Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Women in Red: Difference between revisions

Women Project‑class

This page is within the scope of WikiProject Women, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of women on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.WomenWikipedia:WikiProject WomenTemplate:WikiProject WomenWikiProject Women articles Project This page does not require a rating on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.

• The problems we’re trying to solve:

• Systemic bias towards women’s biographies;
• … and their works -- broadly construed -- such as books, paintings, etc.
• … across all languages

• Off-topic:

• Editor gender gap

What is it?

• WikiProject Women in Red, a community-led project, was launched this week.
• It is intended as a parent project for other projects in all languages whose scope covers women and their works, such as WikiProject Women Writers.
• WikiProject Women in Red is a collaborative space across languages to track all things related to content gender gap.

• creation of new articles, Featured Articles, Good Articles, DYK articles
• events
• news articles
• scholarly publications
• metrics
• hackathon challenges

• WikiProject Women in Red is a container project with links for blogs, conferences, contests, discussions (Wikipedia; Wikimedia), editathons, Inspire grantees’ projects, mailing-lists, meet-ups, newspaper articles, scholarly articles, social media campaigns, workshops, etc.

Wikidata will be used to manage the project because of its size and scope.

• We hope to collaborate with international festival organizers (example: Litquake).
• A global community-run project:
• In addition to needing editors to write the articles, several key volunteer positions have been identified: Data Coordinator; Promotions/Events Coordinator; Lead Coordinators for each language.
• We hope to establish a teaming arrangement with the Wiki Education Foundation as we believe university students are important to this endeavor. We would like to build on the education outreach efforts described by user:Kruusamägi (Wikimania submission: Possibilities for university cooperation: Estonian example) “Every academic year more than 500 articles on Estonian Wikipedia are created as part of local cooperation with universities.”
• We will seek out the expertise of WikiProject X, a project dedicated to improving WikiProjects, in order to create an appealing work space.
• Work together with the Chapters
• Build on Wikimedia’s “Address the gender gap/FAQ“
• Consider the creation of a Wikimedia User Group

Fight the gender gap: write articles on women

I made a template, a start;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:04, 26 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Beautiful! (And it works.) I'm sure there are hundreds of people you can send it to. How about working on women composers? I see there's already a long list at List of female composers by birth year with a few red links but there must be many, many more we should cover in the other language wikis. Maybe we should start Wikipedia:WikiProject Women/Women in Red/Women composers?--Ipigott (talk) 11:07, 26 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It's lovely, @Gerda. --Rosiestep (talk) 14:19, 26 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I love this! Hope it is a sign that your vacation was restful and restorative Gerda Arendt.

It is! See my talk, under baklava, - a returning user, o happy day! Will create a popcorn template also ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:55, 26 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

As I am still on vacation, I will not send it to individuals, but every user posting on a certain well-watched page, on ANI, AE and on arbcom request should feel morally obliged to create a "qpq" woman stub ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:59, 26 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Women in Red

Here's a neutral box, easily modified. If you need modifications, ask Alakzi. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:20, 16 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I had a phone call today with Amanda Bittaker regarding our Metrics. Amanda thinks she can help us with this. There are multiple steps. The first thing she needs from us is a list of categories within our scope. She suggested that we start with User:AlexNewArtBot/WomensHistory (I've pasted here). Category:Women writers is missing. Also, books written by women. What else? --Rosiestep (talk) 02:52, 27 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'm removing the pasted list from last night which was a mess; it's link is in the post right above this one. --Rosiestep (talk) 02:29, 28 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Rosiestep I don't quite get if these are parent categories or the actual ones it is searching. I don't see activists, I see activism but is a computer going to pick up on that? or suffragists only "suffe?rage" (what IS that). (Could explain why I keep saying none of my women appear on the list????) Also don't see social work only social reform. I did a German woman today and it would only take women academics not educators. I can also say that while we got songs in the new files list, we go no notifications on musicians though I know some were created. I do not see artists. Is this what you want? SusunW (talk) 03:23, 27 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

SusunW yes, that's what Amanda needs. Regarding suffrage, I started those 8 suffrage congress articles earlier this month and I wonder now if I hadn't added them to the Metrics list by hand, would they have showed up? (e.g. First Conference of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance)? --Rosiestep (talk) 14:33, 27 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Rosiestep They were on the list, but not sure which marker made them appear. Also note there is nothing to do with film unless I am missing it. No film, no actress. SusunW (talk) 15:02, 27 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Rosiestep on musicians, no singers, songwriters, sopranos, altos. No instrument players of any kind, i.e. guitarists, drummers, etc. etc. No scientists, but science. Does it pull from that? What about chemists, biologists, mathematicians, economists ... This could go on forever. ;) SusunW (talk) 15:49, 27 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi all, here's a list of what the bot captures in more natural language:

Points	Phrase
2	Is a history stub or contains phrase "ground-breaking" or "revolutionary"
11	Contains language on "first woman" or "women's history"
2	Contains language on a peace organizer
2	Contains language on peace corps or human rights
10	Contains language on a woman mathmatician/scientist/enginner
10	Contains language on a woman education/administrator/library scientist
10	Contains language on a woman architect/builder
10	Contains language on a woman technology/industrial revolution or woman inventor
10	Contains language on a woman physician or nurse
10	Contains language on a woman and birth control or abortion
10	Contains language on a woman religious figure
10	Contains language on a woman sports person
10	Contains language on a woman artist
10	Contains language on a woman journalist
10	Contains language on a woman scientist/pilot/astronaunt
10	Contains language on a woman military person
10	Contains language on a woman government official
10	Contains language on a woman lawyer/judge/police
10	Contains language on a woman farmer/rancher
10	Contains language on a woman conservationist
10	Contains language on a woman activist
10	Contains language on a woman union organizer
10	Contains language on a woman slave/abolitionist
10	Contains language on a woman businessperson/banker/executive
10	Contains language on a woman philanthropist
4	Contains the phrase "for women"
4	Contains the word "women's" or "women" or "female"
10	Contains the word "all" before the word "women" or "female" or "woman"
-3	Contains the word "man" or "men" or "male"
10	Contains language on a Victorian/medieval/reaissance/ancient woman
6	Contains language on proto/first/second/third wave feminism or women's lib
3	Contains language stating the century
2	Contains the word "she"
-1	Contains the word "he"

The first column is the number of points assigned if that page (article, category, or template) contains the language in the second column. Eg, if an article contains language on a woman artist, language on woman journalist, but mentions the word "he" twice, it would have 18 points. (10 + 10 - 1 - 1).

The rules can be re-written so less slips through the concepts already covered, but hopefully this list will help highlight what concepts are missing as well. For example, scientists and mathematicians are already covered, but sub-categories of scientists such as chemists or biologists are not and could be added. I hope this helps, please do let me know if you have any questions on technical details as you are compiling this list. Abittaker (WMF) (talk) 20:09, 27 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

A list of missing occupations. Please add to it. --Rosiestep (talk) 02:29, 28 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Without trying to list them all, what if we ask Amanda to include the categories and all of the subcategories in {{cl|Women by occupation}} and {{cl|Category:Literature by women}}? --Rosiestep (talk) 04:42, 29 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Good morning, @Abittaker (WMF). These two categories and all their subcategories encompass our scope. Can you create something which will display in list form any new articles created within these parameters? --Rosiestep (talk) 14:44, 6 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Category:Women by occupation
• Category:Women's culture

Hello @Rosiestep, sure, I can put together a query for that. Just to be sure, do you want to also include the categories Category:Women's rights or Category:Women? I remember we discussed the possibility of including Women's rights, which includes suffrage topics, and these are not included in Women by occupation or Women's culture.

Also, I've asked about the best ways to capture the proportion of biographies that is women's biographies. There is no exact science to be sure of the most accurate way, but the feeling seems to be that a Wikidata query would be best. Another option would be looking at a biographies category and women's biographies category using catscan. Do you have someone who knows how to do one or both of these? I can send along some instructions as well. Best, Abittaker (WMF) (talk) 19:24, 9 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hello @Abittaker (WMF), I think it simplifies the process if the query is for Category:Women and all its subcats. When the list is posted, we will weed out the articles which are outside our scope. We'll leave it to you to decide which query option is best (Wikidata vs. catscan). Thank you, --Rosiestep (talk) 02:03, 10 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

While I realise that it is volunteering others for work, it might be useful to do the analysis using both methods (wikidata & catscan) to see the difference between them. I also think that it would be prudent to use the same methods to determine the proportion of biographies that are men, and the proportion that are as yet undefined or unknown; though this may be difficult with categories. I mention this having reviewed some of the list of AfDs related to Tara Teng, kindly provided by Jbhunley; while the article subjects were clearly women, the majority did not seem to be tagged with a Women's category, and may not have had relevant wikidata either. - Ryk72 ^'c.s.n.s.' 16:34, 11 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

First of all, I would like to express my appreciation for Women in Red for testing the new WikiProject interface and tools. Thank you.

WikiProject X is up for renewal at the Wikimedia Foundation. We would like to continue working to make our existing tools better: to make them easier to use, and to integrate them with other Wikimedia projects, including Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata. Please review our renewal proposal and leave feedback. Note in this proposal we refer specifically to Women in Red by name—I've been very impressed by the enthusiasm of Women in Red, so I would like to prioritize helping this project.

As always, if you have any questions or feedback, please let me know on this talk page or the WikiProject X talk page.

Thank you again, Harej (talk) 19:35, 27 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Harej: I'm glad to see you have finally made contact with us again and are hoping to improve the WikiProject X interfaces. The project is indeed proving to be a huge success thanks to the involvement of all those contributing to new articles. The major problem with Women in Red is that we are unable to correct errors on the project page or provide a table of contents which covers it efficiently and not just one item at a time. Work on Metrics has become particularly critical as despite several attempts to alert you to the problem, the Metrics icon simply does not take you to the Metrics section. We have introduced a subsection on DYK successes but the only way we can draw attention to it is to mention it in the announcements. As the Grants section has never been used, it could perhaps be usefully replaced by DYKs (in which there is considerable interest). But as I have mentioned to you on several occasions, the most important correction we need is for you to have Metrics icon respond again. Once this works, we can perhaps address other improvements.--Ipigott (talk) 16:33, 28 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry the problem slipped for so long! It should work again. I can also break out DYKs into a separate section if you all would like: the "pre-fab" module is called "Showcase" but we can also go with another name. Harej (talk) 19:15, 28 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Harej: Thanks for the fix. I'm glad to see it's finally working again. I'm sure "Showcase" will be fine for DYKs too in the new version. How about the problem of a table of contents? Would it not be possible to provide for all the subsections in addition to the icons? The only way I can see of doing this at the moment is to add items under announcements. I have also noticed that the "Tasks" section has never really followed up on your plans to retrieve red links via WikiData. Should the "From WikiData" section not simply be eliminated so that we can continue adding our own tasks in the traditional way? I also think it might be useful for you to take a closer look at the main page on Women in Red and see how it could be improved in the light of the development of each of the sections. I think a more straightforward way for new members to register would also help. There have been lots of additional participants who have added their names to the lists on our editathons (see Wikipedia:Meetup/Women_in_Red/2#Participants and Wikipedia:Meetup/Women in Red/3#Participants) but many have not become members of WiR. Some (as I was) may be put off by the rather complicated registration procedure and the suggestion a photograph should be provided. This might deserve closer attention. I think it would also be useful for you to receive feedback from our other regular contributors including @Rosiestep, SusunW, Megalibrarygirl, 97198, Alafarge, Yoninah, and Nvvchar:--Ipigott (talk) 08:47, 29 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Ipigott, I have a theory about editathon participants. I think they don't sign up for a larger wiki project for 2 reasons, 1) they consider themselves casual editors... perhaps with the perception that they aren't really part of the online community and/or 2) it never occurs to them to sign up. I like the sign up process for WP Women, Harej, having a little pic is fun and cute. :) Plus you can skip the pic if you want to. I did at first and later added a pic that looks like my dog. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 12:22, 29 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Ipigott and Harej: I have the same issue I have expressed all along. It is difficult to navigate. WIR seems to open new pages for sections, such as when you add an item to metrics and sometimes you return to WP Women and others on WP WIR. I cannot figure out why that is. The missing metrics piece IMO is the biggest challenge of the project. I simply do not understand why that is proving so difficult and why it cannot be done. SusunW (talk) 13:57, 29 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Harej: Thanks for asking for feedback. I agree with the other editors who say that navigation is difficult, and doubly so after WiR merged with WikiProject Women. To help with events navigation, I created {{Wikipedia:Meetup/Women in Red/Navigation}} this morning. IMHO, I really like the simplicity, look, feel, navigation of this one, Wikipedia:Art+Feminism. Are you thinking of offering various style options in the future? --Rosiestep (talk) 17:39, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I really like your navigation box, @Rosiestep:. It's a great first step to making the WiR page easier to get around. Regarding the sign-ups for editathons, I personally don't understand the need to "RSVP", unless you're trying to build a base of users to notify of future editathons. Without signing up, I started writing Women in Leadership articles and found I liked it, so I amassed quite a few. I skipped the Women in Architecture editathon, but will try my hand at Women in Science and Women in Religion. Is it really necessary to sign up for these? Yoninah (talk) 20:58, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Yoninah: Nope, RSVP is not required. And yes, participant names are helpful for future event promotion. The main thing is writing articles. :) --Rosiestep (talk) 21:18, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I have been hesitant about signing up for WikiProjects — any projects, not just this one — mainly because of uncertainty as to what is expected when one crosses over from being vanilla editor to project member. (Honestly, I signed up for my first WikiProject or two in the mistaken belief that only project members were entitled to put WikiProject tags on Talk pages, and I wanted to be able to do that.) Also, I don't often have time to read all the material that accumulates on WikiProject pages, useful though it can be, and even though this community in particular is unquestionably the most gracious I've found on Wikipedia so that dropping in is a pleasure. A case in point: an entry further up this page about Wikidata, which is completely opaque to me and which I'd clearly have to spend some time to figure out. So for me the navigation issues are far less important than it sounds like they are to all of you with more experience in WikiProjectLand.Alafarge (talk) 15:17, 2 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you all, very much, for your comments. I have prepared a list based on what has been said here. I want to make sure I have captured everything that's been said, so please let me know if I need to add anything to this list or otherwise change it:

• Create a separate section to list DYKs
• Find a way to list sub-sections in the table of contents
• Auto-updating lists of redlinks from Wikidata. (Specifically, the ability to sort by category; right now, the tool gives just one list.)
• More straightforward way to sign up, including de-emphasis on the picture aspect. (I wish to emphasize that having a picture is optional, though I understand how this may not always be clear.)
• Interview most active users
• Automate the metrics report for new articles
• Fix navigation bugs
• Offer various styling options
• Clarify what exactly being a member entails.

Harej (talk) 19:35, 4 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Someone also proposed a concierge bell for reporting problems and asking questions. An excellent idea as well. Harej (talk) 19:38, 4 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I've put some up on the board at Wikipedia:WikiProject Intertranswiki, important ones which have been identified as missing. Rosie might want to copy them to the Women page for targets.♦ Dr. Blofeld 13:16, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Done! --Rosiestep (talk) 20:03, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Meetup/Women in Red/3 seems like it may have had a very measurable effect on the total number of biographical articles - but this needs a stronger technical confirmation. For details, please see the Village Pump question. Thanks for everyone who contributed to this campaign!--Pharos (talk) 19:52, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

In fact, we had a 40% spike!--Pharos (talk) 15:10, 5 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Like I tried to look at the link in Village pump but I get nothing when I click on it. But 40% spike is huge! Hoping for a big spike in women scientists too. SusunW (talk) 17:56, 5 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I've put the list on-wiki here: User:Pharos/WABY. I wonder whether this might make a good case study that could be developed as a Signpost feature?--Pharos (talk) 17:59, 5 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Pharos: I think it has potential to tell a great story as we have access to accurate before and after numbers with this one. Let's do it. --Rosiestep (talk) 21:33, 5 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I created an article about this Chinese feminist and LGBT/women's rights activist as part of the ongoing Wikipedia Asian Month campaign. Just sharing in case WiR tracks newly created articles. I saw the red link at Wikipedia:WikiProject Women/Women in Red/API Women and Wikipedia:WikiProject Women/Women in Red/Women activists. All are welcome to help expand the article! ---Another Believer _(Talk) 05:59, 2 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you Another Believer I have moved it to our metrics section Wikipedia:WikiProject Women/Women in Red/Metrics#November 2015 SusunW (talk) 15:51, 2 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Dorothy Garrett Smith haven't looked closely myself. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 21:41, 2 November 2015 (UTC).[reply]
  

I did what I could. Cannot find further sources from here in Mexico, but there are clues that other sourcing may exist and she does meet GNG, IMO.SusunW (talk) 14:20, 3 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding our events and the lists associated with them, such as this one, it has been suggested elsewhere that we distinguish the redlink entries as a BLP vs. a biography of someone who has passed. So, if you know the year of death and want to take the time to add it to the redlink, that's awesome (but not required); or if you know the person is alive, maybe add BLP after their name. This would probably benefit our newer editors the most. --Rosiestep (talk) 02:33, 3 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I created this user box if anyone wants to use it or improve it - it's my first attempt to create a user box.

This user is a member of WikiProject Women in Red.

Minor4th 22:07, 3 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I really like this. Thanks! Yoninah (talk) 23:38, 3 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Very cool! Thanks!SusunW (talk) 04:45, 4 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Very nice! --Rosiestep (talk) 23:29, 4 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I have moved the DYK entries into a section called Showcase. (Incidentally, there is a bot that automates this, but I think it requires categorizing all the articles in scope for this WikiProject into a special category, which I am not sure is feasible given the broad scope.) Please let me know promptly if anything broke in the process. Harej (talk) 20:13, 4 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Harej: I like it. Thanks. --Rosiestep (talk) 23:34, 4 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I missed seeing this, Wikipedia:Meetup/Aphra Behn Society Editathon, on WiR's mainpage in the Events section. We could have done a 1 week virtual edit-a-thon; sorry I wasn't on top of it. If anyone would like to participate, please join in virtually. --Rosiestep (talk) 23:32, 4 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Fellow Editors, While looking at another article, I noticed that per WP:NSPORTS@WP:OLYMPICS all persons competing at an Olympic Games are presumed notable. I thought this might offer some scope for articles on Women Olympians. - Ryk72 ^'c.s.n.s.' 14:21, 5 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

That's good to know! Thank you. :) Megalibrarygirl (talk) 20:58, 6 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Elliott, Clark A; Kohlstedt, Sally Gregory (1979). Biographical Dictionary of American Science: The Seventeenth Through the Nineteenth Centuries. Westport and London: Greenwood Press. ISBN 978-0-313-20419-7.

All the women's biographies are indexed under the entry "Women in science", saving me much time!

SO far I have looked at 6 women's biographies and only 1 needed creating. Not sure whether to be disappointed!

Lucretia Crocker is a one-line stub, until I get some caffeine or some sleep.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 17:56, 6 November 2015 (UTC).[reply]

The five missing (women's) articles have been created. Three are still stubs, but I'll expand them over the next few days.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 16:00, 7 November 2015 (UTC).[reply]

• Maureen Milgram Forrest (AfD) - as part of a multiple AfD, perhaps as a reaction to the so-far failed Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Nicholas Bowen. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 16:33, 7 November 2015 (UTC).[reply]
  

The The Queen's Award for Enterprise Promotion is awarded to about 8 people every year, along with one Lifetime Achievement Award. The following 10 (women) awardees and 2 lifetime awardees have no article.

The Queen's Award for Enterprise Promotion 2014

• Mrs Christine Atkinson, Deputy Director of Entrepreneurship, University of South Wales, Pontypridd, Wales
• Ann Stonehouse, Chair, Assist Women's Network, Middlesbrough, North Yorkshire
• Jayne Taggert, Chief Executive, Causeway Enterprise Agency, Coleraine, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland

The Queen's Award for Enterprise Promotion 2013

Lifetime Achievement

• Claire Dove MBE, Chief Executive, Blackburne House Group, Liverpool, Merseyside

Achievement in Enterprise Promotion

• Lady Cunningham, Enterprise Development Coach, Ways into Successful Enterprise, Allerdale Borough Council, Workington, Cumbria
• Elizabeth Towns-Andrews, Director of Research and Enterprise, University of Huddersfield, Huddersfield, West Yorkshire

The Queen's Award for Enterprise Promotion 2012

Lifetime Achievement

• Carmel Gahan Director of Ross Carberry Ltd, Swansea, Wales

Achievement in Enterprise Promotion

• Claire Ferris, Manager, Work West Enterprise Agency, Belfast, N. Ireland
• Elizabeth Tappenden, Director, In To Biz Limited, The Isle of Wight

The Queen's Award for Enterprise Promotion 2011

• Alison Brown, head of technology, director of specialism, Catcote School Business and Enterprise College, Hartlepool, County Durham
• Victoria Lennox, founder and chair of trustees, National Consortium of University Entrepreneurs, London
• Professor Susan Marlow, professor of entrepreneurship, De Montfort University, Leicester author of Managing Labour in Small Firms. Routledge Studies in Small Business. Susan Marlow, Dean Patton, Monder Ram (editors). Routledge. 2004. ISBN 9781134381463.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 17:09, 7 November 2015 (UTC).[reply]

As a result of OnBeyondZebrax's article on Women in music, we are discussing the possibility of having an editathon in January or February on women in music (possibly concentrating on composers and instrumentalists) (see User talk:OnBeyondZebrax). My preferred dates would be 10 to 31 January as we will need February to prepare for the March Women's History Month. We hope to have feedback from Pharos, Tim riley, Victuallers and anyone else with ideas.--Ipigott (talk) 16:25, 9 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Well, Ipigott we were talking on the ideas page about education for January and Black History for February. I'm not sure we could do two editathons in one month, but on the other hand it is possible? SusunW (talk) 16:32, 9 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Music would be a great topic but the timing might need to change a little. Keilana (talk) 18:57, 9 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Let me first copy this over from OnBeyondZebraz's talk Page

Women in music is an important article, so first, thank you for that! I support @Ipigott's idea of a Women in Music edit-a-thon in January or February, perhaps for 10-14 days. All the "women" categories are, to my knowledge, non-diffusing, so any biography in a "women" category must also be added to a non-gendered category within the same field. --Rosiestep (talk) 15:00, 9 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Rosiestep: Thanks for your support for an editathon on women in music. How about 10 to 31 January? Maybe Pharos can tie us up with something otherwise it would be interesting to see how we make out alone. Maybe we should concentrate on composers and instrumentalists to avoid initial overspill on pop. As for the categories, I think in music especially, categories such as Category:Female singers and most of the subcategories are main categories in their own right as female voices need to be distinguished from the males voices. Category:Female dancers likewise.--Ipigott (talk) 15:35, 9 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

We've had a good relationship in NYC and a number of past events with the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, and User:Kosboot is actually a librarian there. The most recent event was this past May, when User:Lange.lea organized us for Wikipedia:Meetup/NYC/WomenOfJazz. That said, scheduling something for January would depend on circumstances and the availability of different people.--Pharos (talk) 15:45, 9 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Pharos for your amazingly quick response. We seem to be establishing an excellent relationship. For the time being, I'll put the proposal for January on the WiR talk page. If you can come up with anything, let me know. My own inclination is that we should have an open event on composers and instrumentalists initially and perhaps organize something specific on jazz and/or other genres later. It would also be good if we could become involved in events extending outside of NYC too. Perhaps Tim riley and Victuallers could let us know if there is any interest in the UK or Europe in January of February?--Ipigott (talk) 16:07, 9 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'm off to a wikimeet in Birmingham this weekend. I'll ask ... Victuallers (talk) 16:13, 9 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Roger. Further discussion on the event on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Women/Women in Red#Music editathon in January or February?.--Ipigott (talk) 16:30, 9 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Bags of useful international pop, jazz and folk material, I'm sure, and for classical music though there will necessarily be slim pickings on female composers there are masses of top notch women performers whose articles could be improved if a female-oriented editathon is thought desirable. My great guru on editathons in London has been User:WereSpielChequers, but that was a little while ago, and things may have changed. – Tim riley talk 18:08, 9 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Tim. We're probably corresponding on the wrong page but I agree with you that we need to promote performers and instumentalists. Interesting work on composers may emerge from some of the other languages. For a start, just look at Argentina. Maybe not all completely classical but... --Ipigott (talk) 19:05, 9 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• And now let me respond specifically to the earlier comment from SusunW: You may be familiar with the Spanish proverb: "No hay mal que por bien no venga".

To Keilana and you, Susun, I think it is very important to maintain Black History for February but I must say very many of the biographies from the recent editathons have had a direct relationship with education. The other problem I have with "Education" at the moment is that 90% of the red links come from the USA. Music on the other hand is universal. I think we have time in January to address it. May I ask for feedback here from Rosiestep, Keilana, Victuallers, Dr. Blofeld, Megalibrarygirl, Missvain, Pigsonthewing, SusunW, Alafarge, Big Iron, Nvvchar, Gobonobo, 97198 and any others who would like to respond.--Ipigott (talk) 20:07, 9 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Ipigott it matters not to me. Education fits in with a bunch of other categories and it may well be that that list becomes a feeder for Black History month, Activists, science, etc., as you pointed out, there is a lot of overlap. I was merely pointing out that it should get on the idea board asap so that there are not conflicts. As I said about religion, music isn't my topic. I love music, have a pretty good set of pipes, but no real knowledge. Bios I can usually pull off. SusunW (talk) 20:31, 9 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Black History month is a different month here in the UK. Shouldn't be a problem finding trainers for an event in London in February, meta:/Meetup/London/100 is on December 13th, if someone can get me dates for an editathon by then I'm sure we will be able to get some experienced trainers from the crowd there. ϢereSpielChequers 20:48, 9 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, aware that in the UK it is different, not sure why that is but I checked and the UK is the only place that is different that I can tell. Caribbean, US, and Canada is February. UK is in October. Anyway, dates that were being bandied about on the calendar for an event were 14 January to 24 January SusunW (talk) 21:07, 9 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Whichever we work on, any month, I'm happy to try to get lists together. I enjoy making and sourcing the lists. So far, most of the educators, like Ipigott mentioned are from the US... I found a ton from the state Hall of Fame sites, so that tipped it a lot. I can try to expand to other countries, though I tend to be hampered by language. I'm only fluent in English and I understand enough Spanish to get by and can sort of use my Spanish to get the gist of other Romance languages. I'm lucky to have a few friends who are fluent in other languages, though, so I'll hit them up and see if they have anything to offer. However, whatever we decide to write about is cool with me and I'm happy to help any way I can. :) Megalibrarygirl (talk) 15:00, 11 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• I thought of something, we could include this list, which is more internationally inclusive: Women's organizations with education since that's the mission of many of these groups... advocacy with raising awareness, which I think touches on educating the public... Megalibrarygirl (talk) 15:18, 11 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

That's a great offer, Megalibrarygirl. Up to now, we have very little on music so it would be great if you could make a start. I would suggest concentrating on composers and instrumentalists for a start (maybe two separate lists). Later on I'll be able to help out with international coverage as I am fluent in most of the European languages but I'm pretty busy with other things at the moment.--Ipigott (talk) 15:23, 11 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• List for music is begun: Women in music Megalibrarygirl (talk) 15:40, 11 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

For whatever reason, I have not received the pings for this section, so sorry for the delay in joining the convo. I think a music editathon is a great idea -- much needed. Note, the post I made regarding January-February was in a vacuum... not in consideration with the other events we were lining up for 2016Q1. A sponsored event by some institution would help drive dates. Any suggestions for sponsors? If not, let's ping someone at GLAM or WikiEdu for ideas. As usual, the redlist(s) will be very important; let's also consider image redlinks, such as we have in the scientist editathon. --Rosiestep (talk) 15:45, 11 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Among other people, let's ping User:Gerda Arendt for input on a music project. Montanabw^(talk) 02:16, 12 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• The Women in music is coming along nicely. I found some international redlinks to work on. Please feel free to add! :) Megalibrarygirl (talk) 14:42, 12 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Megalibrarygirl you rock, Sue! Truly. You have done such a great job with these lists. On Wikipedia:WikiProject Intertranswiki are recurring lists for Bach cantatas, that also links here Wikipedia:WikiProject Classical music/Missing articles:Bach Cantatas site. I am sure Gerda or Dr. B can tell us where there might be other WikiProject links and I found this link, which I haven't had time to comb through but will work on it [1] SusunW (talk) 14:58, 12 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

If anyone wants to help with the Women in Science editathon and doesn't really want to write articles, or just has time to do QPQ reviews, I could use help with DYK nominations. I've nominated a bunch and so has Yoninah but I think these would be good candidates:

• Catherine Feuillet moved to mainspace on 11-6 must be nom by 11-13  Done
• Gloria Lim moved to mainspace on 11-8 must be nom by 11-15 Thank you Yoninah! SusunW (talk) 21:04, 9 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Vera Faddeeva moved to mainspace on 11-8 must be nom by 11-15  Done
• Catherine A. Lozupone moved to mainspace on 11-9 must be nom by 11-15  Done
• Katherine Belov moved to mainspace 11-11 must be nom by 11-18  Done
• Idelisa Bonnelly moved to mainspace 11-12 must be nom by 11-19  Done
• Una Ryan and Una M. Ryan moved to mainspace 11-13 Done

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Feel free to add a line or two and make yourself a co-author ;) SusunW (talk) 19:30, 9 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Just got an AfD notice on a new page I put up for scientist Elizabeth A. Wood. Not sure why since she seemed to me to pass notability just fine. Not least, there is a science writing award given out in her honor. Would appreciate folks weighing in on what is needed to deal with the AfD notice.Alafarge (talk) 15:25, 12 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Update — just noticed on the AfD nominator's Talk page that he has been recently called out by other Wikipedia editors for being too quick with the AfD tag.Alafarge (talk) 15:31, 12 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

These articles created by User:Neelix are at AfD as part of ... let us just say, the mass deletion or attempted deletion of things he has created. The majority of the articles (and the only ones I have listed here) are about women.

1. Glendene Grant
2. Iris Thomsen
3. Mélanie Paquin
4. Bukola Oriola
5. Vednita Carter
6. Centre to End All Sexual Exploitation
7. Deborah's Gate
8. EVE (organization)
9. Tania Fiolleau
10. Jassy Bindra
11. Shae Invidiata
12. Lepa Jankovic
13. Aaron Krogman
14. Denise Wong
15. Sienna Howell-Holden
16. Glenda Warkentin
17. Evelyn Chew
18. Men Against Sexual Trafficking
19. Sex Trade 101
20. Katarina MacLeod
21. Bridget Perrier
22. Streetlight Support Services
23. NASHI
24. London Anti-Human Trafficking Committee
25. Women of Distinction Awards
26. The Source Dance Company
27. Timea Nagy (activist)
28. White Dog Cafe (founded by a woman).
29. Buying Sex is Not a Sport

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 23:17, 13 November 2015 (UTC).[reply]

Thank you for the heads up. I'm a rabid inclusionist, and yet I think...three of these? passed even the most basic stretch of notability standards. So much creepy dreck. The Drover's Wife (talk) 02:37, 14 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Creepy but is worth determining if any happened to be notable, I voted keep on a couple... Montanabw^(talk) 05:12, 15 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I just voted "Keep or merge to Human trafficking in Canada." on one - where we three are the only voters. I looked at some of these articles (i.e. about 3 of the most notable ones not on this list) a year or two ago. It seems that the process was to give each entity an article, and to gather as much information as possible. If this was another wiki that might be fine, but we have "Notability" criteria to deal with. Actually it is sorta fine here, because we have AGF and merge. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 14:42, 15 November 2015 (UTC).[reply]

I find the reminder that we have notability criteria peculiar from someone who just voted keep without explanation (in each case the only one to do so) a bunch of times, in response to this obsessive POV mess on fringe organisations and people. Nearly all of these people are of the same level of notability, but it's sad that while all the actors are gone in a jiffy, a number the other equally randomly un-notable people are on the fringe because people think it sounds like a feel-good cause. The Drover's Wife (talk) 17:10, 15 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I voted "keep" without explanation a bunch of times? Must have been my cat walking on my keyboard. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 21:39, 16 November 2015 (UTC).[reply]

Hi everyone! A few days ago, I began a Good Article review of Sherry Thomas, a critically acclaimed Chinese-American romance writer. Unfortunately, the GA nominator (Plange) has not been active on Wikipedia for the last few months, and she has not responded to the requests for revisions at the GA review. Is there somebody at this Wikiproject who is willing to work on the article to bring it to GA status? I certainly wouldn't want to lose the opportunity to bring this article to GA status. I am also posting this message at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Women writers. Thanks in advance for your help! Best, -- Notecardforfree (talk) 16:07, 14 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Probably all you can do is ping the GA board for someone to close the review and then restart it.Maybe someone can take it over, but I'm not sure the rules on that. Sucks, but... Montanabw^(talk) 00:59, 17 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Judy Ho Another new article on scientists list proposed for deletion *sigh* SusunW (talk) 16:55, 16 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I voted. Could use some more eyes and attention. Minor4th 15:53, 18 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Rhonda Patrick Another new scientist proposed for deletion and worse, marked as a potential hoax. Seriously SMDH. SusunW (talk) 15:31, 19 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Sabrina Gschwandtner new artist article. Nominated within hours of its creation by a new editor. SusunW (talk) 01:45, 20 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

megalibrarygirl Thanks! I hate that they probably ran off this editor, but hopefully we will have saved the file. Extremely interesting work. SusunW (talk) 18:26, 23 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

SusunW, I agree. The nominator, Ireneshih, is nominating articles just days after creation without seeming to do WP:BEFORE. It's rather concerning that there is a lack of due-diligence. Another article I'm trying to rescue is Olivia Gude. At first glance, she seems to pass GNG. I think someone's doing an edit a thon somewhere because I'm seeing a lot of art related articles popping up. I'm concerned about this trend of no WP:BEFORE. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 18:32, 23 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Megalibrarygirl serious lack of initiative on the part of the nominator. Both state and national awards. *sigh*. Hopefully we have done enough to convince others ;) SusunW (talk) 19:59, 23 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

SusunW, thanks for helping me add to Olivia Gude. It was so clear that she passed, at the least, GNG. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 20:05, 23 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Megalibrarygirl way beyond GNG. With what we found on her awards, she clearly passes artist and I think SNOWY might be appropriate ;) SusunW (talk) 20:08, 23 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This section to the concierge bell in the infobox of our current event: Wikipedia:Meetup/Women in Red/4. I figure there will be editors who will be looking for assistance and won't know where to turn. I think it would be a good idea to include this concierge bell feature in every event's infobox. Sure, this will require us to answer questions now and again, but I think we're up for it. If you're familiar with the WP:Teahouse, this "Concierge Service" is meant to be like it. If you don't like the idea, we can always scrap it! --Rosiestep (talk) 03:11, 17 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I like it Rosiestep. Finally got caught up on my DYKs but I was panicked for a few days thinking I wasn't going to get them done. I also resorted to writing notes on the redlist, but thankfully Megalibrarygirl saw my scribbings and helped me so scrape together enough for a stub. Sad when one of the top researchers on cancer in the US can only get a stub because no one is writing about her, but everyone is quoting her research. Says something important about our sourcing criteria, IMO. SusunW (talk) 03:32, 17 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I like the idea, too, Rosiestep. Also, SusunW, I agree that there is a sourcing/notability issue in Wiki, but it always seems like when it's brought up anywhere besides some WikiProjects, like ours, no one wants to talk about it. :( Megalibrarygirl (talk) 15:11, 17 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Megalibrarygirl and SusunW: I have had the same experience regarding sourcing/notability. --Rosiestep (talk) 15:17, 17 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Rosiestep: While I think we should be doing everything possible to encourage new or inexperienced users, I'm not convinced at this stage that a concierge bell is the best approach. I think the top priority is to revamp the Women in Red site to overcome our navigational problems and avoid being constantly taken back to WP Women rather than Women in Red when trying to return from one of the project pages. Everyday, I have to open and reopen about four or five windows to be able to track what's going on and I have more experience of Wikipedia than most. Just imagine what it must be like for those who have just joined us. As for helping newbies, etc., I have been trying to make personal contact with them on their talk pages but have only had responses from about one in ten (or even less). Nearly all those who come in through in-person editathons seem to disappear from Wikipedia editing within a day or two, only reappearing at the next editathon a year or more later. I have tried to encourage Pharos to collaborate in helping to keep in touch with them (e.g. by email) but there has been no follow-up. As for establishing notability, it is a constant problem, even when pertinent references are given. Would it be possible to list AfDs and especially Speedy Deletion candidates on the main project page, perhaps on the basis of WPBIO? We might be able to catch them before they disappear.--Ipigott (talk) 16:20, 17 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Ipigott and Rosiestep: I am with you on the navigation issue, which I have maintained from the get-go is a problem. I also have the same issue as Rosie in that I don't seem to get the messages from the WIR various pages and have to scroll through them periodically to see if there are any notices. Don't know if that is why I didn't get any help from anyone except Yoninah, bless her, on my DYKs or not. But, I think the button is good even for experienced people, as I said above, because with the navigational issues, one does not know where to stick up their hand. SusunW (talk) 19:55, 17 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Ipigott: I think I'll leave the concierge bell in the edit-a-thon infoboxes as it gives me peace of mind to know that if an editor lands on our meetup/event/editathon page, and if they have a question, and if they click the link provided for the concierge desk, they will land right here on the WiR talkpage, which does have a lot of eyes on it; e.g. it's a reasonably good place for them to leave a message. Let's at least give it a try, ok? --Rosiestep (talk) 20:50, 17 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Rosiestep: Yes, by all means leave it on the editathon pages and anywhere else where new users may need help. It will be interesting to see how many editors make use of it. We certainly should do everything we can to help them along.--Ipigott (talk) 08:28, 18 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Ipigott, SusunW, Megalibrarygirl, Dr. Blofeld, and Keilana: Thoughts on the concierge bell/service wording here vs. here? Reword it? Where else should we put the bell? Would a different image convey the intent better? --Rosiestep (talk) 15:22, 18 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Rosiestep My 2 cents, not everyone may know what a concierge is so go with the one that says "concierge service" can be of assistance!. SusunW (talk) 15:27, 18 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I like the wording on the meetup for religion, Rosiestep. Also, we may want to invite other wikiProjects like WikiProject Catholicism, Islam, Atheism, Judaism, Hinduism, etc... for the religion meetup. :) 15:29, 18 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Megalibrarygirl: Yes, we should certainly try to involve all these other projects. I have been looking at recent activity on their talk pages. The most active are Catholicism (50 page watchers), Judaism (46), Islam (28), Budism (17), Hinduism (13), Seventh-day Adventist Church (7) - so they should all receive invitations. And while I'm here, thanks for all the additions to the Women in Science list of red links. We also need to make a list of all the relevant categories for new articles. There are quite a few of these but perhaps the most useful are Category:Female religious leaders, Category:Female religious workers, Category:Female clergy, Category:Female Christian missionaries, Category:Ancient priestesses, Category:Buddhist nuns, Category:Christian nuns (and all the subcategories including Category:Roman Catholic religious sisters and nuns by nationality), Category:Female saints.--Ipigott (talk) 16:30, 18 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Rosiestep: I cannot find the editing page for the box titled "Events at Women in Red". The edit button (E) simply goes to "#REDIRECTTemplate:Navbox". --Ipigott (talk) 14:50, 18 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Ipigott: the navbox is here: Wikipedia:Meetup/Women in Red/Navigation. However, I think it needs to be renamed so that you can edit it by clicking the (E) button. @Dr. Blofeld: can you sort out the naming issue? --Rosiestep (talk) 15:16, 18 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

 Fixed --Edgars2007 (talk/contribs) 18:54, 20 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Edgars2007: thanks! Can you also fix {{Wikipedia:WikiProject Women/Nav}}? --Rosiestep (talk) 15:43, 21 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

What do you want me to do there? Include those VTE links? There isn't anything broken from what I can see.  Done --Edgars2007 (talk/contribs) 16:10, 21 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi! I'm not sure what happened to my last post, but I was going to see if anyone was interested in editing the article for Sharifa Alkhateeb. I came across her via my work at the LVA and it looks like the article needs some TLC. I'm going to try to get around to it, but it might not be for a few days at least and I'm concerned that there may be some closeparaphrasing or copyvio there. It's just setting off my Spidey senses a little.

• You are correct, there was a copyvio and direct posting of text from this link. I extensively edited it to take out the promotional language and copyvio. Please feel free to change whatever. SusunW (talk) 17:00, 18 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Other than that, would anyone be interested in seeing if Eleanor Gladys Copenhaver Anderson would pass notability guidelines? She was a leader with the YWCA and was somewhat influential in Virginia.Most sources like this one mention her in relation to her husband, Sherwood Anderson, but maybe she's independently notable? The Dictionary of Virginia Biography also has a lengthy biography on her as well, although it isn't online. I can help provide a copy of the entry material for anyone, if they want. Tokyogirl79LVA (talk) 14:57, 18 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Clearly independently notable. See [2], [3], [4], [5] SusunW (talk) 17:15, 18 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

We're seeing a lot of nominations of women scientists and architects over at DYK – so much that it's getting hard to build a prep set without 2 or 3 hooks about women! I'd just like to point out, though, that most of the hooks are emphasizing that the woman in question is the "first" in her country or profession. This may be true, but it starts sounding very repetitive, and we can't run more than one such hook in a prep set. Thanks to User:Maile66 for going through the approved hooks and suggesting more interesting angles. I would like to urge everyone who submits a DYK to please look for an interesting angle or aspect of the subject or her work, aside from being the "first", so we can ensure variety in the prep sets. Thank you, Yoninah (talk) 18:36, 19 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I agree but for another reason. Should we say that Ada Lovelace was the first woman computer programmer or the person who first imagined what a computer might be and what it could do. Oh and well done if we are giving DYK a bit of a problem - did they notice it when it was all men? However we don't need to underline that they are women as if its unusual that a woman can be a scientist etc. I'll stop. Victuallers (talk) 19:32, 19 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

While I appreciate the significance of any woman being the first woman in her field of whatever it is, that woman had significant achievements to get there. And if she's notable enough for her own Wikipedia article, she didn't stop after becoming the first woman in her field. Marie Curie was the first woman to win a Nobel prize. But the reason for the prize, her research into radiation, is what benefited the world. — Maile (talk) 21:27, 19 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I agree and have tried to mix them up. I mean who isn't fascinated that platypi venom was discovered to have similar toxins to snake-, spider-, lizard- and sea anemone-venom all mixed together? But I am also thrilled if we can get 2-3 women per day in DYK, as that means we are making a difference in the imbalance of articles. SusunW (talk) 21:38, 19 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

(Off-topic comment: I've lived in Australia my whole life and didn't know that platypuses were venomous until reading that DYK hook. Thanks Susun!) 97198 (talk) 02:34, 20 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks very much to Maile and Yoninah for helping find interesting hooks - I love reading about the achievements that make these wonderful women scientists notable. (And to be quite honest...venomous platypuses make me not want to come to Australia! Sorry Sophie...) Keilana (talk) 03:34, 20 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@97198: I still want to visit Australia -- venomous platypuses won't keep me away. :) --Rosiestep (talk) 03:37, 20 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

You're a braver woman than I, Rosie! ;) Keilana (talk) 03:56, 20 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Me too it's one of the many places on my bucket list. I do not, however, have any intention about finding out about that venom. The guy who got bit said it was worse than a shrapnel wound. But truly, thanks to everyone for pushing the DYKs through. Several would still be languishing without a little extra help. SusunW (talk) 04:18, 20 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

If you're going to be working on Women in Science articles this Sunday, please consider signing in as virtual participant at the New York event: Wikipedia:Meetup/NYC/NYAS. --Rosiestep (talk) 00:12, 21 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, all of you ! I just created Bariza Ghezelani (a rescued of an AfD on French WP), but I am a French contributor, and I don't know enough which categories and portails/projects are to be choosen. So if you could have a look on the page, check it and improve it with categories and so on, it would be great ! Thanks, --La femme de menage (talk) 16:54, 21 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I spoke with @Masssly and Maximilianklein and Frances this morning regarding their IEG-funded Wikipedia Gender Indicators project (WIGI). A big thank you to them for the research and design work on WIGI, which, in a nutshell, uses Wikidata data to present statistics about Wikipedia's women's biographies. Please take a look at the website -- this is a beta version -- hover over data points, review the graphs, and provide feedback. Their IEG grant will run out soon so our feedback could be a valuable component in determining whether or not to renew the grant. There are more eyes on this WiR talkpage than the IEG page; this discussion can be linked to the grant's page. (15.89%? That's the percentage of women's biographies on the English language Wikipedia per WIGI, effective yesterday.) --Rosiestep (talk) 19:34, 22 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure where to leave feedback; is there a direct link in there somewhere? Montanabw^(talk) 21:03, 22 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I am not sure where to put comments either. What I know is that number is still dismal. What I know is that the project must continue if we are ever to be able to judge whether our efforts are making a difference. The alternative is the manual collection of data, which is both exhausting and uses up time that would be better spent creating new articles or improving existing ones. SusunW (talk) 20:19, 23 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Masssly and Maximilianklein To clarify... We'll leave our comments about WIGI Beta on this talkpage as it gets a lot of eyes. Please watchlist it. --Rosiestep (talk) 20:33, 23 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the info. You need to advertise more for these kind of projects and task forces in other communities. I'm a user of Persian Wikipedia and I even didn't know such user group existed. I have been drawn into these discussions completely by chance. By the way, it seems that we have done a better job on Persian Wikipedia (20,27% of bios are about women). Persian Wikipedia is ranked 5th overall among all Wikipedias in this respect. I started a thread about the whole issue at our local Village Pump and introduced the above-mentioned user group. Feel free to drop me a line if I missed anything important. 4nn1l2 (talk) 11:00, 24 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I have looked carefully through the WIGI documents. The work obviously needs to be supported for at least a couple of years more if we are to monitor any real progress on Wikipedia's coverage of female biographies. While the various pages are informative, I think it would be useful for all the non-statisticians among us to have an introduction giving an overall summary of the most meaningful trends. At the moment, several of the pages are rather difficult to interpret. For example, on "Gender by country" we are told it displays the "percentage of biographies of women by country of birth" but there are no percentages in the tables. Only two countries are included in the Top 10 and in the Bottom 10 and it is not at all clear what figures such as "247" for Spain actually refer to. I also find it very surprising that only 24% of biographies have a city or country of birth. Is this a result of poor data transfer from the biographies to Wikidata, perhaps because insufficient details have been included in boxes or whatever, or is it because the information really is missing from the articles? The display under "Gender by language" must be rather misleading for those who are not language experts. It looks very much as if Norwegian has the worst coverage (although that is because the data on the far left are taken from the minor Nynorsk site, whereas the more representative Bokmål data near the centre of the chart are far more positive). As for the 15.89%, I would have liked to see how this has evolved since July but I could not read the data files and they would not open in Excel. Above all, it would be extremely useful if the project had a discussion page or at least a page where people could express their views and suggestions. Failing this, one of the Wikipedians working on the project could perhaps open up a WIGI talk page in their user space.--Ipigott (talk) 11:44, 25 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Ipigott: Concerning the accuracy of biographies that have a city or country of birth, our data relies solely on wikidata and so we can only speculate on how they add up to 24%, so yes perhaps "this [is] a result of poor data transfer from the biographies to Wikidata, [or]... insufficient details have been included in boxes". In all great points you raised, we're happy to look into all of them. Also you mentioned the wigi score at "Gender by country", would you like to see percentages rather then the decimals we're presently displaying? Thank you. —M@sssly^✉ 15:58, 25 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I think this project is very valuable and should continue to be funded by Wikipedia. Not least, it has the potential to be a one-stop for deadline-challenged journalists looking for some quick data on gender and Wikipedia. But I was going to offer many of the same points as Ipigott: I found the way the data was organized and tagged hard to parse. A for-instance: how can both Spain and the U.S be in the top AND bottom 10% of changes at the same time on the "Gender by Country" page? Also, my first instinct on seeing the map on that page was that green meant positive changes, red meant negative changes (but what would that mean, bios being removed?)—or some kind of best-and-worst scenario—since those are common color-coding schemes with maps. But I couldn't make any of it add up to my satisfaction. So I'd like to see this project continued in part because I think even just improving the data visualizations of the existing data set would be a huge boon.Alafarge (talk) 14:57, 25 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Thank you @Rosiestep: for mentioning WIGI and starting a thread here. Wikipedia:WikiProject Women/Women in Red is definitely the perfect place to find editors interested in Wikipedia's gender gap to give feedback about our work (wigi.wmflabs.org), we would love to hear from everyone on this WikiProject! To keep things more organised and because this talk page gets archived every 30 days I've opened User talk:Masssly/WIGI Feedback where anyone can leave their feedback. I would also be very happy to have a conversation with anyone who would like to get in touch off wiki. Lets keep the conversation going, Cheers. —M@sssly^✉ 15:27, 25 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Let me think of some significant female historical figures off the top of my head. Marie Curie, Margaret Thatcher, several First Ladies, Cleopatra, Mata Hari, and that's about it. Ask me to name some male ones, though. I can rattle off hundreds.

I remember the time when I went to one of Richard Dawkins' lectures, maybe 2-3 years ago, and in the questions segment one woman berated him for not including more female scientists in his mentions. I could have killed that girl. You see, the reason Dawk didn't include more women in his speech on evolutionary biology is that the proportion of women involved in the study of evolutionary biology is unbelievably small!!

The gender gap is REAL, PEOPLE. It's not a sign of a reference bias, it's a sign of a longstanding real-world bias against achievement by us women.

History has been overwhelmingly dominated by this: "Man discovers cure for bubonic plague! Wife boils turnips! Man happy to come home to boiled turnips after discovering cure for plague!"

Of *course* women don't have achievements to the degree that men do. We spent millennia being told that all we were good for was pumping out babies and boiling turnips. It's even more disturbing now that we have IQ testing and we come to find out that not only do women have roughly the same average IQ that men do, but we're actually slightly surpassing them nowadays. Why the hell weren't they boiling turnips while *we* discovered cures for the plague? Because we were told that our place was to sit pretty and do needlepoint.

If this project aims to rewrite "history" as a 50/50 split between men and women, that would be delusional revisionism. And it would shit all over the undeserved marginalization that we as women have always gotten.

We need to tell it like it is, in order not to have it happen again.

NO, we have not accomplished a lot. You can thank the patriarchal establishment for that. YES, we are capable of so much more. NO, the last thing we need is to lie to ourselves about it. Succubus MacAstaroth (talk) 09:39, 25 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Succubus MacAstaroth: You are right, of course, that in many fields of endeavor, women have not historically represented a significant proportion of players but things are certainly on the move. In my opinion, it is important to trace the evolution of the part played by women over the centuries, especially over the past 100 years or so when they have become increasingly important in almost all spheres, even those traditionally developed by men. Today we see just as many women as men in literature, art, education, theatre, dance and sport while year by year they are taking up ever more leading positions in business, politics and the sciences. In that context, Wikipedia's 15% of biographies on women is still a ridiculously low figure. That's why it's important to do something about it. I don't think there is much chance of over-representation of women in any of the fields we have been covering until now. The real problem as I see it is that in general women are far more modest about their achievements, seldom blowing their trumpets as loudly as men. That's why it's often really difficult to find sources that are acceptable to the Wikipedia community which itself is dominated by men, some of whom continue to view articles about women with unnecessary suspicion.--Ipigott (talk) 12:08, 25 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I would agree and disagree as well @Succubus MacAstaroth and Ipigott:. It is both a reference bias and an outcome of patriarchy. I have written biographies in the last 2 editathons which acknowledged that in professional partnerships, the woman contributed as much to the architectural design/scientific discovery as her male partner, but that the male partner received the accolades. Even when he acknowledged her contributions, his were the only ones written about by others. While we could indeed arrive at 50/50 within wiki guidelines by covering people who were noted by significant coverage we would end up with a whole bunch of women who were noted for tea. While historically accurate, that picture would be of little value. Far better for us to improve that 15.89% to even 25% or 30% of role models and pioneers. SusunW (talk) 15:34, 25 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I think it also comes down to acknowledging the different ways in which women participated in careers. For instance, in my area of Australian politics, there were only a tiny minority of women in politics prior to 1960, so those biographies are about 98% male. But at the same time, there were a huge range of towering women involved in political public life, who can sail Wikipedia notability standards but often be neglected in article drives because it was an era in which they tended not to be able to hold public office. A good encyclopedia will reflect this, and most actually do it better than us. The Drover's Wife (talk) 16:00, 25 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Totally agree The Drover's Wife but I can assure you, women in social works are often targeted for AFD for their work being "regional" and not important enough. Interestingly, the "regionality" was indicative of just what you mention and was no less important for being regional. Wiki's guidelines also have zero requirements that accomplishments must be national in scope. In point of fact things like the Birmingham bus boycott, weren't even regional. It was a local event that had national implications. Thus, regionality is a bogus argument in the long run.

One of the reasons the internet is so important is that it shows us that these were international phenomena. But it also allows us to highlight through local knowledge who was important to the historical development of their region. I have been surprised at how well we have been able to connect an international group of feminists and peace activists and in so doing discovered many, many important women who have not been covered in Wikipedia. SusunW (talk) 16:34, 25 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• My 2 cents about these projects (WikiProject Women and WIGI): we need to know how we are affecting Wikipedia with our work. I had no idea how awesome and amazing it would be to be a part of this group when I first joined it. I'm constantly amazed and proud of the amount of work we are able to produce each month, and how well everyone works together. Even when we disagree, we do so nicely. Anyway, that aside, it's hard to maintain a high level of work without knowing if your work is affecting the world. Knowing that our contributions have an effect -- big or small -- is important to track and know. This project is so important because while women have been invisible, they have not been inactive in history. We need to write about these people. I've learned about so many amazing women throughout history by participating in AfD discussions. Sometimes people at Wiki don't recognize the importance of some women and some editors don't always write well... And as Ipigott pointed out, women are increasingly taking leading roles throughout the world. Wiki should reflect that and we need to know where we stand as editors when we are adding to Wiki. Great project, keep it up! Megalibrarygirl (talk) 16:14, 25 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Succubus MacAstaroth: The bias is real, but we can do something about it. That's the aim of this project; getting to 50/50 distribution is not the aim as it is not realistic. Raising awareness in general and article drives in particular will move the needle to a figure greater than 15.5% (the December 2014 figure). Once we replicate the WiR model from En-wiki to all other language Wikipedias we can consider this a movement. Right now, babysteps. --Rosiestep (talk) 16:55, 27 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I intend to write about this properly, perhaps for Signpost. Short version is: Don't get hung up over percentages, unless you can give a good reason that one percentage is "bad" and another percentage is "good". If you are concerned that the coverage of (in this case) women is lacking compared with (in this case) men, create content about women (or promote the creation of such content). That is what people do with all other subjects. If you are right you are filling a gap and addressing a balance issue, if you are wrong you are still filling a gap.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 22:45, 27 November 2015 (UTC).[reply]

@Rich Farmbrough: I think a Signpost article is a nice idea (full disclosure, I'm on the SP's Editorial Board in the role of personnel/recruitment). If there are questions about writing guidelines, @Go Phightins! and others on the EB are readily available. --Rosiestep (talk) 06:53, 29 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Dealing with AfD

To help support appropriate biographies and other women's articles, I think it would be handy to compile a "top ten" list of the most common AfD arguments and post the appropriate links to policy and guidelines to refute them. Also, there are clear guidelines at GNG, and in addition, if there are GNG guidelines that exacerbate systemic bias, then we can also work to modify those guidelines (I also know that guidelines are sometimes "gamed" - I've seen people make unilateral, undiscussed changes to guidelines and then totally screw up change articles to meet those changes, even though no one discussed them). Some ideas:

1. The "regional" one is a good example; I'm from Montana, it's a small state, less than a million people. I've often had to argue the "merely regional" point on things like geographic features or even biographies of white males.
2. Look at where "consensus" is creating a problem: One example is a "consensus" that Ambassadors are not inherently notable - and that hits a number of women's biographies.
3. We also deal with the "she's just the wife of foo problem. How do we face this?
4. There's the "just a socialite who did charitable stuff" argument; many women did remarkable amounts of unpaid work, and it was the only outlet available to them.
5. WP:BIO1E also gets raised; yet Lawnchair Larry still has his own article.
6. There's the "pre-Google" problem of WP:RECENTISM, I can't believe how much work it took to salvage Hilda Plowright, for example. How do we support these sources? Do we need to do up a guideline of pre-internet sources presumed notable even though they are not yet scanned and online?
7. Ditto the articles with a lot of foreign language sources, such as those that SusunW works on.
8. We should also help to eliminate cruft ourselves; Why does every porn star on the planet have to have a WP article? And we got caught up a little bit in that Tara Teng thing, I tried to vote "delete" on a couple that did appear to be non-notable.

So there are some of my ideas. Thoughts? Montanabw^(talk) 20:23, 25 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Nothing in Wiki's guidelines prohibit regional coverage, as I said before. The argument against regionalism is that it's trivial, but we do not always know who is locally or regionally important, or even if a local event will go national. Some are planned that way, others (Rodney King), (Leelah Alcorn), (discovering oil) just happen. The ambassador thing is unfathomable to me. It is still not usual in most of the world for a woman to become one, thus, it is a notable event. Wife of is bull$*@^. There are tons of people on wikipedia who are on here for doing nada, peers, socialites/gentlemen, kardashian-hiltonites, etc. My least favorite type of article, but the hypocrisy factor irks me. Those types of folks get a pass, because they are presumed to do philanthropic work, but social activists who actually do work and are often unpaid are not??? The truth is, Wikipedia is NOT a collection of articles on the most worthy and important contributors to society. It is instead a collection of people that others want to know about because they have seen their name somewhere. I don't think it would matter if we had a list of sources, because it comes down in the end to how well an argument one can make to the cabal or deletionists. I don't know that I think they particularly target women, though the guidelines are clearly stacked against women, but I do think they would rather delete than coach or heaven-forbid fix an article. I find it exhausting, quite honestly. SusunW (talk) 20:55, 25 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Montanabw: One thing which might have a positive affect at AfD is tying the Wikipedia entry to datasets. For example, if Jane Doe has a Wikipedia article to include some Authority Control number, e.g. VIAF, it'll be auto-migrated to Wikidata. Does that improve an article's chances at AfD? As for the pre-Google issue you mention, that one bothers me more than any other... not just for women's biographies, but also for indigenous peoples. --Rosiestep (talk) 18:15, 27 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Rosiestep that is a huge issue. There is one particularly prolific nominator who repeatedly makes comments "see no further room for expansion", "sources appear to be archived", and the like. Why and where is that a criteria for deletion? SusunW (talk) 18:31, 27 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

SusunW those are not criteria for deletion. It is hard to change mindsets. As long as that editor does not appear to be malicious, he can continue making those comments ad nauseum. --Rosiestep (talk) 18:36, 27 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Rosiestep and therein lies the problem. He (and I say that only because his page says that) nominates many, many, many files. It is exhausting and wastes time that could be spent on other article creation. But he is not malicious, in that he never participates in defense or argument of his position. And, many of his nominations end up with improvement of the file, so it isn't completely wasted time, but seems to me there is a better way to "rally" the troops, if that is what the game is. SusunW (talk) 18:46, 27 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@SusunW, Montanabw, and Rosiestep:, I like this discussion because it voices a lot of my own frustrations. Another issue I think we see is when a woman is nominated for AfD and the sources don't cover her in depth, but there are a ton of them! Or sometimes the sources cover her briefly and then move on to her work. I don't understand how those don't come under GNG? I have fight tooth and nail. And yes, sometimes I find myself fighting for "marginal" subjects, but I think that each person was important to someone (or they wouldn't have an article) and I also think of all the sports bios we have and I don't see why we can't have women who've written bestselling romance or the like. :P I also make a policy to comment on bad AfD arguments--esp. the regional one. And yes, Rosiestep, I know who you're talking about above and I think he doesn't have database access which makes me suspicious of his claims. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 22:30, 27 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Megalibrarygirl I knew you would know who I meant Sue, because he uses those same words over and over. ;) I wish I had a template to just retype arguments like length ≠ significant coverage, but rather depth and the WP allows chaining together information. Way too many people nominating (and voting or not voting or whatever it is that WP calls it) who don't really understand adequate sourcing. SusunW (talk) 22:45, 27 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'm struggling with Karen Arnold right now, and a lot of those problems apply. I also had so many 5 year old articles nominated in a week that I lost two just becasue I didn't get round to them.

I do agree with the "regional" issue. You can't piece together the story without all the players - that's the irritating part. I think the solution here has to be GNG - multiple independent reliable significant coverage. Sometimes that's not available, and the only way you can get it is to write the book yourself. (Note:Self-publishing won't count.) When there is all the information available, it's just scattered this is rather silly, especially when the person (in this case) is a nexus.

I'm getting BLP1E on people who have won an award for forty years of voluntary service.

More later perhaps.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 22:54, 27 November 2015 (UTC).[reply]

Hey guys, another one who would likely merit an article. I can add it to my backlog, but I'm already overstuffed as it is with bios to write. I came across this woman in my research and given the entry for her at Encyclopedia Virginia, I'm actually surprised that she doesn't have an article since she seems to have been a major player in the civil rights era, at least in Virginia.

I don't like to throw around the term "obviously notable" but she seems to be obviously notable per coverage like this, this, this, and especially this. Here's some other sources: [6], [7], [8], [9]

I figured that I'd mention this here in case one of you could write the article faster than I could. If that's the case, then hopefully the above sources can help. I didn't want to post this request here and then make you guys do all the research too! Tokyogirl79LVA (talk) 16:26, 25 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi! I'll get started on it. ;) Megalibrarygirl (talk) 17:08, 25 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Here's the draft I'm working on: User:Megalibrarygirl/Sarah-Patton Boyle. Also I found a stub on her husband, E. Roger Boyle. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 17:35, 25 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Megalibrary girl, did you get autopatrolled rights? If so, I think it's ready to move into article space, but toss the construction template and just move it so you don't have to deal with the review process. If any concerns, ping me at talk and I'll mark it patrolled or whatever is needed. Montanabw^(talk) 20:06, 25 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It looks good Megalibrarygirl and yes Montanabw she did. I just blipped out that part at the top that says draft for review. Dr. B taught me that is only required for people who must be patrolled. SusunW (talk) 21:05, 25 November 2015 (UTC

)

Hi! Thanks for the feedback, Montanabw and SusunW . I haven't added all the references though yet. Should I move it anyway? Megalibrarygirl (talk) 21:09, 25 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

You can wait until you are ready. Was just saying the text looks good. Also, I just copy all this stuff on every file, so I don't have to remember to put it. When you take it live, then you can just take off the first colon on Category and delete ether the death or living person. At any rate, it will always then have categories ;) SusunW (talk) 21:25, 25 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:}}

[[:Category:1900 births]]

[[:Category:1989 deaths]]

[[:Category:Living people]]

SusunW

Here's a Richy Tip {{DEFAULTSORT:{{Subst:Qla}}}}

If the person has a usual western-style name (or one we index in that way) this will fill in the DEFAULTSORT for you.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 22:59, 27 November 2015 (UTC).[reply]

• It is (mostly) done. I added a lot more, found some old newspaper articles. Tokyogirl79LVA, do you have any photos we can add? She is a very interesting woman! Megalibrarygirl (talk) 01:51, 26 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Nothing's coming up in Digitool, but then that's not entirely surprising. Most of the photos of her would be recent enough for them to be copyrighted, sadly enough, and the image on the EV entry came from a local paper. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 04:18, 26 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The image here could no doubt be used on Wikipedia rather than Commons for "fair use".--Ipigott (talk) 21:36, 26 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Ipigott and Megalibrarygirl: if we are using "fair use" rationale, can we use this one? [10] It is a frontal image and shows her in action. The only reason I question it is because there are others in the photo, but the rationale is clearly that it enhances and improves her recognition as a Civil Rights Activist. SusunW (talk) 18:35, 27 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

My choice would be the first one as it also shows she wrote about her work.--Ipigott (talk) 20:01, 27 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

LOL, I wish we could use all of them. She was such a cool person. :D I like the head shot, though if we have to use just one. But the one of her in the prayer group also captures her spirit--she was very religious and her religious convictions led her to civil rights activism. :) Megalibrarygirl (talk) 20:50, 27 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Megalibrarygirl your file. I uploaded the head shot. See what you think. (I use that same rationale all the time, one fair use, so feel free to steal it). SusunW (talk) 21:45, 27 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

LOOKS AWESOME!!!! Thank you, SusunW. :) Megalibrarygirl (talk) 22:31, 27 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• I'm going to have to share this with my bosses at the LVA - they'll be excited about this! Tokyogirl79LVA (talk) 13:23, 30 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This page about a Syrian women has disputed neutrality. The editor who put disputed neutrality on the page says:

"But if it is indeed a biography, then by definition, neutrality is disputed until significant contributions to it are made by other editors."

Link to see the full discussion .... I'm confused! Megalibrarygirl (talk) 22:55, 27 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Suspect interlocutor got mixed up between "biography" and "autobiography". All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 23:00, 27 November 2015 (UTC).[reply]

That makes sense... but still frustrating. >.< Megalibrarygirl (talk) 00:33, 28 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I had the same thought, so I asked. SusunW (talk) 00:39, 28 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Can someone scan the contributor list - Joy Harvey and Marilyn Ogilvie (1 January 2000). "WikiProject Women in Red". In Marilyn Ogilvie; Joy Harvey (eds.). The Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science. Vol. 1. New York and London: Routledge. p. xxi-xxiii. ISBN [[Special:BookSources/Expression error: Unrecognized word "xxi".|<strong class="error">Expression error: Unrecognized word &quot;xxi&quot;.</strong>]]. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help) for me?

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 23:05, 27 November 2015 (UTC).[reply]

@Rich Farmbrough: Hi Rich, I have a copy at home and can get it to you once I return from my parents' place, if no one else has a hard copy. Best, Keilana (talk) 00:57, 28 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks! (I only have volume 2.) All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 00:27, 29 November 2015 (UTC).[reply]

@Rich Farmbrough: I had such a hard time finding volume 1, for some reason! I'll shoot you an email with some pictures shortly, provided my scanner is working, which is about a 50/50 proposition. :P Keilana (talk) 02:40, 29 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi! The editor of Luciana Zogbi recently reached out to me for help on their new article. Seriousbrain is a new editor and I'd like to help them out. I found some sources in English, but I suspect there are more in other languages (I found one in Polish, for example). If any of you have the time to do a search, esp in other languages, that would be super. I've asked Seriousbrain to provide more sources, too. Also, does anyone know the notability criteria surrounding Youtube hits? I've seen that brought up on AfD, too. Thanks in advance, you awesome Wikipedians! Megalibrarygirl (talk) 17:03, 29 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, never heard of her, but I really enjoyed the video. Unfortunately, the only two links I find are the two already on the file. SusunW (talk) 20:43, 29 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for looking, SusunW. :) I was glad that someone reached out for help and I was hoping there was some more info out there... I guess I might have to tell them that she may be WP:TOOSOON?

Also, I found an amazing stub about a Burkina Faso politician named Saran Sérémé who was an activist, was tortured and then ran for president. Almost all of her sources are in French and I don't know how to write about her life without context. I added one French source because it was obviously about her running for president. LOL. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 04:13, 30 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Megalibrarygirl I think French is the hardest language for me. The translations in Google translate never seem to be right, or maybe it's just me. French is so lovely to listen to and fluid, but when it comes out of Google translate it is a choppy non-melodious discord to me. Add it to the Black history month and note that it is a stub in need of expansion. Maybe it will pick up someone to work on it. I'll try to find stuff in the mean time. SusunW (talk) 04:20, 30 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Just noticed there is a French wikipage with a bunch of resources. The translation is rough, but again, maybe someone will be able to help who speaks French. SusunW (talk) 04:24, 30 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks,SusunW for taking a look. I'll check out her Wiki, too. When I stumbled on the article it had no sources at all and I was concerned it would get prodded. :P Megalibrarygirl (talk) 14:39, 30 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I have just learned that despite a number of strong arguments in favour of keeping this article, it is has been deleted after an inconclusive Afd discussion. Snazzywiki, a new editor who created the article, has argued the decision should be reconsidered. In my opinion, adhering to DGG's strict criteria for the inclusion of articles on academics rather than accepting the notability this person has received from the media for her contributions to cancer research is a backward step in our efforts to support the place of women in the technical field. It is also disappointing that our editathon has suffered from a dismissive approach to the efforts of a keen new editor.--Ipigott (talk) 11:14, 30 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Ipigott, I agree and I'm glad that Snazzywiki is passionate about their article. It's very frustrating to have your hard work taken apart. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 14:41, 30 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Ipigott, Snazzywiki, and Megalibrarygirl: I was totally surprised at the way it was closed. To my eyes, the delete votes were not compelling. As you had pointed out on my page Sue, there is a group which is highly influenced by DGG and that his comments would be singled out, speaks volumes. SusunW (talk) 14:59, 30 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@SusunW:, yes, DGG seems very influential and I'm not sure why. He's a librarian and has a lot of experience, but that doesn't mean he can't be wrong from time to time. I suspect that they don't see sources such as podcasts or Joe Rogan to be suitably "reliable" as sources. However, the Rogan show is crazy-popular and that should mean something. If I was looking for more info about her after listening to Rogan, I'd want to find that info on Wiki where I would hope it's not biased. @Snazzywiki:, if they won't restore the article, can they userfy it for you? Megalibrarygirl (talk) 17:27, 30 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I'd like that... I have a copy of the original article created, but without the clean edits made by SusunW and others, which I would've definitely liked to have kept. I wish I'd saved the wiki markup just before the delete. Is that something that can still be done? I may ask Spartaz about this. Thanks for the suggestion. I understand why DGG is influential... DGG clearly thinks very, very critically and puts a lot of thought into trying to articulate those thoughts for others, which is appreciated. But, yes, all are human, as you point out. Also, for anyone interested, Ipigott shared an article called Mutagens and Multivitamins that I think spoke somewhat to Dr. Ames perception of Dr. Patrick's role in the papers she lead authored... which speaks to some of DGG's question of whether the work is "hers" or not, I think (as much as such a question can be said to exist in the first place). By the way... if I link someone's profile in a talk edit does that automatically notify them or do I have to use this "yo" thing? Snazzywiki (talk) 17:46, 30 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Snazzywiki: If you are talking on someone's personal page, they will be notified. If you are on any other page, if you don't ping them (and I use yo most often because it lets you do strings of people) unless they have it watched they will not be notified. I love that DGG thinks critically, but he also imposes his own biases. He knows that GNG is the standard and because he does not like that that allows "fluff" articles which he (correctly in my opinion) believes taint the encyclopedia, he comes down on the side of using the more stringent guidelines of ARTIST, ACADEMIC, MILITARY, etc., in spite of what multiple policies state, that if the bar of GNG is met no further bar is necessary. If the standard is to be the more stringent one, then changing the guidelines should be done, but he has readily admitted that has not met with success. So, what happens in the case of those who are starting a career, or marginal is that they get tossed, even though they meet GNG. Ian is a staunch advocate, brilliant, and extremely good at both finding sources and as a language master. He speaks like 7 languages (or has a working knowledge of them) and helped write a bunch of translation software. SusunW (talk) 18:03, 30 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Snazzywiki: Is \{\{u|SusunW\}\} <-- is that a "ping" ? Or is a ping something else? Snazzywiki (talk) 19:45, 30 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Snazzywiki, SusunW, and Megalibrarygirl: Hey y'all, I saw this discussion and userfied the article at User:Snazzywiki/Rhonda Patrick since you said you wanted a copy. Keilana (talk) 18:50, 30 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Keilana: Thank you! SusunW (talk) 19:02, 30 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Keilana: Much appreciated! Thank you. Snazzywiki (talk) 19:45, 30 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I've got another person for you guys, only I'm not entirely sure that she passes. The person in question is Sarah Ann Brock, also known by the pseudonym "Virginia Madison" and also referred to occasionally as Sallie Brock Putnam. Encyclopedia Virginia has covered her and her most well-known book has been republished with a 20-something page foreword through the University of Nebraska Press, although I'm uncertain if that would qualify as an independent source. It's been listed here as a source, if that counts for anything. I did find this mention in a University of Illinois Press analytical bibliography. Other than that, here's what I've found: West Virginia History, extensively sourced in this Oxford University Press book.

Basically, there's enough to where I think she's likely notable but not enough to where I really feel firmly comfortable. I haven't checked the academic databases yet, so there may be more through there. She's not as exciting as the other woman I've recommended earlier, but Brock is interesting from a historical perspective. What do you all think? I'm sort of on the border with this. Tokyogirl79LVA (talk) 13:42, 30 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• I hope that you don't mind that I'm dropping names here! In any case, if any of you are wondering what I'm doing research on, it's somewhat for this. Tokyogirl79LVA (talk) 13:46, 30 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• I also have Lucy Goode Brooks, a freedom fighter. (EV, Style Weekly, historical marker, UVA Press book, U of R article (likely primary, given that it's about a class), LVA). I'm unsure about her as well. Tokyogirl79LVA (talk) 13:57, 30 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• With Brooks, we could probably justify it by including information about the orphanage, the Friends' Asylum for Colored Orphans, since she was pretty integral to its founding and there's more coverage about it as a whole than really for her. Or we could make an article about the orphanage and include information about her? ([11], [12]) Tokyogirl79LVA (talk) 14:01, 30 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Also, the library does have an image for Brooks in the public domain, here. Tokyogirl79LVA (talk) 14:02, 30 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Another name: Isobel Lamont Stewart Bryan: [13], [14], [15], [16], [17], (possible picture we can use). Her big claim to fame was that she was very active in preserving Virginia history. I'm making this a little short since I don't want to take up too much space since I'm going to list multiple names. Tokyogirl79LVA (talk) 14:17, 30 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

That sounds like a cool project, Tokyogirl79LVA! I think I could get a list started with your names if you'd like. Also, I could fold them into existing redlists... if you have any African American women, for example, we could add them to the Black history list which I think we're doing in Feb... Megalibrarygirl (talk) 14:44, 30 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• I'll see what I can find! Offhand, I think I found my main motivation as a future librarian: Sarah Poage Caldwell Butler. The DVB has an entry on her, although it's not on the Internet from what I can see. The author of the DBV piece also wrote this for Virginia Tech. There's also this newspaper article, which just makes her the coolest person ever in my opinion. Long story short, she tried to get a library launched in Roanoke. City officials didn't think there was any need for one (!) and came up with an idea to get her to go away - they asked her to raise a substantial amount of money... which she did in about a week's time. Needless to say, she got her library. It's pretty inspiring stuff.

I'm game for starting a list. If this all goes according to plan, hopefully there's going to be a nice big beautiful monument that can be used to argue for additional notability for these women! Tokyogirl79LVA (talk) 15:06, 30 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• And oh yeah, there are definitely some black women on this list! Tokyogirl79LVA (talk) 15:06, 30 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• I'll start up a list in my userpage and post it here. Tokyogirl79LVA (talk) 15:08, 30 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Here's the start. I'm going to have to go back through the earliest part of my list to see which ones would have enough sourcing for an article, which is going to take some time given the amount of names I have. Tokyogirl79LVA (talk) 15:15, 30 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Love this project. It is amazing how it mushrooms :) SusunW (talk) 16:19, 30 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• The LVA was pretty excited when I told them what we were all doing here. They also said it's OK to basically explain the project, which is still in progress. Basically, there's a movement to create a monument to women who have impacted Virginia's history. It's going to include life size statues and a wall containing the names of various women. (The mockup looks amazing.) We're still compiling names and I'm helping to write out short bios for each of the names we currently have. (In other words, if you know any Virginia women who should be on the list, nominate away! A lot of these women have Dictionary of Virginia Biography and I can help work to provide copies of those, if necessary. Like you said, Susun, it's kind of awesome how this mushrooms. Tokyogirl79LVA (talk) 17:09, 30 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• @Tokyogirl79LVA:, I made a link on the Project page to your list. I added one of my redlinks, too. :) Megalibrarygirl (talk) 17:54, 30 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]