Wikipedia:Persondata

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Persondata was a special set of metadata that could be added to biographical articles only. We are in the process of arranging its removal. From now on, such data should be added to Wikidata instead.

It consisted of standardized data fields with basic information about the person: name, short description, birth and death dates, and places of birth and death. This structured format, unlike the main body of the article, was designed to facilitate automatic data extraction.

Adding the {{Persondata}} template to a biographical article did not affect its normal display, since the information was not meant to be read by human beings and remained hidden unless users changed their personal stylesheet specifically for it to appear.

A WikiProject worked to improve the usage of Persondata, WikiProject Persondata.

Issues[edit]

One of the primary issues with Persondata is that the data is invisible which meant that casual editors were unaware of the existence of the Persondata template. If the information is not visible in the article, people won't necessarily be aware to keep it up-to-date.

Wikidata[edit]

Wikidata is a sister project to Wikipedia, which holds data about subjects. Usable information from Persondata was partially copied to Wikidata. An RFC officially deprecated Persondata. Do not add new Persondata templates to pages. The consensus is now to remove Persondata from articles. You are encouraged to get involved with Wikidata.

Wikidata correlation[edit]

Parameter Type Property ID
NAME Firstname Lastname label (e.g. Michel Velleman (Q151605))
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Other Name1, Othername2 alias
SHORT DESCRIPTION Claim to fame description
DATE OF BIRTH day or year of birth p569
PLACE OF BIRTH birthplace p19
DATE OF DEATH day or year of death p570
PLACE OF DEATH deathplace p20

Migration to Wikidata[edit]

Some data was found not to have been copied completely to Wikidata. Kaspar's tool has the entirety of the remaining data set and provides semi-automatic migration. The tool contains descriptions, aliases, places, and dates in different sections. The information is stored as 'challenges' which are shown randomly to the user. On every challenge, the user chooses one of the following options:

  • import – the information is imported to the related Wikidata entity
  • reject – the information is marked as rejected. The Wikidata entity is not going to be edited
  • skip – the challenge is skipped. The user gets a new one
  • import and remove – the information is imported to the related Wikidata entity, other contradictory information are deleted
  • overwrite – (only for descriptions) the user can edit the description manually

User choices are processed via OAuth and appear on the user contribution page on Wikidata.

FAQ[edit]

What is Persondata?
Persondata was a special set of metadata that could be added to biographical articles only. It was stored using the {{Persondata}}-template. It contained names, alternative, short descriptions and places and dates of birth and death.
What is Wikidata?
Wikidata is a Wikimedia project to create an open and collaborative database. It stores relational statements about an entity as well as the interwiki links associated with the pages on the Wikimedia projects that describe that entity. The English Wikipedia use these interlanguage links stored at Wikidata, and has some limited applications for the statements made in Wikidata.
Why does KasparBot delete the Persondata template from many articles?
Persondata has been deprecated by this RfC, which closed on May 26, 2015. The community decided that Wikidata is in future a better place to keep structured information about people.
Who is KasparBot?
KasparBot is a bot operated by T.seppelt. It was approved within this RfA. Feel free to ask questions or point out malfunctions at the operator's talk page.
What is KasparBot doing exactly?
The KasparBot's task included two steps: First all remaining Persondata information as of November 23, 2015 was copied into a special database in order to make the data accessible for the Wikidata. This process is finished. Secondly the bot removes all {{Persondata}}-transclusions from the English Wikipedia. This step started in February 2016 and will take approximately 3 months.
What is this database about?
The Wikidata community had concerns about the quality of the Persondata dataset. Therefore it was decided to do the migration semi-automatically. For every piece of information in the database a user needs to manually decided if adding this data would increase the quality of Wikidata. The database includes a challenges system for aliases (former names and alternative names), descriptions, places of birth and death and dates of birth and death. Users make basic decisions (accept, reject etc.) for each challenge. Based on the decision the data is added to Wikidata or not.
How is this working exactly?
Before you can start solving challenges you have to authorize the Wikidata/Kaspar tool. This means that you give the Kaspar page the permission to edit Wikidata in your name. The tool was written by T.seppelt. None of your personal data is transferred to the tool. You can withdraw the permission at any time. Please see the guide on OAuth, the technology which is used for authorization and editing for more information. After you authorized the tool you can start resolving challenges from these four categories: aliases, descriptions, places and dates. When you press the deciding buttons your decision is saved in the database and in those cases where you decide to accept the information an edit is made at Wikidata. Nothing is changed anywhere else by this action.
What is OAuth?
OAuth is a means of giving outside ("connected") applications the ability to perform edits and other actions on your behalf. Using this authentication protocol, you can authorize ("grant") a connected application the ability to act on your behalf without the need to divulge your password. The OAuth protocol is very stable and widely used by other websites, including major sites such as Google and Flickr.
Can I review my decisions / the decisions of other users?
Recent decisions can be accessed at a special page at the tool. You edits on Wikidata appear on your contributions page. All edits made with the tool can be found at Wikidata's recent changes page.
What can I do if I have further questions?
Feel free to add your questions here or ask at T.seppelt's talk page. Another good place to ask is Wikipedia talk:Persondata.

Viewing persondata[edit]

A screenshot showing Persondata from Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

By default, persondata is invisible to normal users. To make persondata visible, you must:

  • Either install this JavaScript in Special:Mypage/skin.js, which will add a button to the top button bar of every page allowing you to easily show and hide persondata boxes;
  • Or edit your user stylesheet as explained below, causing persondatas to be always visible;
  • Or even do both, as one method doesn't interfere with the other and the above JavaScript has useful persondata-editing features.

To make persondatas permanently visible, first make sure you are logged in. Then edit (or create) a page at Special:Mypage/skin.css and add the following line:

table.persondata {display:table !important;}

or, if you use Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 or earlier:

table.persondata {display:block !important;}

Tip: After saving the CSS, you must empty the browser cache to see the changes: Mozilla/Firefox (Windows): Ctrl-Shift-R; Mozilla/Firefox/Camino (Mac): Cmd-Shift-R; Internet Explorer (Windows): Ctrl-F5; Opera (all): F5; Safari (Mac): Cmd-R; Konqueror (Linux): Ctrl-R. Some Firefox (Linux) users report that both lines must be present in their monobook.css (though they can probably be simplified to table.persondata {display:block table !important;}), and users who switch between browsers and platforms may need to do likewise.

If you can see a block with data about Ferdinand Magellan between this paragraph and the next, you have successfully made persondata visible:

Otherwise this paragraph will follow directly below the previous one.

To make the persondata box invisible again, simply remove the CSS line provided above from your user stylesheet.

Warning: Since persondatas are by default invisible, editors rarely plan for them when designing the layout of an article, which means that making them visible might cause some article footers to look strange for you. For the same reason, if you have persondatas visible while editing and previewing, remember that most people don't, so planning the layout to accommodate it might cause them to find a strange-looking article footer. Thus, take care to edit from the perspective of the majority. It is best to follow the persondata placement advice given on this page.

Template[edit]

The {{Persondata}} template was included in biographical articles:

{{Persondata
| NAME              = 
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES = 
| SHORT DESCRIPTION = 
| DATE OF BIRTH     = 
| PLACE OF BIRTH    = 
| DATE OF DEATH     = 
| PLACE OF DEATH    = 
}}

See also[edit]

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Persondata&oldid=708465998"