Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Women in Red/Archive 33

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WIR contest budget

OK, I don't think we can allocate the $4025 budget from WMF evenly for every country as many countries barely have one or two entries listed as missing. We will need to split it by continent and occupation somehow I think but still max out diversity. Here's what I'm currently thinking:


WMF---------------------------------------------------

  • $1000 - top prizes for most articles created during the contest (no cookie cutter style article or PD text is allowed, all articles have to demonstrate original prose and no signs of cut and paste) - $400 1st, $250 2nd, $100 3rd, $50 4th, 4 x $25 5th-9th place, 10 x $10 for further runners up.
  • $500 - most countries of the world done during the contest - one prize only, only if multiple people pull off the same amount will the sum by divided and shared.
  • $1200 - $200 prizes for most articles done for each continent. $100 1st, $50 2nd, $25 3rd, $15 4th, $10 5th. There will be a minimum requirement for diversity to be elligible for this, it won't be acceptable to just produce articles for one country to win it.
  • $1000 - $100 for most articles done for each of the 10 fields of occupation. $50 1st, $25 2nd, $15 3rd, $10 4th
  • $250 of prizes - Whoever reviews the most articles during the contest, includes playing a role with judging/double checking entries, copyediting for quality, reviewing Good articles if needs be, the people who work hardest on that should get decent prizes I think.
  • $75 - A fun bonus for anybody who can spell the most full names of famous women from the first letters of all of their articles during the contest, $50 first, $25 second.

  • $330 (UK £250), most (start class (minimum 1.5 kb) articles created for women in the national dictionary lists for UK and Australia (separate grant)
  • $200 of prizes - Most articles produced on African feminists (from Wiki Loves Women)

Dr. Blofeld 11:28, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

I don't know what we normally do with contest prizes, but shouldn't we spread the money out a bit? for example if we give large prizes to a few very prolific creators that is fine, but we could equally give smaller prizes to a larger group of runner-ups with a smaller main prize. Also we don't have to just give money, we need to get some barnstars happening, and some kind of participation award based on levels (so you get a little badge for each article you make, or maybe some kind of medal/barnstar for making 10/50/100/250 articles, plus prizes for especially fine creations. As well as unique badges to go with the money prizes.
It's worth bearing in mind the value of difficult to find sources and images, finding sources and upload images can be as useful as writing the prose and ought to be included somehow.
I think it is easier to simply arrange the bios into large regions (North America/Europe/Asia/Rest of World) and give a set of specific prizes to each region, and a separate set of prizes for the 'world'.
I am unsure that allocating by occupation is feasible but if we did then there is so much overlap that it could get difficult.
With that in mind.

  • $600 - Global top prizes for most articles on women created during the contest (no cookie cutter style article or PD text is allowed, all articles have to demonstrate original prose and no signs of cut and paste) - $100 1st, $50 2nd, $50 3rd, $10 each for forty further runners up.
  • $225 - a prize fund for creating article on women from the most countries of the world done during the contest - one prize only, only if multiple people pull off the same amount will the sum by divided and shared (only official United Nations recognized countries will count).
  • $500 - Regional top prizes for most articles done for North America, $50 1st, $25 2nd, $25 3rd, $10 each for forty further runners up.
  • $500 - Regional top prizes for most articles done for Europe (EU), $50 1st, $25 2nd, $25 3rd, $10 each for forty further runners up.
  • $500 - Regional top prizes for most articles done for Asia, $50 1st, $25 2nd, $25 3rd, $10 each for forty further runners up.
  • $500 - Regional top prizes for most articles done for Rest of World, $50 1st, $25 2nd, $25 3rd, $10 each for forty further runners up.
  • $500 - Regional top prizes for most articles done for Africa, $50 1st, $25 2nd, $25 3rd, $10 each for forty further runners up.
  • $100 - $10 for most articles done for each of the 10 fields of occupation, one winner per field.
  • $300 of prizes - Whoever reviews the most articles during the contest, includes playing a role with judging/double checking entries, copyediting for quality, reviewing Good articles if needs be, the people who work hardest on that should get decent prizes.
  • $100 A community voted prize for the best article created during the contest - only people who took part in the contest can !vote and an independent person will assess who won, this prize comes with a special award barnstar.
  • $100 - A fun bonus fund to be split between anybody who can create a Good Article/FA from a redlink during the contest. (this will not be awarded until all articles submitted to GA/FA during the contest have been assessed, (a 2 week appeals process will apply to deal with those who believe their article was unfairly assessed.) (edit: no more than $10 per person)
  • $100 - A fun bonus fund to be split between anybody who can create a DYK from a redlink during the contest. (this will not be awarded until all articles submitted to DYK during the contest have been assessed, (a 2 week appeals process will apply to deal with those who believe their article was unfairly assessed.) (edit: no more than $10 per person)

To avoid issues caused by deletions, a delay after the contest before finalizing the winners and monetary awards is recommenced, this delay will also give time for the vote on best article, and for GA/FA/DYK's to work through.


The amounts could be allocated differently, but that’s the basic idea.Dysklyver 14:16, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

So you think somebody who produces hundreds of articles should only get $50 and forty different people who might only produce a dozen should get $10 and somebody get $100 for just producing a DYK? Don't agree. If people want to win the prizes then there's the chance for anybody to win something if they put in the effort. If you don't have larger prizes and make that aspect competitive then you take away some of the incentive to produce a lot. I can see stretching the rewards for each section to maybe the top 5 producers but nothing over that. Keep in miond that I have to buy the Amazon vouchers myself, I don't want to be making hundreds of transactions!♦ Dr. Blofeld 16:47, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

Well, I rather agree with Dysklyver. I find the 1000 dollars prize for one winner a rather high amount of money. What is a bit risky here is that it is not always easy to estimate how much work is provided by a person versus another person. It is not like a picture. As for Wiki Loves Women, we will split our 200 dollars in several prizes (likely 3, like 100, 60 and 40). That is not a lot, but I do not think the money should be the main motivator. We can also give a nice badge, feature the editor on our social networks (maybe an interview would be very cool ?). But this is our little bit :) Anthere (talk) 17:07, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

It isn't 1000 for one winner. $500 1st, $250 2nd, $100 3rd, $50 4th, 4 x $25. I think $500 top prize for most articles produced during the contest given that the focus is on quantity and the budget is over $4000 is reasonable. I'm sure for a lot of the contributors the prize won't be the chief motivating factor, it wasn't in previous contests. People support the cause. I suppose we could stretch the budget to the top ten contributors. "What is a bit risky here is that it is not always easy to estimate how much work is provided by a person versus another person. " , Nothing risky about it, it's a new article creation contest, whoever creates the article and it is approved registers it, it's not a destubathon where people could potentially edit the same article. I'm more concerned about paraphrasing or cookie cutter style entries and finding a way to easily mass generate! ♦ Dr. Blofeld 17:11, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

My main concern is a clear leaderboard emerges in the first day or two and people give up because they feel they can't get to the top spot any more, whereas if we have a number of prizes they might still go for it. I strongly believe that other non-monetary prizes (yep, the badges) are important for this reason. I was unaware we had social networks ^ so something could be organised for that too.
I have edited above after Dr. Blofeld pointed out someone could get $100 for a DYK, this was not the idea. I do think DYK/GA/FA are important as they give us visibility within the Wikipedia community and on the main page, both good things (although if that's outside the scope of this contest then I apologise).
I'm sure for a lot of the contributors the prize won't be the chief motivating factor this is a very important point, we don't want to go overboard on this, if anything this is to make the contest relevant rather than to really reward anyone. However consider in the above figures, the top global contributor is likely to also be the top contributor in a region, so will likely get two prizes.
It is of course fairly easy to see who makes what, but harder if some haters editors go on a CSD/AFD spree, I don't really know what to do about that except hope it doesnt happen and/or arrange for a team to assess and speedy close obvious disruption.
After the comments above I am unsure about how big this contest is, are you saying that it will be possible to be in the top 40 with only a dozen articles? If so by all means let us go with less prizes or more of the imaginative prize ideas. Dysklyver 18:56, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

I've thought more about it and think we could set aside $100 and split into 10 more prizes for the runners up. I'm thinking in terms of they might buy a book to further improve Wikipedia and that some people who still put in a decent effort but not have time to contribute as heavily as the leaders. I still have to buy all the vouchers and sort out email addresses and show to WMF, so it has to be reasonable. We don't know what will be contributed, who knows if we'll even get 40 solid contributors!♦ Dr. Blofeld 06:35, 10 October 2017 (UTC) No leader board will be maintained for the contest, too time consuming, people will just need to look at what others are contributing. So we don't have to worry about things like that.♦ Dr. Blofeld 06:38, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

Big fan of splitting up the prizes a little bit - I'm really keen to participate but I also have frenetic commitments during November so I'm just never going to stand a chance of winning the big prizes against contributors with actual time on their hands, and the encouragement to make a specific effort isn't quite the same if it's impossible to take home a prize. Really, really not a fan of Dysklyver's suggestion of grouping Oceania, Latin America and god knows what other countries into a "Rest of the World" category - US/Eurocentricism coming into play would really be a disincentive. The Drover's Wife (talk) 11:41, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
Yes, I don't mind fitting in some smaller ones as some people will have commitments. OK, $400 top prize and 10 x $10, so top 20, that's reasonable as it takes an effort to buy a lot of vouchers for many people!♦ Dr. Blofeld
I am in favour of the ^ above top 20, I am still trying to grapple with the continent thing, since by population and therefore by probability of numbers, Asia is massively bigger (and Oceania a tiny fraction). yet by proportion of literature, europe / north america has the greatest amount of sources and therefore the most available articles. I think we need to split it down into smaller sections if we want to get actual diversity.
Europe/North America - one unit (to avoid the above noted US/Euro centricism)
Africa - of course this should be a unit, if it is equal to the US/EU block, they perhaps people will make more effort with it.
Latin America - including mexico and those other places in central america
Islands and Ocean - Caribbean, Australia & NZ, Malaysia, all pacific islands (except Hawaii and Japan) and all other small islands that are not really anywhere - we could put Iceland and Greenland in this category. (but not mediterranean islands, which are in the EU, and madagascar, which is in Africa - and not the UK, which does not count.)
Asia - this is a nightmare, but unless chinese speakers get overly into it we ought to have a good mix (I think Russia should be in this group, rather the Europe)
Dysklyver 19:59, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
Dysklyver..."and all other small islands that are not really anywhere"? is really unacceptable. (Why is there a distinction on Mediterranean Islands and African islands as "belonging", but omitting the others as what? The Caribbean countries are part of North America. Malaysia is part of Asia. Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands are part of Oceania. What arbitrariness justifies lumping these dissimilar places together?) This all just makes my head spin. I am looking forward to the contest Dr. B but won't be competing with anyone but me to see how many of my islanders I can add. SusunW (talk) 22:49, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
Yes of course, you can treat it as an editathon and not worry about competing with people. That's not the point of the contest, but the goal is of course to max out what gets created in one month.♦ Dr. Blofeld 10:31, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
Ok but to clarify, I fear the Caribbean will be overlooked if lumped together with the USA. According to my wall map Malaysia is in Oceania, so I didn't think it to put it in Asia (and will probably buy a new wall map). Historically most these islands I was referring to were British maritime dominions, so it makes sense to me to group them, and hence the omission of Greece and Madagascar, but maybe that's not sensible. Dysklyver 23:13, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
I can assure you the Caribbean countries will not be overlooked. Their history is much more complex than the British colonial period, including Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch and French colonization periods, as well as U.S. Usually they are lumped with Latin America and get lost in that shuffle as well. SusunW (talk) 00:09, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
What about one for Central America and the Caribbean, and another for South America? –FlyingAce✈hello 20:53, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

I reckon that now the contest is live (well its being advertised, not started yet) we should define the "minimum requirement for diversity", and define the 10 professions we are talking about. Otherwise what is at Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/The World Contest/Prizes looks good to me. Dysklyver 13:56, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

The rules and prize claim sections already state what the 10 occupations are and The minimum requirement for diversity is already defined. It's a mechanism to discourage systematic bias.♦ Dr. Blofeld 07:18, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

Until now, Women in Red has been really inclusive. We have achieved diversity through the focus of our monthly editathons. For a world contest, in which we are trying to encourage participation from even the smallest developing countries, I don't think it would be advisable to complicate things by making diversity a basic requirement. On the other hand, the idea of awarding prizes for coverage of women from several different countries is a good idea.--Ipigott (talk) 14:29, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

Anybody can contribute anything they want to the contest,. Many people might not compete and just do articles on what they want. But if people want to win large prizes then they at least have to edit women on more than one topic and country. Sorry, the goal of the contest is to perfect a mechanism to max out creation and make it as diverse as possible. If I don't have requirements to win prizes then the likelihood is that less countries and topics will be covered and people will ignore a lot of countries. Just trust me on this.♦ Dr. Blofeld 07:12, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:List_of_pioneers_in_computer_science#The_first_X_to_achieve_Y_is_not_noteworthy. Zazpot (talk) 15:24, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

Proposal to add NWHL to Hockey notability guideline

There is currently a proposal put forth by another editor to add the top American women's league, the NWHL, to the Hockey notability guideline: WP:NHOCKEY. As it stands now, the WP:NHOCKEY excludes most women players in top leagues, including the NWHL. Articles about women players for the most part rely on WP:GNG though "fails WP:NHOCKEY" is often noted in AFDs (articles nominated for deletion discussions). The discussion is here. Input is welcome. Hmlarson (talk) 20:38, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

I suppose you mean National Women's Hockey League (2015–)--Ipigott (talk) 22:10, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

Threatened with deletion. See also the article's talk page and the discussion under Draft list of the world's most prominent women on this page.--Ipigott (talk) 08:55, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

Ipigott, I have the greatest admiration for this project and for you for starting it, but this list (as several editors have pointed out in the discussion above and on the article talk page) is very unlikely to survive AfD. The very first recommendation at Wikipedia:Stand-alone_lists#Appropriate_topics_for_lists is to avoid [l]ists that are too general or too broad in scope. This list is theoretically near-infinite in scope.
The spirit of the idea is hugely commendable but even if the list can be defended in light of WP:SYN (and I'm not convinced of that) then the problem of the inclusion/exclusion criteria has to be tackled. Do you really want to spend the next x years policing this huge list? A Traintalk 17:01, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
Thanks A Train for your comments here and on the AfD page. There I suggested that in view of all the literature and the many websites addressing the issue in one way or another, we should now give further consideration to how best we can cover the impact women achievers have had over the centuries. Perhaps the results would be better presented as a well-referenced timeline or in running prose rather than as a list. As for lists for the mainspace, one constructive suggestion has been that we might create a list of world women's firsts along the lines of List of American women's firsts. In any case, now that Dr. Blofeld has kindly copied the list to Women in Green, we can decide on the best way to go forward. The "numbering" of the names in the list was not an attempt at ranking but simply an aid to see how many names were being included as the article was further developed. I did not intend to keep them. In answer to the previous comment, I don't really think the list is potentially "near-infinite in scope" if it is to be limited to women who have been major achievers in impacting world development. But that's something we can continue to discuss in connection with Wikipedia:WikiProject Women/Women in Green/Most prominent women where the list can now be seen. It might be useful to copy the various discussions to the talk page there.--Ipigott (talk) 06:57, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

It's definitely useful list which I think potentially could be used for a core women contest. I'd like to see a top 1000 list.♦ Dr. Blofeld 08:16, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

Dr. Blofeld: Would the goal of a core women contest be to raise the quality of the articles from start to C, C to B, and even up to GA or FA? If so, it would be useful to tag each article with its present class status. If we try to bring the list up to around a thousand names, it might be useful to develop major areas of impact (history, culture, entertainment, civil rights, business, leadership, etc.) and to include more achievers from around the world, especially from the African, Asian and Latin-American countries. We should also use reliable background sources to establish prominence (rather than just taking women's names from existing "vital lists" and other EN wiki lists of women).--Ipigott (talk) 09:38, 12 October 2017 (UTC)
To GA status. But could also have prizes towards cleaning up bloated, poorly sourced bios whyich are C-B class as well. We have those in abundance on here. I would love to run something focusing on quality writing for important women.♦ Dr. Blofeld 09:28, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
I was delighted to stumble upon this list of "Distinguished Women" compiled in 1889 in The New People's Cyclopedia of Universal Knowledge: With Numerous Appendixes Invaluable for Reference in All Departments of Industrial Life, and with the Pronunciation and Orthography Conformed to Webster's Dictionary ... Including a Complete and Indexed Atlas of the Globe. It's interesting in that someone else compiled such list. I am not suggesting that we use it ourselves. --Rosiestep (talk) 21:46, 12 October 2017 (UTC)
@Rosiestep: that list sounds interesting to see, but the link doesn't get to it, only to the book. The whole 4 vols of 1889 ed are online at Hathi Trust ... ahah, found the list here, ie vol 4 pages 1956-1958. I wonder how many of them are already in en.wiki? Might have a go at checking, tomorrow or sometime. I see they're not all American - includes "Italian artist", "Queen of Assyria" and "Bavarian princess" as well as "Wife of Geo. Washington". I also noticed "Norickee, May Alcott: Successful painter: Died 1879" who has neither Wikipedia article nor any ghits: "success" was evidently rather transient for her (or is she a challenge someone will take up?) PamD 23:27, 12 October 2017 (UTC)
@PamD: see Abigail May Alcott Nieriker (has been around since 2003 too!). Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:01, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
I've created the La Négresse (Nieriker painting) redirect. Feel free to convert that to a proper article. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:10, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
@Headbomb: Ah, thanks. I'll make a redirect when I'm on a real computer not phone. If that's the general level of accuracy of the 'Cyclopedia then perhaps best left well alone! PamD 05:51, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
That sounds interesting, Rosiestep, if only to investigate the names listed. I came across several 19th-century books on famous women, for example Adam's Cyclopaedia of Female Biography. Several more are listed in Uglow, J.; Hendry, M. (8 March 2005). The Palgrave Macmillan Dictionary of Women's Biography. Palgrave Macmillan UK. pp. 11–. ISBN 978-0-230-50577-3. but I have not found digitized versions. There were also interesting works in other languages: Les étoiles du monde: galerie historique des femmes les plus célèbres de tous les temps et de tous les pays ... dessins de G. Staal. Garnier. 1858.. Müller, Wilhelm (1876). Historische Frauen. Springer.--Ipigott (talk) 08:58, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
Ipigott, I've had a chance to look over some of the less-known entries and find them interesting as well. --Rosiestep (talk) 14:56, 14 October 2017 (UTC)
Ipigott Perhaps we need our own "list of lists of famous women", with special emphasis on international sources available online without paywalls. From page xiii of the Palgrave Macmillan Dictionary linked above, there's a list of interesting-sounding titles. The first one I checked, H.G. Adams "Cyclopedia of female biography ..." 1857 (under "International Biographical Dictionaries", "Pre-20th-century sources" on page Xiv, which lists an 1869 edition), is available online full text, all 815 pages, here. Scope for a lot of interesting articles, at least as a starting-off point. It offers keyword search eg for "Artist" but I suspect the results are likely to be a bit iffy as it'll be dependent on OCR of a rather elderly volume. PamD 15:19, 14 October 2017 (UTC)
And in the wonderful time-sink way of Wikipedia I thought I'd have a look at the woman nearest to my username in that 1857 listing: Pamphila the Greek historian now has a previously-lacking redirect from Pamphila of Epidaurus to the existing article at Pamphile of Epidaurus, and there's a dab page at Pamphila because I found this former genus-name of butterflies which seemed to need an article. And I need to tidy the house ahead of book group meeting, etc etc. Happy Editing, everyone. PamD 15:57, 14 October 2017 (UTC)
PamD: I'll have to be more precise in my contributions here. I thought I had clearly provided a link to the digitized version of Cyclopedia of Female Biography but it was obviously not clear enough. Good to hear you've covered Pamphila. Rosiestep: Yes, I think it would be a really good idea to compile a list of easily accessible online biographical dictionaries and lexicons for WiR. Unfortunately, a lot depends on the country you live in and the library privileges you have. Access to Google's digitized books also varies from country to country. Nevertheless, it's worth a try. We might even provide information on how accessible each one is. I think this could be a useful assignment for Megalibrarygirl and her library friends around the world once we get over the pressures of October and November.--Ipigott (talk) 16:16, 14 October 2017 (UTC)
Ipigott You were perfectly precise: I was reading imperfectly and got confused as to what you hadn't found digital sources for! Adams was the first one from Palgrave that I checked and I didn't spot that you'd already covered it. Sorry about that. To make up for that goof, looking from the bottom of that same section, I can't find Proudhomme online but Hays in 3 volumes is online at the Hathi Trust here. PamD 16:36, 14 October 2017 (UTC)
PamD: Thanks for Hays. That's very useful too. When I have a bit more time next week, I'll try to put together a WiR page on fully accessible biographical dictionaries, etc.--Ipigott (talk) 16:39, 14 October 2017 (UTC)
And looking at Hays for "nearest to my editorname" led me to Anne de Parthenai, searching for whom led me to List of women in Female Biography, a table of all 300 women in Hays' work, created 2014. It's a wonderful creation, with lots of unlinked ladies to consider for future work. I'll ping its creator @K.Grey:, to let her know about this discussion. And I'm delighted to see that she's another librarian! PamD 16:45, 14 October 2017 (UTC)
@Ipigott: Forgot to ping. PamD 16:48, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

PamD: Yes, I came across this interesting list when I was compiling the list of prominent women. K.Grey went to a great deal of trouble to create it. It's a pity she's no longer around to help us with other lists.--Ipigott (talk) 17:03, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

@Ipigott: That List of women in Female Biography is proving a fascinating time-sink: trying to resolve the unlinked ladies. I've resolved seven so far - a couple of links to existing articles, some new redirects, one brand new stub. And that's as far as most of the "A"s. PamD 22:51, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

I have just recovered a distruptive editing on this article made by an IP address with the reason:"The article was excessive for such a minor personality. I have trimmed it and removed the cruft"... now all material removed was sourced and among the cruft was that she obtained an AB from Wahington University, she obtained a fellowship in social services (in 1912!), she was included in a poetry anthology by women edited by Sara Teasdale, many society events for which she was a major player... some of the reasons to temove this content are the news appeared in society columns... which is among the primary sources for women's history back in the 1900s... my opinion is that there is still a lot of prejudice against women on wikipedia Elisa.rolle (talk) 13:54, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

I think there is a lot of prejudice on Wikipedia period. Even on something as simple as the order of words in a single sentence can give rise to over 10,000 words of heated debate. Part of the problem with prejudice against women is that editors don't take into account the difficult job of proving a woman’s accomplishments when they are under-represented and under-reported-on, there are too many people that just steamroller over minority issues because 'I haven’t heard of that' and 'you need more sources for that'. These same people will argue to the teeth against any attempt to edit the pages of their pop culture icons and when the hypocrisy is pointed out, they simply cry policy and say 'Wikipedia doesn't work on precedent'.
Many of the issues we have with this could be solved with a policy (or guideline) that formally adopts some positive discrimination of the kind used in real life (like the Equality Act 2010). At the moment we have Wikipedia:Systemic bias, which carries no weight and is ignored because it is 'merely an essay'. Dysklyver 15:24, 7 October 2017 (UTC)
now the position is that Im pushing a gendergap feminist LGBTQA agenda with the article... when the link to the lesbian community is not at all declared in the article and can be seen only through the link with the Potter's Wheel, suggested to have among the members some lesbians (not Colby) and Sara Teasdale, again suggested to be lesbian. Content removed referred also to these topics. Elisa.rolle (talk) 16:39, 7 October 2017 (UTC)
And... I received a nice warning "If you have a WIR agenda, please stay out of this" considering the article has the #00 WiR project banner this comment is very appropriate, isn't it? Elisa.rolle (talk) 17:23, 7 October 2017 (UTC)
They linked this page [1] and the opening is "WIKIPEDIA : Vine Colby, collaborative exercise in Western LGBT imperialism: Lead author 'Elisa.rolle' self identifies as queer Second author 'Ipiggot' self identifies as a member of WikiProject Classical music. Third author 'Yoninah' self identifies as Jewish"... what I have to understand? that since I'm queer, Ipigott loves classical music (?) and Yoninah is jewish (what does it matter anyway? I did not even know that), the article has to be reduced to a level of info that does not justify its existance and therefore merged? Elisa.rolle (talk) 17:27, 7 October 2017 (UTC)
This appears to be a very serious abuse issue rather than the standard editor disagreements, I have requested indefinite semi-protection to avoid unnecessary abuse, if it persists then we should take it to whatever noticeboard deals with abuse (I am not sure which one it is). Dysklyver 19:31, 7 October 2017 (UTC)
I've semi-protected it for two weeks for now. Just let me know if anything else wants doing. --Ser Amantio di NicolaoChe dicono a Signa?Lo dicono a Signa. 05:36, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

BBC 100 Women

The introductory page reveals some interesting statistics on the current gender gap. The 2017 list contains many interesting women but how many of them will qualify for the EN wiki's stringent inclusion criteria? Is it worth even attempting to create Wikipedia biographies on the remaining redlinks on BBC 100 Women? --Ipigott (talk) 11:12, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

IMO yes. The BBC 100 women only chooses relevant women, so the likelihood is that all women on said list will be notable at some point even if their articles get deleted at first. Dysklyver 11:30, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
For some of them, I would be surprised if they ever meet our notability criteria. Some are more a personification of what the BBC considers to be something relevant, rather than necessarily being notable individuals in our terms. Some will already meet our notability criteria, some will not, and of the later, some will some day. Edwardx (talk) 12:39, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

It seems like the talk page of the "Women and disability" project is not being watched by experienced members. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 07:20, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Work on Wikidata

Hi there, I dont know where to announce this. I have been contacted by Hsarrazin who has recently worked on Wikidata. Women in telegraphy (Q55201) Women in early radio (Q55185) (P1269) [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q41612 History of women in engineering (Q41612), She would like me to let it know so that someone uses theses wikidata properties in the context of the gender gap. --Nattes à chat (talk) 04:27, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

Bonjour, Nattes à chat. Ça fait longtemps que nous n'avons plus eu de vos nouvelles. On the subject of telegraphy, it's interesting to know that there has been work on Wikidata but as far as I can see, "Télégraphiste" is not a even a category on the French wiki although Category:Telegraphists does exist in English. It contains only a handful of names and only three woman: Louisa Margaret Dunkley, whose Wikidata profession was "trade unionist", Mathilde Fibiger, "writer" and Wilhelmina Magdalene Stuart who had no Wikidata profession. I have added "telegraphist" to the Wikidata profiles of all three. Is there anything else Hsarrazin would like us to do?--Ipigott (talk) 15:04, 12 October 2017 (UTC)
Bonjour Ipigott I am really busy on the francophone side as the project les sans pages is virtually blooming (1577 articles in one year). But I am following the WIR twitter account very closely! Louisa Margaret Dunkley and Wilhelmina Magdalene Stuart definitely need to be expanded in their French versions. For the moment I'm working on a list of african feminists, but I don't know how to use SPARQL queries on wikidata, so I'm working from the articles in English. If anyone can help I'd be soooo grateful! I need such a working list of missing articles in french and english for the end of October for a joint work with Anthere. --Nattes à chat (talk) 09:22, 14 October 2017 (UTC)
Nattes à chat: I've put together a list at User:Ipigott/French feminists wikidata of all the Wikidata entries coded feminist which are not covered in the French wiki. You can sort them by country by clicking on the heading "country of citizenship". Those blue-linked are covered in English, those red-linked are covered in other languages which you can find by clicking on the Q code under "item". As far as I can see, there are very few feminists listed for the African countries. Hope this helps.--Ipigott (talk) 10:16, 14 October 2017 (UTC)
We can start from there. Thanks Ipigott. I'll create lists for a bunch of countries where we have editors Anthere (talk)
Well, the Africa list will not be very long... found out Tania Leon and Jennifer Radloff (SA), Philo Ikonya and Fatuma Ali Saman (Kenya), Vanessa Koutouan (IC), Jaha Dukureh (Gambia) and Funmi Falana (Nigeria). That's it. I'll do reverse engineering... Anthere (talk) 09:21, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
Thank you! So nice of you… --Nattes à chat (talk) 13:50, 14 October 2017 (UTC)
so I pasted to the link to this page on the project page of les sans pages. I happen to know the only French feminist cited, and the article is in Spanish so I will ask Aneses if she can translate… Great many many thanks! --Nattes à chat (talk) 14:02, 14 October 2017 (UTC)
Didn't know there was such a category. Last month I did the only National Heroine in Nicaragua. She was a telegraphist, so have added her to the cat. SusunW (talk) 14:11, 14 October 2017 (UTC)
Hi SusunW, thank you!--Nattes à chat (talk) 14:20, 14 October 2017 (UTC)
Nattes à chat: I was interested in your statistic of 1,577 new articles on women in one year. It looks to me as if you are counting only the articles related to the WikiProject Sans pagEs. Overall, at 16.43% the proportion of biographies on the French wiki is slightly lower than on the English (17.11%) but I can see that your week-by-week figures for new women's biographies are impressive. Last week, for example, 191 of the 683 new biographies were on women. That represents 27.96%, far higher than the 17.90% for English (details at WHGI). I was also interested to see that there are now over 1.9 million articles in French and that there are 782 active editors on the French wiki compared with 3,435 active editors on the English wiki (see Wikipedia Statistics). Overall, it looks as if the French wiki is advancing quickly in the right direction.--Ipigott (talk) 09:36, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

Hi all, I would like to chime in here on adding that it would probably be a good thing to setup a "Woman in Red" project on Wikidata, though my purpose is not so much to create items that don't exist yet as it is to improve the items we already have. If anyone is interested let me know (also any suggestions for a page title? Maybe just "Wikidata:WikiProject Gendergap"?). One item of concern I have had for a long time is the number of women lacking occupations on Wikidata. A brief glance at the list (last count for English Wikipedia articles is 47,337 items about women without the property occupation set for them) shows many noblewomen whose articles begin with "daughter of so-and-so", etc. To reduce the backlog we should set up various items such as occupations for noblewomen and others who are "famous for being famous". Same thing for works by women such as companies they founded, events they hosted/caused/recorded, works they created or played a significant role in, etc. So please let me know if you are interested. An example edit on Wikidata would be like this one I just made. Thx. Jane (talk) 10:14, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Librarian's Missing Article Prize

The Librarian's Missing Article Prize is being put up to the editors who work the hardest in manually building the missing article lists between now and 31 October. $75 worth of books is being offered, so if anybody here wants a book to contribute here please consider working on them!♦ Dr. Blofeld 11:13, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

This is a good idea, but some of these lists are in really dire shape at the moment: a significant chunk of the Australian list are people who are very non-notable (I haven't heard of 95% of them, and a few random Google searches are struggling to even establish that some of those people exist), and it's discouraging both in taking the time to build the list and working from it if 95% of it is dreck. I'm also noticing similar in the Papua New Guinean list, and half of the rest in Oceania are, like, canoeists or athletes who would probably require automated generation from statistical sources to be able to build even a stub. Does this include giving these a good prune? The Drover's Wife (talk) 11:55, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Yes, a significant effort to try to get the most notable women on the list as well and filter them.♦ Dr. Blofeld 12:05, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

New Wikidata Project

We now have d:Wikidata:WikiProject Women for any Wikidatans around here. Jane (talk) 14:07, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Thank you Jane023 for bringing this to our attention. Not too long ago you give us a link to the backlog of women with no occupation on Wikidata. I have since tried to add the occupation(s) whenever I am looking at a recently created article on the EN wiki but I also frequently come across lack of occupation on much older articles I find in other languages. The shortcoming can also be clearly seen in our many lists of redlinks on women by country. I'm always particularly surprised at how many recent articles are entered in Wikidata with only the dates of birth and/or death, with no general description, no nationality and no occupation. I would be interested to hear how editors working primarily on Wikidata handle the coding of new articles. Are dates considered to be more important than other details? As for occupations, has any consideration been given to looking at the occupation categories in the various language versions of Wikipedia? This could be one way of trying to reduce the backlog, either directly or by creating a Wikidata edit for human approval. In any case, I'll try to help you to reduce the backlog as time permits. There is often also room for adding images under media.--Ipigott (talk) 15:50, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
Thanks! Wikidata does have new page patrollers in the sense of people checking the new items queue, but most items coming from Wikipedia versions tend to be skipped (theoretically the sitelink is itself a patrolled edit, though not on Wikidata). I am not a new item patroller, but edit a lot in the Sum of all Paintings project. I have said before, and will say it again, that the best way to contribute a new article on Wikipedia is to begin on Wikidata and then later make the article using all of the data from the item. Now it mostly happens the other way around, and the only information that is ever eventually added to the item (besides the sitelink) is done by hand by someone who happens along, or by bulk edits using Wikipedia categories and tools like petscan. This leaves us with very few labels, descriptions, and statements per item, I'm afraid. it would reduce the workload for all concerned if the initial writer would take care of the item+article at the same time. Of course the same is true for any images that might be used in the article - sadly many images are uploaded with the default uploader and never get properly categorized or added to the Wikidata item. Jane (talk) 17:36, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
Hi Jane023, good idea. I added my name to the project. I have much to learn. --Rosiestep (talk) 18:44, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Wikimedia-l thread on WiR World Contest

I don't know how many editors here are on the Wikimedia-l mailing list, but there's a thread on the upcoming World Contest that is pretty awful. Funcrunch (talk) 20:03, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

I aim for 1500 bytes for all articles I make before the World Contest came up ever since I did the Africa Destubathon. Cause of that message, I'll only release my articles with 1500 bytes or more and not release them even if they pass 1000 bytes to avoid labelling them as stubs. However, look at the following messages from the linked url above to see more of the discussion. --MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 20:09, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
It is worth bearing in mind the need for quality, but I don't think its a major worry, the articles will be checked at NPP. Dysklyver 21:28, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
Thanks, Funcrunch. You're right; there are some awful posts. But there is really strong support, too. And the thread is bringing more eyes on the subject of content gender gap, which is helpful. Yup, my nickname is Pollyanna. :) --Rosiestep (talk) 21:58, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
Eh, I don't know...I read some of it, and while the first post is pretty unpleasant it seems to me the vast majority of posters take issue with it, which is encouraging. --Ser Amantio di NicolaoChe dicono a Signa?Lo dicono a Signa. 00:50, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

Yes, really creepy trying to sabotage the contest from behind the scenes. The sad thing is that he's not even given it a chance or tried to offer constructive input. Nothing is final yet anyway and it may still be 1.5 kb and more prizes for quality . It's a big insult to the decent editors signed up that they wouldn't produce good content.♦ Dr. Blofeld 07:33, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

Where is that claim that AfC requires 1.5kb of prose even coming from? I've never heard of that rule, and I know I've approved articles with less than that; as of this writing, there are multiple listed at Wikipedia:Articles for creation/recent that don't meet that requirement. TheCatalyst31 ReactionCreation 12:57, 17 October 2017 (UTC)
I've only used the 1.5kb rule ever since I participated in the Africa Destubathon. I tend to use it to prevent articles being tagged as stubs. I don't know about AFC though but there's multiple interpretations about how long in order to be destubbed. --MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 20:07, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

#MeToo

Are there any project members who care to help improve the Me too (hashtag) article, or participate in any of the related ongoing discussions? ---Another Believer (Talk) 22:22, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

Betty Kellett Nadeau

I just unprodded Betty Kellett Nadeau (Mrs. E. H. Nadeau, an early-to-mid-20th-century paleontologist) after finding some sources, but I think it could use more. I know there are people here who are expert in searching newspaper archives from those times — do they have anything helpful on her? —David Eppstein (talk) 22:34, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

David Eppstein I am finding nada in newspapers on her, but archive.org has this and this (the last one shows a genus Bekena named after her.) Hathitrust also has quite a few articles. [2], [3], [4] as samples. I know nothing of paleontology, so am not really comfortable adding information to the file. SusunW (talk) 23:10, 17 October 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for the search. I will see what I can do with those links. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:25, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

Technical assist

Can anyone tell me why I am getting this message "The LCCN id n86815041‏ is not valid" on Sally Rogow's file when this [5] clearly shows that is the Library of Congress number? Actually, you don't have to tell me if you can just fix the technical snafu. SusunW (talk) 22:36, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

Thank you Funcrunch! SusunW (talk) 23:20, 17 October 2017 (UTC)
@SusunW: No problem. You had an extra character ("‏" - you can see it as a red dot if you edit source) at the end of the LoC number. I added the LoC and VIAF numbers directly into the wikidata entry and removed the paramaters from the article. Wasn't sure about the ISNI number though, I didn't see an entry for Rogow on that site. Funcrunch (talk) 23:23, 17 October 2017 (UTC)
However you did it Funcrunch works for me. ISNI is under Rogow, Sally Muriel 0000 0000 7385 063X [6] What is weird is that before I save them, I preview and make sure the links work. It worked before I saved it and then as soon as I did, it gave that error. Technology is a blessing and a curse ;) SusunW (talk) 23:34, 17 October 2017 (UTC)
Got it. For some reason the ISNI search wasn't returning her entry when I just searched by last name. Funcrunch (talk) 23:44, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

November editathons from Women in Red: Join us!

Welcome to Women in Red's November 2017 worldwide online editathons.


New: The Women in Red World Contest

Continuing: #1day1woman Global Initiative

(To subscribe: Women in Red/English language mailing list and Women in Red/international list. Unsubscribe: Women in Red/Opt-out list)

-Megalibrarygirl (talk) 16:19, 21 October 2017 (UTC) via MassMessaging

In case you missed these grant proposals

There are several grant proposals currently under review which align with the scope of Women in Red. The editors are seeking comments on how to improve them and/or endorsements. There may be others which I've overlooked so please add here if you spot one. Note, Women in Red has never applied for a grant. If you think we could benefit by applying for one, let's start the conversation; we have a few months before the next submission period. --Rosiestep (talk) 15:13, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

Well, I applied for a grant on behalf of Women in Red didn't I?♦ Dr. Blofeld 15:20, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

OMG, yes, of course, Dr. Blofeld. I was looking at all these project grants and forgot about this successful contest proposal. Sorry about that. I think I need more coffee! --Rosiestep (talk) 15:49, 21 October 2017 (UTC)
Don't worry, I guess it wasn't applied for as a sole grant for WIR and by multiple members here though so we are yet to get a full grant for just WIR! .♦ Dr. Blofeld 16:21, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

Could somebody edit File:Robinson projection SW.jpg to make Africa in the centre have the women in red logo coveirng the land?♦ Dr. Blofeld 12:05, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

Sorry doc, I'm a failure with technology. Megalibrarygirl is this something you can do? SusunW (talk) 16:23, 20 October 2017 (UTC)
I can do it, SusunW and Dr. Blofeld. I'll try on my slow, old computer at home, but it may have to wait till I get to the library tomorrow morning, where I can use the photo editing software we have there. But it's easy to do. :) Megalibrarygirl (talk) 18:36, 20 October 2017 (UTC)
@Dr. Blofeld and Megalibrarygirl: I think it would be cool to have all those ethnic ones you did like little pushpins images popping up all over that map ;) SusunW (talk) 18:47, 20 October 2017 (UTC)
Woman from Argentina
SusunW that would be very cool :D What do you think, Dr. Blofeld? Megalibrarygirl (talk) 16:23, 21 October 2017 (UTC)
Dunno, have some fun and see what you can come up with :-).♦ Dr. Blofeld 16:48, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

Frances Prince was nominated for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Frances Prince. She was "the first female mayor of Thousand Oaks, California". Can anyone find more sources about her? Cunard (talk) 04:14, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

Le projet "Les sans pagEs" essaie de combler l'énorme différence entre le nombre de pages Wikipédia consacrées aux hommes et celui des pages consacrées aux femmes.

The latest press (in French) regarding Les sans pagEs (our sister project) and Women in Red.[7] A very big thank you to Nattes à chat! --Rosiestep (talk) 20:15, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

👍 Like Really nice article! SusunW (talk) 20:51, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
Yes, really encouraging. I see that Nattes à chat is involved in a workshop on harassment and the gender gap at this week's French wiki-convention in Strasbourg. See here. We look forward to hearing how it went.--Ipigott (talk) 10:19, 17 October 2017 (UTC)
Thank you! I only saw your message today, seems the notification did not work. The workshop went well, we even had the visit of Katherine Maher! I'm afraid I dont have concrete results to show, we need to work more on the subject. Findings however is that we should focus a little bit on victims to adress their needs, and not only on tools tracing harassment. We presented what is being done at WMF level (a special thanks to User:Anthere who made a wonderful presentation). --Nattes à chat (talk) 12:08, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

Women, disability, and Deaf culture

I just read an article by a Deaf author, Sara Nović, who I think should have a Wikipedia article. But considering her stance on Deaf culture, I don't know if an article on her would be appropriate to include in this month's Women and Disability edit-a-thon. (Deaf people who capitalize the term typically do not consider themselves to be impaired.) Thoughts, particularly from any Deaf editors? Funcrunch (talk) 21:26, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

Maybe check in with WP:WikiProject Deaf for guidance on this one. Penny Richards (talk) 14:17, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

Just saw this - looks like she could meet the notability requirement, though I'm not sure. But it needs a lot of work to get there. Anyone want to take a look? --Ser Amantio di NicolaoChe dicono a Signa?Lo dicono a Signa. 13:57, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

Rescued this from CSD A7 today - there's a more detailed article on nl.wiki, but it's unsourced. She looks like she's a household name in Holland, and has plenty of news sources - but they're all in Dutch, and I can't get further than "Godedag, hoe get het mit je?" (which I've probably spelled wrong) and "Mooi!" - so can anyone else help expand the article a bit? Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 17:29, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

I've added a few bits and pieces but it could be developed further.--Ipigott (talk) 15:05, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

Under-representation of science and women in Africa: Wikimania 2018 an opportunity to bridge the gap

Hello All. I've just started this project Wikipedia:Under-representation of science and women in Africa: Wikimania 2018 an opportunity to bridge the gap. If anyone is interested please dive in. :) Looking forward to this! Thanks. Ear-phone (talk) 15:36, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

  • Ear-phone: I welcome this initiative but must draw your attention to the difficulty of having the biographies of African women accepted on Wikipedia, especially those working in science. As you probably know, a powerful team of article reviewers consistently follow criteria defined by DGG for accepting science researchers and academics. Basic requirements here are a full professorship at a university or failing this, several rich secondary sources pointing to the individual's notability. I frequently come across African women scientists with articles in the French wiki but I realize they would be rapidly AfD'd here as they do not meet these basic requirements. As Katherine Maher recently pointed out in her Forbes article, "There is plenty of knowledge in the world that is important but not documented in accordance with traditional Western standards of scholarship. How do we bring that knowledge into the Wikimedia ecosystem?" Unless we can bring about a new method of dealing with this problem, progress on African women will unfortunately be minimal.--Ipigott (talk) 16:11, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
Thank you for the cautionary message Ipigott. I however do not see a major challenge - Members of the Academy of Science of South Africa are world class and have been rigorously selected by peer review comparable to that of any top science academy in the world. This initiative has a very specific remit. Please dive in. Ear-phone (talk) 16:22, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
  • Ipigott: Really cool to have you on board. Thanks. :) Ear-phone (talk) 16:34, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
Hope I can be of assistance. But there are only about 25 women redlisted on your list of members of the Academy of Science of S.A. If we take up this problem on Women in Red, I would hope that we could create several hundred new biographies of African women in science. It might be useful for you to work together with Anthere and her friends who have already done a great deal to improve African coverage. Dr. Blofeld might be interested in arranging a contest in support of your objective. Good luck and thanks for creating Laetitia Rispel and Heather Zar. It might be useful for you to become a member of the Women in Red project where you could collaborate more closely with those of us who are working on women's biographies.--Ipigott (talk) 16:40, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
  • Ipigott: I have joined Women in Red. :) Thank you! Hello Anthere and Dr. Blofeld. Looking forward to this! There are about 125 Women members of the Academy of Science of S.A. I am still in the process of transcribing, in alphabetic order, the ~ 125 Women members from this list. I had finished surnames beginning with "G", "H" through to "Z" still to go. Any help transcribing the list to here would be most welcome. Thanks. Ear-phone (talk) 17:09, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
Hi Ear-phone. Thanks for joining Women in Red, and for participating in any way you wish! There might be more progress with your new project if it were expanded to include additional occupations, for example, women writers and women artists. Has there been any discussion about this possibility? --Rosiestep (talk) 18:36, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Agreed that African women in science is a very poor area of coverage. However in my experience projects with a narrow focus rarely attract numbers. I agree with Rosie. I think if you were to organize an African women contest for all occupations but give the largest rewards for science and tech that would be the way to do it.♦ Dr. Blofeld 18:54, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Members of the Academy of Science of South Africa automatically pass WP:PROF#C3 and are therefore well-defended against AfD (assuming the membership is stated and properly sourced in the article). So regardless of broader goals of covering a larger number of women in science across all of Africa, this list seems like a good place to start. I presume other African countries have similar academies, and there's also the continent-wide African Academy of Sciences; those might be good places to look for more names to add, for the same reason. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:47, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
  • Ear-phone: I've completed your list. I hope I've included all the women and none of the men.--Ipigott (talk) 18:46, 18 October 2017 (UTC)
@user:Ear-phone. I work myself on the Wikipedia:WikiProject Wiki Loves Women, which primarily focused on trying to collect already existing content (in NGO or public institutions hands) and secondarily training women in Africa to join the community. Please have a look :) (http://www.wikiloveswomen.org). I also happen to be on the general Wikimania committee and actually suggested to the CapTown team that we could do a little "special thing" around women issues during Wikimania. Apparently, the program committee is being formed at the moment. We actually have a meeting to discuss Wikimania in... 5 mn. I'll inquire of the status. Do you happen to live in South Africa ? Anthere (talk)
Oh and... if you have pictures of African women scientists... please consider uploading them as part of the Wiki Loves Africa contest (this year on the theme "People at work" Anthere (talk)
Merci beaucoup @User:Anthere! Thank you for the beautiful links! It would be nice to do a little "special thing" at WikiMania 2018 :). I do not live in South Africa, it would be nice though to attend Wikimania and contribute. Ear-phone (talk) 21:46, 23 October 2017 (UTC)
One meeting later... it looks like the program team is still on a creation phase. I'll keep you informed when I get fresh news. Anthere (talk) 22:51, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

Attention shoppers, we need a copyedit and AFD discussion on aisle 3 please.96.127.242.251 (talk) 05:19, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

Congratulations, Megalibrarygirl!

Hearty congratulations to our newest admin, Megalibrarygirl! --Rosiestep (talk) 22:02, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Congrats Megalibrarygirl, and I'm sorry you were subjected to such sexism in your RfA. Funcrunch (talk) 22:11, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
Thanks, Rosiestep! And as for the sexism, Funcrunch, that seems to be the price of being a woman, transgender or non-binary person online. Doesn't make it OK, but we'll keep up the good fight! :D I do loves the T-shirt, though. ;) Megalibrarygirl (talk) 22:13, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
Totally thrilled at the outcome and I must say I was super impressed by your level-headed answers to all the myriad of questions. Though I wouldn't wish going through that process on anyone, the up side to it is that in the few opposers, it was evident what we go through to try to improve the coverage for women. I am proud to know you! SusunW (talk) 22:34, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
Congratulations! And sorry to have missed all the fun (?!) on the RfA. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:49, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
Excellent news! Now who is going to be next? :D Alex ShihTalk 22:55, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
Welcome to the club. It's...a place, alright. :-) --Ser Amantio di NicolaoChe dicono a Signa?Lo dicono a Signa. 00:54, 17 October 2017 (UTC)
Congratulations! The best part of becoming an admin is knowing that you'll probably never have to go through RfA again. TheCatalyst31 ReactionCreation 02:06, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

Congratulations on a massively successful, if bumpy, AfD. PamD 08:21, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

  • Ditto. Now we can really get mega-moving on WiR!--Ipigott (talk) 09:28, 17 October 2017 (UTC)
@SusunW, David Eppstein, Alex Shih, Ser Amantio di Nicolao, TheCatalyst31, PamD, and Ipigott: It was certainly an interesting process... Like I've said before, I was terrified to go through it, but I'm glad it's over and I'm glad I did it. I hope it shined a light on what we do here at WiR, too. :) Megalibrarygirl (talk) 16:25, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

Article expansion and review

Hello WIR, I am working on my first set of contributions to Wikipedia. My first article is theatre founder and producer Toby Orenstein. I think I have a decent start but more info/details could be added. Does anyone have experience writing bios that could help with this one? Thsmi002 (talk) 15:04, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Thsmi002: You've made a good start on this. I would suggest you try to cover education as part of the running text of the biography rather than bullet points in a separate section. There should be a separate section on awards but the list you give looks like something straight out of a cv. Try to pick out the most important ones and, if possible, present them as running text with appropriate background information. I've looked at your other new articles too. You seem to have already gained a good grasp of Wikipedia essentials. If you intend to create more biographies of women, you might like to become a member of Women in Red where you will always be able to depend on our assistance. Keep up the good work.--Ipigott (talk) 10:08, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for the insights! I will work on it. Thsmi002 (talk) 14:44, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

Just declined an A7 tag on this - she is associated with multiple notable films and the article supplies a source mentioning her. Can anyone else help expand it? Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 11:16, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

WIR contest - Dealing with sports bios and PD text for the contest

I want to encourage as many original articles as possible for the contest and diversity but there is a potential problem with women sports bios and PD text I think as they're easier to generate and accumulate more articles and not fair competition with other articles which have been written entirely from scratch. I'm tempted to make it a rule that articles containing PD text aren't eligible for prizes, though will be accepted in the general list. I want to avoid people focusing on just sports bios and creating cookie cutter style entries. Ipigott is right I guess about women in sports having a more distinctive layout and similarity in wording, so how to we deal with it?♦ Dr. Blofeld 09:58, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

I see a few options, but none of them are perfect...
If we insist on variation in the articles which are sports bios, we risk annoying people who have put some effort into conformity and a working layout people are used to.
If we insist on more text in articles, so we effectively don't count the PD text, only the original text. We encounter an issue that sports bios would the require more text/take longer to make. (this would also require manual assessment of all the articles).
If we don't count the articles for the prizes, we risk the people who are best at making articles leaving them out and doing other professions instead.
If we ignore the issue and the articles for sports bios are counted even with PD text, we risk people over-focusing on them, or arguing that it is unfair.
In short I have no idea how to deal with this :( Dysklyver 11:04, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
(PS. I think the contest prizes page should link up with the rules page where defining rules, currently they are separate and I missed that the rules for the prizes were infact defined on a separate page.)

Some good points, thanks. Yes, it would be a good idea to not count PD text but then it's not easy to assess what is original prose or not using a bot. I do think we should have something which detects paraphrasing though. I don't mean to discriminate against sports women bios, but I don't want people who are largely contributing them using a sort of template to mass generate with little prose work and using the same sources and format every time and winning the contest. I want to see diversity in coverage. ♦ Dr. Blofeld 11:53, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

This reminds me of the NRHP project, where users like Doncram have created many tens of thousands of articles about listed houses with the assistance of: mass article creation with autowikibrowser; Automatic infobox generation using an external tool; semi-automatic image finding lists/templates; and extensive and very well organized lists and sublists. Just a thought but we could do a project sometime in the future to deliberately focus on speedily creating these sports bios. Dysklyver 12:40, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
As a member of both this project and WikiProject NRHP, Doncram's mass creation of cookie-cutter stubs caused a lot of controversy back in the day, and the ensuing conflicts over the matter caused rifts in the project that still haven't healed. While I don't have a problem with short stubs myself, I'm wary of any sort of automated mass article creation project after that. TheCatalyst31 ReactionCreation 23:48, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

I want to do the exact opposite though, discourage mass creation of women sports bios, at least the cookie cutter generic database stubs. A core contest and aim to get women's sportpeople of great note to GA I.d fully support though.♦ Dr. Blofeld 14:18, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

To @Dr. Blofeld: - I suppose that would be an idea for a future Women in Green contest? I would also be happier with the articles being better quality rather than mass produced. Taking this view into account perhaps we could go with a statement like "All sports biographies must show original prose and meaningful non-generic content. For this reason it is recommenced that short articles close to the minimum requirement for prose are expanded as they may not otherwise count in the contest. Write more content if it appears that your article is very similar to many other articles with a shared "template" style. Any articles, but particularly those about sports players and athletes may be checked manually or with automated similarity detection programs to ensure good quality entries." - This is probably too long winded, I will let someone else improve on it if possible. (we ought to see if something like earwig will help us with this, something that sees copyvio ought to fit in with your idea of a plagiarism detector bot). Dysklyver 16:11, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
As someone who creates a lot of sports biography stubs, I see no issue in updating the rules of your contest to either exclude them or set minimum requirements, over and above the existing criteria. I always believe that having a (referenced) stub is better than having a redlink on someone who meets the notability threshold. Once you've got the basic skeleton of a one-liner, then BAM, someone comes along and expands it. The recent expansion work on Paulina Radziulytė is a good example. Hehe, Lugstubs. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 09:33, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

@Lugnuts: What percentage of the sports bios you've created though have been expanded? It's very low in comparison to those not. I know as I created many stubs and many of them haven't been expanded from 2008-9 era yet! Some do get expanded, but I still think a fleshier stub is more useful than a one or two liner.♦ Dr. Blofeld 11:54, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

I'd be surprised if it's as high as 5%. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 11:57, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

Upcoming in-person edit-a-thons

Nov 1st @ Aphra Behn/Burney Society 2017 Conference Edit-a-thon

For anyone who is interested in participating virtually in this event on Wednesday, Nov 1st, here's the link: Aphra Behn edit-a-thon. In case there are questions, the facilitator is KellyDoyle. Thank you. --Rosiestep (talk) 22:18, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

KellyDoyle is doing a fantastic job, encouraging women to join Wikipedia and write about women. Just read about it all here.--Ipigott (talk) 11:13, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

Oct 24th @ University of Edinburgh

Look at what I just found; and there are a whole series of them! Wikipedia:University of Edinburgh/Events and Workshops/Women in Red --Rosiestep (talk) 15:24, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

Dec 8th @ Swedish embassy in Washington D.C.

Another upcoming event. Here's the meetup page. The point of contact is Ariel Cetrone (WMDC). --Rosiestep (talk) 15:34, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

New bios created, Mindy Carlin and Natasha Gajewski

Hello, I wrote two more articles for as part of the WikiProject:Women in Red, Mindy Carlin and Natasha Gajewski. Could someone review them and make revisions and/or suggestions? Thank you! Thsmi002 (talk) 05:12, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

See also my talk page on these.--Ipigott (talk) 08:57, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
Both currently up for deletion. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:16, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

First ever WikidataCon livestream

For those who are interested in Wikidata, here is the link to access the livestream in Room A, 10:00-23:00 today (Berlin time): --Rosiestep (talk) 08:57, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

Thanks Rosiestep. I've had a quick look at some of the sessions. I was surprised to find nothing on problems encountered by Wikipedia users of Wikidata. That would have been useful. Perhaps you can bring it up somewhere: difficulty of producing listings by occupation, country, sex, etc., how to overcome dulpicate linking, how to combine Wikipedia authority control data with Wikidata, etc. It would also be useful to know if any further work is being undertaken on the user interface, for example based on the gadget we use. Also how to compile statistics over time (e.g. number of women's biographies per country over the past three years).--Ipigott (talk) 11:22, 28 October 2017 (UTC)
Yes, Ipigott; there are a lot of sessions but not necessarily covering a topic of interest to WiR. Thankfully, the contacts I'm making here are equally important as these folks may be able to assist us after the conference is over. In case this is of interest, here's a link to the program. I'm at the "infobox" session right now, listening to how the Basque, Catalan, and other communities are dealing with Wikidata-generated infoboxes being used by their language Wikipedia (vs. Wikipedia-generated infoboxes). As far as I'm concerned, this is just fascinating. --Rosiestep (talk) 15:57, 28 October 2017 (UTC)
Rosiestep: Thanks, I already went through the full programme and looked at most of the slide presentations. I often use the Catalan entries when developing articles from that area. There seems to be a technical rather than a user-oriented focus. The Catalan wiki is actually very rich. I don't speak a word of Basque so they'll have to maintain it for themselves.--Ipigott (talk) 16:09, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

Wiki data lists

It's quite disappointing that these lists just appear to be database dumps of red links and that they've not been filtered for notability. I can understand it as it's a tough, mundane task but a great deal of articles red links on the red lists I'm googling and often nothing turns up but blogs/linkedin etc. I think we should probably create a master list sometime of missing very notable women, ones which are priority to start, with every entry on the list checked with some sources supplied. Perhaps we could even run a small contest to do it.♦ Dr. Blofeld 10:17, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

The Wikidata lists show notable women in other language Wikipedias. But we should bear in mind that different language Wikipedias have different policies for notability and sourcing, so what's acceptable in one language may not be acceptable in another. --Rosiestep (talk) 12:58, 26 October 2017 (UTC)
Yes, that's the problem. There's a lot of duds, just searching for Nikolina Lončar and Andrea Laković for instance from Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/Missing articles by nationality/Montenegro...♦ Dr. Blofeld 14:52, 26 October 2017 (UTC)
Where are these specific lists? There are a lot of them. The Drover's Wife (talk) 13:29, 26 October 2017 (UTC)
Template:Women in Red missing articles by nationality.♦ Dr. Blofeld 14:45, 26 October 2017 (UTC)
I can create more Wikidata redlists by university before Nov 1st. Don't know that the notability and sourcing will be better, but if you think it's worth a try, let me know which ones you'd like. --Rosiestep (talk) 16:09, 26 October 2017 (UTC)
The dictionary and uni lists are good as we have more confidence that they're notable, I wish we had more redlinked lists of notable women from dictionaries worldwide though. ♦ Dr. Blofeld 16:22, 26 October 2017 (UTC)
I made a list of Brazilian women featured on the Dicionário Mulheres do Brasil. Their names and a brief biography are on this site and there are excerpts of the book on Google Books. I hope it helps DanielGSouza (talk) 19:23, 26 October 2017 (UTC)
  • Dr. Blofeld, Rosiestep: I wouldn't be too hard on the Wikidata lists. I make wide use of them myself in creating new biographies of women. You have to bear in mind that many of the entries are based on the earliest articles from the Wikipedia projects in the various languages. Even the early English ones were generally poorly referenced in those days, seldom with inline tagging and often with literature sources not accessible over the internet. One thing I have found is that if you make a proper search in the language of the article rather than in English, you can often come up with many more valid sources. (There are by the way lots of sites in each country which are basically databases and are therefore not accessible by seach engines such as Google. You have to go in and seach specifically for the person or works you need to document. As the search instructions are often only in the national language, that makes it difficult for most native-English speakers.) As for the accessible biographical dictionaries, I still intend to put something together but I've recently been devoting most of my time to building up the redlists for the missing articles page on the World Contest. Where possible, I've tried to include meaningful references.--Ipigott (talk) 09:19, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

I think the contest lists will be useful long term for WIR and should be filtered for notability and fully developed.♦ Dr. Blofeld 09:45, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/Missing articles by nationality/Saudi Arabia hasn't even been translated from Arabic.♦ Dr. Blofeld 12:15, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

Dr. Blofeld: It might be useful if the Arabic script also had a Latin equivalent but the way Wikidata works is to list the entries in the language of the Wikipedia articles it covers unless someone has entered an English equivalent. You can of course search on the Arabic and translate the output into English. You'll also find lots and lots of entries in the Thai script on women who probably deserve an article in English. But we can't do everything ourselves. Let's leave these problems to those who are on Wikidata (like Rosiestep for example!).--Ipigott (talk) 13:25, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

If WIR has a bank of missing articles and is saying "hey create these" it certainly is a problem and it's irresponsible to leave a big list with Arabic names on English Wikipedia. OK, Saudi Arabia isn't exactly a popular one but I don't see the point in the list if nobody is going to red link English titles or check for notability.♦ Dr. Blofeld 13:42, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

Dr. Blofeld - While a redlist with names in other alphabets might not be useful to some, it is for others. Remember, on Wikidata, Jane Doe's name can appear in every language under the sun; what stays the same is her property number. Also, these redlists are created as fact statements, e.g. "these articles have a presence on some language Wikipedia but not on ENWP". These redlists don't address similarities/differences in notability and sourcing policies in, say, Thai wiki vs. ENWP. Most importantly, it has always been the responsibility of the individual editor who wants to create a new article to verify that the subject meets WP:N and WP:RS in the language they are writing in, so that gives me comfort. --Rosiestep (talk) 16:31, 28 October 2017 (UTC)
Rosiestep: Re: "these articles have a presence on some language Wikipedia but not on ENWP". While that is usually the case, there are a considerable number of entries in Wikidata which have no Wikipedia articles in any language, for example those based on biographical dictionaries. Some users create Wikidata entries before they begin to create a Wikipedia article and in the end decide not to create one anyway. Some are based on questionable redirects, for example the name of a person working for a company which has been redirected to that company. And if I am not mistaken, if an article which has led to a Wikidata entry is deleted, the Wikidata entry remains. But I think Dr. Blofeld is making a reasonable point when he comments on lack of notability of many Wikidata articles. Perhaps more consideration could be given to deleting Wikidata entries, especially those based on biographies of people who are not notable.--Ipigott (talk) 07:32, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

I understand that the wikidata lists are just to help find missing bios. Generally they don't seem to have caused any problems for WIR editors but I've got a contest to run so if we're putting up lists for each country and telling editors to create them then lists full of Arabic name red links isn't good, that was my point. A good number of wikidata bios are notable but a lot I checked aren't. I've noticed some upload self promo photos on other wikis and end up getting an entry. I just think given that the project is the only one on wiki to my knowledge that specializes with red links that some care should be taken with what we red link. The contest does make it more important to highlight notable articles I think, but I also understand that it's a massive amount of work needed to check red links manually. It would be great if there was some sort of tool to scout for sources in the wikidata tables and eliminate those which won't pick up sources but that's wishful thinking!.♦ Dr. Blofeld 08:48, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

Dr. Blofeld - I think it's valid to avoid using any redlist (crowd-source, Wikidata-generated, dictionary-based, web-based, etc.) which you're not comfortable using for the contest. Reviewing the redlinks and creating a customized list with the entries you'd like editors to focus upon makes sense (e.g. non-BLPs?). The dictionary-based ones seem to hold the most promise. Pity we haven't created more redlists of these sorts of redlinks but your drawing attention to this matter is important and maybe in the months to come, we can focus more in this direction (cc our Librarian in Residence, Megalibrarygirl). And it's certainly the case, Ipigott that not every Item Identifier refers to a Wikipedia article in a non-ENWP language Wikipedia, though many (most?) do. In fact, I created one yesterday (d:Q42380163) and uploaded a supporting img to Commons, but didn't create a corresponding Wikipedia article. --Rosiestep (talk) 11:34, 29 October 2017 (UTC)
I think a warning should suffice, warn users that there may be foreign links or non notable entries.♦ Dr. Blofeld 13:01, 29 October 2017 (UTC)
I think our redlists all have a warning. Maybe we could use similar wording on the contest page? --Rosiestep (talk) 13:26, 29 October 2017 (UTC)
Rosiestep: I certainly agree we should think about refining our lists of red links, especially those based on good biographical dictionaries, but I think the Wikidata lists should still be maintained for contest. For many of the smaller countries whose national language is not English there are an excellent source. I use them myself all the time.--Ipigott (talk) 11:42, 29 October 2017 (UTC)
I thought Dr. Blofeld was talking about refining the Wikidata-generated redlists for the purpose of the contest. If this is what wanted, a suggestion could be to add the property d:date of death (P570) which would exclude BLPs. --Rosiestep (talk) 12:39, 29 October 2017 (UTC)
@Dr. Blofeld, Rosiestep, and Ipigott: I think any list has the potential for problems, which is why we have the disclaimer. I normally vet the names and organizations I add to any list by hand to make sure that they are likely notable. If I don't get any hits at all or just one, I usually don't add a name. I do make exceptions for people who are notable in non-English or non-global north because there is the probability that there are sources I can't access or read (this is especially true I think for Arab countries). We need to make sure people do a similar check with any name they pick. If they can't find at least 3 good sources, the person isn't likely to be notable. (Again, that isn't to say they're not notable, but it's going to be harder to find sources which may be behind paywalls.) I hope this helps out. :) Megalibrarygirl (talk) 16:53, 29 October 2017 (UTC)