Template talk:Authority control/Archive 16
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. |
Archive 10 | ← | Archive 14 | Archive 15 | Archive 16 |
Talk page errors
I see that back in 2018 a bot removed all parameters from this template in articles, and including parameters in mainspace is now a hard ERROR.
But now we have some ~100 talk pages discussing use of parameters in these templates in years-old discussions.
I don't see the harm in allowing these old discussions to stand-as is without declaring them to be errors. The module should stop yelling about editors just talking about {{authority control}} parameters.
Or else someone needs to refactor these old discussions to remove the parameters (which might destroy the context of the discussion and make it difficult or impossible to understand what they were talking about). wbm1058 (talk) 10:37, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
- We could disable the error message in certain namespaces, or alternatively we could not worry about it. I see no particular harm in leaving these messages on talk pages as it will serve to educate editors of the best way to use the template — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:46, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
- @MSGJ: Maybe you could downgrade it from {{error}} to {{error-small}} or {{strongbad}} in the talk namespace? The issue is that I patrol for real errors like the one currently on Talk:Controversies involving the Indian Premier League (Page is not a redirect, misplaced Template:R from move) and if that namespace is flooded with lots of pseudo-errors it makes my work harder. At some point searching for real errors becomes like searching for needles in haystacks. – wbm1058 (talk) 14:08, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
- Sure, I'm happy with that. Looks like an almost identical template with a different name... — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 05:09, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
- The documentation of {{Strongbad}} says it cannot be used in article space — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:29, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
- Right, but I'm just asking for it to be used on talk pages, not articles. – wbm1058 (talk) 13:53, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
- I'm OK with continuing to declare parameter use an {{error}} in articles. – wbm1058 (talk) 14:03, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
- Okay that should be okay. I notice that {{error}} takes a
|tag=span
option to give a less strong error message. Would that be of any use? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:19, 27 April 2023 (UTC)- I'm not too concerned about visual appearance, except that the message should be bold and red enough to make it easy to see. I don't want {{error}} messages to be hidden, which is a problem when lack of Wikidata is declared an error! What I am concerned about is that all pages that transclude {{error}} on "what-links-here" should be issues that need to be resolved by removing or fixing the thing that caused the error, thus making the page stop transcluding {{error}}. This includes errors that don't populate any maintenance categories, so the only practical way to find them is by checking "what links here". – wbm1058 (talk) 14:51, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
- If you give me a week or two, I'll try and fix up all those remaining errors — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:05, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
- All clear now, good luck fixing all those YouTube errors :) — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:31, 5 May 2023 (UTC)
- I'm not too concerned about visual appearance, except that the message should be bold and red enough to make it easy to see. I don't want {{error}} messages to be hidden, which is a problem when lack of Wikidata is declared an error! What I am concerned about is that all pages that transclude {{error}} on "what-links-here" should be issues that need to be resolved by removing or fixing the thing that caused the error, thus making the page stop transcluding {{error}}. This includes errors that don't populate any maintenance categories, so the only practical way to find them is by checking "what links here". – wbm1058 (talk) 14:51, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
- Okay that should be okay. I notice that {{error}} takes a
- @MSGJ: Maybe you could downgrade it from {{error}} to {{error-small}} or {{strongbad}} in the talk namespace? The issue is that I patrol for real errors like the one currently on Talk:Controversies involving the Indian Premier League (Page is not a redirect, misplaced Template:R from move) and if that namespace is flooded with lots of pseudo-errors it makes my work harder. At some point searching for real errors becomes like searching for needles in haystacks. – wbm1058 (talk) 14:08, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
Radical idea
What would people think about changing the words "Authority control" which very few people understand (check the archives of this template for much discussion), with the word "Identifiers", which is much more recognisable and is the term that Wikidata uses. Alternatively we could use "Unique identifiers" — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:29, 9 May 2023 (UTC)
- Would that not imply a change of scope? Perhaps I'm one of the people who's misunderstood, but I don't think all unique identifiers fall within the intended scope of this template. This is related to what we discussed earlier regarding centralising all identifier templates into AC; I don't think, for example, identifiers like E numbers belong here. – Scyrme (talk) 17:48, 9 May 2023 (UTC)
- Support: "Identifiers". (This is not so radical.) Grimes2 (talk) 20:40, 9 May 2023 (UTC)
- What is your opinion on the scope of the template, as mentioned by Scyrme? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:23, 9 May 2023 (UTC)
- Its a wider term, but nevertheless accurate. Grimes2 (talk) 04:11, 10 May 2023 (UTC)
- Also likely much less intimidating to those who don't know what it might mean. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:30, 10 May 2023 (UTC)
- Its a wider term, but nevertheless accurate. Grimes2 (talk) 04:11, 10 May 2023 (UTC)
- As "identifiers" is a simple English word, I think there is no need to wikilink it. If a link to Help:Authority control is useful, then we could rename that page accordingly. But I think I would prefer to centralise all documentation on Template:Authority control/doc rather than maintain separate pages at Help:Authority control and Wikipedia:Authority control — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:10, 10 May 2023 (UTC)
- What is your opinion on the scope of the template, as mentioned by Scyrme? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:23, 9 May 2023 (UTC)
- It might be worth reaching out to those editors who maintain {{Taxonbar}} and {{Chembox Identifiers}} and their corresponding modules for their input, particularly as {{Taxonbar}} is based on the work of (an older version of) AC. – Scyrme (talk) 22:31, 10 May 2023 (UTC)
- Expanding the scope of the template in this way is really not desirable. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:35, 11 May 2023 (UTC)
- I have not actually proposed to change the scope, just the words at the top — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:03, 11 May 2023 (UTC)
- Even if changing the scope isn't intended, it might have that effect anyway. The title is an important cue to editors. – Scyrme (talk) 12:59, 11 May 2023 (UTC)
- I have not actually proposed to change the scope, just the words at the top — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:03, 11 May 2023 (UTC)
Script problem
Some articles, for example Autonomous University of Barcelona, are displaying "Lua error in Module:Authority_control at line 366: attempt to concatenate a nil value." Line 366 is sectname = mw.wikibase.getLabel(qids[c-numsections]) .. pencil(qids[c-numsections])
and getLabel
is returning nil. Some other articles, for example, Photon line 203, have a problem on a different line. I don't know if this is a script problem or a Wikidata problem. Johnuniq (talk) 03:45, 12 May 2023 (UTC)
- I have reverted my recent change and will investigate further... — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 06:28, 12 May 2023 (UTC)
- Good luck, dealing with Wikidata is a PITA where every call can result in a problem. Johnuniq (talk) 06:38, 12 May 2023 (UTC)
- All sorted I think. On Autonomous University of Barcelona, the problem was the lack of label. It will now fall back to the qid number. On Photon it was a "novalue" which has caught me out before! — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:53, 12 May 2023 (UTC)
- Good luck, dealing with Wikidata is a PITA where every call can result in a problem. Johnuniq (talk) 06:38, 12 May 2023 (UTC)
"Lua error in Module:Authority_control at line 204: wrong number of arguments to 'insert'. "
At Head Control System (which passes the template no parameters) * Pppery * it has begun... 13:48, 13 May 2023 (UTC)
- Checking now — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 18:47, 14 May 2023 (UTC)
- Fixed, thanks for reporting — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:17, 14 May 2023 (UTC)
Automatically link additional items
I propose that for items which have the property has part(s) (P527), this template should automatically add those parts as additional links. For example, on Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver there are currently no identifiers appearing because Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver (Q7331479) doesn't have any. But we should also link Rick Jaffa (Q17372908) and Amanda Silver (Q15069865) separately, so it will appear like this:
This is currently possible using the |additional=
parameter, but I think we could be doing this automatically. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:24, 9 May 2023 (UTC)
- This code is now in the sandbox — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:05, 10 May 2023 (UTC)
Hmm, might have to rethink this possibly. There are a ridiculous number of "parts" on some pages, for example see Goethe University Frankfurt — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:18, 12 May 2023 (UTC)
- Okay, I need people's opinions on this because we have articles like PEN International with ridiculous numbers of links. Options are:
- revert this new feature completely,
- keep as is,
- restrict to a maximum number of additional rows (e.g. 4 or 5),
- restrict it to people only (works for e.g. married couples, bands, etc.),
- ...
- — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:36, 14 May 2023 (UTC)
- My proposed solution is to turn this off by default but allow
|additional=auto
to automatically add these additional links — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:34, 15 May 2023 (UTC)- Done and documented — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:15, 16 May 2023 (UTC)
- Good solution! – Scyrme (talk) 15:24, 17 May 2023 (UTC)
- Done and documented — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:15, 16 May 2023 (UTC)
- My proposed solution is to turn this off by default but allow
ResearchGate
Propose adding a link to ResearchGate publications. Looks like a useful link for academics. Example below:
— Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:43, 10 May 2023 (UTC)
- Certainly is useful, comparable to Google Scholar author ID (P1960). – Scyrme (talk) 22:54, 10 May 2023 (UTC)
- Oppose - this template is not intended for social network links. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:33, 11 May 2023 (UTC)
- Fair enough. I thought it was more like ORCiD or Google Scholar — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:02, 11 May 2023 (UTC)
- There's {{ResearchGate}} for adding this to external links sections. – Scyrme (talk) 15:28, 17 May 2023 (UTC)
- Fair enough. I thought it was more like ORCiD or Google Scholar — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:02, 11 May 2023 (UTC)
Europeana
Many dead links. I'm not very happy with that identifier. What can we do? Grimes2 (talk) 18:03, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
- What proportion to do you think are not working? Is it the link which is not working or are the identifiers incorrect? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:42, 5 June 2023 (UTC)
- The identifiers are correct, but Europeana has no media for many items. This leads to the message on Europeana website: "We can't seem to find what you are looking for." I made only spot checks, but approximately half of items show this message. Grimes2 (talk) 08:34, 5 June 2023 (UTC)
- Shall we just remove the link then? Or is the identifier not useful without the link, in which case we should consider removing it entirely. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:44, 5 June 2023 (UTC)
- At this point of time, we should remove the identifier Europeana entirely. It affects to many articles: 139,785. Grimes2 (talk) 09:20, 5 June 2023 (UTC)
- For the reconrd, this was Done — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:43, 8 June 2023 (UTC)
- At this point of time, we should remove the identifier Europeana entirely. It affects to many articles: 139,785. Grimes2 (talk) 09:20, 5 June 2023 (UTC)
- Shall we just remove the link then? Or is the identifier not useful without the link, in which case we should consider removing it entirely. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:44, 5 June 2023 (UTC)
- The identifiers are correct, but Europeana has no media for many items. This leads to the message on Europeana website: "We can't seem to find what you are looking for." I made only spot checks, but approximately half of items show this message. Grimes2 (talk) 08:34, 5 June 2023 (UTC)
ISIL formatting
The display of ISIL is not working correctly when there are multiple identifiers, for example on Russian State Library. I'm sure this was working before, so not sure what has changed. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:40, 5 June 2023 (UTC)
- Not sure how to fix this. The problem is that this identifer has two different formats depending on whether there is a link or not, so it doesn't fit with the code of any of the other identifiers. Maybe simpler to try and work out why Russian State Library (Q1048694) has two different ISIL values and perhaps one of them is not correct. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:58, 8 June 2023 (UTC)
- Russian State Library, ISIL national contracting authority for Russia, should have ISIL RU-1 (like ISIL DE-1). I don't know, why there is a second one. I can't find sources except https://fl.bib-bvb.de/bibkonto_mod_perl/ILV.pl. Grimes2 (talk) 10:14, 8 June 2023 (UTC)
- It was added back in 2014 by Павло Сарт. I've marked RU-1 as preferred for now — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:24, 8 June 2023 (UTC)
- Correction: According to https://slks.dk/english/work-areas/libraries-and-literature/library-standards/isil Russian National Public Library for Science and Technology is ISIL national contracting authority for Russia. Grimes2 (talk) 10:29, 8 June 2023 (UTC)
- Russian State Library, ISIL national contracting authority for Russia, should have ISIL RU-1 (like ISIL DE-1). I don't know, why there is a second one. I can't find sources except https://fl.bib-bvb.de/bibkonto_mod_perl/ILV.pl. Grimes2 (talk) 10:14, 8 June 2023 (UTC)
- ISIL
- RU-1
WorldCat
- Retrieved from archive
As noted many times in the archives (e.g. Template talk:Authority control/Archive 12#Broken identifiers), the WorldCat (via VIAF) links do not work in most cases. I think it is time to simply remove them from this template. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:44, 21 December 2022 (UTC)
- As noted at wikidata:Wikidata:Properties for deletion/P7859, WorldCat is being shut down and this property is being considered for deletion. We have had a problem with broken links since the start with the WorldCat (via VIAF) and WorldCat (via LCCN) types, so perhaps this is the right time to remove this identifier from the template? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:48, 5 March 2023 (UTC)
- OK Grimes2 (talk) 15:59, 5 March 2023 (UTC)
- Removed on sandbox — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:39, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
- I am proposing that we remove WorldCat (via VIAF) now. WorldCat (via LCCN) was removed some time ago. The actual WorldCat property can probably remain unless/until the property is actually deleted or the webpage finally shuts down. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 23:53, 9 March 2023 (UTC)
- OK Grimes2 (talk) 15:59, 5 March 2023 (UTC)
- I'm sad that WorldCat Identities is being shut down, as I've found it very useful for finding many of the other authority control links that we use here. But its shutdown is nothing we can do anything about here, so I agree with its removal from the authority control boxes in all forms. I don't see why we should wait to do so; that only invites a situation where we show invalid links for a while until we catch up. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:58, 9 March 2023 (UTC)
- I'm okay with removing it. I don't think it has closed down yet, but it was announced that it will close later in the year. Perhaps some people would prefer to keep it at long as possible. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 23:14, 11 March 2023 (UTC)
Update and question: WorldCat (via VIAF) has been removed from live template. WorldCat has been removed from sandbox and can be removed completely unless anyone disagrees. FAST ID (P2163) seems to direct to the WorldCat website - will that need removing as well? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 18:26, 13 March 2023 (UTC)
- No. That are two different databases: https://www.worldcat.org/identities/lccn-n79-3362/ and http://id.worldcat.org/fast/1358961/. WorldCat Identities project is ending, in contrast to FAST. Never heard of problems with FAST links. Grimes2 (talk) 07:34, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
- Okay that's good — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:14, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
- Warning Why did you remove VIAF from sandbox? This is the backbone of Authority control. I'm shocked. Grimes2 (talk) 07:49, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
- Maybe some temporary brain dysfunction, not intentional :) — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:13, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
Replacement: WorldCat Entities
The replacement for Worldcat identifier seems to be WorldCat Entities ID (P10832) by OCLC. (https://id.oclc.org/worldcat/entity/E39PCjBmpqCRgMjGFXqMvKBFJC.html). Grimes2 (talk) 16:39, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
- Looks good! — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 23:12, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
- Probably makes sense to add this one at the same time we remove the WorldCat Identities link — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:26, 17 March 2023 (UTC)
- I've replaced the IDs in staging already. Please revert, if I was wrong. Grimes2 (talk) 13:33, 17 March 2023 (UTC)
- Perfect — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:28, 17 March 2023 (UTC)
- Worldcat identities is shut down. The IDs redirect to Worldcat entities. See: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Properties_for_deletion/P7859
- We have a redundancy in AC. We could rename Worldcat identities to Worldcat entities? Grimes2 (talk) 10:56, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
- Some of them redirect to WorldCat Entities. Some just say "Not found". Maybe time just to remove P7859? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:14, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
- I'm not sure. WorldCat Entities ID (P10832) has only 1000 items. If WorldCat Identities ID (superseded) (P7859) would redirect all items, our problems were solved. I think its only a question of time. In future: Delete WorldCat Entities ID (P10832) and rename WorldCat Identities ID (superseded) (P7859) to Worldcat entities? I think, this needs a further investigation. Grimes2 (talk) 11:57, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
- For now we can put it as a fallback option for WorldCat Entities. And probably shorten just to "WorldCat" — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:59, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
- Even if all WorldCat Identities ids did redirect to WorldCat Entities, deleting the latter property seems like a bizarre approach, particularly as any entirely new ids would only be created for Entities so only keeping Identities would freeze AC in an outdated state. A direct link to Entities is preferable to a redirect that may or may not exist, and it would make more sense to have WorldCat Identities display if no WorldCat Entities id is provided until Identities is no longer needed. (I don't have a preference regarding shortening Identities to just "WorldCat".) – Scyrme (talk) 15:48, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
- That's exactly the way it has been done — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:53, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
- Ah, alright then. (Looking that examples below it looks like both have been shortened, but since Identities is defunct that's probably fine.) – Scyrme (talk) 15:57, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
- According to a press release, Worldcat entities has 150 million items. This is too much to handle with tools like Mix'n'match. So the redirect is the best solution. Grimes2 (talk) 17:21, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
- Ah, alright then. (Looking that examples below it looks like both have been shortened, but since Identities is defunct that's probably fine.) – Scyrme (talk) 15:57, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
- That's exactly the way it has been done — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:53, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
- I'm not sure. WorldCat Entities ID (P10832) has only 1000 items. If WorldCat Identities ID (superseded) (P7859) would redirect all items, our problems were solved. I think its only a question of time. In future: Delete WorldCat Entities ID (P10832) and rename WorldCat Identities ID (superseded) (P7859) to Worldcat entities? I think, this needs a further investigation. Grimes2 (talk) 11:57, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
- Some of them redirect to WorldCat Entities. Some just say "Not found". Maybe time just to remove P7859? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:14, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
- Perfect — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:28, 17 March 2023 (UTC)
- I've replaced the IDs in staging already. Please revert, if I was wrong. Grimes2 (talk) 13:33, 17 March 2023 (UTC)