Wikipedia:VIAF/errors

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Please list here any errors discovered in the matching between VIAF identities and Wikipedia pages. They will be reported back to VIAF and fixed in their records - hopefully this will prevent the same identifiers being accidentally matched again. If you notice technical issues with the bot (eg. template placed at wrong position), please report them at User talk:VIAFbot. Thanks for your feedback.

See also VIAF errors in Wikidata.

Identified on Wikipedia[edit]

Wikipedia article is not the same as the VIAF identity[edit]

These can be fixed at Wikidata
  • Michael Peterson (murder suspect) - not VIAF 111595726. Dancter (talk) 21:54, 30 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Mike Lawrence (bridge), born 1940 – not VIAF 21118984, which points here and displays the redirect page name Michael Lawrence (bridge) --P64 (talk) 19:57, 15 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Chris Van Dusen screenwriter – not VIAF 52856798 (children's picture book illustrator, eg Mercy Watson series); [National library of] Portugal may have the screenwriter at VIAF 120638006 but I did not add that to our biography footer evidently yes and I added that to our footer --P64 (talk) 23:02, 27 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • David Roberts --P64 (talk) 01:29, 27 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Henry Mayr-Harting A.c. template fixed; VIAF 92150672 bundles only a no-identity GND Name record --P64 (talk) 01:29, 27 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Rain (entertainer) - not VIAF 108063540 I see no sign that Jung Ji-Hoon is this record Chŏng, Chi-hun Evaders99 (talk) 02:59, 14 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    I do think these are the same, just a different romanization of the name. Check the alternate name forms at VIAF, and there is some overlap in the selected titles and our filmography: both we and the National Library of Australia list "I am a cyborg, but that's OK". Lupo 14:01, 22 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Two or more VIAF identities for the same article[edit]

Some libraries OCLC 17840825 and LC Authorities [2] evidently believe the former to be a late 20c math or physics expert and co-author with Kip Thorne of Gravitational Radiation, 1988. Do you mean that Kip Thorne was then "William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of Theoretical Physics" at Cal Tech? --P64 (talk) 17:56, 12 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, see Thorne's CV Vycl1994 (talk) 16:30, 13 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

VIAF merges different identities (into one cluster)[edit]

VIAF bundles have been fixed in these respects -P64 2016-02-19
Template:VIAF [where our DE and EN biographies now point] is the musician/producer and Template:VIAF [which as "undifferentiated" I didn't add to our EN biography footer] seems to be the journalist. VIAF search: o'brien, brendan probably hits two others in the music field (clusters 2 and 3 as listed now). --P64 (talk) 23:25, 16 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
... hits at least one other in the music field, a Violinist (cluster 2 as listed now). Template:VIAF (now cluster 3) is Canadian Brendan O'Brien (bishop) [which biography now points there]. --P64 (talk) 23:58, 16 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Parallel VIAF clusters for one identity[edit]

--P64 (talk) 18:31, 18 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
--P64 (talk) 02:42, 13 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
(strike one, add two) also Template:VIAF Template:VIAF. The latter remains "Cornwall, Ian Wolfran" at VIAF and WorldCat as I write, but LC has merged "I.W." and "Ian Wolfran"[sic] as "I.W. (Ian Wolfram)" [6]. --P64 (talk) 02:13, 6 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
also Template:VIAF (GND)
Both LCCN=no2014118120 BNF=cb12935501j are in the wrong bundle, namely Template:VIAF, with which Template:VIAF (LCCN) should afterward be merged, John A. Fusco.
VIAF bundles have been fixed in these respects -P64 2016-02-19
Template:VIAF At least NLP a17889455 still mixes two people -P64 2016-02-19 (as some national libraries in the main clusters may do). --P64 (talk) 19:56, 25 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Begin batch of 25 children's writers/illustrators, pseudonyms of same, and people disambiguated from same. The sequence is bluelinks without inter-language links, redlinks, bluelinks with interlanguage links --P64 (talk) 21:55, 13 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

End batch of 25. --P64 (talk) 21:55, 13 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Template:-r = Template:VIAF Template:VIAF -P64
Template:-r = Template:VIAF Template:VIAF Template:VIAF -P64

Wikipedia link inside VIAF is out of date[edit]

Articles about multiple people assigned the VIAF identity for one of them[edit]

Affected articles can be found using this PetScan search. There may be some false positives due to the nature of Category:Groups of people.

Other errors[edit]

This one will have to be fixed by messing around with Worldcat, I think (it's not an identity problem, it's a misuse-of-identity one). I've put a couple of queries out to see how we feed back these errors, but since OCLC are on board with the program we should be able to make it happen. Andrew Gray (talk) 20:43, 11 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Paramahansa Yogananda - noticed a number of errors - wondering why the book The Essence of ... is on this page and the only book shown. Please help me understand how this works so that I can help make the corrections.Red Rose 13 (talk) 00:08, 16 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
If I understand you correctly, you're wondering why only the cover image of "The essence of self-realisation" is at the top of this link? If you look further down at the 'Selected Titles' there are a whole list of them. Only one cover image is ever displayed at the top though. The exact layout of the page is not under control of wikipedia by the Library of Congress, the OCLC and their partners. Stuartyeates (talk) 03:20, 18 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Ok thanks - how do I contact them to correct the errors? The book should be Autobiography of a Yogi because that was actually written by him in 1946 and is his most popular, well received book. The Essence of SR is was however written recently and Yogananda passed away in 1952. Should I contact the Library of Congress first? thank you for your help. Red Rose 13 (talk) 21:50, 20 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Norm Macdonald (comedian) vs VIAF http://viaf.org/viaf/107026466/ http://viaf.org/viaf/165546663. VIAF has used purely unreliable sources, sources which have been shown to be inconsistent, or deliberately misquoted sources, to support a claimed capitalization of MacDonald, which is incorrect. See Talk:Norm Macdonald for discussion of current sources (books, CDs), press releases, articles, and official websites which have established that the correct capitalization is Macdonald (lowercase d). --Lexein (talk) 11:39, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
This seems to be Template:VIAF - leaving aside the orthographic issue, it seems fairly clear that the "Norm MacDonald" in VIAF and the "Norm Macdonald" in Wikipedia are referring to the same person. Andrew Gray (talk) 12:09, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
My bad on the number, above. However, I'm salting inclusion of VIAF in Norm Macdonald until the capitalization is correct in VIAF, based on reliable researched sources. It's his name, and we have no business permitting unreliable, outdated, or inconsistent sources to hold sway over validated research. --Lexein (talk) 12:19, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I've left some more detailed notes at Wikipedia talk:Authority control integration proposal, but the short answer is that there's no intention to present this as the One Correct Standard Name; it's simply an identity marker, and should never be interpreted as having any influence on our content beyond identification. We can certainly file the spelling in with our general list of corrections, though. Andrew Gray (talk) 12:40, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Rosemary Harris (writer) — WorldCat merges the record for at least one other writer with hers, although LCCN distinguishes them. Here is that other LCCN=n/2007/070264

The target of that WorldCat link is a "no longer valid" that redirects to a "document not found" --as it was when I discovered the error 2012-11-20. The target of that LCCN link is an error, which is new to me, perhaps during holiday maintenance. --P64 (talk) 18:15, 23 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Evidently LC merges two Rosemary Harris in "that other" record.
  1. Rosemary Simari Harris[8], the "certified master gardener" and author of recent mystery novels
  2. R.H. of Template:Worldcat (1965).
If the latter is distinct from Rosemary Harris (writer) (Rosemary Jeanne, born 1923, period 1956–?) then WorldCat conflates at least three writers. Our "Selected works" of that writer were published 1956–1996, ages 33–73.
R.H. at WorldCat is also one of many "contributors" to Template:Worldcat (2009 DVD; 2008 motion picture). I suppose that she is Rosemary Harris (Rosemary Ann, born 1927, British actress), whom IMDb lists in the full cast.
--P64 (talk) 18:09, 4 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Several IDs for Paul Bradshaw for what appear to be one or no more than two people; none for Paul Bradshaw (journalist). Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:37, 22 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • John M. Green has a VIAF identifier which has a listing for the Australian authority record for the correct person (I presume); but also gives a Wikipedia article link to another John Green who is not the same person. Since it's a common name, it might take a bit to figure out which existing record that John Green belongs to (if there is one...). There does not seem to be an LC authority record for this John M. Green--FeanorStar7 17:54, 20 October 2013 (UTC)
The Australian authority record [9] now includes indentifying information (field 670) that secures the match with our biography. So our biography footer is wrong or misleading only in that the linked VIAF bundle points back to the wrong biography, John Green (priest) --a pure case under section 1.1, if i understand correctly (but I do not edit that section).
· The Australian record also reports middle name Martin (fields 100, 670) and residence Sydney with wife, which I added to our biog with freeform citation of the authority record (a source I have never seen cited formally).
· I have ignored NLA records as too spare and ambiguous but they will be worth the trouble of reading if/when more of the fields are completed, especially 670. Hurrah! --P64 (talk) 21:33, 23 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • VIAF cluster 7774716 has "Caesar, Julius Wikipedia (en)-test" and "Cassius Parmensis, Gaius v43" I think this problem may be related to the sorting that was originally in the Wikipedia article (Caesar, Julius), which I have now fixed to read Cassius, Gaius, Parmensis. The relevant WP article is Gaius Cassius Parmensis. If it isn't a WP error but a VIAF error, I wanted to alert the relevant people by mentioning it here.--FeanorStar7 21:47, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Samuel Clegg. VIAF and LCCN are correct; however the WorldCat link goes to 1585-1649 דרממונד, ויליאם which is clearly wrong... can anyone fix this? FYI, the listed books under most widely held works are correct. thanks, FS7--FeanorStar7 12:06, 27 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Martha Mears (author): this article has the correct LCCN (nr93024389), but when you click the WorldCat link, it automatically redirects to the 20th century Martha Mears (no200765211); not sure why that is happening... [apologies if this is the wrong place for this; not sure where else to report LCCN errors]--FeanorStar7 09:15, 9 December 2014 (UTC)
  • Richard Austin (cricketer) has the following VIAF cluster linked to it: 220925776. This is a cluster which shows Austin, Richard, 1954 (an LC name authority) and the Wikipedia article... however when you look at the LC record, it is for a writer of science fiction who uses Richard Austin as a pseudonym; I don't think it is the same person. I think that VIAF should decouple the two records in the cluster since they are probably not the same person. I also think it is probably appropriate to take out the current VIAF link in the cricketer's article. Do you agree?--FeanorStar7 15:26, 8 February 2015 (UTC)
  • Unsure where else to post this, but under John Adams (geographer) the WorldCat link which links to the LCCN n81025287 goes to the right identity, but the heading for the identity gives Adams, John, 1961- when it should be Adams, John, 1938 August 13-  ; can this be fixed in OCLC WorldCat Identities? Thanks, FeanorStar7 16:20, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
Evidently that WorldCat record labeled "Adams, John 1961-" [10] mixes our geographer JGU Adams with Adams, John Lee, 26 October 1961–, who is a prolific Australian in the same or a neighboring profession. JL 1961 has a WorldCat page labeled "Adams, John (medycyna)" VIAF=2763774 LCCN=n00120667 GND=138152136 NLA=138152136
As I understand (supported by those NLA and GND targets) VIAF is correct to bundle JL 1961 with "(medycyna)" --evidently the Polish national library disambiguation. Rather than simply relabel, WorldCat needs to reallocate probably numerous works from its mixed collection of works labeled "1961" to its current singleton collection "(medycyna)".
I don't find JL 1961 at AUSTLIT; nor 'Lee' nor 'Australian' among the 191 John Adams hits at Wikidata. --P64 (talk) 01:28, 20 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
LC Authorities distinguishes two John Adams born 1938-03-07 and -08-13. Evidently Template:VIAF and Template:VIAF generally fit those two persons but need some work. For instance, Wikidata D:Q15501272 (which no longer mixes data for the two men) in the wrong bundle. --P64 (talk) 01:59, 20 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Re Template:VIAF it appears me that Wikidata alone among the authority records belongs simply to the British geographer JGU Adams, as does the cover image for Risk. Seven of the authorities evidently mix the two men, as they mention Risk as well as some works by prolific American economist: (reading down the bundle) NKC ISNI RERO SUDOC BNC LC NUKAT. Moments ago I sent email correction to LC re its mis-attribution of Risk [11] to the American. --P64 (talk) 02:55, 20 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
(sigh) Some of the authorities evidently data for American urban economic geographer John S. Adams, U Minnesota [12] with the American economist born 1938-03-07. For instance, BNF (which also gives the Brit geographer's birthdate). --P64 (talk) 03:20, 20 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for looking into it; as sometimes happens, one thread gets pulled and things start becoming complicated, but it will improve the authority files and Wikipedia.--FeanorStar7 09:53, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
Template:VIAF evidently bundles the authorities coherently (or all but Wikidata if that is now considered one). It simply points to --and displays a recent description from-- the Wikidata item for the American critic rather than the British illustrator.
After skimming all VIAF pages in the bundle, I guess the national libraries all have the illustrator coherently. Only ISNI [13] evidently to me includes stray bits of the American critic. --P64 (talk) 23:23, 10 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The particular case is resolved Template:Ok except the incoherent ISNI. --P64 (talk) 18:59, 18 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Template:VIAF Fox, Bernard, 1951- [ISNI and LC] and Fox, Bernard, Irish Republican [Wikidata] are linked on this VIAF cluster. Certainly the Wikidata link leads back to the Wikipedia article on the Irish Republican; but the LC authority record is for a person also born in 1951 writing on testing and evaluation trends and costs for aircraft and guided weapons; I have a feeling they are not the same person... --FeanorStar7 16:10, 17 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Template:VIAF has a typo in the name. "Vietch" should be "Veitch" which should aid in searches. The LOC fixed the spelling in their file a month or two ago. The Haz talk 15:50, 1 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Template:VIAF the VIAF cluster is correct; the LC link is correct; however, the WorldCat/OCLC link goes to Foster, Harry, 1904- who is not the same person as Foster, Harry Wickwire (born 1902). Can the WorldCat/OCLC link be fixed for the next time when a person clicks on it in Wikipedia? Thank you. FeanorStar7 20:39, 14 June 2015 (UTC)
  • William M. Mitchell: again the LCCN is correct, but the WorldCat link goes to a different Mitchell. The person in the article was born in the 1820s. The WorldCat link goes to a person born in 1855 who was a clergyman. Can anyone fix this? Thanks, FeanorStar7 10:39, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
  • Greg Boyd (theologian): LCCN link is correct (born 1957); WorldCat link goes to a Greg Boyd born in 1960; not the correct person. --FeanorStar7 07:14, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
  • John Keane (artist): the LCCN is correct; but the WorldCat link goes to Keane, John (John E.), a different person entirely. --FeanorStar7 10:44, 3 October 2015 (UTC)
  • [[George Mudie (social reformer): currently, the VIAF link given in the authority control template that is in the article links to Template:VIAF; I don't think this is the correct identity; I think it is Template:VIAF [1788-1855]; not sure how to change it. --FeanorStar7 (talk) 14:46, 23 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Reviewed[edit]

VIAF merges different identities (into one cluster)[edit]

Parallel VIAF clusters for one identity[edit]

Wikipedia link inside VIAF is out of date[edit]

Other errors[edit]

Sent to OCLC[edit]

VIAF does not match the listed Wikipedia article[edit]

Template:Collapse top The following have all been checked to ensure that all Wikipedia/Wikidata instances of the incorrect ISNI/VIAF have been removed. They were last reviewed and pruned for resolved issues by TheDragonFire at 11:52, 15 October 2017 (UTC).[reply]

OCLC: Please remove entries from this list as and when they're purged from VIAF.

WorldCat Identities errors[edit]

Section moved to d:Wikidata:WikiProject Authority control/WorldCat Identities errors --Epìdosis 09:51, 29 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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