Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography/Assessment/Assessment Drive/Spring archive

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.


Spring 2007 assessment drive now closed

Through the WikiProject Biography Spring 2007 Assessment Drive, 44,324 articles were assessed, reducing the number of unassessed articles by an astounding 33% - from 135,345 to 91,021. In addition, many of the assessed articles further were linked to the appropriate work groups, significantly improving the chance that these articles will be improved. More important, we developed new techniques as a result of this drive that will allow us to eventually overcome the huge backlog of unassessed articles. Without your assistance, the assessment drive would not have achieved such significant results. On behalf of Mocko13, Ozgod, and myself, we thank you for your participation in the drive. Please direct all further assessment comments to WikiProject Biography Assessment talk. -- Jreferee 18:09, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Contents

200+ Biography article assessments

Per a request a few hours ago, I banged out 200+ Biography assessments. -- Jreferee 01:57, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Criteria and articles with comments

Hi. I bumped into this page in my watchlist and wanted to suggest three things. One, the comments reviewers give editors are among the best things I have received from WikiProject Biography. Would it be possible to give people some idea of how to improve their articles? For Stub, and perhaps Start, a copy/paste of the steps to B class might work (I saw someone do this today and it worked well). For B and above more personalized comments might help. Second, could the criteria on which grading is done be part of "Instructions on how to assess a Biography article"? For example I am not sure that length is the sole difference between Stub and a Start (the quality scale says Stub is "either a very short article or a rough collection of information..."). Third, I would encourage use of the quality scale shared by all the projects (it does not forbid A class before GA, a rule that seems to have been introduced in this drive). Hope this helps. -Susanlesch 00:23, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

  • Hello, perhaps criteria need to be developed for not only this drive, but I added a few sentences to the instructions and will copy them to the project talk page for wider discussion. -Susanlesch 16:19, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
  • You might want to suggest adding the steps to B class link to the {{WPBiography}} template at that templates talk page. -- Jreferee 17:19, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Awards

I will draw up and propose an WikiBarnstar Award(s) for the efforts listed herein. Should it be one for each accomplishment? I.e. a Barnstar for each level with the a total underneath for the new level they have reached? --Ozgod 01:46, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

There are three of us on the awards committee, so we can award at least three awards from each level. -- Jreferee 17:03, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Talk page without article

Talk:Taylor Siluwe - this talk page has no article. I wasn't really sure who to report that to. Does someone know? Awadewit 08:58, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

The article was deleted. I'm not sure why the talk page still shows up. To report improper deletion, or request undeletion, see WP:DRV. -- Jreferee 17:06, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

How Many Sections Done

The Science and Academia section is generally cleared of unassessed articles now, as is Sports and Games. We still need to check them for new ones every so often, but the hard part on those is done. We're doign great so far.--Wizardman 18:30, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

But then in addition, theres the thousands of articles with no WPBio talk page tag. Last year I tagged something like 2,500 pages with those tags, mostly in sub-cats of Category:Peers. Kingbotk would be a great help to update sometime soon, but as I understand it that can't be done. RHB Talk - Edits 18:33, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
Royalty is pretty much clear too. A lot of the talk page tagging is supposed to be happening through the Automation department using AWB. I've been trying to work on it a little over the last few days, but there are a huge number of categories there. I'm thinking we finish the assessment drive and then move the focus to those stubs. Why can't a bot do it - or is it just Kingbotk that can't? - Mocko13 19:21, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
Military is now down to below 100 articles, so it should be done pretty soon - • The Giant Puffin • 13:32, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
Military is now completed apart from a few lists, all of which are now in the "list" class - • The Giant Puffin • 16:08, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
Good job! -- Jreferee 16:45, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

List class

Why doesn't it remove these from the list? Most were rated and I finished the remainder just now, but I still see them in the Unassessed biog cat. RHB Talk - Edits 17:41, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

I have noted that one one occassion. Can you link to some of them? --Ozgod 12:45, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
Try hitting the F5 key to refresh you computer. Also, they may still appear on the list because the Wikipedia computer has not yet caught up with your actions. Don't worry about it. Just move on and if they still are there tomorrow, please post here. -- Jreferee 17:09, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
Still there, see Talk:List of female heavy metal singers or any of the other related lists in my contributions (see sig). RHB Talk - Edits 18:31, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
For the class parameter, you entered class=list. I do not believe that "list" is an appropriate class parameter. Try class=start. -- Jreferee 18:53, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
Lists generally aren't rated along the same scale as article - they can't be put in for GA and FL status is the only generally accepted rating. That's a bit weird though - why does entering list class give a properly formatted colour/name? RHB Talk - Edits 22:23, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
As you mentioned, there is Wikipedia:Featured lists. If the list contains a WPBiography template, the class parameter needs to contain a proper parameter to be removed from the unassessed list. Is the list really within the scope of WikiProject Biography? Perhaps if you changed the {{WPBiography}} template to {{BLP}}, that may solve the problem. -- Jreferee 16:52, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Journalists

Should be filed under which heading? Right now I file them by the thing they were covering (sports journalist, polical journalist). But it seems a bit ambiguous to me. Thoughts? Siebren 22:40, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

I, personally, would tag it for both and let members of those respective projects determine their relevance to their project. If you feel uncertain, leave it blank. --Ozgod 00:36, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
Journalist fall in with ACTOR, WRITER, DIRECTOR, and ARTIST and may be listed under a&e-work-group. If the article indicates as a main topic that they also are sports journalist or polical journalist, added a second group. As Ozgod states, you are better off tagging it for both and let members of those respective projects determine their relevance to their project. If you leave it blank, then that group may never know about a topic that may be covered by their group. -- Jreferee 16:59, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Plagiarism

I found a page littered with plagiarism. I found the material on the web, removed it from the article and made a comment (with a reference to the website) on the talk page. Is there a tag for that? Someone should really check the article over carefully. I just removed the blatantly obvious stuff. Awadewit 11:23, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

What article was it? - Mocko13 13:09, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
To alert it to admins there is a copyvio tag, but I think that's only if 100% of the article is plaigarism. If you post it I can look it over though to make sure it's all good.--Wizardman 13:32, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
It was Paullina Simons. Thanks all. Awadewit 20:06, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Unassessed biogs

I think the total unassessed will go up running over to tomorrow - I'll have tagged at least 500 with the WPBio template by tomorrow, and Kingbotk has done an innumerable number. Military section will have all of the articles I've tagged. Just a heads up, RHB Talk - Edits 19:57, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Is it possible to tag the talk pages with the WPBio template and assess those that are STUB or START at the same time of the initial tagging? -- Jreferee 17:56, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Professional Wrestlers

Which work group - sports or arts and entertainment??? - Mocko13 03:40, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Sports I would say. --Ozgod 03:48, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
I haven't come across that issue, but I think both work groups might be appropriate. -- Jreferee 17:58, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
I have been putting them under A&E. However in light of the contradictory opinion of a more experienced editor I may reconsider. - Jirt 05:28, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Assessment from the article page

I'm testing a script I developed to assess articles from the article page that may be of interest to this assessment project! The script shows the current assessment under the article title, and presents a list of wikiproject templates. By clicking an assessment grade, the talk page is automatically loaded with the selected template added or updated. If you'd like to try this beta, please see the explanation and instructions at User talk:Outriggr/metadatatest.js. –Outriggr § 07:16, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

I tried it out. I think it will cut our assessment time by 10 fold. What took ten hours now may take about an hour using Outriggr's script. I'm beginning to think that we can assess the entire 100,000+ articles by March 24, 2007 - the close of this drive - if we all start using this script. To use this wonderful script, please add the following to your monobook.js:
// [[User:Outriggr/metadatatest.js]]      
 importScript('User:Outriggr/metadatatest.js');
 defaultProject = "WPBiography";

-- Jreferee 19:54, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

For the uninitiated like myself, could someone please explain in a little more detail how to use this script? What does it mean to "add the following to your monobook.js"? Thanks from someone who is trying to learn. Awadewit 22:32, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
Go to User:Awadewit/monobook.js and copy

// [[User:Outriggr/metadatatest.js]] importScript('User:Outriggr/metadatatest.js'); defaultProject = "WPBiography"; into the page. Instead of seeing From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, you will see An unassessed article from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia at the top of every page, or a stub-class/start-class article etc depending on whether it has been assessed or at whatever level. What this new script allows you to do is assess directly from a drop down menu on the article page, then click once to save on the article talk page. Take a look at User talk:Outriggr/metadatatest.js, or feel free to ask any other questions. RHB Talk - Edits 23:01, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I had no idea what the monobook page was. Awadewit 23:25, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
Monobooks are excellent - The scripts I have in mine let me preview articles without opening them, rate articles from article page as above, fix reference placement, view article prosesize, check edit count without going externally, auto-peer review articles and revert vandalism with WP:TW. Take a look :) RHB Talk - Edits 01:06, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
Hi RHB. I've been looking around for a good monobook.js to copy. Is your monobook.js generic enough to be copied by others? Is there anything in there that is specific to you or could I just copy your monobook.js and place it into mine (e.g., could you recommend this)? -- Jreferee 04:46, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

It's a great script, but the preview slows it down; is it possible to just go ahead and save it? Whilding87 08:44, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia Assessments within AWB. Click on the image to see it in better resolution
Wikipedia Assessments within AWB. Click on the image to see it in better resolution
I'm not sure it would be appropriate to save it. First, bugs need to be worked out. Second, there is a convention against such heavy-handedness; WP:AWB doesn't "just save it". Third, there may be other edits the user wants to make to the template. Still, maybe it could be optional down the road. –Outriggr § 09:09, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

You might also want to see my assessments plugin (pictured). --kingboyk 15:38, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Other projects

This may not be what you had in mind, but whenever I see another Wikiproject's unassessed template I tend to assess for them too. Geo. Talk to me 22:21, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Don’t get discouraged

So far, Kingbotk’s efforts to place unassessed WPBiography templates on blank talk pages of existing articles and the many new biography articles created every day has wipped out most of the 4,000+ gains we’ve made in reducing the number of unassessed WPBiography templates from the initial number of 135,345. Presently, the number of unassessed WPBiography templates reads 134,056. However, our resident scientist Outriggr has given us a new tool that significantly increases this drive’s ability to overcome Kingbotk’s efforts. Please add the tool to your monobook.js. -- Jreferee 04:25, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Can the bot not tag them as "stub-class" instead of "unassessed" if they have a stub template? That would mean the bot was actually doing something useful. It seems stupid to operate a bot, but then have to go around after it manually doing exactly the same thing, only properly – Qxz 14:08, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
The fact is that the "Unassessed" number means nothing if not every biography is tagged. It is in fact just a random number meaning "number of unassessed articles we actually know about". The important number is the total of assessed articles.
If you think that the Project doesn't need WPBio tags on the 40,000 living people articles created since my bot tagged the 150,000 articles you now have the priveledge of working with that's cool (just let me know, and tagging will stop). However, if you do think the work needs to be done you perhaps ought to be a bit more considerate in your wording. Don't make enemies of your friends - I can always help out elsewhere instead. --kingboyk 15:28, 4 March 2007 (UTC) (e/c)
Yeah there's little point of just putting a blank template on all these pages, surely it can rate them, even if it just rates them all as stub? Most of these areticles are stub/start articles anyway - • The Giant Puffin • 15:21, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
It can do that as well using the auto= parameter which was designed by... who was it? ah yes, me again. The thing is that AWB doesn't read the articles, it's currently based on a list system. In this instance, I build a list from Category:Living people and add WPBio|living=yes to the talk page. I don't want to autorate all of these stubs because not all of them have stub templates.
Adding auto=yes happens when the bot is trawling through stub categories.
Now, I'm more than happy to do a stub assessing run. If somebody wants to supply me with a plain text list of articles which are biographies tagged with stub templates, I can have the bot attend to it. The list could be made from categories or from "what links here" (transclusion) of bio stub templates. I just need to be assured the list is reasonably free of false positives. AWB can be used to build such a list.
Just understand that this process happens seperately from tagging with living=yes because of the current technical limitations of my plugin and AWB. --kingboyk 15:32, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
kingboyk is a very useful plugin, particularly because it tags WP:BLP articles with the yes living parameter. Also, kingboyk was there when most other editors lost interest in WPBiography template tagging, so I have nothing but high praise for your work. The results of kingboyk's efforts are very useful and important to the Biography project. As for the stub tagging suggestion, please do not rate an article as a Stub when it in fact is a Start or B article. That may be helpful to this drive, but not helpful to the WPBiography project. Also, it will piss off a lot of people by insulting them with a Stub rating when the article deserves a Start rating. Most assessments need a human to make the decision. However, if an article is less than 100 to 500 characters, it probably is a stub and if a plugin tagged it as such, I don't think the author would be too upset. -- Jreferee 16:29, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
Yes, that's why I won't auto-stub living=yes articles unless they also have a stub template on the article.
I've been thinking about this, and I might have a word with WikiProject Stub Sorting. If they would implement a catch-all stubs category (e.g. Category:Stubs (all)), like the catch-all Category:Living people, I could do what is requested above but in a more satisfactory fashion:
  • The first 2 steps as now:
  • Then compare with Category:Stubs (all) and:
    • Run one, tag articles which intersect with both categories with living=yes class=Stub auto=yes
    • Run two, tag all the others with living=yes
--kingboyk 17:08, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

If this is any encouragement

After viewing the statistics for our WPBio table, before this project started on the 24th of February, we had only 54,027 stub articles and have jumped to 66,916. That is over 12,00 articles assessed to at least stub class. Good work everybody! --Ozgod 22:36, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Number assessed is the important number as I argue above, and it's going up in a marvellous fashion - about 3000 in 2 days. I'll ask Oleg (the bot author) if he can add an Assessed Articles count, so that we don't have to do the maths ourselves :) Perhaps then folks can concentrate on how much has been done rather than the more depressing how much is left to do :) (which isn't complete anyway, still some 50,000 articles to be tagged at all is my estimate). --kingboyk 13:53, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
I previously placed a Biography articles by quality statistics modification request. It seems that this change may involve major reformatting issues for the many locations this template is used. -- Jreferee 17:10, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Hi Ozgod, The initial count for the number of assessed articles was an estimate on my part. However I just found where we can figure out the exact numbers of assessed articles for each day since February 24, 2007.[1] Would you mind revising the Number of assessed articles to reflect each days movement. -- Jreferee 17:58, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Significant "Category:Unassessed biography articles" problem

Okay, I went to assess some articles today, and it's all messed up. A handful are in the right leters, the other 100k are under T (for talk) as oposed to where they should be. I'm not sure what the problem is; if there's a problem with those articles, a problem with WP:MAR, a problem with somethign else... it's odd. I'm tryign to fix it but to no avail.--Wizardman 16:12, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Please post links to some of the articles having the problems that you mentioned. -- Jreferee 17:11, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
Category:Unassessed biography articles. They all start under T as opposed to their name.--Wizardman 17:39, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
Could this be anything to do with the removal of the listas= parameter yesterday, defaulting the articles to go from beginning of page title not article name? RHB Talk - Edits 18:00, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
Looks like it.--Wizardman 18:14, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
Yes, see Template_talk:WPBiography#Almost_everything_listed_under_"T"?. BNutzer 18:35, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
There is a thread on this at removing the listas parameter. -- Jreferee 18:36, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

We're going to be putting the listas= parameter back, hopefully, but with much simpler code. Just bear with it please. --kingboyk 18:40, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

OK, the new code has been added and things should start getting back to normal but it will be a while before all template instances get refreshed (see Special:Statistics, job queue length). Please report any problems with new template instances, or existing templates once the job queue is empty, at Template talk:WPBiography. --kingboyk 19:33, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
In viewing some of the articles listed in the 'T' section - it appears that the TALK pages are being added to the 'Unassessed' category yet the mainspace itself is not being tagged correctly. --Ozgod 04:11, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
What do you mean by mainspace? Do you mean the actual article? Listas= does not have, and never had, any bearing on article categories. That would require special support in Mediawiki which to the best of my knowledge doesn't currently exist. Does that answer the q or am I missing your point? --kingboyk 18:32, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
From the Paul Goma article, I found {{DEFAULTSORT}}, a sort key for each of the many mainspace categories. Using this template, you don't actually have to use Goma, Paul for each article space catagory. The {{DEFAULTSORT}} template can be overridden for individual categories applied to an article by manually applying a sort key. Is there some way to combine Listas= and {{DEFAULTSORT}}? -- Jreferee 18:15, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
DEFAULTSORT is actually a Mediawiki "magic word" (although there is a "fall back" template too which simply uses the magic word). As of the recent template changes listas= uses DEFAULTSORT. So, I guess the answer to your question is "it's already done". --kingboyk 22:03, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Do not assess/use the WikiProject priority parameter

The Template:WPBiography priority parameter has little to no application for the WPBiography project. Because of the scale of the Biography WikiProject, it was felt that assessing priority across the whole Project would be too much. Thus, the priority ratings only apply only to workgroups, not the Biography project. See the priority parameter usage at Template:WPBiography. Thus, unless you know whether and how the a&e-work-group, politician-work-group, royalty-work-group, military-work-group, sports-work-group, s&a-work-group, musician-work-group, and musician-work-group prioritizes their articles, you might want to avoid assessing the WikiProject priority parameter. You also might want to not use an incomplete "priority =" parameter in tagging since it may encourage others to use that parameter incorrectly to assess the WikiProject priority. -- Jreferee 17:49, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Help:Table

I added a table to keep track of this drive's progress. I couldn't get the formatting right. Would someone plese format the table using instructions from Help:Table. -- Jreferee 16:21, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Excellent. I also asked Oleg (the WP1 bot creator) if he would do this programatically, and he said he'll work on it over the weekend.
Does this mean I can resume tagging living people bios? --kingboyk 18:34, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Help needed

Can anyone help out in moving the templates placed by Mohanishjagtap (talk · contribs) to the correct? I've done one round a few days ago and its slightly tedious. Thanks, RHB Talk - Edits 18:34, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Geez, what a mess. Besides tagging in the wrong places he's been {{prod}}ding perfectly notable bands. I'm zapping a few /Comments pages now, if other folks could fix a few of his errors too that would be good. --kingboyk 18:37, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
If we have an admin somewhere near, could they just delete all the /comment subpages created please (I think they run back a bit)? It would be far far easier than what I did last time, moving templates from /comment to talk, then blanking comment and saving talk, especially with the new script. Thanks, RHB Talk - Edits 22:38, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
Mohanishjagtap's bad posts are continuing. I placed a request on the Administrators noticeboard. -- Jreferee 19:42, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
I'm an admin and I deleted a few, but there were stacks and stacks of them. I'm too tired to do any more now but I'll do some more tomorrow. In the meantime, any useful stuff he put into /Comments can be moved to Talk pages and the /Comments tagged for speedy deletion ({{db}}). Any admin passing by can take care of it. --kingboyk 22:05, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I divide Mohanishjagtap (talk · contribs) remaining contributions' up into sets of 20 and fixed them. -- Jreferee 23:53, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

  1. 09:41, 25 February 2007 through 04:05, 26 February 2007 - have been fixed. -- Jreferee 23:50, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
  2. 04:07, 26 February 2007 through 04:11, 1 March 2007 - have been fixed. -- Jreferee 23:50, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
  3. 04:11, 1 March 2007 through 04:28, 1 March 2007 - have been fixed. -- Jreferee 23:40, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
  4. 04:00, 3 March 2007 through 04:29, 3 March 2007 - have been fixed. -- Jreferee 23:25, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
  5. 03:52, 6 March 2007 through 03:59, 9 March 2007 - have been fixed. -- Jreferee 23:10, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
Blimey, they've all vanished. Did you use {{db}} or did another admin drop by and take care of it? --kingboyk 12:29, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
I used {{db}} per your suggestion. I still think user should be blocked from editing until at least he/she acknowledges to the blocking admin that he/she read the comments on the talk page. -- Jreferee 14:52, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
Let me know (here will do) if he causes any more problems. I'd be very reluctant to block but if he continues ignoring advice then a short block to focus his attention on the messages might be in order. Cheers. --kingboyk 15:20, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
I did a search and found "listas =jagtap,mohanish" posted on Talk:Aaron_Aguilera by Flyguy649 (talk · contribs). Apparently, Flyguy649 moved Mohanishjagtap's posted WPBiography box from unnec. sub page. -- Jreferee 19:00, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Confusion

Let me admit up front that I know nothing about Swedish names. Usually on pages with names that I am unsure how to list, I look to the page itself, but on Antonia Ax:son Johnson, Ax:son Johnson's (?) name does not appear consistently. I'm wondering if the page should be listed under Ax:son Johnson, Antonia or Johnson, Antonia Ax:son. Thanks. Awadewit 05:12, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Her last name is "Ax:son Johnson" - the colon is correct. See Forbes: The 100 Most Powerful Women. -- Jreferee 15:04, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
So I was right in alphatizing her Ax:son Johnson, Antonia? Awadewit 08:58, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Bands?

Are bands supposed to be covered by this WikiProject or not? I have seen a few on the list of articles. GDon4t0 (talk to me...) 16:34, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

They're covered by WikiProject Musicians, which is a child project. So, they have the WPBio template but with musician-workgroup=yes. --kingboyk 18:05, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
WikiProject Musicians is a sub project of WikiProject Biography. Bands are part of the WikiProject Biography since WikiProject Musicians lists bands as part of their project. -- Jreferee 18:46, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. GDon4t0 (talk to me...) 20:54, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

On Vacation

Just wanted to let you all know I will be out from March 15th - March 25th - I will be enjoying a nice ten day trip to Italy. Provided my plane does not crash, explode, or disintegrate mid-flight. I hate planes. --Ozgod 02:20, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

script counter

I thought I'd let you know that I have added an assessment counter to my script. I'm not sure how you are keeping your running totals, but thought this might help. –Outriggr § 03:03, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Does the script not work while you are updating it, because I have had trouble with it. It has worked erratically for me today. It will work one minute but not the next. Awadewit 09:43, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
By the way, I like the new feature which lists if the page is at FAC or peer-review right at the top of the page and you can click on it. Cool. Awadewit 08:42, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

IRC discussion on dealing with unassessed articles

As some of you may know, over at WP:WVWP we are planning on focusing on assessment of articles that lack a parent WikiProject. While that doesn't strictly apply here (since WP:BIO oversees this), some of you may be interested in joining us for an IRC meeting on the topic, and how best to organize things in the coming months. (Historical note:WP:WVWP was responsible for establishing the assessment scheme with projects and in setting up the bot). Your help and ideas would be very welcome. Thanks, Walkerma 05:03, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Rename

After the drive is over and if not otherwise opposed, we'll move the project to WikiProject Biography Spring 2007 Assessment Drive so that future Biography Assessment Drives may be located as a subset of WikiProject Biography/Assessment. -- Jreferee 15:47, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

I propose two replies:
  1. Do not use 'Spring' in the name, as that applies to only certain latitude ranges right now and not others.
  2. Let it be the 'WikiProject Biography March 2007 Assessment Drive' and extend it a week. I only recently finished downloading the database dumps and writing the scripts to process them, and want to post pages of easy-to-tag pages (or have a bot add sorting sub-categories) so that people can process the backlog even faster. I had been working from more manually constructed versions of such lists myself, which is how I assessed over 3,000 articles in such a short time (also the javascripts helped, thank you!).
--Sapphic 14:48, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
I was thinking and almost proposed that (Jreferee) but then I thought, why not just recycle this page next time? A link to the old version in the history can be maintained; and we cut down on clutter. --kingboyk 15:15, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
Yes that makes the most sense, just reuse the same page. I'd still like to extend the drive for at least another week, though. I'm processing the database dump file now to pull out a list of unassessed biographies that are tagged as some kind of stub, and that should be ready in a few hours. I can break that list into sizeable work chunks of (say) 100 each, which people could work from without accidentally duplicating each others effort. The biographies on those lists would all almost certainly be stubs, and people could go through the list double-checking and tagging them as stubs very quickly with one of the specialized tools on this page. --Sapphic 00:20, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
I agree and support extending the drive another week. I'd bet there are some of us out there (like me) who discovered this need late on in the drive and would still be willing to work on this. Breaking lists into 100 article chunks would help tremendously. HornandsoccerTalk 00:40, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
There was a problem with one of the scripts, so I won't be posting the lists until later today. I'll post an update later if there are more problems. Sorry for delay. --Sapphic 15:44, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Two talk pages

Bill Richardson (politician) has two talk pages: Talk:Bill Richardson and Talk:Bill Richardson (politician). Since the page was renamed, shouldn't the talk pages have been merged or something? Awadewit 09:05, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

It looks like it was just a botched move, and the talk page didn't get moved along with the article. Sometimes people forget to check the "move corresponding talk page" option (although I think that the move function defaults to that now, anyway). Any unduplicated discussions from the old talk page should be moved to the new one, and then the old page should become a redirect. Carom 16:33, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
I do not know how to do that. Awadewit 22:39, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
Copy/paste any discussions from the old page that don't also appear on the new page (so we don't lose them), then blank the old talk page and replace it with #REDIRECT [[Talk:Bill Richardson]] (or whatever the target is). Carom 23:25, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Do "Families" belong in this project? Are they living?

I have been assesing articles from "Random article" with Outrigger's script. I am not sure how to handle articles like Rothschild banking family of Austria. Should they be part of WPBIO? Should they be labeled as living people?--BirgitteSB 17:26, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Maybe a families or family tree category should be created? • The Giant Puffin • 16:34, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
I added {{BLP}} to the talk page for now, which applies to all biographical material (within reason) anywhere on Wikipedia. We've largely been using biography to mean a written account of another person's life. Of course, musical bands are an account in biographical form of an organization for which we've used the WPBiography banner on the talk page. If you have some time, perhaps go through the talk pages for the articles in Category:Families by nationality and see whether the WPBiography banner generally is used on the talk pages. -- Jreferee 16:46, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Trouble pages

Can anyone figure out how to remove the following pages from Category:Unassessed biography articles? -- Jreferee 18:18, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

  1. Template_talk:WPBiography
  2. Template talk:WikiProjectBannerShell/Example WPBiography
  3. Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion_archive_September_2004

Just a suggestion, you could change the unrated section of the template talk pages to {{WPBiography|class = Template}} or {{WPBiography|class = Template <!--Change '''Template''' to Stub, Start, B, A, GA or FA-->}} which looks like this:

This template is within the scope of WikiProject Biography. For more information, visit the project page.
Biography Portal
Template This article has been rated as Template-Class on the project's quality scale. [FAQ]

I dunno how that would work with the rest of the assessment stuff, but it would get the talk page out of the Unassessed biography articles category.--DO11.10 21:34, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

They are supposed to show examples of what it is supposed to look like without anything and with everything filled out. It would be more trouble than it is worth to find a solution and your suggestion would add a "Template"-class instead of just blank. :) Cbrown1023 talk 23:05, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
The solution would be to find a way for the template categories to only function when it is used on a talk page. When used on Wikipedia pages, or on template pages, it would fail to categorise. But how to do that I'm not sure. I think it can be done, but as Cbrown says, too much bother really. The 'include' and 'noinclude' and 'include only' tags work for other situations, but not this one I think. Carcharoth 23:02, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
What about subst:ing the template and deleting the category markup? Would that defeat the purpose? –Outriggr § 23:33, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Carcharoth. It's a problem that's not worth the bother solving. I'll look at Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion_archive_September_2004 though as that can probably be fixed (I already fixed a load of old VFD debates which were transcluding WPBio tags (!), it's probably one of them). --kingboyk 19:01, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
Yes, it was that. A right pain to sort out but tis done. --kingboyk 19:21, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Another accomplishment of this drive

The participants in this drive have done an incredible job over the past month rating unassessed articles in WPBIO. Hopefully, by the end of this drive, we will have rated over 40,000 articles. But, another thing this drive has done is increase the number of articles that are apart of each work group. You all could've just rated the article and be done with it but many of you are also taking the time to skim the article and find out a little about the subject so you can place them in the proper work group, and for that I thank all of you. Here is a quick glimpse of how many articles were in each work as of February 24, when this drive began, and now (assuming my math is correct):

Work Group 2/24 3/21 Change
Arts & Entertainment 4,328 7,575 +3,247 (75%)
Military 4,038 5,557 +1,519 (38%)
Musicians 14,435 16,476 +2,041 (14%)
Politics & Government 32,917 34,075 +1,158 (4%)
Royalty 855 1,406 +551 (64%)
Science & Academia 1,520 2,748 +1,228 (81%)
Sports & Games 2,995 8,393 +5,396 (180%)
Total 61,639 76,230 +14,591 (24%)

Great job!↔NMajdan•talk 18:45, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

I am really happy with our present progress and the efforts put in by everyone. Outriggr's script and kingboyk's bot have played a large part in assisting everyone in selecting Work Group's and dealing with other WPBiography banner matters and I do not think we would be where we are today without them. -- Jreferee 20:49, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
I concur. Both tools have cut down time assessing at least 10 fold and they've listened to our comments and suggestions and proceeded to make appropriate changes. Thanks you guys!

Congratulations! Looks like an awful lot of work has been done here. Only two days left, so too late for me to do anything. I did see a figure bandied about though about how many people articles are not tagged with the WP-BIO tag - any (preferably bot assisted or category centred) ideas on how to deal with that? I'd be happy to help if needed. Carcharoth 22:57, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Not too late - just grab the script (if you want) and join in. –Outriggr § 23:33, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
Initially, we judged our performance by the number of unassessed articles. But they kept increasing (!) because of the people articles not tagged with the WP-BIO tag being tagged with the WP-BIO tag. For this project, we prefer to put our heads in the sand regarding the many people articles not tagged with the WP-BIO tag (I don't even what to think of how many there really are). Kingboyk uses his Kingbotk bot to tag people articles not tagged with the WP-BIO tag, and he's very fast at it. -- Jreferee 03:36, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
I'll probably start again with Category:Living people when this is over. I haven't resumed yet as I didn't get the green light in the thread above, and didn't want to step on any toes. --kingboyk 00:48, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
Ah, but that is living people. Are the articles about dead people (don't they outnumber the living or something) more under control and all tagged with WP-BIO? Having said that, even if the dead outnumber the living, the living probably make more of an effort to claim notability and, well, write articles about themselves. I suspect that assessing articles about dead people is much more soothing than assessing those about living people, if only because it is easier to write in an encyclopedia style about those who are dust. Carcharoth 01:34, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
If there are categories containing the bios of dead people which need bot tagging, please drop me a line on my talk page. --kingboyk 05:11, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Good work all and thank you for the praise. (I personally don't assess only "unassessed" category articles, rather I browse through interlinked biographies and assess them -- many of which don't have a bio template. This also makes it more interesting for me.) –Outriggr § 23:33, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Same here, with musicians (before this drive, I used to only tag them with the template and work group, thanks again for your script, Outriggr) BNutzer 00:19, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

That table shows some amazing statistics. Folks at Wikipedia_talk:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team/Index#Total_number_of_articles_tracked.3F might be interested in seeing that... which is where I got this chart from:

Image:Wp1.0 total tracked and assessed.gif

The massive increase in articles last August would have been when my bot started running for WP:WPBIO. The big jump in blue this month has to be due to this drive. --kingboyk 00:46, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

As the drive is drawing to a close, I'm resuming bot tagging of living people. I have about 34,000 to do and I want to get it done whilst I'm active on wiki. --kingboyk 19:03, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Maybe it would be useful if you would also tag articles based on the (sub)categories (of) musicians and musical groups? BNutzer 05:48, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
I'm willing to do that, if you can give me a cleaned list of articles. The category tree isn't very clean so without care we'd end up with albums and singles and what have you. If you could build a list in AWB taking care to exclude categories which shouldn't be tagged I'm happy to do it. --kingboyk 10:18, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Extending the drive

In supporting an extension of the drive through the end of March, I have produced some lists of 'no-brainer' articles that should be easy to assess. The first batches are of articles that are tagged as stubs right in the article (not just a project rating) and so assessment should be as easy as confirming that the tag isn't wildly inaccurate. --Sapphic 21:27, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

That's a nice list, there. I'd love to help, but I'm working on finishing up Category:Unassessed_biography_(musicians)_articles (before kingboyk adds a ton to it ;)). Maybe you should post the lists link on the project page? MahangaTalk to me 02:23, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
Under 8,000 left to tag in Living People. (I started with a list of about 34,000 if I recall correctly). --kingboyk 22:20, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

New parameters to {{WPBiography}}

{{WPBiography}} has two new parameters:

  • peerage-work-group=yes
  • baronets-work-group=yes

For full info and a request for help (from me) please see the link below. --kingboyk 23:13, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Relevant discussion at → New workgroups: new template parameters & help needed

Spring 2007 Assessment Drive now closed

Through the WikiProject Biography Spring 2007 Assessment Drive, 44,324 articles were assessed, reducing the number of unassessed articles by an astounding 33% - from 135,345 to 91,021. In addition, many of the assessed articles further were linked to the appropriate work groups, significantly improving the chance that these articles will be improved. More important, we developed new techniques as a result of this drive that will allow us to eventually overcome the huge backlog of unassessed articles. Without your assistance, the assessment drive would not have achieved such significant results. On behalf of Mocko13, Ozgod, and myself, we thank you for your participation in the drive. Please direct all further assessment comments to WikiProject Biography Assessment talk. -- Jreferee 18:01, 3 April 2007 (UTC)