Talk:Mitch Leigh

IBDB external link fix (overrides Wikidata)

The IBDB_name template was generating a bad link, of the form:

<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.ibdb.com/Person/View/12043,">115100 Mitch Leigh</a>

Along with the spurious "115100" in the link text, the trailing comma in the link generates a 404 (broken link) at IBDB.

The root cause was that the Internet Broadway Database person ID statement in Wikidata contained two statements, one for 12043, and one for 115100. The latter is well-intentioned, in that it points to Mitch Leigh in IBDB under his birth name, Irwin Michnik. Wikidata, not surprisingly, generates a warning that the statement expects only one value.

The IBDB_name template does not expect multiple values in the Wikidata statement, and so it generates the bad link above.

To effect an immediate fix, in revision 842784370 I added the "12043" value to the IBDB_name argument in this page, and the link is now rendering properly. Although of course, the value is now replicated in this page and in Wikidata, instead of being centrally located only in Wikidata.

Other potential fixes that might be contemplated, outside the scope of this immediate fix:

• Reduce the number of values for the IBDB Wikidata statement back to one (12043) and store the alternate value (115100) in a different statement regarding alternate names.
• Harden the IBDB_name template to use just the first value from the statement (although ordering might present issues, it's possible that it would get the less-desired value).
• Work with IBDB so they have only one page for Leigh, and represent his alternate name in some way that doesn't present two separate pages.

- Peter Kaminski (talk) 17:29, 24 May 2018 (UTC)