Submissions/Authority Control: How it applies to you

After careful consideration, the Programme Committee has decided not to accept the below submission at this time. Thank you to the author(s) for participating in the Wikimania 2015 programme submission, we hope to still see you at Wikimania this July.

Submission no.: 2051

Title of the submission: Authority Control: How it applies to you

Type of submission (discussion, hot seat, panel, presentation, tutorial, workshop): Presentation

Author of the submission: Andy Mabbett

E-mail address: andypigsonthewing.org.uk

Username: Pigsonthewing

Country of origin: United Kingdom

Affiliation, if any (organisation, company etc.): ORCID

Personal homepage or blog: http://pigsonthewing.org.uk

Abstract (at least 300 words to describe your proposal)

Do you know the difference between Bill Thompson, Bill Thompson and Bill Thompson? The English Wikipedia alone has articles on at least fifteen people with that name, not to mention those with variants like Billy Thompson, William Thompson, Bill Thomson and so on.

And how can you tell that works which are credited to, say, William Henry Gates III, W Gates and Bill Gates are, in fact, all by the same person?

Authority Control is how we deal with this - it is the name librarians use for the provision of unique identifiers to clarify which of two or more subjects with similar names are being discussed; or that two names may represent the same person or other item. It is widely used in Wikipedia and Wikidata, and in some of the Wikimedia Foundation's other projects. You can see it at the foot of many English-, and other-, language Wikipedia biographies, for example on Bill Thompson (technology writer).

Andy will give an overview of the common types of Authority Control identifiers and how they are used in our projects, to identify people, and other things. Some Wikipedias (for example the Spanish Wikipedia) have chosen not to use Authority Control to their articles; or at least have not yet decided to do so. Andy will discuss the pros and cons of their choices, and try to convince them that they - and their audiences - would be better off if they did do so.

In the second part of Andy's presentation, he will concentrate on ORCID, and explain why many Wikimedians should themselves have an ORCID identifier, how to get one, and how to use it, both on- and off- Wikipedia.

Andy Mabbett has been Wikipedian in Residence at ORCID, an organisation that provides Authority Control identifiers for "researchers and other contributors", since the summer of 2014.

Track: WikiCulture & Community; Education Outreach

Length of session (if other than 30 minutes, specify how long): 30 minutes

Will you attend Wikimania if your submission is not accepted?: Possibly

Slides or further information (optional)

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Tpt (talk) 20:11, 28 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Daniel Mietchen (talk) 21:42, 28 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Blue Rasberry (talk) 00:54, 1 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Ocaasi (talk) 16:36, 2 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
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