Wikipedia:Biographical metadata

This page is intended to summarise the current (as of October 2008) state of biographical metadata on Wikipedia. Where such data exists, what tools are available to extract and use it, and what systems are in place to synchronise, update and extend existing data.

Examples of biographical metadata include:

• Date of birth
• Date of death
• Surname and given names
• Gender

Examples of biographical metadata systems used on Wikipedia-EN include:

• Wikipedia:Persondata
• Year of birth and year of death categories
  • Category:Births by year
  • Category:Deaths by year
• Birth and death data in an article infobox
• hCard microformats
  • See WikiProject Microformats & WikiProject Microformats/hcard
  • Currently applied mainly through biographical infoboxes; see Category:Templates generating hCards
  • There is a need for a template to apply hCards in inline text, for people whose biographical article has no infobox, or who appear in articles but who are not the subject of a biographical article.
• Wikipedia:DEFAULTSORT values
  • See also Wikipedia:Categorization#Setting a default sort key

Please add more to this summary as needed.

Missing data

Various systems exist to track and update missing data.

• Category:Missing middle or first names
• Category:Articles missing birth or death information

External databases

Examples of external databases that include biographical metadata include:

• Freebase website
• NNDB website
• WorldCat Identities, which links to the Library of Congress Name Authority File (especially useful for providing variant name forms)
• Internet Movie Database - biographies of actors and related professional