Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography/Assessment

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[edit] Importance (or priority) ratings

The WikiProject Biography scheme for assessing the importance (or priority) of biographical articles seems to have been quite influential on other WikiProjects: in particular, at WikiProject Mathematics, we have long referred to it as a guideline for assessing the importance of articles about mathematicians.

There have been several discussions about article assessment recently at WT:WPM, and we are trying to develop more detailed guidelines about importance ratings at Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Wikipedia 1.0/Importance. One issue is whether these ratings describe the importance of the article or the subject of the article. Although the two are often correlated, it seems to me that the former more faithfully describes the purpose of the assessment programme, and indeed is one reason to prefer the term "priority" to "importance" (as this project does).

I am therefore somewhat puzzled that the Biography importance/priority descriptors focus almost entirely on the importance of the person rather than the importance of having an article on that person. My favourite example of the distinction (within mathematics) is Srinivasa Ramanujan. While he was a mathematical genius with remarkable output, his contributions and impact on mathematics are not in the same league as those of mathematicians such as Leonard Euler and Carl Friedrich Gauss. On the other hand, an article on Ramanujan is surely of top importance because of the fascinating nature of his story, its social ramifications, and the insights it provides into the mind of a mathematical genius.

Assessing the importance of the person rather than the article creates other difficulties, in particular for biographies of living people. Such people cannot possibly have had impact across several generations, and so should typically be rated Mid or Low importance. I can imagine some living persons (and their devotees) having issues with such an assessment! Also person-importance does not necessarily generate the best criteria. I have mentioned impact across generations already; impact around the world is another example. This is not always relevant to the importance of the person or the article. Alexander the Great had little impact on the Americas, for instance, while subjects like mathematics are now inherently international. (And a theorem is always a theorem.)

So I wonder if it is worth having a discussion here on this issue. Geometry guy 11:00, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

I have noticed that bio templates are not currently displaying the importance/priority parameter. Why?
WRT, above I have interpretted generation as the range of birthdates (meaning affected people of all ages). I consider Michael Jordan an athlete who has impacted people, especially ahtletes for about 25 years, but I walk around Chicago and see 7 year olds begging for Jordan attire and feel that people born in 1950 or later were all impacted by him. I am not sure how across generations applies here. TonyTheTiger (talk/cont/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 01:06, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Only the core biographies have been officially rated by the biography project. Michael Jordan is a core biography and therefore of Top-importance. All other priority ratings have to be looked at with a more than average critical attitude, as they were most likely given by either people who aren't familiar with the Biography project, or by the writers of the article, fans, or other biased people. Errabee 06:38, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
I think across generations here refers to lasting historical impact. People from thousands of years ago still being talked about today, or the latest flash-in-the-pan that will be forgotten in a few years time. Carcharoth 14:56, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Geometry guy that rating by 'priority of the article' seems better than rating by 'importance of the person'.... I had more to say, but I've forgotten it. DonkeyKong64 (Mathematician in training) 18:52, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
Isn't this just the difference between the "priority" and "importance" rating scales? (As a new WP editor, though, I don't know if this dichotomy reflects progress in the 9 months or so between the previous post and mine.) Jmacwiki (talk) 20:25, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Category:People acquitted of sex crimes

Is Category:People acquitted of sex crimes a good idea? Canuckle 21:58, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

No, it is a terrible idea. Its definition is ambiguous and it conflicts with the idea that there should not be a criminal record for people acquitted of crimes. I suggest you nominate it for deletion at WP:CfD. Geometry guy 17:44, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
It smacks of "name and shame", when there are no convictions to justify such an action. Readers would be tempted to access the category just to see who nearly got convicted of what. Definitely CfD. Ref (chew)(do) 00:18, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. --BizMgr (talk) 04:32, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
Concur, especially since there is no distinction between (at the extremes) "People unjustly tried by corrupt DAs", "People who killed their only sex-crime witnesses before they could testify and were therefore acquitted, though later convicted of murder". Where do I vote? Jmacwiki (talk) 21:11, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
Too late, Jmacwiki. It survived deletion with a "no consensus" here. They say that all "People acquitted of" categories must be considered for deletion, not just "sex crimes". There you go. Ref (chew)(do) 00:20, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough. Jmacwiki (talk) 15:54, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Close the assessment department?

It seems like whoever opened the assessment department has departed. Articles no longer seem to get assessed.

Should we note that it's inactive at the moment? Close it down? Or encourage people to ask a specific, uninvolved editor to use the criteria to assess? --Melty girl (talk) 20:35, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

The articles are being assessed. The problem is with the assessment bot, which seems to encounter extreme problems when dealing with the half million or so articles which it has to keep track of. There is discussion taking place regarding how to deal with this matter. One of the suggestions is to "break off" the assessments for the various work groups from the main biography assessment, thus reducing the number of articles that have to be tabulated for the main biography assessment. Any support or opposition to this idea, or any other ideas, would certainly be welcome. John Carter (talk) 20:46, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for your response. Where is the conversation? --Melty girl (talk) 20:50, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
Most of it has taken place, so far as I can tell, at Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Index. It also mentions the possibility there, particularly in the "Table update" section, of creating more subprojects to maybe "speed up" the bot in a sense. If you can think of any additional subprojects which might fly, please feel free to propose them. John Carter (talk) 21:08, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] infoboxes

The article on "Simon Rattle" has had a "WP Biography" banner for some time and a "WP Clasical music" banner has been added today. The article has had an infobox for about one year (which indicates implied consensus), but it has been removed today. There is an area on the talk page to discuss the presence of an infobox on this page. Snowman (talk) 20:25, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Spring 2008 Assessment Drive

The Spring 2008 assessment drive is up and running and I look forward to working with all of you there! --Ozgod (talk) 11:26, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Eftekasat Rating!

Hi guys! what's up?! As i understand, this article is related to the project, so i'm requesting a rating of the article and if possible suggestions on how to improve it! Thank you for you cooperation! :) Maged M. Mahfouz (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 22:22, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Hi. I have requested this in the correct place here for you. I have already carried out slight alterations per the manual of style. Thanks. Ref (chew)(do) 22:51, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! Maged M. Mahfouz (talk) 23:22, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Article importance grading scheme

How come you guys have this(Top, High, Mid, Low) etc, you got it documented but you don't show it on the assessment template and it's not shown on the overall assessment figures. It this template issue? Or is there some further reason that I'm not aware of. SunCreator (talk) 12:44, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

It was determined that it would be too difficult to implement, and ultimately not particularly useful, considering about 1/8 of the total articles are biography. We basically leave the other projects to determine the relative importance of articles, except for the most essential ones. John Carter (talk) 12:46, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
It's possible that you mis-understand, so I'll try again. If you look on the pages of some biography's for example Talk:Patrick_Henry click edit and look at the assessment code you'll see the following:
{{WPBiography
|living=no
|class=B
|priority=High
|politician-work-group=yes
}}
I understand that means the priority for this biography is set and it is implemented(recognised by the template), and agrees with biography assessment information, however the talk page Talk:Patrick_Henry does not actually show the priority (to humans) viewing the template. SunCreator (talk)
We don't bother showing it because it's more or less useless, and doesn't really mean much for the project. We've had many problems and no benefits to having that, so we don't use it. Wizardman 00:05, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
So the documentation of it Wikipedia:WikiProject_Biography/Assessment#Priority_scale should be removed then? SunCreator (talk) 00:19, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Chinese painter Pu Ru

I created a stub about Pu Ru; I thought this was one good place to ask for improvement to the article. B7T (talk) 18:59, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Alexander Hamilton

Hello. I'm not sure this is the correct place to do so, but I would like to request help for the Alexander Hamilton biography. I previously posted a help request to the American History Taskforce, but there doesn't seem to be anyone home there. This article needs a great deal of help from the widest possible variety of quality editors. The Hamilton article, rather bizarrely, is shockingly contentious and POV. The article is guarded by a longtime editor, PMAnderson. This editor admits to disagreeing with the consensus of current historical research about Hamilton, and works to promote and preserve edits that skew the biography of Hamilton towards a far more negative version than the consensus of historical sources supports. I have tried improving parts of the article, only to find myself personally attacked over and over. I continue to work with him, but frankly, I am exhausted, and need help. PMAnderson edits Wikipedia almost all day long and almost everyday. He is deeply entrenched in this article. I do not have the time to keep up with him on my own. If you can, please, please help this article--new editors can only help it. All I want is for the article to reflect the historical consensus about Hamilton. Hamilton is such a basic American historical biography that it absolutely needs to be accurate. If this article does not within the scope of this project, please forward this SOS to an appropriate group, and/or let me know where I can find additional quality editors to lend the article some help. Thank you. AdRem (talk) 01:28, 12 May 2008 (UTC)