Template talk:Authority control

AE member ID (P5463)

AE stands for Academia Europaea (P5463). This academy has 4,567 members (records).

Template:Authority control/sandbox Grimes2 18:31, 15 January 2026 (UTC)

Support — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:25, 20 January 2026 (UTC)

No opposition. Template:Added — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:40, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

C-SPAN

Template:Authority control/sandbox C-SPAN has id numbers for people. These are used in Template:C-SPAN to create external links. Rather than having it in ==External links==, can we make this an option in this template? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:23, 21 January 2026 (UTC)

What's the property number in Wikidata? Grimes2 19:26, 21 January 2026 (UTC)

d:Property:P10660 is the "C-SPAN person numeric ID" at Wikidata. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:04, 21 January 2026 (UTC)

• Oppose Contains advertisements. Grimes2 19:30, 21 January 2026 (UTC)

  I don't see any ads at https://www.c-span.org/person/?48924 Do you? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:04, 21 January 2026 (UTC)

  Their official website has banner advertisements, and streamed videos also have advertisements. Grimes2 20:15, 21 January 2026 (UTC)

  I'm not asking about the "website". I'm asking about the exact page that we would be sending readers to. Do you see advertisements on the exact page https://www.c-span.org/person/?48924 or not? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:17, 21 January 2026 (UTC)

  I'm not seeing any adverts either. Agree we would need to support (P10660) rather than the deprecated (P2190) — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:48, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

  "It looks like your ad blocker is on. Ad revenue helps support C-SPAN's nonprofit operations so we can bring you unfiltered views of the latest national political events and policy discussions. Like using C-SPAN as an information source? Please support us by allowing ads." and a banner on top. Grimes2 23:03, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

  I opened it in a web browser with Javascript disabled and an ad blocker; I got no complaints about an ad blocker. I opened it in a web browser without any ad blockers, and saw no ads. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:04, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

I support this, as it’s currently already in quite a few EL sections and would be better dealt with via Authority Control BobFromBrockley (talk) 03:41, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

Example added above — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 18:14, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

I like that. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:38, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

LibraryThing

Template:Authority control/sandbox LibraryThing has ids for authors. Can we incorporate {{LibraryThing author}} into this template, rather than having them separately listed under ==External links==? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:25, 21 January 2026 (UTC)

I’d support that suggestion BobFromBrockley (talk) 03:39, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

Example added above — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:08, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

Support — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:09, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

Support. Ⰻⱁⰲⰰⱀⱏ (ⰳⰾ) 00:33, 23 January 2026 (UTC)

We would need to work on these pages: Category:LibraryThing author not in Wikidata — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:08, 23 January 2026 (UTC)

There are only 8 pages in that cat right now. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:58, 23 January 2026 (UTC)

Now empty — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:04, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

Template:Added — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:41, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

IMDb

I see there has been a previous discussion about IMDb, in which an editor said that IMDb could not be included because WP:IMDB isn't a reliable source for most purposes. The claim was that unreliable sources aren't "authorities". However, the "authority" in authority control is about whether there is an "authorized" (by the service) id number (e.g., one-to-one relationship between an individual person and the designated id number). It has nothing to do wwith whether the service is "authoritative" for facts.

I therefore think we should ignore the earlier comments, and add IMDb to this template. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:29, 21 January 2026 (UTC)

I agree. Ⰻⱁⰲⰰⱀⱏ (ⰳⰾ) 18:34, 21 January 2026 (UTC)

Why would we willingly and knowingly add a link to an unreliable source just because it also has an id for the same subject? A list of all (or at least many more) sich ids is available on Wikidata, which is perfectly suited for this. But there is no reason why Enwiki should replicate this for unreliable sources like Imdb, Quora, Findagrave, ... Fram (talk) 18:53, 21 January 2026 (UTC)

Because Template:IMDb name is already in the ==External links== section for more than 150,000 articles. If you dislike that fact, then note that this change would make it less visible to readers. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:07, 21 January 2026 (UTC)

Your proposal says nothing about removing that template though... Fram (talk) 19:49, 21 January 2026 (UTC)

One step at a time. I expect that editors will agree to eliminate duplicate links, when they can see that they're duplicates. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:00, 21 January 2026 (UTC)

So the outcome of this proposal would be 150k duplicate links for some period, likely followed by 150k edits to remove duplicate links. What are the benefits of doing that? Nikkimaria (talk) 23:46, 21 January 2026 (UTC)

The main benefit IMO is that the link stops being all of this:

==External links==

• Template:IMDb name

and starts being just a compact link inside the box. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:50, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

There is a spectrum to unreliability. IMDb is closer to Wikipedia (user generated with review) than to Quora (purely user generated). Moreso even than Find a Grave. Ⰻⱁⰲⰰⱀⱏ (ⰳⰾ) 20:19, 21 January 2026 (UTC)

Tentative support. I see these links as similar to the MusicBrainz links, which have been in the template for many years — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:43, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

Oppose on that basis. Nikkimaria (talk) 05:39, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

Brahms ID

BRAHMS work ID (P5302) is superseded by BRAHMS identifier (P14100) for a composition. Template:Authority control/sandbox Grimes2 05:54, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

Is this a replacement to the existing? I assume we don't want both — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:46, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

Yes. Grimes2 15:43, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

Fixed on sandbox — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:02, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

Leopoldina ID

Leopoldina member ID (new) (P10299) New url: https://www.leopoldina.org/mitglieder/mitgliederverzeichnis/detail/$1/ Template:Authority control/sandbox Grimes2 06:41, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

Can the template be made to work in the Draft: namespace please?

More and more articles are being written in the Draft: namespace and it would be great to have this template "just work" there rather than have it as one more piece of tidying up that needs to be done after moving articles to namespace. Stuartyeates (talk) 23:20, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

Draft articles cannot be connected to Wikidata items, so the only way is to use the |qid= parameter to specific the qid of the relevant item. As soon as it is moved to mainspace and connected to the relevant item, this parameter is no longer needed — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:52, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

Like this. (Thank you anon!) — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:11, 3 February 2026 (UTC)

Preemptive addition of template (2025)

Hi all, has the position against the preemptive addition of this template changed since the 2019 discussion? Template:Ping is systematically adding it to articles about books, where the edit displays no new content in all of my spot checks. Has there been a change in consensus? czar 19:32, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

Template:Ping Thanks for this. I was unaware of any such discussion - I will stop adding it. --Ser Amantio di Nicolao^{Che dicono a Signa?}_{Lo dicono a Signa.} 19:33, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

You are supposed to seek approval before making high volume edits like this, per WP:MEATBOT — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:08, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

organisations and locations

Until very recently I'd assumed that the LCCN was only for people (and perhaps small groups) and certainly the examples given here are all people. But the Primo library software from Ex Libris Group just rolled out LCCN-based integration with wikidata / wikipedia for organisations and locations. Persons have been there for ~12 months. This software is very widely used in academic libraries and the LoC is currently migrating to it (these 'entity pages' are an optional feature which many libraries don't have turned on). Examples include:

High Court of New Zealand https://victoria.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/nde/entity/organization?entityId=n85183714&vid=64VUW_INST:twNDE&lang=en https://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n85183714.html https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1617735 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Court_of_New_Zealand

Ross Dependency https://victoria.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/nde/entity/organization?entityId=n90685347&vid=64VUW_INST:twNDE&lang=en https://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n90685347.html https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q203073 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Dependency

The display is a bit rubbish as this is beta software and these examples were chosen to highlight issues. Note that the completeness of the wikidata-LCCN is much higher for people than for organisations and locations.

My real question is whether {{Template:Authority control}} is suitable for organisations and locations, or whether we want {{Template:Authority control (person)}}, {{Template:Authority control (organisation)}} and {{Template:Authority control (location)}}, with different properties and other config. Stuartyeates (talk) 09:04, 3 February 2026 (UTC)

You can use the template on any article; it is not just for people. I don't see any advantage in creating forks of the template for different types — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:09, 3 February 2026 (UTC)

Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei ID (P14091)

The Wikidata property is P14091. This academy has 3,178 members (records), including the past ones.

I tried to add it to Module:Authority control/config/sandbox but for some reason the pattern doesn't work; it should appear after P10299. Ilaria.bonincontro (talk) 11:27, 4 February 2026 (UTC)

• And here how it looks like:

Template:Authority control/sandbox Grimes2 15:39, 4 February 2026 (UTC)

Don't know if that's a typical link, but there is very limited information given — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:49, 4 February 2026 (UTC)

The site seems to be in the state of expansion. Another example:

Template:Authority control/sandboxGrimes2 16:05, 4 February 2026 (UTC)

• Support Comparable to Leopoldina, ADK, Academia Europeana. Grimes2 16:19, 4 February 2026 (UTC)

request to add operabase support

there are about 900 pages with operabase content or links. could we add Operabase to this template? Tonymetz 💬 19:43, 7 February 2026 (UTC)