page, where it says "Enable VisualEditor (only in the main namespace and the User namespace)". Save the preferences, and then try fixing a few typos or copyediting a few articles by using the new "Edit" tab instead of the section [Edit] buttons or the old editing window (which will still be present and still work for you, but which will be renamed "Edit source"). Fix a typo or make some changes, and then click the 'save and review' button (at the top of the page). See what works and what doesn't. We really need people who will try this out on 10 or 15 pages and then leave a note Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback about their experiences, especially if something mission-critical isn't working and doesn't seem to be on anyone's radar.

Also, if any of you are involved in template maintenance or documentation about how to edit pages, the VisualEditor will require some extra attention. The devs want to incorporate things like citation templates directly into the editor, which means that they need to know what information goes in which fields. Obviously, the screenshots and instructions for basic editing will need to be completely updated. The old edit window is not going away, so help pages will likely need to cover both the old and the new.

If you have questions and can't find a better place to ask them, then please feel free to leave a message on my user talk page, and perhaps together we'll be able to figure it out. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:01, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Correction: Talk pages are being replaced by mw:Flow, not by Notifications/Echo. This may happen even sooner than the VisualEditor. WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:32, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

RE: Wallace Beery

Hello. I'm seeking some consensus and/or advice regarding some ongoing edit warring with the Wallace Beery article, specifically murder allegations with only one main source. I'm not one of the warring editors and no 'dog in the fight' really. My goal is to have the fairest article possible Would appreciate some fresh eyes and thoughts from other neutral and experienced WikiProject Biography folks. Talk:Wallace Beery Thanks and have a great Wiki kind of day! Sector001 (talk) 08:32, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Combine The Butcher Brothers with Mitchell Altieri and Phil Flores?

The Butcher Brothers is the name of Altieri and Flores' partnership and they seem to have made most of their notable projects (aside from Altieri's first film) together and under that moniker. Right now Alteri and Flores have separate articles independently of the article and I was wondering if it would make sense to merge them both into The Butcher Brothers article since there's a lot of overlap.--CyberGhostface (talk) 19:26, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

I've made a merge proposal.--CyberGhostface (talk) 02:50, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Maula Shah

This article is currently in the backlog for the Guild of Copy Editors, but it would benefit greatly from the touch of a biographer(s) familiar with Pakistan. Currently, I believe that cultural barriers in the poor translation make the text almost utterly incomprehensible. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you. Jodayagi (talk) 18:29, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

I just realized there is an article assessment section to your project. I will post there. Thanks. Jodayagi (talk) 18:31, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

She was the most beutiful lady in the world, why to put one picture whe she was 82?' are you her enemy?

There are thousands of photosgraphs when she was younger and beutiful s2pid — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.148.9.251 (talk) 14:02, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

First a question--who exactly are you talking about?

As far as an answer--in general, photos uploaded to Wikipedia either have to be in the public domain, or under a license that allows free re-use. In the case of your mystery lady, it's very possible that the only such photo available to an editor was one taken when she was 82. If she was a celebrity, it's likely that most of the "thousands of photographs" are professional works under copyright, and those are a no-no here. Rklear (talk) 17:57, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Besides, there is nothing wrong with being 82. I look forward to it next year. GeorgeLouis (talk) 18:08, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Ingo Swann - date of death

Hallo! I live in Poland and I'm pl-wiki editor. How do you know that Ingo Swann died 31 January? I saw 1 link in which date of death is 31 January ([3]). In others it's 1 February, for example: [4] [5] [6] [7]. Which date of death is correct and why? Mariusz Swornóg (talk) 07:47, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Try the social security death index. GeorgeLouis (talk) 15:28, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

David Jewett Waller, Sr.

Can someone assess David Jewett Waller, Sr.? Thanks, ^King Jakob _C2 22:17, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

...and this as well? ^King Jakob _C2 14:30, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

I will help

With Wikipedia:WikiProject_Biography/Assessment#Requesting_an_assessment. But please note that I also intend to add a few of my articles, so it would be nice to have at least another active person there (backlog since last summer suggest to me that nobody is taking care of that list now). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 08:27, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Discussion at Category_talk:American_novelists#RFC_or_not.3F

You are invited to join the discussion at Category_talk:American_novelists#RFC_or_not.3F. Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 16:57, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

United States v. Hasan K. Akbar

This article started out as a biography of Hasan K. Akbar, but in 2007 was renamed Hasan Akbar case under WP:BLP1E and became an article about the court case, not the defendant. It was recently moved to its current name. Still, the article is templated to this project and most of the categories in which it is classified (1971 births, Living people, United States Army soldiers, etc.) are biography categories. It even contains Persondata. Since the article is no longer about the person, is any of this still appropriate? Rklear (talk) 17:03, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Probably not....have you brought it up on the talk there? If so, just go ahead and recategorize it. WP:BRD Revent (talk) 04:30, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

• There's the biography portal, persondata...same point. Revent (talk) 04:32, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Robert George Jewell is my father.

Robert Jewell was born in Brunswick, Victoria, Australia. He travelled to England in 1962. He married again in England and had twins, a boy and a girl. He was the chief Dalek in the first Doctor Who series and then the movies.

He returned to Australia in 1976 (?) and had parts in tele-series. He was also in an advert for Holden in 1962 in Australia.

He was in IN MELBOURNE TONIGHT in skits with Graham Kennedy and Burt Newton.

Sandy Papavasiliou — Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.198.3.236 (talk) 08:05, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Robert George Jewell is my father.

Robert Jewell was born in Brunswick, Victoria, Australia. He travelled to England in 1962. He married again in England and had twins, a boy and a girl. He was the chief Dalek in the first Doctor Who series and then the movies.

He returned to Australia in 1976 (?) and had parts in tele-series. He was also in an advert for Holden in 1962 in Australia.

He was in IN MELBOURNE TONIGHT in skits with Graham Kennedy and Burt Newton.

Sandy Papavasiliou — Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.198.3.236 (talk) 08:07, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Request for input: Al Pawlowski AFD

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Al Pawlowski. Please help generate discussion. Thanks. Levdr1lostpassword / talk 19:41, 19 May 2013 (UTC)