Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography

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This is a WikiProject, a collaboration area and open group of editors dedicated to improving Wikipedia's coverage of a particular topic, or to organizing some internal Wikipedia process. Please see the Guide to WikiProjects and the Directory of WikiProjects for more information.

Shortcuts: WP:WPBIO WP:BIOGRAPHY WPP:BIO

Contents 1 Structure 1.1 Tips for writing biographies 1.2 Policies 1.3 Guidelines 2 Templates 3 Project organization 3.1 Members 3.1.1 Admin members 3.2 Departments 3.2.1 Assessment 3.2.2 A-class review 3.2.3 Collaboration 3.2.4 Outreach 3.2.5 Peer review 3.2.6 Translation 3.3 Work groups 4 Related WikiProjects 4.1 Project templates

[edit] Structure

[edit] Tips for writing biographies

Starting from scratch and want some guidance on creating a biographical article? Follow these helpful tips! Some of them are also useful for work on articles that have already been started.

1. Research the available literature to find reliable sources. Read them carefully, taking notes.
2. Create a proto-article in a subpage of your own user space.
   • Right from the start, cite your sources: it's much easier to do this as you go along than to attempt to do so later.
   • See "How to edit a page" to understand the basics of the wiki markup language. Reference the proto-article, especially biographies of living persons.
   • Check your sources again. Balance and neutrality are vital.
   • At this stage, don't add categories or images. (You'll be able to add them later.)
3. Work up the proto-article until it's coherent and at least slightly informative and has had its facts checked. (It does not yet need either to present a rounded picture of the person or to be a good article in any normal sense; it merely has to be sound in what it does say.)The article, no matter how rough, should clearly state why the person is notable enough to be included in this project, see WP:BIO. It is a good idea to make reference to at least one of the notability determinants in the lead paragraph. Failing to clearly show notability may lead to your new article being quickly deleted.
4. Create a new article on your subject and paste the content of your proto-article there.
   • Read Wikipedia's naming conventions to decide what the page title should be. Also see m:Help:Starting a new page.
   • The history of your proto-article up to this point is unlikely to be of interest to anybody other than yourself, and moving it would force you to re-create your user sub-page. Thus copy/pasting makes sense. However, do note that copying and pasting existing articles is frowned upon in Wikipedia; moving makes the edit history easy to find.
5. Add images such as those obtained from Wikimedia Commons, image list, or by posting a request for an image from other editors.
6. Add the appropriate categories.
   • You may also be able to find suitable categories by looking at related articles, particularly articles about similar people. Failing that, visit the appropriate work groups (which have them listed) or start browsing at Category:People.
7. Linking: check that the internal and external links and footnotes in the article go where you want them to go.
   • Make sure that some other, relevant articles link to a new article, so that the new one isn't "orphaned".
8. Keep working on the article. Chances are that other editors will notice its existence and join you in working on it. If nobody seems to notice it and you'd like one or two to do so, mention the article in the talk page of a relevant "WikiProject" (e.g. Music), or this one, or both.
   • You may find that the newcomers will be interested in aspects of the person that don't much interest you, or will relish aspects of editing that you find a bit tiresome. Thus their work will complement rather than compete with your own.
9. Consider adding a list of works (bibliography, discography, etc.).
10. When you're happy with the article or have done about as much with it as you think you can, consider requesting a peer review by following these instructions.
11. Relax! and take a break if you reached this point. You deserve it!

[edit] Policies

• Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons
• Wikipedia:Autobiographies

[edit] Guidelines

• Wikipedia:Criteria for Inclusion of Biographies
• Wikipedia:Manual of Style (biographies)
  • Manual of Style (Ethiopia-related biography articles:proper names)
  • Manual of Style (Ireland-related biography articles)
  • Manual of Style (Islam-related biography articles: honorifics)
  • Manual of Style (Japan-related biography articles:Names)
  • Manual of Style (Thailand-related biography articles:Names)
• Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people with the same name)
• Wikipedia:Naming conventions (names and titles)
• Wikipedia:Categorization of people
• Wikipedia:Autobiography

No classification of biographies has been defined. See this example on dividing a topic into a hierarchy.

[edit] Templates

What to type	What it makes	What it's for
{{WPBiography}} Talk	This page is within the scope of WikiProject Biography. For more information, visit the project page. Biography Portal NA This page is not an article and does not require a rating on the quality scale.	The project notice designed to be placed in the talk page of any article that has been or should be edited as part of this Wikiproject. Please see the assessment page for parameters to use in rating articles.
{{portal| Biography | Crystal_personal.svg}} Talk	Biography Portal	Add this to the bottom of a page, right before the categories listing, to show a standardized link to the Biography portal.
{{User WPBiography}} Talk	This user is a member of the WikiProject Biography.	This can be placed on your user page to show that you are a part of this Wikiproject.
Miscellaneous templates
Stubs	People stubs	Navigate to this category to browse for the appropriate stub
Infoboxes	People infobox templates	Navigate to this category to browse for the appropriate infobox

[edit] Project organization

[edit] Members

Generally see Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography/Members

[edit] Admin members

Below are project members who are also Wikipedia admins (in A-Z order)

1. 23skidoo (talk · contribs)
2. AnonEMouse (talk · contribs) - BLP issues; adult film performers; and others as the mood strikes me
3. Avraham (talk · contribs)
4. Capitalistroadster (talk · contribs)
5. Cbrown1023 (talk · contribs)
6. Deiz (talk · contribs)
7. FloNight (talk · contribs) Interested in WP:BLP issues. Writing biographies for Wikipedia:WikiProject Kentucky, mostly about people in civil war and politicians.
8. Ganeshk (talk · contribs)
9. Glen_S (talk · contribs)
10. Greeves (talk · contribs)
11. John Carter (talk · contribs)
12. Johntex (talk · contribs)
13. Jreferee (talk · contribs) - I've written a bunch of bios and have a soft spot for those people who edit their own biography. Any problems in that area or other biography area, please contact me.
14. Kaldari (talk · contribs)
15. kingboyk (talk · contribs)
16. Majorly (talk · contribs)
17. Nishkid64 (talk · contribs) I want to help out with articles on world leaders and politicians. Also have been helping out with WikiProject Missing regarding U.S. House politicians.
18. Philosopher (talk · contribs) - Politics and Government workgroup.
19. Plange (talk · contribs)
20. Rudget (talk · contribs) - Working mainly towards historical figures, e.g Mary Seacole.
21. Sandstein (talk · contribs) — I'm working my way through a biographical lexicon of jurists and should be done in, say, 2012.
22. Scimitar (talk · contribs) - I was the principal editor on the Isaac Brock featured article, and have written around 200 bios and stubs, mostly in the field of Canadian politics and NHL players, although I dabble in anything that catches my eye.
23. SlimVirgin (talk · contribs) — I've written or significantly contributed to around 36 bios, three of which are featured articles, and I've created another 21 stubs, so it's a genre I've very interested in, and I'm particularly interested in BLP issues and the question of how to balance the need for fairness with NPOV.
24. SoothingR (talk · contribs)
25. TKD (talk · contribs) — My work in modern video gaming and science fiction popular culture has led me to work intermittently on related biographies.
26. UkPaolo (talk · contribs)
27. Vaoverland (talk · contribs) - I mostly work with history, geography and transportation articles related to Virginia and West Virginia, willing to help other project editors with moves, etc., try to avoid controversy, would rather work on content. aka Mark in Historic Triangle of Virginia
28. VegaDark (talk · contribs)
29. Wizardman (talk · contribs) - General improvement, lots of assessing and tag adding.
30. Xdamr (talk · contribs) mostly South African politicians and other notables, 1850-1950.
31. Yannismarou (talk · contribs)

[edit] Departments

[edit] Assessment

The assessment department focuses on assessing the quality of Wikipedia's biography articles. While much of the work is done in conjunction with the WP:1.0 program, the article ratings are also used within the project itself to aid in recognizing excellent contributions and identifying topics in need of further work.

The ratings are done in a distributed fashion through parameters in the {{WPBiography}} project banner; this causes the articles to be placed in a set of categories that serves as the basis for an automatically generated worklist.

[edit] A-class review

A-class review examines current and possible future A-class articles to ensure they meet the A-class standards, which are relatively strict, though not as strict as those for featured articles. Articles may be posted there by any editor to be reviewed and the opinion of anyone is welcome.

[edit] Collaboration

The project's Collaboration department seeks to identify particular articles that would benefit from a significant collaborative effort. A single article is selected as the focus, and the project attempts to improve it, potentially to featured article standards. The current collaboration article is Ali.

Users can also request help improving articles they come across here

[edit] Outreach

The outreach department acts as the project's central point of coordination for recruiting new members and maintaining the interest of current participants. Its primary activity is the production of monthly project newsletters; a number of additional programs are either underway or being planned, however.

[edit] Peer review

The peer review department conducts peer reviews of articles on request; this helps to obtain ideas for further improvement by having contributors who may not have previously worked on particular articles examine them. Project members are invited to submit articles to the department in lieu of using the generic peer review process.

[edit] Translation

The translation department serves to enhance Wikipedia's biography content by translating material from non-English articles and sources for use within the project. To coordinate this, it includes a staff of volunteer translators for various languages.

The department typically works on translating featured articles from other-language Wikipedias; project members may request assistance with other material on the department page, or directly from one of the listed translators.

[edit] Work groups

Please discuss any proposals for new work groups with the project as a whole before creating them.

Work groups are informal groups of editors gathered for collaborative work on a particular topic within the field of biography; all project members are encouraged to participate in any that interest them. Also included below are other WikiProjects that fall within our scope.

Work groups

• Arts and entertainment

• Musicians
• Actors and Filmmakers

• Military
• Politics and government
• Royalty and nobility

• British Royalty

• Science and academia
• Sports and games
• Peerage
• Baronetcies

Special projects

• Core Biographies (also see v1.0 Biographies)

[edit] Related WikiProjects

• WikiProject Persondata (child project)
• WikiProject Succession Boxes

[edit] Project templates

• {{WPBiography Sidebar}} - Project sidebar
• {{CurrentBioCOTW}} - Current Collaboration
• {{BioCOTWnow}} - Current Collaboration winner for article's talk page
• {{WPBiography}} - Talk page project banner
• {{WPBiography Archive}} - archive banner for internal project pages no longer in use.