Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Women in Red/Archive 89

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Please click each red link in your list before asking others to create articles

While your list says "All new articles must satisfy Wikipedia's notability criteria; red links on this list may or may not qualify.", this is not always working, as can be seen at User talk:KyloRen3#December 2020. Such situations are painful for all involved editors, and a terrible waste of well-intended editors' time. Compare that to the few seconds it takes to click once on each red link in your list and remove those that already have been created and deleted. This is a gross imbalance of time, requiring others to put in far more time than one is willing to invest oneself. I therefore urge you to check your list before calling all entries “Missing articles” and asking other editors to turn them into blue links. ◅ Sebastian 13:40, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

A well-intentioned suggestion, but I do not know how this would be logistically possible. The lists are automatically updated by a bot and there's no central list of already created and deleted items for the bot to check against. Gamaliel (talk) 14:24, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
Yes. Sebastian, our lists are hundreds of thousands of items - people - long. Our lists are very useful, which is why we invest so much time in maintaining them. And as you note elsewhere, they all come with the warning "All new articles must satisfy Wikipedia's notability criteria; red links on this list may or may not qualify." I urge you to have a jolly good think about what might be a reasonable way forward given the utility of the lists and the absence both of resource to pre-qualify list entries and consensus on where exactly the notability line lies. We think the way forward is to maintain the lists and publish the health warning. --Tagishsimon (talk) 15:11, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
I have to agree with the above sentiments that this is a well-intentioned suggestion, but completely unfeasible in logistical terms. We could perhaps add some boilerplate language to the top of the redlink lists, saying that some of these pages may already have been created and deleted. It's not always a bad idea to recreate a deleted page; for example, the first iteration might have been a COI-heavy advertisement, while the second one is honest. Or, an article could have been deleted and a second one created about a different person with the same name. The best advice for such situations is perhaps to tread carefully and ask for a second opinion. XOR'easter (talk) 15:42, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
Do we have a WIR subpage for advice about creating new articles? Perhaps that should be linked in the boilerplate language. Gamaliel (talk) 16:32, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/Essays/Primer for creating women's biographies probably, though its notability para could do with an amend to say redlink may != notable. Header templates on WiR redlists suck at the moment; I think someone produced a slightly better version in recent times, but I'm not up to speed on the template tech, tbh. Agree that trying to hammer home slightly harder the notability issue & adding a pointer to the above = good things. --Tagishsimon (talk) 16:44, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
  • I fully agree with you, SebastianHelm, that we need to take some kind of action on this. The problem here obviously originates from the fact that the pornographic actress Priya Anjali Rai has articles in no less that 30 other language versions of Wikipedia, as can be seen from the corresponding Wikidata entry. There is substantial coverage in such widely understood languages as French, Spanish and your own native German which are frequently used as a basis for translations. As it appears at the top of Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/Missing articles by nationality/India (complete with photo) if you click on "site links", it looks to me as if there will be many more attempts at creating an English version unless we do something about it. Maybe one of our technical experts can devise a means of creating a list of warnings in connection with our Wikidata listings -- or better still an explanation on the EN wiki attached to attempts at article creation. Perhaps it would also be possible to create a list of the women's biographies which have most frequently been deleted from the English version of Wikipedia (e.g. three times or more). I agree that it might well be useful to offer guidance to new contributors, possibly in connection with essays such as our Primer for creating women's biographies. Any further suggestions or offers of assistance?--Ipigott (talk) 17:22, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
How about big letters on the redlists spelling out the simple fact "Listing on a bot generated redlist does NOT determine notability. Please read Primer for creating women's biographies" and again on the topic pages? If I saw that language I would take note, even if I didn't know what a "bot generated" list was. When I was first using redlists to start article for challenges I had to be told that simple fact. There is a rookie assumption that human consensus about notability has led to the name being on the list. That said, I don't know how to add it to the template WomenArtistUpdates (talk) 17:32, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
This seems like a good idea. The shorter the better—very much agreed that you don’t have to know what “bot-generated” is to gather you should take a pause. Also might swap out “notability” for something like “qualify for inclusion in the encyclopedia”, in the interest of getting the point across to the brand-new folks, and then they can learn about notability in the primer. Innisfree987 (talk) 17:45, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
I added that language to the Women in Africa contest | Jan-Feb-Mar 2021 page. Feel free to remove it if the consensus goes another way.WomenArtistUpdates (talk) 17:48, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
(EC) Much as I like the cut of your magical realism jib, Ipigott, but I don't think there's any technical or practical solution foreseeable, not least when the fundamental problem, excusable b/c wall of text, is that people often do not apprehend the good advice already proffered. And even if we make the advice sing & dance, it'll still get ignored. We may now beef it up slightly to include a link to a how-to, but that still needs to be read to be of any use. So, respectfully, I don't agree at all with Sebastian's take, nor with your "need to take some kind of action on this" response. --Tagishsimon (talk) 17:36, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
  • (EC2) To some extent that already exists, insofar as a big red warning does pop up, if you try to start the page, about how many times the article has already been deleted and urges the creator, “If you are recreating a page similar to the previously deleted page, or are unsure, please first contact the user(s) who performed the action(s) listed below.” It seems like the editor overlooked that. We could add this particular issue to the primer, but are users who miss the warning that pops up automatically likely to read the primer?
    I’ll keep chewing for more ideas... Innisfree987 (talk) 17:39, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

Draft redlink warning

On the basis of discussions with SebastianHelm, I thought it might be useful to draft a WiR redlinked women warning. It could for example be linked from our redlist index and from some of our essays. Editors could be invited to add any articles which have created similar problems. Let me know what you think. Feel free to edit it further or make suggestions for improvement here if you think it's worthwhile. The lists included are not intended to be comprehensive but rather to make people aware of the problems they may face if they try to create biographies on the basis of multiple site links in popular areas of interest. I'm not too happy about the title.--Ipigott (talk) 14:00, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

To be completely clear, I think it's a stupid idea. There is already a notability warning in place. Adding a new link to a list of pornographic actresses - another piece of text to read and understand - because you & Sebastian have decided elsewehere that it will miraculously solve the comprehension problem, is for the birds.
Here's an illustration of the nonsense. Yesteray or the day before, in reaction to this 'issue', a user added a suitable warning to Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/Meetup/186. Does it stand out? Can you, in fact, find it at all in that wall of text?
It's very sad that, very occasionally, someone launches into a new article without considering notability, gets into notability challenges, and then decides it's all WiR's fault for listing the person on its lists. It's very sad that such people choose not to acknowledge the warning they missed and now campaign for more warnings that they can also miss. --Tagishsimon (talk) 14:14, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
You all run the project. I just edit here and support you where I can. But out of curiosity, since there is already a notability warning, why would we need another warning? --ARoseWolf (Talk) 15:34, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
For the record, Sebastian and I have decided nothing. However stupid it may look, I came up with this suggestion as I thought it might be useful. It was my idea to offer some advice to newbies as in my day-to-day monitoring of new articles I have frequently come across problems along these lines, especially in connection with actresses and pop stars from India and America. In most cases, the warning you sometimes see when creating a new women's biography which has previously been deleted does not show up because women's names have so many possible variations. It's even happened to me more than once, although I've created well over a thousand biographies. It often only comes to light when I am creating redirects on variations of the name: with or without accents, additional given names, married names, etc., etc. The problem is that when you have prepared an initial draft of a hundred words or so, you simply click on create and lo and behold you have an article which you continue to edit. Even if you use exactly the same spelling as the title of the deleted article, it's so easy to miss the warning. This is clearly evidenced by the number of times articles under the same title have been deleted 10 times or more. For those of us who are experienced editors, it doesn't really matter as we will have based our additions on at least three valid secondary sources but for newcomers, their work will simply be rapidly deleted whatever new sources they include. You should look at some of the talk pages of new contributors to see how many of their bona fide creations have been deleted. Not all of us are as highly skilled at technology as you, Tagishsimon, least of all young women from the developing countries who are keen to include women who have been covered in versions of Wikipedia in languages they use in their everyday lives. I sympathize with your feelings and really appreciate all you have done to create and maintain our redlists but I think it might also be useful to have feedback from some of our mainstream content editors. If my suggestion is considered superfluous, then I would of course be only too happy to withdraw it. That's why I have brought it up here. We certainly don't want to introduce any unnecessary complications into our guidelines.--Ipigott (talk) 17:06, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
It's unfortunate, though I think unavoidable, that when an article is deleted, all the carefully-created redirects from variant spellings, married names, different lengths of name etc vanish in a puff of smoke. And the red "previously deleted" notice won't show up in a search either. There's a lot to be said for creating a one-sentence sourced stub, with {{Under construction}}, and then creating the incoming redirects (or dab page entries) from plausible alternatives, before investing more effort in the article. That way you can find any "previously deleted" message to consider, or an existing article which was created under a slightly different title, though this should have turned up in a search, or there may be an existing redirect to an article on her novel, her company or her husband. But this isn't going to help the inexperienced editor who doesn't read existing warnings. PamD 18:23, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

Redlink list header revision?

It seems fine to me to write some detailed information for those who’ll click through; I also agreed with those saying above that the current header on the redlink list pages could be improved from the jump. I took a stab at rephrasing and welcome edits and/or other versions. You can see my draft as well as the current one for comparison at: User:Innisfree987/WiR redlink list header. Thanks as ever for everyone’s energy for this remarkable project. Innisfree987 (talk) 06:40, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

PS. I am noticing there are probably some technical issues, with some extra text added depending on which boxes are ticked on the template (eg, here). But, to give us some place to start. Innisfree987 (talk) 06:40, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Exclude items with many site links

This is not a general solution, but when there are +10 site links for a redlink, it's usually a sign that there are strong reasons for the omission English article. I may agree with those reasons or not, but getting a newbie to create one of those articles is bound to result in a quick deletion. This does not always apply to articles with 4-6 site links, there are some regions of the world where biographies can easily get to that number of site links because of the number of languages spoken in such region. This often happens in Eastern Europe, Asia, Spain, etc. --MarioGom (talk) 16:24, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

That’s a good observation and I imagine maybe not so hard to implement? We could have a threshold in the 8-10 range and use the <10 lists for broad consumption, editathons, etc. And then have a >10 list for experienced editors to check and possibly propose for salting where applicable. Innisfree987 (talk) 17:41, 10 January 2021 (UTC)
I'd want some evidence that "when there are +10 site links for a redlink, it's usually a sign that there are strong reasons for the omission English article" before lifting a finger to implement that. As MarioGom notes, regions with multiple languages will quickly hit that threshhold, and that's before we consider links arising from commons, wikiquotes, wikisources, &c. I'm trying to follow this discussion as little as possible, but, really, honestly, I think you've all gone completely and utterly mad, and are busy trying to implement nonsense 'solutions' to a non-problem. It's also fairly odious & offfensive, tbh, to suggest that if EN wiki has not got around to an article on someone noted in 10+ other wikimedia properties, then the problem probably lies with the person not EN wiki. --Tagishsimon (talk) 18:34, 10 January 2021 (UTC)
I'm with Tagishsimon on this. If I'm looking at one of our Wikidata-based redlists, I often sort it by the "number of wikilinks" column to see who's got articles elsewhere. Though I do then ignore porn actresses etc as just not interesting. Do we have an idea how often it happens that an enthusiastic new editor creates a new article on a person for whom there's already a multiply-deleted record? Not very often, I suggest. If they start an article through the dreaded AfC system, does that alert them in the same way that they see the big red notice when creating an article straight into mainspace? PamD 23:41, 10 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Tagishsimon: It's also fairly odious & offfensive, tbh, to suggest that if EN wiki has not got around to an article on someone noted in 10+ other wikimedia properties, then the problem probably lies with the person not EN wiki. Sorry, I didn't meant to offend anyone. As I noted initially, I don't think the problem probably lies with the person, I just think that previous deletions, whether they make sense or not, will be probably a problem for newbies. I'm not talking about notability, really, I'm referring to social dynamics on enwiki.
  • PamD: Do we have an idea how often it happens that an enthusiastic new editor creates a new article on a person for whom there's already a multiply-deleted record? Not very often, I suggest. From this discussion, I just assumed this is something that happens frequently, but I didn't verify this myself. If this is a rare problem, then I agree with you all that no general action is needed.
In any case, if it turns out there is a small set of pages where this is verified to happen frequently, we can always exclude them from a list manually. --MarioGom (talk) 08:53, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

Hazel Tucker

I have just created a bio of NZ social anthropologist and academic Hazel Tucker. She has the same name as a porn star and that woman's bio had been deleted three times. I did consider giving my article a different name but chose not to, given that the basic name was available. AnomieBOT has just added the info about the earlier deletions to the Talk page. Can this safely be removed and remain off the page, given that it's not the same person? -- Oronsay (talk) 23:41, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

Removed, yes. Safely depends on whether the bot decides to re-add it. --Tagishsimon (talk) 23:53, 11 January 2021 (UTC)
Many thanks. Understood. --Oronsay (talk) 00:22, 12 January 2021 (UTC)
The template has reappeared: I've added a note explaining the situation. PamD 00:45, 12 January 2021 (UTC)
Thanks. I guess we'll just have to live with the notice. --Oronsay (talk) 00:51, 12 January 2021 (UTC)
  • If it's of any help, she appears to have written her thesis as Hazel Mary Tucker although all her other publications are as Hazel Tucker or Tucker, H.--Ipigott (talk) 10:53, 12 January 2021 (UTC)
Thanks for finding the PhD - I'll add it and her middle name to her bio. I think I'll leave the article where it is for now.--Oronsay (talk) 20:27, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

Editathon banner for Women's rights

When adding a contribution to the Women's rights page I discovered and have now changed the Editathon banner from {{WIR-187}} to {{WIR-188}}. I'll see what I can do about fixing articles that have been incorrectly tagged.--Oronsay (talk) 04:46, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

Done! Only one (I think) mislabelled and several untagged now have been. I left those tagged for {{WIR-184}} as they were.--Oronsay (talk) 05:07, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
Thanks for taking care of this. It's an editing error that's easy to make as I've discovered myself in earlier months.--Ipigott (talk) 07:49, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

Margaret Morrison (philosopher)

I recently created an article for the philosopher Margaret Morrison who died this month. Thriley (talk) 12:38, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

I've added the necessary hatnote at Margaret Morrison, to help readers find her, and added her to Morrison (surname). There is also a list of people at Margaret but frankly I find those lists pretty silly, as I can't see readers likely to want to search for anyone other than a mononymic celebrity (or monarch, saint, etc) by their forename. PamD 14:32, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
@Thriley: Also, please format your references, and for websites give the date accessed (websites change, often). If you use one reference more than once you should give it a name and re-use it: I've done so with the departmental notice. There's a lot to learn about editing Wikipedia but it's an interesting journey. Thanks for your work on this article. PamD 14:34, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

Aya Saeid Saber

Hi All, I started an article for Egypt's first female MMA fighter, Aya Saeid Saber, but I rarely write bios for sportspeople. Would someone who has more experience be able to take a look and check that I've got the tone right and haven't made any major mistakes with how you dicuss MMA? If I have, please let me know, so I can fix it. Happy editing all Lajmmoore (talk) 22:18, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

Vanessa Springora

I came across this new article for Vanessa Springora, who is very well known in France. I'm not the one to do it, but It could use some expansion in the career section. Possibly (talk) 04:30, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

AfD: Statue of Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Statue of Ruth Bader Ginsburg at AfD, if project members care to weigh in. If the article is deleted, no sweat, I'll recreate in a couple months. ---Another Believer (Talk) 13:27, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

I would have never brought it up for AfD myself. I still believe Wikipedia should be expanding rather than contracting but Wikipedia has an identity crisis. Its policies and guidelines were written to keep it following or lagging behind society, even if just only, but everyone outside and some within the organization want it to be a leader as evidenced by a simple Google search or the fact Twitter, something I've never used, determines who is notable on its platform by Wikipedia article. I think the only way we can resolve this identity crisis is to force a consensus decision. I think that will happen the more articles are brought to AfD and deleted based on the archaic policies the encyclopedia clings to. --ARoseWolf (Talk) 14:02, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

Barbara Rose and WP:ITNRD

The gender gap at WP:ITNRD is often horrific. Right now we're at one woman and seven men; this is typical. I wondered if anyone might have time to help prep Barbara Rose as one step towards fixing this imbalance (needs quite a bit of work and ideally expert attention from an art historian). I also wondered if there might be interest in figuring out how to fix the gap at ITNRD more generally, since it's been pretty egregious at least in my recent experience. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 04:32, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

Well that is dispiriting. Worse because, by percentage, 1 of 8 is about on par with the broader gender gap, so it’s easy to feel like there’s not much to be done that we aren’t already doing... But flagging this does help—I had not really considered it, assuming that if someone is important enough to rate the mention, it’ll find its way there. Ha. As if anything works that way. Thank you for the nudge—I would’ve had a worthy one in October and won’t miss it again.
For collective nudging, maybe we can set a goal for 2021 and add a page to track outcomes? Innisfree987 (talk) 08:14, 28 December 2020 (UTC)
AleatoryPonderings, great (and fast!) work by you and Espresso Addict on this! Thank you for the great improvements to an important biography. Innisfree987 (talk) 21:31, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
Thanks, Innisfree987. I try to work on women nominated when I can but I'm a very slow worker and have limited expertise. The really horrid set was the one with two (male) horses, and four male humans. That was embarrassing! As I recall MurielMary used to nominate RDs, but since that era it's been pretty male-interest dominated: the only ones that can guarantee plenty of attention are baseball, American football & British football.
Tracking would be interesting, though possibly inherently dispiriting. The huge gender imbalance in sport and politics until the past ~50 years or so guarantees that the great majority of notable deaths are of men. Espresso Addict (talk) 23:54, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
Hi, thanks for tagging me here. Yes I did spend a period of time paying attention to the list of Recent Deaths and preparing/nominating women for inclusion and haven't done that for a while now. The gender balance did improve when there was a change in policy to allow any biography on WP to be eligible for listing on ITN/RD, rather than having to have a conversation on the project page about whether the subject was notable enough to be listed on the main page (very often, deceased women were not considered notable enough by the community of editors active on ITN). I had hoped that that policy change would enable more women to be listed but from AP's post here it seems that hasn't happened. Sigh. We/I probably need to continue to pro-actively watch the Recent Deaths list and nominate women from it onto ITN/RD. MurielMary (talk) 00:04, 30 December 2020 (UTC)
Hi MurielMary -- good to see you're still active! Your diligence at nominating/prepping women for RD has been missed. The "any biological entity with an article that isn't currently at AfD" policy has led to some interesting results -- generally positive, imo -- but recently it's been difficult to make sure that there's always even one woman in the set of six. The last week we've been trialling a new system of just putting RDs in posting order (rather than date of death order), which has extended the time window for preparing substandard articles, but has led to increased turnover and complaints about inadequate time on the mainpage. Cheers, Espresso Addict (talk) 01:18, 30 December 2020 (UTC)
I was just circling back to make the same suggestion MurielMary did, that having hung out there for about a week now, it seems to me just watchlisting the page and jumping in to help prep women’s bios where you feel able to lend a hand would go a long way, without necessarily having to take on tracking down candidates and nominating (though of course that’s needed too, just to say one can help without doing that much.)
Tracking would be good. We’re only a few days into 2021, we could start a list. But does ITNRD have a count of how many posts it makes overall each year? A count of women wouldn’t do us much good without knowing the total to compare against... Innisfree987 (talk) 22:58, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
@Innisfree987: I'm not aware of a list of successful RDs; I've manually compiled some from the edit history in the past, but it's hard work. A bot-created report would be good! Presumably wikidata could fill in the genders? I'm currently avoiding the ITN/C page to avoid exacerbating friction with an editor active there, but feel free to ping me if I'm active to help out, particularly with Brits, writers, classical musicians/composers, scientists & other academics. Always happy to contribute my mite. Cheers, Espresso Addict (talk) 02:29, 4 January 2021 (UTC)
There's now Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/Recent deaths, which lists women with en wiki articles who died in the last 14 days. Sadly a) I'd like to reverse the date of death sort order, but cannot and b) I've used a redlist header template b/c to tired to look for a bluelink one. Filed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/Redlist index#Related tasks lest it be of any help. --Tagishsimon (talk) 05:15, 4 January 2021 (UTC)
Wow thank you Tagishsimon! An immense help! Innisfree987 (talk) 05:23, 4 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Just noting after a spurt of better representation of recently deceased women, we're back to 0 women, 5 men, 1 (male) eagle. Espresso Addict (talk) 09:24, 9 January 2021 (UTC)
    Image is fair use, but the eagle bit made me think immediately of Sam Eagle's disapproving face. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 15:26, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Any Francophones out there? Marielle de Sarnez could use some attention. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 01:25, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the head’s up! I’ve started but there’s more from the Le Monde source I’ve been using—I’ll continue later if others don’t beat me to it. Merci! Innisfree987 (talk) 02:07, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
Reupping call for French historians, especially—there were some positions early in her career that were mentioned in the entry when I began working on it, but I haven’t found references to verify. Would be great to confirm those rather than delete (see talk:Marielle_de_Sarnez). Also, there’s not much on her personal life, which, so be it if that’s what newspapers chose to write about (what a welcome change, that the problem with coverage of a woman’s life is that it focuses too much on her work!) but if there’s more out there, it would be nice to add. Thanks for any available hands! Innisfree987 (talk) 08:16, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
Leaving this note was a good luck charm—found the source just after. Still welcome collaboration of course! Innisfree987 (talk) 01:11, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

Biography image copyright questions

Hi all! The biographies I've been writing for the climate and environment edit-a-thon are of people who are still living or have passed away in recent years. I couldn't find copyright free images through google image search. Yet their portraits abound in other biographies and news websites. What's the best way to approach the problem of biography photos? FlybellFly (talk) 13:34, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

Rubric is at WP:NFCI (and the rest of that page). There is a bar & it's fairly high, I think, especially for living people. --Tagishsimon (talk) 13:37, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
Thanks! FlybellFly (talk) 16:58, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

Draft:Lyubov Yablochnik

This appears to be a notable and decorated scientist. The draft is a good start but could use some better referencing. ~Kvng (talk) 20:47, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

I will see if I can add some.--MerielGJones (talk) 14:47, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
@MerielGJones: thanks for your improvements. The challenge here is we need to find sources about the subject, not by the subject. Alternatively we can argue that the subject meets one of the WP:NACADEMIC criteria. USSR State Prize likely meets WP:NACADEMIC #2. I'm going to go ahead and submit this and see we can make that fly with other AfC reviewers. ~Kvng (talk) 15:03, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
@Kvng: Yes indeed. I have been trying to find an obituary. The sources Lund and Rybinchar at least are about the continuing importance of the vaccine she worked on and cite her publications in this context. --MerielGJones (talk)
Promptly accepted. Thanks Robert McClenon. ~Kvng (talk) 17:54, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
If the wording of anything needs improving, it can be done in article space. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:09, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

Draft:Sally Mackereth

Came across this one where the creator has asked for help (on draft talk page) to get the article approved. Looks like an interesting architect and from a quick search there may be other references out there (eg Vogue), so thought it worth highlighting here in case anyone can help. Tacyarg (talk) 01:10, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

@Tacyarg: I've put some work into it. I think it's good enough to go to mainspace now. And there's plenty of other sources that could be potentially added. SilverserenC 04:11, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
This draft needs work in article space. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:13, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
Promoted. Sally Mackereth. --Tagishsimon (talk) 18:16, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
Well, well. That was a different variety of edit conflict than I have encountered in the recent past. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:17, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
Variety in your life is good, Robert. Embrace it. --Tagishsimon (talk) 18:35, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

Sources in other languages

Hi all! I'm participating in the Jan edit-a-thon on climate and environment.I've been working on Asian scientists, starting with Chinese and Taiwanese scholars, then moving on to Japanese. Are sources in foreign languages acceptable? I've been primarily using obituaries, journal special issues, official biographies and dictionaries of people to write up my entries. FlybellFly (talk) 12:36, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

FlybellFly, absolutely yes. Any language is valid for sources. Most cite templates have a language parameter you should set (e.g. language=zh). MarioGom (talk) 12:52, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
Ah, a language parameter. That's important. Thanks a lot. Speaking of references, is there a bot I could use to set up these references in a quicker manner? I am currently writing raw code and the process is extremely tedious. FlybellFly (talk) 12:58, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Citing sources with Zotero, for instance. I know at least one user who swears by it. --Tagishsimon (talk) 13:08, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
Oh, and for academic papers in Wikidata (of which there are >40m iirc) there is {{Cite Q}} --Tagishsimon (talk) 13:12, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
If you do add a foreign language reference, please also include an English translation of the title to help persons who are not fluent in that language get a clue on what the reference might be about along with the language parameter. -- 68.50.32.85 (talk) 03:51, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

Draft:Natalie Duddington

I was able to find one more strong source for this subject so perhaps notability can be established. There are a lot of potential incoming links. Anyone else have thoughts as to whether this is salvageable? ~Kvng (talk) 20:54, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

This was kicking around long enough, and has been kicked into article space. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:05, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

U.S. Congressional staff officers

With the 2021 storming of the United States Capitol being in the recent news, I had noticed that there is a number of House and Senate officials that are responsible in safety of the elected officials and in the protection on the electoral ballots. The main photo in the external Yahoo News article The Photos of These Women Saving the Ballot Boxes Belong in History Books is quite striking.

Then I noticed that the various lists of officeholders has a number of Women in Red while a number of blue articles could use some improvements.

Interesting articles for anyone who might be interested on how the U.S. Congress works behind the scenes. -- 68.50.32.85 (talk) 03:44, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

I haven't looked at others, but Christina Jeffrey seems to be a BLP/BIO only notable for one event-- which was being Historian for six days in January 1995 and then fired over allegations of being anti-Semitic. It stirred up a lot of controversy for about a month after it happened, and seems to have completely dropped out after about February. I'm not convinced there's enough for an independent article on her. Perhaps a sub-section of Historian of the United States House of Representatives? Eddie891 Talk Work 16:29, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
She did sue Newt Gingrich over it (garnering some coverage, [1]) and was cleared by the Anti-Defamation League and later for running against Gingrich. Also some book mentions: 1, 2, so maybe notable? Curious to hear what others think. Eddie891 Talk Work 16:37, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
Created Christina Jeffrey-- Eddie891 Talk Work 22:58, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
Great job Eddie891, especially finding material about her failed political run! As for her career as an academic, I was unable to find anything that would support her notability solely as a notable academic. -- 68.50.32.85 (talk) 00:40, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
Thanks! I was unsuccessful as well, but I think there's more than sufficient coverage to establish GNG, and enough to avoid BIO1E concerns. Eddie891 Talk Work 00:50, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
I checked out Martha S. Pope and indeed very interesting and recent enough for a DYK. Additional sources would be welcome! I’m flummoxed by the lead about her as a poet pastel artist (brain revising her resume for me, oof) when the rest of the entry says nothing about that. Innisfree987 (talk) 17:43, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
Looks like the pastel bit comes from here? AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 17:58, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
Ahh thank you. Ok I was wondering if we were missing something really big but that makes the picture clearer. Revised lead to reflect what her notability is for. Innisfree987 (talk) 18:06, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
As for Martha S. Pope, I think there is more out there than what is presently included in the current version of the article. Is her art notable enough to have its own paragraph? Is it good enough that people are willing to pay money for it? My (current) interpretation is that its just a hobby that she had returned to after she had left public service since her first job after graduating college was teaching art to secondary school students.
There appears to be a lot of material published during her tenure as Senate Sergeant of Arms that is not in the current version of the article, a lot of which that was written about her is because she is not a big burly man with a military and/or law enforcement background.
During her retirement, I detected some hints that she might be associated with some non-profits, but I can't really confirm since her name is too common. Has anyone else noticed this?
As an American diplomat in Northern Ireland, I think she was doing a lot behind the scenes to help the peace process along, such as her contacts with the Women's Coalition. Should the article mention attempts by unknown persons or groups who were opposed to the peace process of trying to tarnish her good name by making it appear that she was secretly in league with the Irish Republican Army? -- 68.50.32.85 (talk) 00:59, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
Just a thought, too - material published by the United States government is available without copyright. So if any one of these women is determined to be notable, and there's an online biography available through the Congressional websites (specifically anything marked .gov), then it should be useful to start an article with. (Usual caveats apply, and all - but it's a thought.) --Ser Amantio di NicolaoChe dicono a Signa?Lo dicono a Signa. 20:25, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Draft:Catharine Young, journalist

I came across this draft in AfC - all the sources are primary/offline and I can't find anything else by online searching. Anyone have any thoughts on how or where some additional sources could be found? TIA! MurielMary (talk) 10:49, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

IME finding sources for biographies journalists is hard because they don't tend to write about each other. ~Kvng (talk) 16:42, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
I have also tried with no success to find any of the cited sources online. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 16:46, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
I found the Daily Telegraph obit but haven't had any luck tracking anything else down, including through The Times archive Eddie891 Talk Work 16:51, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
Is it in your view, Eddie, substantial enough for us to place heavy notability reliance upon it? (and is ref 3 a misdated copy of Ref 1?) A woman making a career as a scribbler in her time seems to me prima facie notable. I'm inclined to promote the article - although I'll delay for a few days - and let it take its chances with the deletionists. t/y to MM for bringing it here. --Tagishsimon (talk) 17:06, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
Tagishsimon I would say that here's enough for me to consider it a 'weak keep'. The ODNB has got a folded biography of her (doi:10.1093/odnb/9780198614128.013.60202) with Murdo Young, her (notable) father, that gives about a paragraph of coverage and also indicates coverage in The encyclopedia of the British press, 1422–1922, which I've been unable to find online. It's certainly not the sort of coverage we'd expect for a journalist today, but I think it's probably a borderline case because we cannot hold 19th century women to the same standard (and I wouldn't call myself an inclusionist) and all things considered we should err on 'notability'. Eddie891 Talk Work 17:23, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
I found and added a ref from the Australian Star, "from a London paper" – I imagine the Telegraph's obit. --Oronsay (talk) 18:40, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
I'm a bit confused about the link to the paper she worked for; the years don't seem to match up. Young was born in 1826 and wrote about the Battle of Solferino in 1859, but the link is to a newspaper that existed from 1792 until 1806. Is there yet another Sun that we don't yet have an article for? XOR'easter (talk) 00:13, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
True Sun (London newspaper) says "In 1837 Murdo Young purchased The True Sun from Whittle Harvey and a co-proprietor and merged it into his newspaper The Sun (which was published from 1792 to 1871)". But that article links to The Sun (1792–1806). Perplexing … It seems to be this Sun; link provides a bibliography. My sense is that The Sun (1792–1806) is the right link, but should be moved to The Sun (1792–1871): I think it was continued until 1871, perhaps with a short hiatus when John Heriot (one of the editors) died. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 00:22, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

I've promoted thre article as Catharine Young (journalist). The main claim "one of the first women to work on the staff of a newspaper, doing so before Eliza Lynn Lynton, who is often given this position" and the refs suffice for WP:N. --Tagishsimon (talk) 08:58, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

Catharine Young Glen

Unrelatedly, does anyone see anything biographical about Catharine Young Glen, whose name popped up while I was searching for Catharine Young? All I could find about her is now on Wikidata (with references); there is also a tantalizing reference at ProQuest 1311027746 to what looks like a profile, but I can't access that particular article. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 17:12, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

Masses of gBooks hits for her, but nothing about her afaics. Most of the hits were publications now in the public domain, but for which google is offering (the UK) a limited peview or no preview at all. smh. --Tagishsimon (talk) 17:20, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
She seems to have been quite accomplished. She had a lot of poems published in the leading magazines of the day. Her poem Absent was even set to music by John Metcalf, released by Victor in a recording by Evan Williams, and was widely available as sheet music in stores. But, I also couldn't find anything biographical beyond what you mentioned. :( IdRatherBeAtTheBeach (talk) 05:27, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
Some other details in Woman's who's who of America, 1914-15 (where her first name is spelled 'Catherine'. She kept up connection with Mount Holyoake, acting as judge for a 1921 undergraduate poetry contest. Still writing (as Catherine Glen Maddock) in 1934. She seems to have died in 1963 in Essex, New Jersey.Dsp13 (talk) 14:03, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
There's an obituary in the New York Times for her husband's death and it mentions her. Found it via ProQuest, titled "F.R. Maddock, 102, Maker Of Carriage Accessories" for the August 4, 1962 edition, page 19. But, yeah, very little otherwise. SilverserenC 20:29, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
The same The Writer 1898 profile for Catharine Young Glen linked to ProQuest by User:AleatoryPonderings above can be found (in a more free form) at https://books.google.com/books?id=fGdJAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA171 and https://archive.org/details/writer03goog/page/n180/mode/2up. Born in New Jersey, graduated 1894 from Mount Holyoke, post-graduation tour of France, and then a paragraph of fluff about her (at the time) recent writings. —David Eppstein (talk) 08:41, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

Helena Marusarzówna

Accepting that Facebook is not a RS, the story of Helena Marusarzówna makes interesting reading. Seems to me to be a Wikinotable person. Enough told of her story to form a basis for research if anyone is interested. Mjroots (talk) 10:17, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

A quick check shows articles in Polish, Esparanto and Russian. Mjroots (talk) 10:21, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
Hi, Mjroots. IMO, Helena Marusarzówna certainly meets the notability requirements of English Wikipedia. If you are so inclined, go for it and create the biography. :) Note, she is listed on several WiR redlists -Poland, Skiers, 1910-1919, and Deaths in 1941- so at least she isn't "forgotten". --Rosiestep (talk) 15:26, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
@Rosiestep: - way outta my comfort zone. Thought I'd flag her up in case someone wanted to have a go. An editor with a good command of Polish would be at an advantage here. Mjroots (talk) 15:41, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Requesting Your Input!

Hi everyone, Could you please take a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Mary_Francine_Whittle which has been suggested for deletion? I wrote the article because she was on this list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Women_in_Red/Missing_articles_by_dictionary/International_encyclopedia_of_women_composers. I would appreciate your input. Thanks! T. E. Meeks (talk) 13:05, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

@T. E. Meeks: I hope the article can be salvaged, but I draw your attention to the admonition at the top of the list you cite as cause: "All new articles must satisfy Wikipedia's notability criteria; red links on this list may or may not qualify." The criteria are found at WP:N and pages linked from that page. --Tagishsimon (talk) 14:49, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
Interestingly, we discussed this issue at length a few weeks ago. The International encyclopedia of women composers redlist has 6 short sentences of rubric at the top. I'm sure all sides in that discussion will want to claim you, somewhere along the scale of "people don't read things" through to "increase font size to 1 billion, cycle font colours, blink and sound a loud klaxon; that'll work". --Tagishsimon (talk) 14:56, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
Not directed at Tagishsimon, just a general statement of frustration related to this article: I have been lamenting over this article for the last hour or more. I poured over everything I could find and grasped at every similar name that popped up hoping something would be revealed. In the end I was left disappointed. Disappointed that I couldn't find anything. Disappointed that another editor, working in good faith, produced an article about an amazing, intelligent and uniquely talented woman and I, myself a woman, couldn't find enough information to defend her inclusion in something that many have billed as the first truly "world" encyclopedia. It was painful and discouraging yet again. How long must we deal with this as women? Our contributions to history are only significant and important enough to warrant inclusion here when it out-shines that of a male, outshines because a woman in history had to do more than a male to be noticed. He had a gender advantage. The press gave men more coverage for doing less. This is what we have to, still, deal with today, despite all the advances made. --ARoseWolf 15:13, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
Frustratingly any newspaper reviews of her performances or indeed her compositions, which would contribute to notability, are likely to be in the black hole between the British Library Newspapers which go up to 1950 and NewsBank which goes back up to 25 years from today. She doesn't get a mention in The Times (1785-2010), I've checked that out. (In case UK readers don't know, those three are available from most UK public library services, free, online, from home - check your local library's website under "digital library" or "online resources" or similar, and enjoy a wealth of valuable sources.) She's not mentioned in Grove (accessed through Wikipedia's library service), which of course may be an example of "if you're (female and) overlooked you continue to be overlooked because Wikipedia needs already-published sources".) She was born in 1927 so is now 94: we may have to wait for an obituary to confer that extra level of notability, and to source more information about her life. At which point someone will be able to request to have the deleted article undeleted and use it as the basis of an expanded article. Let's hope that when the sad day comes a national newspaper whether in UK or Belgium will provide a record of her life. Or that someone has access to offline sources which includes reviews of her compositions and/or performances. I fear she may be a lost cause for now. (@Tsistunagiska: You don't have to vote "Delete" in an AfD even if you agree there are no grounds to vote "Keep": silence is an option, which might give the article more chance of survival.) PamD 16:05, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
PamD That may be true for most people but I do have my principles. Though I disagree with the policy, I researched the subject according to the policy I agreed to adhere to when joining Wikipedia. Having researched and knowing there is most likely very little evidence out there to meet the requirements it would go against my personal principles to choose to ignore it and the policy once I entered the fray and simply stay silent. I would love for someone to find something and prove my assessment to be incorrect based on the "new" evidence provided. --ARoseWolf 16:14, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
fwiw, I've argued in the AfD that the article meets the policy - specifically GNG. In my view, "significant coverage" and "detailed" in GNG are often misread as "must be lengthy". IMO the definition of SigCov as "... directly and in detail, so that no original research is needed ..." merely requires what it says on the tin: direct, and no original research needed. Nothing about length. And in this case, arguably satisfied by two short encyclopedia entries. (I concur with your broad lack of sources / uneven playing field points). --Tagishsimon (talk) 18:18, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
Tagishsimon, you know I appreciate your efforts and if you don't know I want you to know that. Even when I play the "devils advocate", in disagreement with your findings, I still acknowledge and support your amazing efforts and incredible experience and skills. Thank you for adding to this beautiful experiment. --ARoseWolf 18:54, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Film buffs?

Actor-director Nathalie Delon died today and another editor has already helpfully translated content from her French entry into English. However it lacks references and devotes much more space to writing about her personal life than her film career, even though the latter seems fairly significant—we have entries on about a dozen of the films she’s in. It could make a good WP:ITNRD candidate if her film work could be fleshed out. Any interest? I will continue to work on it too, but extra hands would be great! Innisfree987 (talk) 19:28, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Amanda Gorman

Can't believe I missed this the first time, but it looks like it was made for WiR. I made two items, for the Vital Voices (Q105001906) poem and for the Vital Voices: 100 Women Using their Power to Empower (Q105001586) book it's based on. My question here is: can we get any more info about the artist who painted the portraits and the interviews in the book itself, which appears to be made by Vital Voices? The article doesn't even mention it. Jane (talk) 10:16, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

Is WP:WPWIR Counting trees & missing woods?

Greetings,

Wikipedia was launched on January 15, 2001 and coming January 15 will be of 20 years. And on various Wikipedia discussion pages of my interest I am attempting to take sincere stalk of certain perceptions. So here is my first for this august forum.

  • 1) WP:WPWIR page informs by October 2014 English Wikipedia's had achieved 15.53% as women's biographies of total biographies on English Wikipedia; that roughly comes to 15.53% ÷ 13 years ≅ 1.19 % aprox per year; Where as growth post WP:WPWIR activism aprox rate seems 3.14% ÷ 4 years ≅ 0.785% aprox per year.
Please do correct if above calculation miss on any mathematical principle. May be project members are already aware of figures and also that may be with experience project members are more focusing on quality of the articles than number of articles.
If numbers are coming low because focusing more on quality, then one (I) would certainly appreciate that they are not missing on woods entirely.
  • 2)
Lately while working on Bias in education#Gender bias ( The Wikipedia article largely focuses on biases in textbooks and textbook controversies.) I came across UNESCO study based this bbc report enumerating bias through lopsided depiction of gender roles through textbooks across the continents.
So when member of WP:WPWIR focus on biographies they are certainly making substantial contribution to correct lop sided pro male stereotypes of traditional gender roles depiction. And I do very much value that WP:WPWIR keep taking encyclopedic notes of women icons, heroines and idols enthusiastically.
But with my background as student of south Asia studies I want to sound a note of caution here. south Asia and many other global places Cult of personality and Hero/heroines including that of worship of female idols in almost every idealistic perceived role does take place.
For an example (South Asian) Indians do worship Goddess of war culturally for centuries but in practical living that necessarily does not translate into equal opportunities in armed forces or else where. Rather women of all three big south Asian countries and other Asian countries too have succeeded in attaining top political positions much before westerners and USA and still if one sees equal opportunity status for western women is much better.
While continuing taking encyclopedic notes of women icons, heroines and idols enthusiastically, is not only important, rather I would recommend those members to participate in actual textbook formation in own territories to correct gender imbalances.
Same time counting only on biographies and not paying enough attention on non biography aspects of gender gap specially ignoring articles that study narratives would it not be like counting on trees while missing woods?
IMHO While working and focusing on biographies is very much counts, may be if some of members can allocate some five to ten percent of their valuable time to non biography gender gap areas too will help over all goal of equal opportunities better.
While I am likely to come back with few more talking points to this august talk page even before start on 2021, and after too still let me wish you all best for coming new year 2021.
Thanks and warm regards Bookku (talk) 09:14, 23 December 2020 (UTC)


If I understand your first point, Bookku, your maths is wrong. On average, across the period 2001 to 2014, ~15% of biographies added were for women. Since 2014, something like 22% or more biographies submitted have been about women. This has pushed the overall proportion of women biographies on wikipedia to ~18.8%. So there has been an increase in the proportion of women biogs submitted in the 2014-220 period of ~50%, over the proportion submitted in the 2201 to 2001 period (from 15% to 22%).
If I understand your first point, yes, there are many non-biography subjects linked to women which also need attention. Many editors here work on such articles. We do not have redlists to encourage their production because, unlike people, Wikidata does not (for the most part) hold records for the subject matter, and so there is nothing from which we can build redlist reports. --Tagishsimon (talk) 09:58, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
... that roughly comes to 15.53% ÷ 13 years ≅ 1.19 % aprox per year You have assumed that the percentage of women biographies was—at any point in Wikipedia's history—0%, and that subsequently the percentage has been strictly increasing. Another assumption is that success should be measured by the rate of the rate of change and not simply the rate of change i.e. that it takes an equivalent amount of effort to increase the percentage by 0.1% whether it starts at 1% or 48%. I'm not sure how either assumption is justified. Though WPWIR often puts the women bios first and foremost, it is not all that we do—at least half of my creations which I consider part of the project (in spirit or concretely listed as such) are books like Women, Race and Class, Revolting Prostitutes and Sex Power Money which detail feminist bodies of thought and issues primarily affecting working class women rather than individual privileged women. — Bilorv (talk) 10:23, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
Bookku: Thanks for contributing your concerns. I don't really agree that we cannot see wood for trees on this project. While it is true that the majority of articles developed under Women in Red have been biographies (simply because we felt it important to increase the proportion of women's biographies on Wikipedia), many of our most important articles have not been biographies. To start with, there is SusunW's FA Inter-Allied Women's Conference. Thanks to Megalibrarygirl and other contributors, we have a whole series of new articles on women's suffrage (Category:Women's suffrage, Category:Women's suffrage in the United States), in addition to many timelines on women in various occupations and interests (Category:Timelines of women in history. Then there are a huge number of articles describing women's organizations around the world (Category:Women's organizations}, including lots in Asia (Category:Women's organizations based in Asia). As we also collaborate closely with other wikiprojects on women, such as Women writers and wp:Women's sport, I can assure you there are lots of non-biographical articles on developments country-by-country, and on works, clubs and achievements. But if you really feel there are important aspects of women in Asia which we haven't covered in sufficient detail, I suggest you begin by compiling a redlist, perhaps initially in your user space, if possible with references to reliable sources. Finally, all the best to you and yours for a happy and successful 2021.--Ipigott (talk) 11:38, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
As I've been complaining for a decade now, it is a general characteristic of Wikipedia that our coverage of small, discrete subjects (things, whether people, places, battles, paintings ...) is far better than our coverage of broader articles on topics, where we are often astonishingly weak. This is especially unfortunate because most of the time "topic" articles, the traditional content of encyclopedias, get much higher views than biographies & other "thing" articles. Johnbod (talk) 13:23, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
I do try to focus on what I call "anchor articles" in addition to biographies. I write about conferences, as does Rosiestep, social movements, industries which women have predominated, halls of fame, etc. precisely because those give us ways to hook women's biographies to their historical context. My project for next year, which will probably take the entire year is a very complex one, women's nationality. It is very little understood that women did not (and still don't in many places) have the same access to citizenship that men do. While the article I collaborated on for the women's poll tax repeal movement was being reviewed, I was pointed to the birthright citizenship article for the US. I was gobsmacked that there was nothing in the article to indicate that before 1922 women did not have their own nationality and if it had been lost, they could only conditionally get it back until 1940. So I added bits and pieces and decided just to bite the bullet and work on the topic. It will be a huge undertaking, hopefully covering all nations and if anyone is interested in contributing, I welcome the input. SusunW (talk) 15:32, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
That's an interesting theme, SusunW. I'm aware of several Australian women who became enemy aliens due to their marriages. Their names escape me. I remember that it took many years to have that status reverted. Oronsay (talk) 16:58, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
Yes, that's the trouble - the "topic" articles are usually harder to write, needing more research. I'm not aware of a comparable issue with British womens' nationality. Johnbod (talk) 17:22, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
Exactly, Oronsay. I know little about Australian history on the subject, but guess it follows British for a long period. I know that Ireland gave women independent nationality in 1935, Canada in 1940 and in Britain it was in 1948. The specifics and details I am hoping I will learn while we are writing this. If you are interested in helping to develop the information on Australia, I truly will welcome the help. Leave me a note on my page and I'll share what I've barely started. And Johnbod exactly. I couldn't find anything about it on most country's nationality pages. SusunW (talk) 17:31, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
I think all of these areas -broad topics, biographies (including icons, heroines and idols), women's works, women's issues- are important. Women in Red participants have created many of these articles but there are so many more still to be written, including the "anchor articles". I'm thankful that you, Bookku stopped by to post your message and get us thinking and talking about "trees" and "woods" in the context of which articles we've been writing and which might be next! Pinging Victuallers as he may also have an opinion with the initial math-related point. --Rosiestep (talk) 17:56, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

: SusunW is absolutely spot on with with problem of the nationality/citizenship of women of historical importance. Not only do they frequently depend on their spouse's nationality rather than their own but in many countries women were simply not considered important enough to have rights of citizenship. I think this is an excellent avenue to explore in 2021 as Wikipedia seems to be obsessed with details of everyone's citizenship. I am rather surprised the ubiquintous Johnbod has raised the need for broader development of "topic" articles. I remember that back in my early days ión Wikipedia, I noticed that Wikipedia lacked a global view on art. When I was well on the way to developing an extensive article on the topic, Johnbod (whom I sincerely admire for his outstanding contributions) informed me that we did not need such comprehenive views on Wikipedia as we had sufficient coverage with articles such as Art of Europe, History of Asian art, etc. I still think, nevertheless, than an article on the world's development of art would be useful. But as a newbie, I backed down and concentrated on art in Denmark, such as the Church Frescos. In a similar train of thought, I have suggested covering Women in world literature but there does not seem to have been much interest. Maybe the "global view" is not a priority.--Ipigott (talk) 19:08, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

Not sure what you're referring to there - we have & have always had various articles on art, visual art, history of art, all of them rather unmanageable, & not that good. I did a big expansion on sculpture myself some years ago. The bigger the subject, the harder it is to do properly. Johnbod (talk) 19:21, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
  • Johnbod: I have very distinct memories of all your comments on my articles. Here I am referring specifically to your comments on my attempts to develop an article on Visual arts in October 2009:
"I hate to pour cold water on the effort you have put in, but I can't feel very positive about your additions here. First we already have too many general potted histories of art going over the same subjects, ok not in the same way, see: History of art, Western art history, History of painting, Western painting, Outline of painting history, and probably others. Secondly, I can see you don't really have a depth of knowledge in the field of art history, and the sources you are using are not nearly good enough - see WP:RS, whose standards they don't meet. There are in fact many good sources available on-line at Google books and websites, but these aren't them, with a couple of exceptions like the Metropolitan. Nothing is harder than boiling down several thousand years of art history to a couple of thousand words, and it should not be attempted without wide knowledge of the field. A useful expansion of the article would be to stick purely to types of object/media, and cover the applied arts/decorative arts etc, with lots of links. I hope I haven't offended!" Johnbod (talk) 16:46, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
Maybe your advice at the time was sensible but I must say my future involvement on Wikipedia was somewhat brought short by your comments. If you had been more supportive, I think we might have progressed further. My intention was not only to document western art but the art of Asia, Africa and the unoccupied Americas, etc. While the article has certainly progressed, it does not give the world view I had intended. I still think the article could be developed to give a world view. Maybe others will feel encouraged to expand it accordingly.--Ipigott (talk) 21:47, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
Well, I'm sorry you feel like that! Your additions are pretty much all still there, and the article has had a few million views since then. I wonder how you feel they read now. Then as now, History of art is the main article giving that sort of global whistlestop tour. Johnbod (talk) 23:42, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
Ipigott I totally welcome your input on the nationality article(s). Your skill with language will definitely be an asset and you will obviously have access to different sources than I do, which will be very helpful. As it's a long-term project, I imagine various editors can develop parts in sandboxes and we can combine them into an overview, table, and specific sections on continents. I think rather than writing separate articles for women's nationality by country, we add the details of the curtailment of women's nationality to the articles on the country, so that the main articles on nationality provide better scope. SusunW (talk) 19:29, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
SusunW, I really learned a lot about the importance of writing about topics from working with you. It puts the players of history in perspective. And it is a little harder than biographies, but it's really rewarding. :) Megalibrarygirl (talk) 21:11, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
Megalibrarygirl agreed. I always enjoy our collaborations. Yes, broad topics are harder, but more hands can make light work. SusunW (talk) 21:15, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
SusunW, more hands can be helpful! Sometimes, even if it's just to nudge someone in the right direction. Ipigott I started the women's suffrage articles based on a suggestion from a Texas teacher and it's grown from there. Teachers are good at nudging! Megalibrarygirl (talk) 21:17, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
True dat Megalibrarygirl and what I find as well is that as we add topics and the women who worked in/on them, we build the interconnections of the encyclopedia as well. The Inter-Allied Women's Conference and Doris Stevens, among others, definitely link to nationality but poll taxes led me to nationality, which led me to discover Ethel Mackenzie, who links back in to suffrage. If we build these topics we rebuild the communities these women interacted in. SusunW (talk) 21:58, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
SusunW, exactly! And the process also turns up so many missing women! It's like in the act of shining a light on something, you find so much more than you knew was there... if that metaphor holds up! LOL. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 22:17, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
Megalibrarygirl, Just adding in that this thread in the wider post is really inspiring. I'm going to put a conference and a topic page on my goals for the year. (Just need to find a theme!) Lajmmoore (talk) 12:14, 1 January 2021 (UTC)
Lajmmoore, that's awesome! Are you going to do women's rights conferences? One of my goals is to do all of the NAWSA conferences and some of the other suffrage conferences. :) Megalibrarygirl (talk) 18:09, 1 January 2021 (UTC)
Megalibrarygirl, I'd be really happy to help with that - I don't have a plan for what to cover yet. If you've got an idea I could start with I'd be really grateful :) Lajmmoore (talk) 18:12, 1 January 2021 (UTC)
Lajmmoore, I only have a vague idea right now. I'm still working on the state suffrage articles. Also Women's suffrage in states of the United States needs a lot of work, if you're interested in tackling that one! Megalibrarygirl (talk) 16:26, 2 January 2021 (UTC)
There is one conference I'm trying to chase down, but I don't have a lot of info, Lajmmoore yet: Mississippi Valley Suffrage Conference. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 16:29, 2 January 2021 (UTC)
Megalibrarygirl, maybe I could have a go at that one? Perhaps start a draft and see where we go from there? Lajmmoore (talk) 19:19, 2 January 2021 (UTC)
Lajmmoore, That would be cool. I've found a few references to it, but maybe you'll find more. I can add what I've found. It seemed pretty important for a lot of suffragists at the time... Megalibrarygirl (talk) 01:24, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
Megalibrarygirl, Brill! I'll start a draft for it this week and drop you a message when I've got going! Lajmmoore (talk) 16:35, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
I concur that in general, The bigger the subject, the harder it is to do properly. Lately, I've been working on the article quantum mechanics, which is a pretty big subject within physics. Bringing that article up to adequacy required mentioning work by women, simply because women did do important work even within a heavily male-dominated field. Their accomplishments just get lost when articles are written by throwing together factoids from superficial popularizations. I suspect that something similar holds true for a lot of big-subject articles: they attract attention, so they attract trivia, and trivia is biased in favor of the famous. XOR'easter (talk) 20:37, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
XOR'easter, After I worked on Women in computing, I had to go into other articles about computing and add the accomplishments of women. So many early programmers were women, but they were left out of the articles. >.< Megalibrarygirl (talk) 21:18, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
Thousands of women belong to the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, yet only today, inspired by SusunW's comment in this thread, did I create an article on their foundational conference of 1874. There's plenty of work still to do on that article including figuring out who many of the the officers were as the sources refer to the women by their husbands' names, e.g. "Mrs. [J.J. Doe]", a common form of address in the 19th-century. Sometimes I feel like pulling my hair out, trying to figure out who "she" is, but I will do what I can to keep these women from disappearing into the historical abyss. Once sorted out, many of the names will become redlinks (currently, the article has two), and some redlinks will become blue links, and some, I think, will link to the "big subject articles", which others are addressing. --Rosiestep (talk) 23:22, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
Woo Hoo Rosiestep! And yes, that name-thing is a serious problem, which continued right into the 20th century. I found all of them in the poll tax article except "Mrs. C. H. Byrd" of Waynesboro, Virginia". (It occurs to me Ser Amantio di Nicolao was on vacation and I was gonna ask him for help and forgot). So frustrating. If you need help Rosie, shoot me a list and I can see what I can find in FamilySearch. SusunW (talk) 23:33, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
SusunW, Rosiestep there's a lot of cross-pollination with the suffrage movement. I'm so glad you're tackling the WCTU. :) Megalibrarygirl (talk) 00:07, 24 December 2020 (UTC)
Megalibrarygirl, indeed there is. --Rosiestep (talk) 05:49, 24 December 2020 (UTC)
SusunW Just dropping in to say that I'll try and dig something up about her in the next couple of days - I'll let you know. --Ser Amantio di NicolaoChe dicono a Signa?Lo dicono a Signa. 02:09, 24 December 2020 (UTC)
Putting in my two cents...I like the idea expressed by Rosie and SusanW! I think the same approach can be used for women in art. My current strategy for exploring art is to look at associations or shows and use those articles as a "hanger" to work from. For example an article on Atelier 17 led me to a number of notable women artists. Ditto Nederlandsche Vereeniging voor Ambachts- en Nijverheidskunst. (I want to write up something about Onze kunst van heden [nl] (Our Art of Today) a show held at the Rijksmuseum in 1939. There is a list of all the participating artists at ArtIndex but it only lists the first 700 artists, ending at the letter T. If anyone can figure out how to get the final artists I would really appreciate it.) Anyway, I agree, pick an organization or event (not too big and not too small) and work out from there. WomenArtistUpdates (talk) 16:22, 24 December 2020 (UTC)
WomenArtistUpdates, is there any way to contact the art index team that posted the page? Megalibrarygirl (talk) 19:21, 24 December 2020 (UTC)
Brilliant Megalibrarygirl! I will send them an email! Here's hoping...WomenArtistUpdates (talk) 19:50, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

WomenArtistUpdates, fingers crossed! Megalibrarygirl (talk) 19:54, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

I got a list from them Megalibrarygirl! Just have to massage/wikify the data a little. Thanks again for the common-sense suggestion. BTW, the article Onze Kunst van Heden is really coming along. WomenArtistUpdates (talk) 21:18, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
WomenArtistUpdates, I'm so glad they came through! :D Megalibrarygirl (talk) 22:14, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Interesting debate here. By and large I agree that focusing on women's bios risks neglecting important wider articles. [I've asked my social media contacts (a female dominated, highly educated bunch) several times what they think about the %age of bios of women on the 'pedia, and the responders have always said the proportion wasn't that important.] When I started here, way before WiR existed, one of my first focuses was Women in science, and that might be a target for further improvement; it would be great to see this as a GA. (When I look at my early tribs there I wince, they were dire and based on rubbish online sources; there is so much more information available online these days.) Cheers, Espresso Addict (talk) 02:14, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
This is refreshing to come back to. People discussing ways to expand the inclusion of often forgotten or disregarded people on an encyclopedic project that should be about topics that will both educate and enlighten people about subjects that have greatly impacted who we are and where we have come from. I don't think anyone here realizes the truly amazing thing that is happening right before our eyes or the real importance of the work being done here. Coming from someone who is deeply invested in people, our past, present and future, every color of the rainbow, as someone who is impacted significantly by every intricate detail of every single day, from the call of the eagle as it soars overhead to the buzz of bees carrying the seeds of life from one flower to the next, ever in search of the sweet nectar to make its honey, I know every single unique life song cries out to be heard. Some stories are like cities bustling between their tall bastions of steel and concrete or with sounds like strong waves of the ocean crashing upon rocks piled up on the shoreline and overflowing with loud colors of life and existence. There are also songs like a relaxing small town park, the sounds so gentle and sweet like kisses from the sun through leafy branches of a shade tree or the calm ripple on a lake as its waters roll up lazily to the shore or a cool spring morning in an open meadow as animals scurry to find a quick meal. All of these songs desire to be heard and noticed. We are each of these. We are all of these and more. But we are not only a subject of these stories, these strings of sound, color and light, but we are also the carriers of the seed like those bees in search of nectar. They have no idea the impact they have in their search. Yes, they produce honey which is an important and monumental task, especially to the bee, and much like the work being discussed here, but we, like that bee, carry much more and our impact is far more reaching than we may ever know. Try as some may to silence those songs, either by ignorance or well-intended reason, the songs will continue to be played. They have to, they are part of us, whether by our link historically or our present life experiences. The question then becomes, will anyone know how to listen? Carry the songs, sing the songs, WIR and teach others how to listen. --ARoseWolf (Talk) 15:34, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Black Lives Matter collaboration

WikiProject Black Lives Matter is hosting a collaboration for Q1 2021. WikiProject WiR members are invited to join.

Happy editing, ---Another Believer (Talk) 17:38, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

Another Believer: We have this scheduled for February. See our ideas page.--Ipigott (talk) 16:01, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
Ipigott, Great! The more the merrier. I'd love for our pages to cross-reference one another so we can all work together, if WP WIR is interested. Thanks for the heads up. ---Another Believer (Talk) 16:08, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
Another Believer, Sounds good to me! Also, thinking about our 3 month Geographic focus on Africa, I found this list from WP:African Diaspora https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_African_diaspora/Slaves which has a few names on it. Lajmmoore (talk) 17:30, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

Cecilia Mangini

The Italian filmmaker Cecilia Mangini died yesterday. She is considered the first female Italian documentary filmmaker. Thriley (talk) 18:48, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for flagging this. A good subject; I am a bit tied up at present but will try to help if folks make a go of it. As the starting point is very brief, an improved article could be a DYK candidate (5x expanded) even if not in time for the ITNRD window... Innisfree987 (talk) 04:44, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

Candace Award

Project members may be interested in helping me sort out confusion over the 'Candace Award' at Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Humanities#Candace Award last given. I think it may be two separate awards, but am unable to find a source definitive one way or another. (as an aside, there are a few red-links of recipients that may be notable) Cheers, Eddie891 Talk Work 15:28, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

AFC: Draft:Alice Whitley

Came across a draft about Alice Whitley MBE, a deceased Australian chemist and headmistress. Couldn't tell if she meets WP:ACADEMIC or WP:ANYBIO but it's a possibility. TJMSmith (talk) 13:56, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

doesn't look like it frankly. Johnbod (talk) 13:59, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
She got an MBE in 1966: [2]. And there look to be a fair number of hits in the Trove newspaper archive, including [3] and [4]. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 14:27, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
I think an MBE does not guarantee notability, though it may help. Johnbod (talk) 15:27, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
Work has been done by others on the article and I've promoted it to Alice Whitley. It'll just have to take its luck now. --Tagishsimon (talk) 15:03, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Need for Wikidata page on women from the classical period

In connection with our February focus on classicists, it would be useful to have a Wikidata redlist on women from the classical period, perhaps simply by year of birth prior to 600 AD.--Ipigott (talk) 13:33, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

African Trowelbalzers

Hi All, Last year I volunteers with some other students to create biographies on Trowelblazers for some women archaeologists from Africa: https://trowelblazers.com/africanarchaeologists/ - I think some of them are notable (& apt for this quarter's Geofocus). Happy editing all! Lajmmoore (talk) 09:23, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Thanks! This looks like a great resource. I added the missing people to Wikidata, though because of some ongoing problems with Listeria they aren't showing up on the redlist yet. Gamaliel (talk) 14:37, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
Gamaliel, Thanks for adding them to Wikidata! This is super useful. TJMSmith (talk) 18:47, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
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