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This isn't even a sockmaster creating articles issue. Lugnuts was banned, good for them. Why does literally anything need to be done regarding their articles, period? Are people just trying to delete them out of spite or something? SilverserenC 03:39, 6 August 2022 (UTC)
This is indeed a very unfortunate case. Over the years Lugnuts has created over 93,000 articles in virtually all fields of sport, many of them biographies of women. He has always been ready to help us along with redlists and advice about missing articles. It seems strange to me that the former administrator who was behind the banning of the Flying Dutchman a few years ago has also been involved in preparing background diffs in connection with Lugnuts. Let's just hope none of this leads to further deletions of biographies, however short. If anyone is up to it, it would be interesting to see how many women's biographies have been created by Lugnuts. A full listing would also provide a basis for improvement or if necessary re-creation .--Ipigott (talk) 09:58, 6 August 2022 (UTC)
See here. Note that not all of them are at risk of being removed from article space; if you want a subset that are at most risk of removal for the purposes of improvement I can provide that as well. BilledMammal (talk) 12:30, 6 August 2022 (UTC)
Thanks very much, BilledMammal. Interesting to see he created 11,270 biographies of women. If it's not too much trouble, it would indeed be useful to have a list of those most likely to be deleted. I see you have been involved in discussions on the short articles created automatically from databases. If I understand you correctly, you are suggesting they should not be completely removed but draftified, perhaps along the lines of those from SvG. Please keep us informed of any decisions made in this connection. Maybe Lugnuts' articles about women represent only a small proportion of his work but thousands of deletions could represent a significant reduction of articles about women in sports.--Ipigott (talk) 15:23, 6 August 2022 (UTC)
Well, not only did Lugnuts leave in a huff, but their final message was the claim that misinformation was purposefully included in their creations. I can understand why a mass deletion of stubs might be considered. It is really sad, because they were an active member of WiR before everything went off the rails. WomenArtistUpdates (talk) 01:27, 7 August 2022 (UTC)
I meant to convey that it is really sad that Lugnuts chose to die on that particular hill with a really long, ugly battle, and also sabotage their reputation and cast doubt on their contributions. WomenArtistUpdates (talk) 01:26, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
Except that a CCI investigation already looked into the articles after that comment was made and found no evidence of it being truthful, so the case was closed. So that wouldn't be a valid reason for anyone to suggest deleting their articles either. SilverserenC 01:43, 7 August 2022 (UTC)
The articles still need to be checked for the inclusion of misinformation, but as I mentioned elsewhere issues with the articles exist even if Lugnuts was not telling the truth with either of those statements. BilledMammal (talk) 06:41, 7 August 2022 (UTC)
@Ipigott: See here. Note that this isn't a query that will eventually be used, it is merely intended to give you a list of articles most at threat of deletion for various reasons such as WP:NOTDATABASE violations.
And yes, I prefer draftification or similar to deletion, though I wouldn't oppose deletion as I still consider that an improvement over the status quo; I will keep WIR informed of any decisions made. BilledMammal (talk) 06:41, 7 August 2022 (UTC)
I'm guessing Lugnuts was one of, if not the, single biggest contributors to the gender disparity in biographies. If his stubs are deleted/draftified that would likely improve the relative representation of women on the encyclopedia since we'd be reducing the absolute number of stubs on men far more. If the subjects don't meet GNG, then there's no loss, and if they actually do, the article can be recreated once sources are found. Not to mention the articles in question are no more than database entries where the only "expansion" they ever received was Lugnuts periodically updating particular stats, something the dozens of actual dedicated sportsperson databases already do automatically and more accurately. JoelleJay (talk) 02:25, 7 August 2022 (UTC)
I'd rather doubt that - many of his articles weren't biographies at all. Johnbod (talk) 03:30, 7 August 2022 (UTC)
How many? Currently, roughly 20% of all biographies on wikipedia are of women. If Lugnuts's article creation was in line with this gender imbalance, 11,270 biographies of women would give us a total of about 60k biography articles. That would mean roughly 1/3 of his articles were not biographies of any kind. I don't think that's likely to be the case? -- asilvering (talk) 03:38, 7 August 2022 (UTC)
I have rerun BilledMammal's report here for all biographies and got 74,525 articles. If I have got the code right that means only 15% of Lugnut's bios were of women. TSventon (talk) 06:13, 7 August 2022 (UTC)
The code looks right to me. BilledMammal (talk) 06:41, 7 August 2022 (UTC)
Thanks, TSventon. Fortunately it no longer looks as if the short stubs are going to be deleted. The 15% is probably correct as according to Denelezh, 14.5% biographies of sports figures are about women.--Ipigott (talk) 09:25, 7 August 2022 (UTC)
By my count, Lugnuts created 75500 biographies, so something like 14.9% of his bios were about women. If anything, he made the gender gap bigger, and because he created so many articles, he made it MUCH harder to close that gap. Vexations (talk) 12:02, 7 August 2022 (UTC)
To clarify, if Lugnuts had not created those 75,000 biographies, the total number of biographies would have been 1,897,973 -75,500 and number of women's biographies would have been 366,357 - 11,270. Then the percentage of women's biographies would have been 19.48% in stead of 19.30% as it is now. Such a difference (0.19078%) is about the same as the gains we made between October 2021 and now. Vexations (talk) 16:15, 7 August 2022 (UTC)
Thank you all for running the numbers. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 23:36, 7 August 2022 (UTC)
So is the plan now to fix the gender gap by deleting as many articles on men as possible? Otherwise, I don't see the point of these calculations. Either the articles are on notable subjects or they aren't. If they are, then they should exist. SilverserenC 23:57, 7 August 2022 (UTC)
The problem is that on their way out the door Lugnuts declared that they'd been salting BLPs with false information since the beginning. I find the numbers interesting because it quantifies the impact that a single hyperactive disruptive contributor can make which I had previously only understood in a qualitative sense. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 00:09, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
People are still pushing that one? Again, CCI already looked into things and concluded that there was no evidence for Lugnuts' claim. That he made it specifically to cause a massive CCI search and waste editor time. SilverserenC 00:26, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
To go further, I've taken the time to look at a number of fairly random cricket articles created by Lugnuts over the years. I've not found anything beyond the odd typo that could be considered to be evidence to support that they were adding deliberately false information. It was someone fed up and cross at the way a discussion had gone, that's all. Blue Square Thing (talk) 09:28, 10 August 2022 (UTC)
I think it's helpful to provide some numbers for context when you're having strategic conversations. I don't think that it's completely obvious to everyone here that if we keep going at the current rate, the percentage of women biographies will stall at around 25.4 percent sometime in 2072, and that we will never reach 50%. Is that helpful? If have goal and you need to know what you to do to get there, yes. If you want to set a specific target, say 50% by 2032, then you'll need the numbers to find out just how much harder you'd have to work to get there. Vexations (talk) 02:06, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
I think something like that has been obvious to many here for a long time. Given the patriarchal history and present of the world, 50% is neither a realistic or even desirable target, as it can only be achieved at the price of a very obvious bias against male bios (maybe things will be different in 2072...). Imo, it is more useful to look at the ratios for living people minus sportspeople, which was around 30% some years ago, but I haven't seen a more recent figure. Johnbod (talk) 03:51, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
For clarification, the basic aim of Women in Red is to reduce the gender gap by providing better coverage of women and their works. You are right, Vexations, that statistics are useful in providing a better understanding of the problem. It seems to me, however, that we should be more intent on trying to make improvements on a year-to-year basis than in considering long-term projections. As for deliberate distortions in Lugnets' work, it seems to me that many of us can be driven to make quite unreasonable comments when pushed against the wall. I have followed Lugnets' creations with interest over the years and have never encountered problems along these lines. Even in regard to short stubs from databases, it seems to me it is preferable to be able to find basic facts about a notable women on Wikipedia than nothing at all. And after all, anyone is free to improve articles which they think are too short. Those interested in women's cricket may now indeed find it useful to do so.--Ipigott (talk) 08:26, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
Need to look more closely at metrics
Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red still says: "WiR strives to increase the percentage..." I think it might be worthwhile to look into what metrics can better support the project. Vexations (talk) 10:52, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
Vexations: I'm happy to see you are interested in helping us to provide more reliable data on how the project is progressing. As this deserves further discussion, I've included it under a new heading. Yes, we certainly are striving to increase the percentage of female vs male biographies. Here we have been relying above all on data from Wikidata, as now provided by Humaniki and regularly updated on the main WiR page. Our month-by-month metrics rely on the same source, providing a useful overview. Until now, we have not be able to find any reliable way of including statistics on articles about women's works, organizations and general achievements despite the fact that these represent an important part of our work. We would welcome any suggestions as to how progress on these could be included in our statistics. There are of course other interesting statistics in regard to the gender gap, in particular the WDCM Biases Dashboard which is based on the inclusion of Wikidata information in Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects rather than just the presence of articles. Over the years, progress on Women in Red has of course suffered from the general reduction in the number of new articles on the EN wiki as tabulated in Wikipedia:Size of Wikipedia.--Ipigott (talk) 12:04, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
idk. The full quote is "We recognized a need for this work as, in October 2014, only 15.53% of English Wikipedia's biographies were about women.[1] Founded in July 2015, WiR strives to increase the percentage, which, according to Humaniki has reached 19.30% as of 1 August 2022. But that means that of 1,897,973 biographies, only 366,357 are about women" and the metric WiR uses are counts of women biographies. Interested to hear from User:Vexations what might be better than counting biographies if the aim is to increase the percentage of biographies. --Tagishsimon (talk) 12:43, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
As is evident from my contributions, I am strongly of the opinion that the amount of quality coverage in each notable woman's biography, and coverage of not-standalone-notable but still impactful women in other articles, is much more important than increasing absolute numbers or proportions of biogs.
Because so much of history is a black box on women's lives, weakening notability standards adversely affect women's representation far more than it does men's. We get an influx of proportionally way more men's than women's biographies, while at the same time the proportion of women's biographies that are permastubs rises much more than than it does for men (who are buffered by thousands of years of more coverage). This makes it look like the plurality of women who have achieved anything worth mentioning have been sportswomen about whom nothing else is known, whose actual individual impact on society has never been noted anywhere, and whose inclusion on wiki is ultimately merely a technicality from meeting some arbitrary threshold and not a product of anyone actually considering her noteworthy as a person. Therefore, I don't think it's encyclopedically useful or helpful for diversity to have an extreme percentage of women (or POC, or Global South, etc.) biographies be database sports stubs that can never be expanded beyond updating stats (and obviously excluding worthless trivia scrabbled together from routine local mentions or primary sources like high school meet results). That info, if DUE anywhere, should be on team lists, not in standalone articles.
I recognize that my ideal metrics are...rather hard to even identify, let alone quantify. But I do think we need a better measure than just % biographies because, well, what do we do after we reach our target? We'll need another metric unless we're content with just maintaining that percentage indefinitely... And of course getting to 25% doesn't mean 25% of our biographical information is on women, and even if all of our woman stubs were truly notable (they most definitely are not), if no one ever gets around to expanding them to demonstrate why we should care, what purpose do they serve to readers beyond being a worse version of existing directories? How do they enhance comprehensive knowledge of those women's lives? Some parameters that might help identify where our real coverage stands could be measuring: total prose, how far an article is semantically from matching any single source (to demonstrate the article provides value that can't be found elsewhere), and how often each piece of info had been covered in RS before it was included on wiki (as a proxy for its encyclopedic merit and DUEness). Comparing these metrics between men and women's biographies could pinpoint where our deficiencies are. JoelleJay (talk) 00:46, 9 August 2022 (UTC)
Well, sure, that's all apple pie, but had WiR's focus been on article quality, it would probably have been called, say, Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Green. Metrics on whatever you like probably = great & of interest to WiR, but %biogs will tend to be fundamental unless the project's scope is amended. Right now there's little room for ambiguity in "The objective is to turn "redlinks" (like this one) into blue ones. That's why we are called "Women in Red"." --Tagishsimon (talk) 01:03, 9 August 2022 (UTC)
I thought the purpose of this section was to discuss "other metrics" than % biographies that can support the project (which I interpreted to mean Wikipedia, but can see now it's referring to just WiR)? So I suggested hypothetical metrics that would help identify the depth of coverage within women's biographies, and my reasons for why this would be important.
And what is WiR going to do if it hits 25%? JoelleJay (talk) 03:47, 9 August 2022 (UTC)
JoelleJay, IMO, and my opinion alone, if and when WiR reaches 25%, we will continue working on "moving the needle". There's never been a goal of reaching X% or stopping at Y%. cc: Roger. --Rosiestep (talk) 05:20, 9 August 2022 (UTC)
what might be better than counting biographies if the aim is to increase the percentage of biographies If that is your only goal: Nothing. But only if you don't care at all about how you accomplish that goal.
Because as soon as do care, and you start adding some conditions because you are editing in good faith, and say: "Well, obviously we're not going to do that by running a bot that will add 6 million unsourced female biograhies, and no, these biographies should be about notable people, and no, we should not count articles that get deleted immediately", etc.. Then you have to start measuring other things, like do these articles survive AfD, how many are CSD'd, how many get draftified or userfied? Is the percentage of women independent of other variables like age, occupation, country, etc.. And I think that most people intuitively know that occupation makes a significant difference. Vexations (talk) 15:43, 9 August 2022 (UTC)
I'd be interested to have the % of BLPs that are of women as a comparison. -- asilvering (talk) 04:53, 9 August 2022 (UTC)
JoelleJay: Thank you expressing some interesting views on metrics in relation to women on Wikipedia. Like you, many of us are keen to work on quality improvement too. There is some evidence that the quality of articles about women is in fact progressing. Assessment stats for the WikiProject Women Writers show that only a quarter of articles are stubs (even less for Women Scientists and Women's History) whereas over 50% of articles on the EN wiki are stubs, including biographies. (However, as you suggest, the latter may suffer from an abundance of stubs about people in sports, both men and women.) Furthermore, partly as a result of Women in Green, we have had 32 new GAs on women and their works in June and 16 in July. Many of these originated under the priorities set by Women in Red. We've also been doing well with DYKs with 71 in July, the highest number since August 2021. Figures are to be found all over Wikipedia. Maybe it would be interesting to devise some way of examining whether articles about women are in fact of a higher quality than those about men. I believe some years back there was an academic study along these lines but it would be interesting to have results based on more recent data. Please let us know if you have any ideas along these lines.--Ipigott (talk) 10:19, 9 August 2022 (UTC)
I can make a reasonable guess. Looking at a Wikidata dataset from 2020 that I happen to have have open, without making any effort to clean up the data. There are quite a few people with an unknown date of death, which gives an improbably high number of 120 year olds, but it should give you some idea. Hard to see in the table, but women skew younger. I'll try to post a plot.
Useful; we have seen similar figures here before. In case anyone is getting too excited, this is by decade of birth, & the high proportion (but rather small actual numbers) of 2000/2010-born women are no doubt very largely in sports & entertainment, by nature of their age. But the 1960s to 1980s numbers no doubt show mostly prime/seniorish people (plus retired gymnasts etc). Johnbod (talk) 15:42, 9 August 2022 (UTC)
They're from September 2020. The latest dataset I could possibly get from huminiki is from 2021-04-04. here It would be nice to have something that's current, wouldn't it? Vexations (talk) 17:23, 9 August 2022 (UTC)
Can you account for the % disparity between the first table and the second? Why do you think en-wiki's figures are in every case lower, sometimes dramatically so? -- asilvering (talk) 11:47, 10 August 2022 (UTC)
Vexations does the first dataset count wikidata items, whether or not they have articles in any version of Wikipedia? If so it would include items created by Women in Red to generate redlists, which would explain some of the extra women. TSventon (talk) 14:07, 10 August 2022 (UTC)
It lists wikidata items that have an article in any wikimedia project, not just enwiki. 2,558,072 items of 6,362,378 had no sitelinks. Vexations (talk) 14:40, 10 August 2022 (UTC)
If I filter out the items that have no sitelinks, i.e. no entries in any wikipedia or other wikimedia project except wikidata itself, were born after 1900 and before 2010, have no known data of death, I find 187828 female subjects and 375251 male. So in that group, women make up 33.36%.
If I split those by decade, I get this:
decade
female
male
pct
1900
3659
4696
43.8%
1910
4617
5504
45.6%
1920
6678
10527
38.8%
1930
10481
21906
32.4%
1940
21929
58967
27.1%
1950
32464
84302
27.8%
1960
33284
70338
32.1%
1970
28260
53228
34.7%
1980
25294
37551
40.2%
1990
21162
28232
42.8%
all
187828
375251
33.4%
So yes, those are much higher in most cases Vexations (talk) 15:30, 10 August 2022 (UTC)
Is one explanation for the difference here that Wikidata has a bunch of entries for peerage.com people, and these (especially for earlier birthdates) have a much more equal gender distribution than people in wikipedia? (e.g., the latest bio I created – for the archaeologist Harriet Crawford – was already in wikidata from peerage data.) Dsp13 (talk) 17:07, 10 August 2022 (UTC)
FYI thepeerage.com is deprecated and cannot be used in articles. JoelleJay (talk) 20:31, 10 August 2022 (UTC)
I haven't looked into why there is such a big difference, and if there is one data source in particular that has contribute the most, but I think that it's something that's possible to run a query for; of the Wikidata entries that have no sitelink to enwiki, what are the most frequently used identifiers? There's a place where you could ask to write that query. https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Request_a_query I did just do a quick check on how many items there are with a The_Peerage_person_ID in Wikidata: 718,644 See [1]Vexations (talk) 22:09, 10 August 2022 (UTC)
Example
Here's an example of the kind of thing that I thought might be of interest. I looked at articles, grouped by occupation of the subject, where Wikipedia has seen the greatest improvements in the representation of women. This is a plot of occupations where there was the most change. For example, in 2016 47.7% (123/258) of biographies of activists were about women. Five years later, that percentage has increased to 71.3% (2367/3319) by adding 2244 articles about women activist. Please note that there are lots of caveats here and it is quite possible that re-classifying existing data is driving that change.
The percentage of biographies that are about women has changed significantly for some occupations.Vexations (talk) 02:35, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
Thanks Vexations! I think that statistic on activist women might be accurate. The anniversary of American women's suffrage was in 2019 and we spent a year on that topic. I believe the U.K. has a similar drive on women's suffrage within that time frame too. Very interesting graph. WomenArtistUpdates (talk) 18:42, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
Nice! I'm glad we can celebrate such a significant accomplishment. Vexations (talk) 20:59, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
Vexations A bittersweet observation is that coverage of artists was significantly improved by Possibly who's presence is acutely missed. WomenArtistUpdates (talk) 20:32, 13 August 2022 (UTC)
As I recall it, Possibly worked through lists of artists whose work was in the collection of several notable museums. That approach ensured a robust defence against deletion at AfD. I don't know how they generated that list, but something like this SPARQL query would work, I suppose. Vexations (talk) 21:08, 14 August 2022 (UTC)
Wow, that is interesting! I have no idea how to do that sparql stuff. I thought Possibly really focused on 20th century women artists. That's where we crossed paths most frequently. Yes, robustly notable. I have idea of how he found the artists to write about. WomenArtistUpdates (talk) 00:53, 15 August 2022 (UTC)
Vexations: Thanks very much for the interesting table. It might be equally revealing to see which occupations have seen the least improvement (or even negative results) for women. This might provide a basis for examining which areas we still need to cover more energetically. As for the improvements, some of us have spent significant time on categories, improvements to Wikidata and lists of women by occupation. Do you think this work could have had a meaningful effect on the results you have displayed?--Ipigott (talk) 09:21, 15 August 2022 (UTC)
Do you think this work could have had a meaningful effect on the results you have displayed? Yes, that is very much a possibility, especially if there was a significant disparity between reclassifying male and female subjects. I think that stage and television actor could be examples of such a case. Male television actors went from 1406 articles (59.2%) to 26352 (71.2%). I don't think that's just because we added 24,946 articles on male television actors, but I have no data that could support an explanation for that at the moment. For male pornographic actors on the other hand, the explanation of its change from 23.6 to 32.9% is fairly straightforward: we added just 3 articles on that subject, but deleted the biographies of many female pornographic actors.
Where to look for possible areas where increases in the percentage of female biographies has the most impact is an intriguing question. If I look at occupations where the percentage of biographies that is about women declined the most, I see gymnast, television actor, water polo player, long jumper, pornographic actor, ballet dancer, model, high jumper, casting director, costume designer, cellist, singer, hammer thrower, snowboarder, cross-country skier. When I looked at cellists, I noted that Wikidata has 1961 male and 487 female cellists (19.89%). Right now, according to Wikidata 642 male cellists have articles and 164 female cellists (20.35%). From 2016 the percentage of female cellists declined from 24.3% to 19.12%, but it is now closer to Wikidata's 20.35%. When we have a relatively small number of articles like we have for cellists, 69 female vs 215 male in 2016 and 147 female vs 622 male in 2021, and 642 and 164 female now it is much harder to distinguish signal from noise than with occupations where we have more articles. Singer, for example, where the percentage of female biographies declined from 50.58% to 46.42. The number of articles for singers went from 16635 female vs 16252 male to 22105 female vs 25507 male, adding 9255 male biographies, but only 5470 female biographies. The number that should alert people here is the difference between the ratio of male to female articles (1:0.97 in 2016 and 1:1.15 in 2021) and ratio of male/female additions, 1:1.69. That may be the signal that we need to do something to draw attention to that particular occupation. Here's a chart that shows the occupations where the % of biographies of women declined the most. Gymnasts went from 188 articles on women and 112 on men (62.7%) in 2016 to 673 articles on women and 960 on men (41.2%). Vexations (talk) 13:15, 15 August 2022 (UTC)
Interesting. The ones where the ratios declined the most (models, porno, ballet dancers) all had surely very unbalanced start-points of over 75% female. For ballet dancers at least the ideal would be close to 50/50, no? Johnbod (talk) 03:36, 16 August 2022 (UTC)
It's really good to have this degree of detail on what we have been doing. Maybe you should bring all this to the attention of Maximilianklein with a view to coverage under Humaniki.--Ipigott (talk) 09:30, 16 August 2022 (UTC)
In connection with my review of new pages, I accepted Dawn Dickson as I found sources going back a number of years and subsequently became involved in quite a lengthy but confused discussion on my talk page. Despite work on the article by discospinster who concluded that it was not purely promotional, I see that as a result of action by Praxidicae (who originally called for speedy deletion), Christinagirgis has now been indefinitely blocked by Blablubbs. It seems to me this is quite unfair as I have been unable to find any reason for supposing that Christinagiris is being paid for editing. It looks to me like a case of overenthusiasm, as the editor's response seems to show. How are we able to guide inexperienced new editors interested in writing biographies of women if they are subjected to such unfair attacks? Can anyone help?--Ipigott (talk) 06:27, 22 August 2022 (UTC)
I'm sorry you take issue with my block, though I would have appreciated it if you would have reached out to me first. It seems fairly plain to me that there are COI issues here, based on a long-term pattern of promotional editing (including deleted contributions, among which are promotional articles about men, for what it's worth), edits like this (which is essentially an admission), their long-term failure to respond to paid editing warnings, and some off-wiki stuff that can be found with a simple google search, though I'm not allowed to share it). The gender of the people they write about had nothing to do with it. --Blablubbs (talk) 07:55, 22 August 2022 (UTC)
Blablubbs: Sorry not to have addressed you first on your talk page but this case has involved so many different editors and administrators that I thought it deserved attention here. I'm afraid I could not find your request to Christinagirgis to confirm that she is not a paid editor but perhaps it has been deleted. As you can see on her talk page, she now clearly confirms that she is not. I cannot understand why this comment cannot be taken into account. I have also looked back over her previous contributions and the difficulties she experienced from the start. I note that she had begun to respond to tags on Dawn Dickson and am confident that with proper assistance she would have been prepared to learn how to improve her standard of editing. Back in 2018 she created Ciera Rogers which although substantially edited by others, still stands. (In this connection, I certainly do not agree that your diff indicates "admission". On the contrary, she simply seemed keen to move forward.) Her editing history shows that she has in fact edited very little all along and should still, in my opinion, be treated as a newbie. I do not share your view that she has in any way been involved in COI issues. Her whole editing background looks to me as if she was simply keen to include people in Wikipedia who she believed deserved to be covered. I do agree, nevertheless, that in writing Dawn Dickson, she was influenced by her enthusiasm for the person in question which resulted in a biography which at first sight might seem like advertising. I had hoped to be able to guide her in a more accommodating way in how she could improve her editing quality, Now that she has been indefinitely blocked, I see no way forward. It seems a great pity to me that her attempt to document a deserving woman on Wikipedia has led to a complete blockage. On Women in Red, we are doing our utmost to encourage new editors to contribute articles about women. Incidents like this unfortunately only serve to discourage more potential contributors.--Ipigott (talk) 10:02, 22 August 2022 (UTC)
See here and here for the paid editing inquiries. I have to disagree with she simply seemed keen to move forward: the reference to "us" and the desire to get the subject verified on social media seem pretty indicative to me. I'm sorry, but I think this is a good block and I am not willing to lift it. If she wishes to formally appeal it, she can do so on her talk page. --Blablubbs (talk) 10:11, 22 August 2022 (UTC)
Concur with Blablubbs. --Tagishsimon (talk) 11:05, 22 August 2022 (UTC)
Blablubbs: "Erfahrung macht klug." Thanks for all your explanations. Certainly, Davo on everybodywiki looks very promotional. I suppose if she's really not involved in any kind of COI, she will be able to respond here or answer the queries you mention. Quite a learning experience for a novice like me. I rarely touch anything that looks suspect but Dickson seemed to be backed by many good secondary sources. Hope that next time round, we can meet under more favourable circumstances. And how about Dawn Dickson? Is it subject to deletion or have a sufficient number of other editors been involved to make it acceptable? There's no point in trying to improve it if it's going to be deleted.--Ipigott (talk) 12:38, 22 August 2022 (UTC)
@Ipigott: I'm glad if I could clear things up a little. As for Dawn Dickson, I haven't made a deep dive into the available sourcing. G11 speedy deletion was declined, and I can't think of any other CSDs that would be applicable, especially now that it's being actively worked on. Unless someone succeeds at making the argument that she isn't notable at AfD (I have no opinion on that – I'm here because of editor conduct, not because of content), the article is going to stay. --Blablubbs (talk) 13:21, 22 August 2022 (UTC)
@Ipigott My instinct is that this could go down at AfD if someone took the time to do a really in-depth source table, but that otherwise people doing a quicker skim will look at the variety and date of the references and figure it's a keep. The more alarming references have mostly been removed by now. -- asilvering (talk) 19:33, 22 August 2022 (UTC)
It seems to arise out of the way in which the Institute of Museum and Library Services arranges its data (or the way in which WD models that data); they have a Cordelia A. Greene Library library system which has a single Cordelia A. Greene Library branch[2]. Whether carrying this distinction into WD is very useful, who knows. A merge is not possible b/c one item points to the other. Before thinking about amending that, we'd have to understand the pros & cons of the IMLS dataset model on WD; if it is right to fold the two items into one, then there are probably several thousand other candidates to consider. Conversely, if we can live with the distinction and the pair of items, then we're good; and I think we probably can, by reference to the item descriptions and the P31 values for each item.
You have selected the 'main library' item rather than the 'library system' item for the EN wiki sitelink and the commons category ... that's probably a good choice. --Tagishsimon (talk) 01:52, 23 August 2022 (UTC)
Thanks for looking at it, Tagishsimon. It was a coin toss as to which Q number to choose. Glad you think the one I used is probably the right one. --Rosiestep (talk) 04:58, 23 August 2022 (UTC)
Hello. I am an user who is often focused in the topic area of the Aromanians. The Aromanians are a small Romance-speaking Eastern European group, with some 250,000 people. They're often neglected in Wikipedia, mostly because they lack a state of their own. I've done some estimates and out of around 200 biographies of Aromanian people or people with Aromanian descent in Wikipedia, some 20 are women. That's quite a low number. I've created some Aromanian biographies myself (including one woman), but I am the only user actively engaged in this topic area, so I can't create them all.
I am not sure how do things work in this WikiProject, but I see that there are initiatives for creating articles on women from certain areas or groups every month. I was wondering if this could be done with the Aromanians. I know a few biographies of Aromanian women that could exist (perhaps, I am not 100% certain that some are notable). I think this could be of great value, so please let me know if this is possible. Thanks, SuperΨDro 13:33, 14 August 2022 (UTC)
@Super Dromaeosaurus: One of my areas of focus is generating Wikidata lists, but others might have some non-Wikidata-related suggestions. Generating lists for ethnicity (examples) is difficult because ethnicity data is spotty in Wikidata - for example, only 32 people are listed as Aromanians there. We could create a list based on an already published one, such as a biographical dictionary of Aromanians, etc., if you are aware of any. Gamaliel (talk) 20:13, 22 August 2022 (UTC)
I am not sure if there's any specifically Aromanian biographic list, but I know some lists of countries they live in which mention if they're Aromanian. I know several potential biographies already anyway and know where to search to find more. SuperΨDro 10:26, 23 August 2022 (UTC)
Claire Bond Potter
I recently saw that Claire Bond Potter did not have a page. I was thinking of publishing the article as just a stub, but any help with expansion would be appreciated. Thriley (talk) 04:46, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
I've tweaked it a bit, and added her other "Official website" ie faculty page as well as her personal website: don't forget to expand all those bare URLs, and to include redirect from full name when it goes to mainspace. PamD 08:00, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
After NFOOTY was removed a large number of Women including International players are being marked for deletion. Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 17:09, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
I've been searching for sources and protesting when I find them. While many of the nominated footballers may not be notable, I don't think that the nominators can possibly be doing thorough WP:BEFORE searches given the rate at which they're listing biographies, the cookie-cutter nature of the nominations, and some of the glaringly notable footballers who have been nominated. pburka (talk) 18:35, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
This is not a neutral notification or discussion topic. JoelleJay (talk) 19:24, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
First: PotW's post is neutral. Second, it does not need to be. Wikipedia:Canvassing refers, in this context, to individual deletion discussions. This thread is about, in effect, actions being taken as a result of a policy change. It is perfectly in order to raise, discuss and take non-neutral stances w.r.t. the broad issue of gender bias in football biographies. --Tagishsimon (talk) 20:14, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
Saying "including International players" is unnecessary and frames the deletions as if they are unwarranted (since NSPORT has criteria specifically regarding international players). But the notice is not really the issue; it's the followup discussion that specifically links to the deletion list and offers judgment on the merit of the AfDs that looks like vote-banking. JoelleJay (talk) 22:31, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
You are entitled to your view, cobblers though it is. PotW made a neutral factual observation. TSventon asked for advice on the best place to find the deletions, and made no other commment. Pburka offered an observation on the probability of process deficits in the AfD nominations. You jumped in & are trying to suggest that we should not be discussing a rash of footie biog deletion nominations b/c footie biogs are the subject of deletion nominations. Just nonsense. --Tagishsimon (talk) 22:39, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
I really can’t agree that this constitutes inappropriate canvassing. Wouldn’t such a restrictive interpretation (for example) make the entire Article Rescue Squad project a policy violation? Changes in notability policy, mass deletion nominations and widespread BEFORE failures all seem like valid discussion topics to me. Not to mention that above all the point is to improve the encyclopedia… if there are entries that might be appropriate to keep if improved, prohibiting the notification of people who might be interested in doing that work isn’t in the project’s best interest. Innisfree987 (talk) 22:58, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
In fact, there are frequent attempts by ardent deletionists to get ARS members banned, including a recent arbcom case. So asking whether the ARS is a policy violation is something of a loaded question. But in any case, CANVASS requires notifications to be neutral and unopinionated; it does not and should not prevent those notified from discussing their opinions of the situation after the notification has been made. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:13, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
So someone can post a neutral notice of a deletion discussion, and then they or another editor can just comment on that notice with their opinions on the merits of the AfD and their desired outcome? Good to know. JoelleJay (talk) 18:06, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
So you think it should be possible for people to shut down discussions within this group by posting notices and then invoking CANVASS? Good to know. —David Eppstein (talk) 03:34, 27 August 2022 (UTC)
I would encourage anyone exploring the list of AfDs linked above not to !vote reflexively on any of them. Wikipedia has a problem of applying higher standards to women's biographies, and also has a problem of a proliferation of sports biographies. Any careful research effort put into any of those AfDs can only be a good thing, but reflexive !votes will only stir up drama and make life difficult for closing administrators. Vanamonde (Talk) 06:26, 27 August 2022 (UTC)
RfC: A TikToker, ... , other accused constitute 'Public figure' or not?
Requesting inputs about WP policies regarding, WP:BLP protocols and naming of the accused in relation to mentions of allegations and counter allegations in the given article, against a female victim of sexual assault, her associates and also other accused.
Hi everyone! A while ago, I noticed a shortage of success stories about women in IT and banking. So I penned one such article, but it was taken down. Should I apply for it to be put back on? The piece is in RussianDiscussion pageEpifantsev (talk) 11:55, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
Hi there, Epifantsev. I see you have previously had difficulties with other articles in Russian. Although Women in Red supports initiatives about women in other language versions of Wikipedia, here we are concerned above all with articles in English. If you wish to write about women in banking in English, you might find some names of interest in our Wikidata redlist on finance. Problems with Rusiian-language articles should be discussed on the Russian wiki. Happy editing!--Ipigott (talk) 14:41, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
Dear colleague, thank you for your replie. On list of interesting names, I found Kseniya Yudayeva, who has an entry in the Russian-language Wikipedia. However, the entry is pending removal. Does this make sense to create an English-language entry on her? And it's generally unclear which individuals are important and which aren't. I'd rather not waste my time on an entry that may be removed shortly. Is there a way to know in advance? Epifantsev (talk) 05:04, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
I can see that there's a consenus in the discussion that the person is not notable enough. As a Russian Wikipedia admin I undeleted the article and agree that there's not enough information. As much as I like to have more articles about women in Russian Wikipedia, I cannot justify applying for the article undeletion.--Victoria (talk) 17:55, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
Victoria, thank you for your reply. However, there's still something I'm not sure I understand: is it about the shortage of facts in the entry or is it because the person is not important enough? In other words, should I do some more research? Or does she have no chance at all? Epifantsev (talk) 05:08, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
The main argument is that the bank, the board of which she chairs, is not big enough. Let's wait until she chairs the Sberbank then nobody will deny her significance. The article is there, you know, when there's a significant development in her career you can apply to undeteletion.--Victoria (talk) 14:47, 27 August 2022 (UTC)
Hello friends, I started this biography for Philomaine Nanema, who is a comedian from Burkina faso, as part of this month's event. However, I'm really struggling to de-orphan the page - would anyone be willing to help me out? Lajmmoore (talk) 18:48, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
I've discovered today that there are two separate articles for these two Spanish Paralympic athletes: Vanesa Ortega Godoy and Maria Ortega which I believe are the same person, Vanesa was in 1996 while Maria won a silver at the 1996 Paralympics and competed at the 2000 Games. I've looked up Vanesa Ortega online and noticed that her full name is Maria Vanesa Ortega Godoy. Should Vanesa's article be redirected to Maria Ortega or vice versa? SarahTHunter (talk) 14:51, 28 August 2022 (UTC)
Hi, SarahTHunter. Thanks for noticing this. It would be helpful if you could provide a link(s) to what you looked up which establishes that Vanesa Ortega Godoy and María Ortega are the same person. That might also help answer which article should be merged into the other, or if perhaps one should be moved into Maria Vanesa Ortega Godoy and the other merged into it. --Rosiestep (talk) 15:05, 28 August 2022 (UTC)
I typed up 'Vanesa Ortega atleta' on Google. Here is the linkSarahTHunter (talk) 15:17, 28 August 2022 (UTC)
The two WP articles are almost certainly the same person, IMO. This ref provides a DoB consistent with Vanesa Ortega Godoy and results consistent with María Ortega. Vanesa Ortega Godoy specifies she competed in T12 in 1996, whereas María Ortega specifies T11 in 1996; the possibility is the VOG article is in error ... she was in T12 in 2000. Vanesa Ortega Godoy's reference errors, so even on BLP-Prod terms, that article should be removed. I conclude we should redirect Vanesa Ortega Godoy to María Ortega, and add redirects from any other name, such as from Maria Vanesa Ortega Godoy. --Tagishsimon (talk) 16:41, 28 August 2022 (UTC)
I believe the reason could be that usually when there are too few athletes of a certain sport classification, the lower class would often compete with the class above so they merge into one single event, this usually happens in field events and sometimes in track events. She could be either a T11 (totally blind) or a T12 (partially blind) athlete. I'll try my best to see what other notable sources that I could find. SarahTHunter (talk) 17:54, 28 August 2022 (UTC)
I've moved Maria Ortega to Maria Vanesa Ortega Godoy. Don't know how to redirect Vanesa Ortega Godoy (I've not done redirections in a long while and I've forgotten what to do). I've also updated the info on the page too. SarahTHunter (talk) 18:39, 28 August 2022 (UTC)
Blank it and replace with #REDIRECT [[Maria Vanesa Ortega Godoy]]Madeline (part of me) 18:41, 28 August 2022 (UTC)
Dorli Rainey, a noted anti-war activist who became the face of Occupy Seattle after she was sprayed in the face with pepper spray, has died. Currently her name is a redirect to Occupy Seattle. Looks to be enough for GNG with her NY Times obit. Thriley (talk) 14:14, 27 August 2022 (UTC)
Okay, I think I'm all done, @Thriley:. Can you do the In The News death nomination? I assume that was the plan, correct? SilverserenC 19:12, 27 August 2022 (UTC)
@Silver seren: Truly suburb work! Thank you very much, Silver! Thriley (talk) 05:51, 29 August 2022 (UTC)
Please vet Native claims
A semi-annual plea, please vet any claims of Native identity to find out if proposed article subjects actually *are* Native. WP:NDNID is a good source on this topic. If someone says they are "Ojibwe" and "Cherokee," what tribe are they actually enrolled in — if any? If you have any questions about anyone, you can always ask at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America. I know it's well-meaning and good faith to create these articles, but please make them accurate. Thank you, Yuchitown (talk) 16:40, 11 August 2022 (UTC)Yuchitown
@Yuchitown:. Thank you for raising this issue. A question: how are editors to know when claims reported in reliable sources are inaccurate? For example, multiple sources report that Jeannette Henry Costo is Cherokee, yet you removed this from the intro. But should we not report what the reliable sources say? Gamaliel (talk) 17:23, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
Gamaliel without verification from an official source, I would not list a tribal affiliation. Sources I saw said Costo was Eastern Cherokee, but I found no links to her on that tribal role, as I indicated above. In the past, it was much easier for people to claim tribal affiliations which were unfounded, so it is best to be extra careful. SusunW (talk) 17:45, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
I concur with the need to be careful and respectful, I just wish guidance for editors who, like me, are ignorant of these matters. What counts as an official source? How do editors know when to rely on reliable sources and when they cannot? Gamaliel (talk) 17:49, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
Gamaliel the easiest way is to ask the WikiProject, if you don't know. Basically, only tribal entities get to determine who are and are not members of their polity. Ancestry isn't the same as tribal membership. Since a lot of people have fraudulently claimed ancestry it's an issue because otherwise reliable sources may not know the difference between self-identification and actual tribal membership. Legally, artists must disclose their official tribal affiliation, but I do not believe that extends to other professions. SusunW (talk) 18:31, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
Please note that WP:BLPPRIMARY forbids the use of primary documents (like tribal enrollment lists) as the main source for any claim about living people. The only way we can include these claims is if they are verified by published secondary sources, which are probably not going to be "official sources". —David Eppstein (talk) 18:38, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
@David Eppstein BLPPRIMARY does not exactly forbid the use of primary documents. It says, "Where primary-source material has been discussed by a reliable secondary source, it may be acceptable to rely on it to augment the secondary source," In other words, if reliable secondary sources claim X is Cherokee, tribal enrollment lists can be used to augment or supplement the secondary source. So cite both. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 18:43, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
For example, the secondary source says "Ms. X claims she is Cherokee." If you cannot find Ms. X on a tribal enrollment list, don't include the information in the article. If you can find Ms. X on a tribal enrollment list, cite both the secondary source and the tribal enrollment list. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 18:46, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
Are you claiming that all current tribal enrollment lists are publicly searchable? If not, this is an impossibly strict requirement, not one that comes from any Wikipedia policy, and far beyond the typical standards for inclusion of national citizenship in Wikipedia biographies (where we often do not have any source at all let alone a demand to have a publicly verifiable official document). And if the source merely says that X claims to be Cherokee, we can certainly write that X claims to be Cherokee; that is different than saying that X is Cherokee. It is important to be able to do so, for instance, to document cases where X is known for making false claims of being Cherokee. I agree with the need to be careful in the face of numerous dubious claims of heritage but that's different than being overly officious and bureaucratic in cases where a clear connection to the tribe can be documented. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:05, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
Please read WP:NDNID. Yes, you can cite that someone claims to be XXX, without verification from the tribe, but you need verification to write that someone is XXX. Tribal newspapers, that are often online, are a good source for this. These issues are also discussed on WP talk:NDNID. Thank you, Yuchitown (talk) 00:14, 12 August 2022 (UTC)Yuchitown
WomenArtistUpdates I've given this a bunch of thought and will throw out my opinion, which is worthless. Prior to the twentieth century, there were probably very few people who would have fictitiously claimed to be Native American, because of the serious discrimination Native people faced. At various times in the 20th century, it became "popular" to claim Native heritage. Thus, if someone lived in or was primarily active in that century, I would consider such claims as "suspect" without pretty firm verification. I do understand David Eppstein's concerns with OR, but I also understand the frustration of Native peoples with having their heritage misappropriated. (I personally do not see it as so very different an issue than treating gender with extra caution. It is difficult to accurately represent people whose gender was fluid in historic periods because our context now is different.) The same applies to Native people. We now understand that there is a difference in heritage and membership, so we should take extra steps to verify that. Perhaps the easiest solution is to state, X (source) indicates Y (person) was Z (tribal affiliation). In that manner, we are not ever saying the person has a tribal affiliation in Wikivoice. SusunW (talk) 18:41, 12 August 2022 (UTC)
Native American Women: A Biographical Dictionary has several errors, but it was a massive undertaking written in 1993, so that seems understandable. I placed text from Jeannette Henry Costo's bio in that book ("born to the Turtle clan of the Carolina Cherokee") in her Wikipedia article, which is what user:SusunW suggests. (Cherokee people don't have a turtle clan.) Seems like that might be the course of action that best honors Wikipedia's goals of verifiability and neutrality (i.e. it is verified that she identified herself as such. Yuchitown (talk) 02:35, 13 August 2022 (UTC)Yuchitown
Ok, so I followed Yuchitown's advice to read WP:NDNID. In it, WP:NDN-NATION says "If someone is clearly described as a legal citizen of their tribal nation in a reliable source (preferably one published by the tribe in question), that should be sufficient." Note that it does NOT say anything about having to check the official tribal rolls yourself. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:19, 12 August 2022 (UTC)
Several sources say Herrmann is Dena'ina Athabascan. I couldn't find any sources that said she was Yup'ik, but I gather she is also of Aleut/Unangax ancestry from her grandmother. Since you're right, that her listing on List of Native American politicians was uncited, I changed it to reflect the sources. (Also linked her in more articles, so she's not an orphan. Hope that helps! Yuchitown (talk) 02:35, 13 August 2022 (UTC)Yuchitown
Thanks, but I'm now quite confused as to whether any of those sources for her would satisfy the requirements we are being told about: the statement that she is Denaʼina comes from a self-contributed bio in an academic article: does that tick the boxes? @SusunW: This is obviously a massively sensitive area and in future years when WiR picks "Indigenous women" I will try to remember to avoid the North American continent completely, as it seems difficult-to-impossible for anyone from another continent to avoid getting things wrong. PamD 07:12, 13 August 2022 (UTC)
The more I reflect on this the more uncomfortable I am with this. I don't think it's appropriate for me as a white person or for Wikipedia itself to cast doubt on the ethnicity of Native Americans. We can dispense with the turtle clan bit, because who knows where that came from, but there is zero question that Jeannette Henry Costo identified as a Cherokee her entire life (for example [3] and [4] page 58), and for Wikipedia to say or even imply that the co-founder of the American Indian Historical Society was not Native American and not Cherokee is something that I find incredibly problematic. Gamaliel (talk) 04:24, 13 August 2022 (UTC)
Gamaliel, what she identified as and what she legally was are two different things. (Failure to appear on the Baker role and belonging to a clan that doesn't exist make it very unlikely that she was an actual member of the Eastern Cherokee. But is there are source that says that?, no. Going back to the gender analogy, someone's birth certificate can check a box saying someone is a particular gender legally, but that doesn't make it so.) Identity is complex. I think if we err, it should be on the side of caution. As I said above, my thoughts are that it is not acceptable in wikivoice that she "was" anything, but to say that a specific source identified her with an affiliation. There are lots of cases, (Willard Stone, Elizabeth Warren immediately come to mind) claiming native identity, only to find that they have no affiliation with an actual tribe. Both of those articles address that the person identified as such, but held no tribal membership. Unless and until we have a source that verifies that, specifically, I personally do not think we can state she is not X, but neither do I think that we can say she is, because it seems unlikely to be true. SusunW (talk) 05:00, 13 August 2022 (UTC)
Been following and this good point reinforces my impression such challenges are in the WP:OR category of things that are properly taken up by outside reliable sources we then follow rather than attempting to revise the record on wiki. We are not equipped. Innisfree987 (talk) 04:43, 13 August 2022 (UTC)
An example article I've been looking at to try to gauge the sensibility of discussed criteria is Freda Porter. She appears to obviously be Lumbee (closely associated with the tribal government, and it's a large tribe). Many sources not directly connected with the Lumbee identify her as being a member of the Lumbee tribe (example). But the Lumbee sources themselves take that as understood and instead talk about her work with the tribe, so finding an official Lumbee source that explicitly describes her as an enrolled member of the tribe (and not just as a tribal administrator) is difficult. If a standard for how we should make such identifications cannot even handle such an obvious case, then it's not a good standard, because it would leave us with an extremely restricted subset of people who we could identify as belonging to these groups, far more restricted than their actual membership, and that's not a desirable outcome. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:31, 13 August 2022 (UTC)
The most famous Lumbee hero was not a member of anything vaguely resembling a tribal organization
Aye, someone brought up the Lumbees! Having written several articles on Lumbees (Henry Ward Oxendine, Glenn Maynor, Horace Locklear), I agree with that assessment. I've found mainstream press and private Native American press that describes those people as Lumbees, but finding "official" confirmation would be difficult, though Locklear was a cofounder of the Lumbee Regional Development Association. The Lumbee Tribe is actually a great case for why being super strict on this could have negative consequences. For much of their existence, Lumbees were not viewed as Native American, just mixed-race people from a certain part of North Carolina. They have hardly any traditions that one would describe as being uniquely indigenous or of direct indigenous origin (no reservation, no unique language, their English dialect has most of its roots in old English and Scottish English, no stereotypical drums or feathered headdresses, they've been Christians for 300 years). They vary in complexion from looking black to brown to white (due to mixed ancestry). Most of Lumbee identity is rooted in kinship and place. Because of this, it's been a damn slog for them to get any recognition by both governments and society at-large, and to this day they still lack full federal recognition. The earliest institutional recognition of Lumbees being something other than "swamp half-breeds" was when unique schools were set up for "Croatans" (a misnomer) in the 1880s. The name "Lumbee" and something resembling a tribal organization did not exist until the 1950s. Most of the key players of the 1870s Lowry War (an event of huge cultural significance to the group) have only retroactively been classified as Lumbee; none of them were card-carrying members of some organization. A fair amount of Lumbees have moved on from Robeson County throughout North Carolina and up to Baltimore and thus are not actively involved in tribal affairs. This should not mean they completely lose their ethnic ancestry; that would only be furthering the 100 years worth of erasure the tribe has dealt with. These are not some "I'm 1/16th Cherokee so vote for me/I understand the indigenous experience/gimme a casino" situations. When identity is contentious or is questioned in RS or by the tribal organization, we should certainly give pause. But I don't think we should create a super high bar for blanket application by requiring researching membership rolls in a borderline OR pursuit. -Indy beetle (talk) 11:16, 13 August 2022 (UTC)
So, treated badly for being indigenous and also treated badly by groups trying to help indigenous people for not being indigenous enough, sort of like the Métis in Canada? Interesting. I did not know much about this history. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:04, 13 August 2022 (UTC)
Yes, a sort of "damned if you are, damned if you aren't" scenario. -Indy beetle (talk) 21:13, 13 August 2022 (UTC)]
I think you two might be making this far more difficult than it needs to be. Vetting tribal claims is already the Wikipedia standard. There's Category:Lumbee people and Category:American people of Lumbee descent. Determining Native identity on Wikipedia isn't a hypothetical; it's a practice developed over the long decades of Wikipedia's history. Yuchitown (talk) 21:34, 13 August 2022 (UTC)Yuchitown
Yes, but sadly I cannot find any official information from the Lumbee tribal organization which identifies Horace Locklear as Lumbee, so does that make him merely the first alleged Native American to practice law in North Carolina? I don't see why the Lumbee(?)-run Carolina Indian Voice or the Lumbee(?) author Connee Brayboy identifying him as Lumbee can't be good enough in most circumstances. -Indy beetle (talk) 21:49, 13 August 2022 (UTC)
Yes, sources written by Lumbee people would be great resources (someone else was talking about tribal enrollment lists as a strawman). Malinda Maynor Lowery (Lumbee) mentions Horace Locklear many times in her The Lumbee Indians: An American Struggle (2018), so an academic from the community (Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina) in a recently published book is going to be far more accurate than a 30-year-old reference by non-Native authors. Just like a recent, peer-reviewed article by a doctor in a medical journal would trump an profile in a vintage copy of People magazine. Yuchitown (talk) 22:51, 13 August 2022 (UTC)Yuchitown
Ah ok, I think I have a better grasp on your position now. I was actually thinking of Lowery's work and have used it before, I was hoping there wouldn't be any doubt on its authority on such matters. -Indy beetle (talk) 22:58, 13 August 2022 (UTC)
I've been following this discussion with interest, especially as I have tried to help SusunW along with several of her excellent articles on indigenous people. It seems to me a measure of compromise is required here. I think it would be a mistake to be more dogmatic about the status of Native Americans than we are about other details we provide in biographies, for example in connection with nobility or recognition for awards. If less experienced editors find several sources identifying someone as Native or a member of a given tribe, then we cannot expect them to leave such details out of their biographies. On the other hand, if experienced editors can examine the sources in more detail and add useful background information, so much the better. At Women in Red we aim to increase the proportion of women's biographies. We should not run the risk of steering people away from an important subset of our society by frightening them with tribal rolls and traditions they cannot be expected to know.--Ipigott (talk) 09:03, 13 August 2022 (UTC)
As I said above, after having given the issue a lot of thought, I agree that we can't encourage OR or expect people to know where to access materials to confirm identity. On the other hand, I think we must be cautious and respectful, especially because our focus is to increase the visibility of groups that have been un/under-represented. If I didn't make it clear in my statements above, I apologize. What I am proposing is rather than saying, using PamD's example, "Herrmann is Dena'ina Athabaskan" we write, "her biography from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration identified Herrmann as Dena'ina Athabaskan". In David Eppstein's case "Larry Riddle of Agnes Scott College noted that Porter is a member of the Lumbee tribe". It allows us to follow the sourcing we have and is not any different than identifying other exceptional claims, i.e. who said someone was a noted singer or identifying who said someone's research was influential, etc. SusunW (talk) 13:48, 13 August 2022 (UTC)
That suspiciously specific wording is likely to suggest to readers that we do not believe Porter to be Lumbee. We should strive to avoid such negative implications in BLPs. (Also, in this case, Riddle is far from the only source saying so.) —David Eppstein (talk) 18:52, 13 August 2022 (UTC)
David Eppstein I'm not sure I understand why saying who said something is an indication of whether it is believable or not. I am genuinely trying to understand and honestly don't. I don't see a difference in being required to specifically state who said someone was the first known X, or that their work was influential (and I have been asked specifically to do that in numerous article reviews), but not required to say who identified a person as Native. Obviously, there are other ways of saying who said she was Lumbee. If you have suggestions, I would truly be interested in how you would word it. SusunW (talk) 20:37, 13 August 2022 (UTC)
My suggestion would be to follow WP:NDN-NATION, which requires reliable secondary sourcing and prefers but does not require official sourcing for claims of tribal affiliation. If we have such sources, and nothing contradicting them, we should follow what they say. If there is some doubt in the sources then we should echo it. My only caution would be to avoid sources that are directly from the subject and to pay attention to what the sources say and how reliable we could expect them to be for this subject. In the case of Freda Porter, for instance, Riddle is not the best source, only the most easily available that makes a direct statement on the matter. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:33, 13 August 2022 (UTC)
I also think a quality secondary RS should be good enough in most situations, unless there is obvious reason to doubt. -Indy beetle (talk) 21:40, 13 August 2022 (UTC)
In regards to Costo, she is absolutely not Cherokee. And it's incredibly common throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, for non-Native people to mistakenly or falsely claim to be Cherokee, specifically (as opposed to Dena'ina Athabaskan); see: Category:American people of Cherokee descent. There's so much pre-existing discussion about this at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America, Talk:NDNID, Talk:Pretendian, Cherokee descent, Talk:List of Native American women of the United States/Archive 2, etc., I don't want to reinvent the wheel here again. Being Native American in the United States is a political status and a communal identity, not an individual identity. As paraphrased, "It doesn't matter who you claim; it matters who claims you." So when someone's claim is questionable (i.e. they never identify what tribe/Alaska village or corporation they belong to, then you need to find a source from the tribe/Alaska village/etc. that claims them. Yuchitown (talk) 16:51, 13 August 2022 (UTC)Yuchitown
I suggest that any future WiR "Indigenous women" project needs to have a great big health warning referring editors to this discussion or related pages, should they consider writing about anyone in North America. I have no intention of going anywhere near this minefield again. PamD 17:02, 13 August 2022 (UTC)
I agree with PamD, not a suitable topic for a WiR editathon. Tough enough for new editors to understand and work with notability, without the extra layer of primal source tribal verification. I say we finish the month and then take it off our annual list of topics. WomenArtistUpdates (talk) 17:57, 13 August 2022 (UTC)
This is not minefield; everyone is working in good faith. Mistaken/false identity claims is just a reality that exists in Native American topics (that as a Native American, I deal with every single day). The members of Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America are experienced and happy to help you all if anyone has any questions. I encourage anyone with questions to reach out there. Yuchitown (talk) 18:19, 13 August 2022 (UTC)Yuchitown
PamD, WomenArtistUpdates: I understand your frustration in the light of this discussion but let's not be too hasty about this. Indigenous women has been one of our key annual events since 2016 when we added 32 interesting new articles. In 2017, we again had 32, in 2018 49, 2019 95, 2020 54 and 2021 68. This year we already have 25 and we're less than half way through the month. It might be useful if Yupik were to weigh in here -- he's done so much to encourage us year by year and has provided lots of useful background.--Ipigott (talk) 19:28, 13 August 2022 (UTC)
I don't think I am being hasty Ipigott. Using myself as an example, I wrote an article about a notable woman, Jeannette Henry Costo, and used Native American Women: A Biographical Dictionary as a citation noting she is Cherokee. We are still going 'round and 'round about whether or not she is. The discussion seems to be that this subject is special and claims of tribal heritage must be vetted on a different level of scrutiny from other cited claims. I'm not saying this shouldn't be the case, but the restriction definitely affects the topic's appropriateness of an annual editathon. We can't even get people to understand that appearance on a redlist does not constitute notability. Adding caveats about Native American Heritage is a no-go, in my opinion. WomenArtistUpdates (talk) 20:19, 13 August 2022 (UTC)
I see that in previous "Indigenous women" projects I've managed to start articles about indigenous women from Fiji, Australia, Australia again, Peru, Canada (without anyone querying it, though goodness knows whether any of the sources are really authoritative enough), Australia yet again and Ecuador, before this year's venture into Alaska. I'll just avoid North America in future: too difficult for an outsider. The idea that an apparently reliable source, which would suffice for any other content on any other topic, ought to be hedged around with "her biography from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration identified Herrmann as Dena'ina Athabaskan" is just too offputting. This is actually denting my confidence as an editor: until now I've felt that I could edit confidently, enough to create a solid little well-sourced stub, on pretty much any topic I choose. Evidently not. (Areas to avoid: (1) Politics and history of the Balkans (2) Rodeo (3) Indigenous North Americans). PamD 20:55, 13 August 2022 (UTC)
I really appreciate that everyone in this conversation has remained respectful and is trying hard to listen to all sides. I think I have created the problems here and am genuinely sorry. My personal thoughts were offered as a way to be respectful to all sides. Instead of doing that, I have contributed to making people unwilling to write about indigenous women or hold editathons on the topic in the future. This was never my intention. I sincerely apologize for the frustration, confusion and shaking of people's confidence, that I caused to anyone. SusunW (talk) 21:10, 13 August 2022 (UTC)
I hear the frustration of both groups of people here who are both working to achieve the same result: factual encyclopedia articles about phenomenal indigenous women to close both the indigenous gap and the gender gap. Instead of seeing these issues as being something to drive us apart or to make us stop writing about these topics, I think that the wonderful contributors to WiR and WPIPNA could use their energy and passion to collaborate extensively on creating these types of articles, maybe by working in tandem on specific articles? We already work together well imo, so the groundwork is already laid for it; now we have the chance to take it to a new level. (BTW We have similiar issues in Finland with the Sámi where people have actually taken their cases to the Finnish Supreme Court who has ordered that they be considered Sámi, undermining the Sámi communities here who do not consider them Sámi. And it is as frustrating for non-Sámi to understand who is and is not Sámi as it can be for non-NA to understand who is and is not NA.) -Yupik (talk) 08:27, 14 August 2022 (UTC) (who is neither Sámi nor Yup'ik)
Thank you so much for your perspective Yupik. I have thought about this for the last two weeks, trying to weigh all sides. As our goals are to increase un- and under-represented women in the encyclopedia, I would really hate to see our annual initiative sidelined over frustration. I agree with you (and Yuchitown) that the event allows us as editors to gain new understanding of the issues and work together with indigenous partners to ensure that we present factual articles. Working on several 18th and 19th century women this month has certainly opened my eyes to how many indigenous women do not have wikipedia articles. SusunW (talk) 21:54, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
Hi SusunW, I have been thinking about this for a couple of weeks as well. I think the best way forward is for Wikipedia:WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America to be the main host for an editing push In August, and for WiR to be a strong advocate. It could be included in our announcements etc. With that approach, WINA can create the landing page, coordinate with other Indigenous projects and set out the parameters for claims of tribal affiliation. The issue of NA tribal affiliation is important and should be honored. The best way to do this IMO is for the event to be hosted by the Indigenous community. Reading through the comments on the thread is has been brought up several times the the non-native editors cannot understand the nuances of tribal affiliation. If suggestions for articles come from the Indigenous community, the articles can be created under your preferred guidelines. We'd still be leveraging WiR's large following. What do you think? WomenArtistUpdates (talk) 16:41, 28 August 2022 (UTC)
WomenArtistUpdates thanks for responding and suggesting a solution. I definitely think that would work, if that is how the Indigenous project would like to do it, but I don't think we can make a decision on that for editors there. I do think it is a very important segment and within our scope. I also do not think, that it is that "non-native editors cannot understand the nuances", but that the relationships of Native people to various governments is very complex and requires due diligence. (For example, I am not Native, but have studied the issue in the US and Mexico virtually since childhood.) In addition, there seems to be a lot of misunderstanding around the concept of notability and Native identity. Many people had/have family legends of Native ancestry and did/do not intentionally mean to harm Native people by claiming those ties. Just because someone built a career on a mistaken, or fictitious identity, doesn't invalidate their contributions to that community. Clearly one can be an ally without being a member of a community and it shouldn't be a detraction from their contributions to also point out dubious claims. But, I digress. Perhaps Yuchitown or someone else from the indigenous project will weigh in. SusunW (talk) 17:36, 28 August 2022 (UTC)
SusunW, Of course! I didn't mean to suggest we tell anyone what to do. But rather a way to avoid a yearly source of frustration for WINA by WiR running an editathon that creates more problems than it solves. I do hope the WINA is interested in taking the lead. WomenArtistUpdates (talk) 17:47, 28 August 2022 (UTC)
I mentioned the possibility of a Wiki-a-thon at the WP:IPNA's talk page and got crickets. One simple possibility would be to send a message to that WP:IPNA talk page requesting input on proposed lists of biographical subjects. BTW one doesn't have to be Native American to understand Native identity and enrollment, but one does need real world experience with enrollment and how identity plays out (for instance, being employed by a tribe, which plenty of non-Native people do). Yuchitown (talk) 18:57, 28 August 2022 (UTC)Yuchitown
Things are picking up for winter but I will still be around to help in any way that I can if my assistance is needed. This is a subject near and dear to me so I would like to help. --ARoseWolf 13:30, 29 August 2022 (UTC)
Elinor Channel - draft article for checking and moving to main
Hello. Apologies for going silent in late winter. I've decided to work on the September alphabet project as a way of getting my wiki editing skills back into practice, and have started with User:EEHalli/Elinor_Channel. It is rather dependent on academic sources that cite the same 1654 publication but as she is in the ONB I feel she should be considered. I've done a brief check of findagrave to see if I could gather any more biographical information.
Could someone take a look to make sure I've not done anything daft with it? EEHalli (talk) 14:49, 29 August 2022 (UTC)
Looks fine to me. Do you want me to move it to mainsp? Johnbod (talk) 15:01, 29 August 2022 (UTC)
Ditto; all very good (although categories should be unlinked until the page is made live - a colon before the word category, within the square brackets). Last sentence might be better as 'sighted in April 1654'. I hadn't really grokked the fact that she was only, pretty much, seen in the streets throughout her short recorded history & for that reason the final sentence didn't make much sense. The full ODNB article, and other sources you have found, assure her notability. --Tagishsimon (talk) 15:41, 29 August 2022 (UTC)
I was also confused by the final sentence, so I moved it. Please revert if that was not an improvement. TSventon (talk) 17:21, 29 August 2022 (UTC)
I wonder about the term "alleged prophet". The wording at first made me think her existence was questionable, and of course it's impossible to prove anyone is a prophet, so aren't all prophets alleged? pburka (talk) 17:05, 29 August 2022 (UTC)
self-identified? --Tagishsimon (talk) 17:10, 29 August 2022 (UTC)
I like self-identified. I took the phrasing from Anna Trapnell since they were contemporaries. EEHalli (talk) 21:23, 29 August 2022 (UTC)
Done Madeline (part of me) 18:44, 28 August 2022 (UTC)
I think this is resolved; good work.