Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Women in Red/Archive 9

From WikiProjectMed
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Archive 5 Archive 7 Archive 8 Archive 9 Archive 10 Archive 11 Archive 15

Why not post more than one meetup page in a month?

Copying my last response from User talk:Rosiestep#Reminder on Women writers to here.

This is my thought. Why not post more than one meetup page in a month? If only 1 or 2 or 3 people want to participate in that event, and create 2 or 4 or 6 new articles, we have gained much. First, Wikipedia has gained new articles. Second, WiR has gained new contributors. Third, Wir, may have gained new members. You mention "major contributors". Where is the downside of offering secondary options to major, minor, or new contributors?

As for MENA, the Guggenheim will focus on MENA artists. But I'm not convinced that m:Iranian Wikimedians User Group will focus only on artists or women. Each editor chooses. If I come across a Maltese or Afghan woman writer or ethnologist, I can contribute that article to a MENA event (We don't have to put a square peg in a round hole.). And, as I've learned in middle age that I am not unique, I know that others would share this view.

I remember sitting with the A+F folks in October 2015 in Washington D.C., and making a plan for WiR's collaboration as an online node for March 2016. I told Michael, Jackie, and Sian that WiR would be glad to collaborate, but how would they feel if WiR takes a broader approach -- includes feminists, activists, social reformers? They were very quick and gracious to say, "sure", "yes", "of course", although I doubt anyone had asked them that before. I want WiR to be that nimble... if someone else has an idea... go for it. I've been thinking about this a lot, and I firmly believe that in order for WiR to become a movement, we have to empower others from around the world who want to replicate our secret sauce: our brand and our scope. We have to be open to facilitating multiple events, in multiple languages at any given time. We have to encourage others to create meetup pages, send out invites, develop redlists, and so on. Amazing, that in less than a year, we've gotten to this point!!!!!!!!! Also, I think it may be time to elect some "Core Coordinators" (following the MILHIST and A+F models), in order to oversee the brand. I am responding to you here, but I'm also going to cross-post this on the WiR talkpage for greater visibility. --Rosiestep (talk) 14:58, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

Hear! Hear! @Rosiestep: Totally agree. I think flexibility is the key and I don't see why we cannot combine events and/or topics. We reach a much broader group if we have diverse criteria and combining possibly disparate areas allows us to cover disparate populations, making us much more inclusive. I love that we don't just focus on eliminating one bias, but many. We are adding diversity to the encyclopedia too and that can only improve the encyclopedia. As we write about women we tackle misogyny; edithons about black women, indigenous women tackle racism and cultural diversity. Art+Feminism the way we have structured it covers all classes, from working class women to those in the leisured upper classes, which I think is imperative. We don't talk much about classism on WP, but it certainly exists, as it does in most encyclopedias. I think no matter the topic/topics, we'll attract those who are interested in it. I don't really know that we need separate sign up sheets, why can't we just do one per month with diverse topics? Don't understand what "Core Coordinators" are, can you elaborate? SusunW (talk) 16:23, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
@SusunW and Rosiestep: Then I withdraw all my previous suggestions/comments on this. I too had originally suggested having both the MENA modern artists and the photographers in May. But on re-reading the exchange (now on the events page), I thought I should give some support to the comment Susun made:
"Photography has been on the schedule for many months. Two intensive months on artists and writers" says to me that we need to diversify our topics. Why can't we kill two birds with one stone and do photography and include MENA photographers? If the photography curator can provide images for a later editathon, it might be a reason to postpone, but I see no reason to keep toppling subjects that have been planned in advance. JMO. SusunW (talk) 19:39, 23 February 2016 (UTC)"
I seem to be having a really bad day today, misunderstanding everything. I think in future I'll just concentrate on the content and leave other considerations to all you dynamic girls. Please accept my apologies.--Ipigott (talk) 16:38, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
Ipigott absolutely no need for apologies of any kind. You are an amazing supporter and contributor and I think we are much better for your input and insights. My concern in the comment before was that I did not want to replace photography with artists. I see zero reasons why we cannot do both. SusunW (talk) 16:46, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
@Ipigott: totally agree with Susun. No apology necessary. Your opinion and contributions are valuable. --Rosiestep (talk) 02:56, 2 March 2016 (UTC)
At meta:MENA Artists Month, we are working to organize internationally, and also plan to adapt aspects of meta:Wikipedia Asian Month/2015 Edition with Guggenheim postcards or token physical prizes from the giftshop to top contributors. We hope to have WiR listed as a partner on that page too. The general scope is any MENA artists of the 20th and 21st centuries, with a particular highlight of the contemporary artists who are being recognized in the Guggenheim UBS MAP Global Art Initiative. The official list of MAP artists is not out yet, but I believe it is probably majority women; obviously it would be appropriate for WiR to focus on the women MENA artists.--Pharos (talk) 19:50, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
@SusunW: yes, photography stays on the schedule as is. I'm intrigued with the idea of a meetup page for an entire month, with multiple focuses. Sure, let's try it! How would you envision we do it, for say, May? --Rosiestep (talk) 02:56, 2 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Rosiestep Just like this one Art+Feminism but instead Photography+MENA and then put the red links lists in for photographers, Middle Eastern Women, North African women, and whatever artists list the Guggenheim comes up with. Surely with 4 categories (or maybe its only 3 if MENA women are in one list), people will find something of interest to write about. SusunW (talk) 03:15, 2 March 2016 (UTC)
  • @Rosiestep, SusunW, and Megalibrarygirl: For what it's worth, in my opinion I believe strong focus on an area provides greater incentive for participation and the likelihood of achieving more significant progress. If the Guggenheim is arranging an event in early May (see the discussion on the Ideas and events page), then I think that perhaps a shorter, highly focused WiR editathon (for one or max. two weeks) on the MENA artists is what we should be aiming for. I had originally proposed two weeks on photography and two weeks on modern MENA artists but, on reflection, I think we should allow photography to stretch over the full month. The MENA editathon could then be scheduled, say, from Saturday 7 to Sunday 15 May (if these dates are suitable for the Guggenheim). This would of course require setting up a separate meet-up page linked to specially prepared lists of red links, etc. I hope Pharos and the Guggenheim will assist here as we have virtually nothing on the countries of North Africa and the Middle East on our current Artists page. If we use this approach, then we can target contributors who have been active in the area without confusing them with our focus on photography. Both photography (for the full month) and MENA 20th/21st-century artists could then be listed separately under our events for May.--Ipigott (talk) 11:10, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

As with much of everything, there are pros and cons to each: "one month, one meetup page" vs. "separate meetup pages for every event". What if we try this through the first half of the year, and then re-address for the second half? Please comment, add to it, etc. --Rosiestep (talk) 15:17, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

  • Major, pre-planned focus events:
  • A unique meetup page
  • Duration: generally lasting an entire calendar month, but at least 2 weeks duration, depending on focus and/or time of year, e.g. the last 2 weeks of December might not be an optimal time for an editathon.
  • Redlists: WiR will probably have one or more, in addition to what may already be on Wikipedia
  • Templates (invitations, thankyous, barnstars, talkpage event tag): WiR's responsibility
  • Ad hoc events:
  • A unique meetup page
  • Duration: shorter period, perhaps 3 days (long weekend), or 9 days (Saturday through following Sunday), or something similar
  • Sponsor: These will likely be "sponsored events". Commonly, there will be a named "liaison" from the sponsoring org on the meetup page
  • Redlists: WiR may have one, but this would mainly be the liaison's responsibility
  • Templates (invitations, thankyous, barnstars, talkpage event tag): The liaison could create these, if they wish, but before distributing, should post a link to them on the WiR talkpage allowing for discussion (e.g. brand integrity) if WiR is mentioned on the template.
  • We would develop a "kit" (an instruction page & maybe a video) for "sponsors" addressing all of this plus "guides" (sample WiR meetup page, sample templates), info regarding common tasks associated with an event, etc.
  • Whatever you decide I will support. I just know from what we have seen that the organization and follow up will fall on just a few shoulders. One central place to organize seems simpler than multiple pages, but I am flexible. SusunW (talk) 16:19, 2 March 2016 (UTC)
  • I'm flexible, too, and should probably step up to help more, too, actually. Let me know what I can do. It sounds like there is a lot of work going on that we may need to spread around more. Stuff in my "real life" has made me focus on short-term things like making lists and fixing up references on articles, but if I'm pointed a thing I can work on, I will. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 17:51, 2 March 2016 (UTC)
@Megalibrarygirl: You've been doing a really wonderful job with the lists. I spent half an hour today looking for notable artists from North Africa and the Middle East but could only find one from Tunisia. If we can't find at least 30 names to red link, then it seems pointless to have a major editathon anyway. Perhaps you could look into it yourself and let us know.--Ipigott (talk) 18:14, 2 March 2016 (UTC)
@Ipigott:, thanks very much, though I enjoy doing the lists so I sometimes feel like it's not work...  :) I'll see what I can find for you. Are you adding the artists to our artists list or elsewhere? Megalibrarygirl (talk) 18:23, 2 March 2016 (UTC)
@Ipigott:, I'm adding the artists to the WiR artists page. I found a few from Yemen and a lot from Saudi. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 01:04, 3 March 2016 (UTC)
@SusunW: That one word, simpler, makes more sense than all those bullets I wrote last night. Lol. Let's do it -let's go with that- one meetup page per month. Unless someone has objections? @Ipigott, Megalibrarygirl, and SusunW: You ok with that? And if yes, start in April? --Rosiestep (talk) 05:09, 3 March 2016 (UTC)
  • @Rosiestep and SusunW: This discussion is getting extremely long but if we are to change our approach, I think we need to consider things carefully before we go any further. I fully agree with Susun that keeping things simple facilitates our tasks. However, in order to keep proper focus on both photographers and MENA artists, I think that for May we could perhaps announce both events separately in one invitation. As those interested in photography are usually also interested in art (and vice versa), it should not be difficult to draw up lists of those we should invite. But then I still think we should maintain separate "meet-up pages", one for the photographers, the other -- perhaps for just one week -- for the MENA artists. The MENA artists page should be particularly useful for those associated with the Guggenheim exhibition and their editathon in early May. The two meet-up pages could then be linked separately from the invitation. (For MENA, I am pleased to see how many new names Megalibrarygirl has added to the Artists list.) If we don't do it like this, then I would suggest we send out invitations for photography alone but include announcements on our main page and on the photography meet-up page about the MENA editathon too. Pharos could then perhaps help by sending out his own invitations for MENA and could, as usual, contribute to adding red links. As for April, I was not aware that we had a second priority in addition to Writers. As there is always a tremendous amount of work to be done on writers, I don't think we should dilute our priorities with other interests. The only other area I remember being discussed for April is Women in Science for which we already have a draft meet-up page. Unfortunately, although I see lots of new articles and DYKs on Women in Science every week, I simply have not had time to add them to the page. If anyone thinks this is important, then perhaps we could devote a day or two in April to catching up on this and further publicizing our efforts in connection with the Wikipedia in Science year. So in conclusion, let's keep strong focus on our month-by-month priorities. That approach has proved highly successful up to now and our project is attracting ever more participants. If we try to cover too much at the same time, our efforts certainly will be less effective.--Ipigott (talk) 08:15, 3 March 2016 (UTC)
Whatever works. I don't see how having one monthly sign up sheet with multiple topics effects the outcome. If I have the option to write about multiple topics, I'll probably write an article about each in a given month. If I have to go to different sign up sheets to do it, it makes it more complicated. I have to remember to go to the other sign up to look for red links and post my results, rather than just finding everything on a single sheet. But it also seems to me, that if there are multiple events running simultaneously with different sheets that it makes it an either or proposition rather than an and—sign up for art or photography not art and photography. For me, easy and inclusive is always better. But again, I will go with whatever y'all decide. SusunW (talk) 14:35, 3 March 2016 (UTC)
As you all know I am getting on in years and am perhaps not as adaptable/flexible as the rest of you who belong to the generations of my children and even my grandchildren. I realize that some of my personal preferences are not shared by the most active members of the project. I would therefore like to withdraw my suggestions and simply agree to go along with whatever is decided. After all, this is your project, not mine. A first concrete step would be for someone to prepare a draft meet-up page for May (or even for April) so that everyone involved in the project knows what we are talking about. In any case, we all seem to be more or less on the same track and we are all working towards more and better articles about women and their achievements. The modalities (good English-Canadian word) of exactly how we reach our goals are rather less important than the continuing enthusiasm and the ever wider appreciation of what we are doing.--Ipigott (talk) 15:38, 3 March 2016 (UTC)
  1. WIR is doing great - Well done Ipigott (oh and you! too)
  2. Its the collaboration that makes people want to join a project.
  3. Sorry for the maths - If there is more than one subject then two overlapping sets works well. The target should be the first diagram, but the scope "in red" should be the second diagram. A good overlap is required, otherwise you/we can end up competing rather than collaborating.
An aside ( I have been trying to do "Rwanda" in last few days and tried to look for "Feminists" (re:WIR-AF), but 70% of the people in the country are women and ~50% of the parliament is too).
Cheers Victuallers (talk) 16:39, 3 March 2016 (UTC)
@Victuallers: Good points, Roger. It's really great working on this highly successful project which evolved from your original initiative. Thanks for your continued support. I have a good friend from Burundi which was involved in the same racial disputes. She has told me all about the atrocities. But that does not mean we should not cover the evolving achievements of women in both countries.--Ipigott (talk) 17:07, 3 March 2016 (UTC)
It's interesting that Rwanda does exceedingly well on the World Economic Forum gender gap measures, because so many of the men are dead. It's one of the reasons that I don't find that particular document very appealing.
All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 13:37, 12 March 2016 (UTC).

How to measure activity

Hi Everyone, I have been working on a project to quantify the biography gender gap you, it uses Wikidata data, you can view the project at [1] (its still in development). We have been collecting data since Oct 2014, and are starting to see how the representation of Female Biographies has been shifting. This one displays how the ratio has been changing in that period among big languages. (Note: We missed some data collection in late 2014/ early 2015 that's why it looks flat there) A plot describing Wikipedia languages change in their female biography ratios and size over time

And this is what it looks like if you take into account the way size of all biographies that have been added.

A plot describing Wikipedia languages change in their female biography ratios over time You can see that English Wikipedia - thanks to your work - has been improving in representing Women. So does Spanish and Norwegian. Congratulations.

Now my question. It would be great if somehow we could show statistically that WiR is "moving the needle". The question is how do we quantify how much activity WiRm, and other editors are putting in over time. I know this is an age-old question, but I thought I'd ask. We could look at activity in the WiR wikiproject pages, or perhaps look at editathon levels. Ideally we could look at cross-language activity to see what has been really effective. Open to hearing all your ideas. Maximilianklein (talk) 21:47, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

Thank you, Maximilianklein, for these interesting results. Perhaps you could put together a short article for publication, perhaps in Signpost? Although you note a slight increase in the percentage of biographies about women in the EN wiki, it seems to me to be surprisingly low given the number of new articles over the past six or seven months. I was wondering whether the data could not be affected by the very large number of new biographies of people in sport where those on men continue to dominate. Would it be possible to obtain statistics on the evolution of women's vs. men's biographies excluding those on sport? I think this would be interesting for participants in Women in Red where the emphasis has been on culture, science, education, leadership and social reform.--Ipigott (talk) 08:00, 12 March 2016 (UTC)
Hi Ipigott, thanks for the feedback. It is possible to remove 'sports people' by relying on Wikidata to know who who has an occupation that is a type of sport - its just a tad complicated to do, so I'll have to put it on my freetime list. Maximilianklein (talk) 19:13, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
Hi, it is very difficult to show this. For example we may have created more articles, but shorter ones. Or we may have members who would have been creating articles anyway. You could certainly look at the results form the Science editathon, and maybe one of two others. (But again, we may have focussed on women in science, as opposed to women elsewhere.)
All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 13:44, 12 March 2016 (UTC).
Thanks Rich Farmbrough, I'll check that out. Maximilianklein (talk) 19:13, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
It could be argued that some women's bios would have been created during this period even if WiR didn't exist. But the fact is, WiR does exist, we are focused, and we are producing thousands of articles. We tackle various topics each month, and the variety keeps us motivated. At the same time, non-WiR editors are creating others women's bios (e.g. sports figures) without the support of a WiR editathon. We don't live in isolation; all efforts count.
Historically, the content gender has been addressed with stove-piped efforts, e.g. WikiWomen's History Month runs for 1 out of 12 months, editatons in Mexico (women's bios editathons) didn't have a crossover to the English language Wikipedia. But this has changed. WiR editors translate lots of articles. WiR has been doing the equivalent of WikiWomen's History Month 7 out of the last 7 months. And it appears from the above graphs that the change is "moving the needle". Can we do more? Can we write longer and better articles? Can we slice and dice the data differently? Yes. But for this moment in time, I want to thank Max for crunching the numbers, and I say let's celebrate what we have accomplished! Please join me.
As for quantifying WiR's metrics, Max, click here. --Rosiestep (talk) 20:52, 12 March 2016 (UTC)
Max also, individual WiR editathons are linked in the WiR navbox. Each of these shows articles created during the event in the Outcomes' section. These articles are amalgamated into the monthly totals. --Rosiestep (talk) 17:15, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

{{Thanks Rosiestep this is very easy data to use. I'll run some correlations now and see what I find. Maximilianklein (talk) 19:13, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

This is excellent Max. When we launched the project we were just travelling hopefully. We knew that we could not achieve parity but we naively thought that we could affect the needle. It would appear that we have. The enwiki is obviously one of the most difficult to turn but a lot of time has been directed and we have more volunteers. The wiki has been there for 15 years and in one year a relatively small group of editors have had an influence on a project that has over 5m articles, 1,000 new articles a day and 10 new edits per second. The progress made by the Scandinavians and the Spanish is also encouraging. Barnstars all round IMO. Victuallers (talk) 17:21, 13 March 2016 (UTC)
Victuallers, yes its great work. Maximilianklein (talk) 19:13, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

Anyone know how to merge two Wikidata files? When I tied my article to Ukraine [2] I noted the Russian article was not tied. It says I can "delete" or "Merge" it with the Russian entry, [3] but gives no instructions for merging. SusunW (talk) 21:12, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

 Done. --Edgars2007 (talk/contribs) 21:20, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
Edgars2007 I don't even want to know how you did that. Thank you so much for your constant help with my technology ignorance. YOU ROCK! SusunW (talk) 21:28, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
SusunW I have frequently had the same problem. In some cases I have had to delete and restore the information. There should be an easier was to handle it. I have even come across two sets of several language links to biographies on the same person, often because alternative spellings were used for each set. There should be some easy way to handle this or at the very least a means of signalling the problem to those at Wikidata.--Ipigott (talk) 10:25, 20 March 2016 (UTC)
Ipigott I am betting as long as we don't over use the magic wand edgars2007 uses, there is help in that quarter. Every time I have asked, he's come to the rescue. And I totally agree with your assessment, it is almost always due to a name variant. SusunW (talk) 15:57, 20 March 2016 (UTC)
Yes, dublicates are problem. Actually, there are dublicates even in the same Wikipedia :) :( We Wikidatians have some clever ways (he he) to find them, but not all, of course. Well, there is some help at Wikidata. That help isn't written by me, so it should be pretty understandable :) But if you spot anything, please do notify me at my talk page for example. --Edgars2007 (talk/contribs) 16:17, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

New category

Can someone figure out why Category:Women in Red social media isn't showing up here Category:Women in Red? I must have done something quirky. Thank you. --Rosiestep (talk) 20:23, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

That would appear to be something for Ser Amantio di Nicolao who has been increasingly active here.--Ipigott (talk) 20:39, 20 March 2016 (UTC)
Now fixed. --Edgars2007 (talk/contribs) 21:01, 20 March 2016 (UTC)
@Edgars2007: If I knew how to give you an emoticon for thank you, I would, except that I don't, and if I did, it would mean I've spent far too much time on social media, learning how to replace words with symbols. So, Thank You. --Rosiestep (talk) 21:46, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

Tool for starting artist articles (meant for newbies)


Here's a free-form tool I've been developing for the WP:ArtAndFeminism campaign (based on previous SCAR work), let me know what you good folks think.--Pharos (talk) 01:36, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

  • Pharos this is really cool. I'm not sure how we'd use it at WiR as we create content with so many different focuses. But maybe it can be adapted for that? --Rosiestep (talk) 03:20, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Rosiestep: It actually can be adapted pretty easily for different types of biographies, this is the template for artists, that we specialized for this campaign: {{Preloaddraft/Artist}}. We'd have to make a new one for each kind kind of profession or area of notability (some of these already exist), and that's pretty easy. It would be harder to do it for non-biography articles, because those have less of a common structure, but if there are common types (e.g. certain types of oganizations) we can develop templates for them as well.--Pharos (talk) 14:50, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

Some results

Hi all, in response to an inquiry about the Dutch women's editathon during the week of 5 March, I collected some stats on Wikidata and since it is so easy to do this for more languages, I also did this for the English Wikipedia:

CLAIM[21:6581097] CLAIM[21:6581072] %female
total 6 December link[enwiki] 1112419 212778 16.10%
total 18 March link[enwiki] 1135665 220618 16.27%
# new articles 23246 7840 25.22%
%increase 2.09% 3.68%

What you see in this table is the result of 2 separate queries I made today for total male and female gender items with sitelinks to English Wikipedia. The top row represents the same 2 separate queries from December 6 and the next row is from today. The left column shows the number of items for which the "claim" male gender is true, and the right columns shows the number of items for which female gender is true. The far column on the right computes the percentage female based on the formula %f = f / ( m + f ). The third row shows per gender the difference in number of articles between 6 December and today, which roughly indicates the growth percentage over the period (roughly 3.5 months). The 4th row indicates the percentage increase and this is computed %increase = # new articles / (total today - total 6 December). To find the impact of Women in Red, you would need to extrapolate the male growth and subtract this (assuming no Women in Red existed, female gendered articles would have been created anyway in the same period). So if no effort had been made, probably 4446 articles about females would have been made anyway, assuming 2.09% growth of 212778 articles in December. The difference is the impact, so that would be 7840-4446 or 3394 articles thanks to WiR. Good job everybody! Jane (talk) 16:47, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

Very interesting results, Jane023. If your analysis is correct, it looks as if about 40% of the new articles on women are the result of Women in Red. This is of huge significance. Do others agree with the figures?--Ipigott (talk) 10:46, 20 March 2016 (UTC)
Yes I believe that would be a correct conclusion. Unfortunately, there is no way to go back in time to 6 December so unless someone else took measurements on that day I don't think you could find anyone else to agree with these figures. Similarly, I only measured English and Dutch sitelinks on the 18th, so if I measure other languages you can't compare anymore exactly. It would be nice to have a bot produce these figures regularly on a monthly basis, because I tend to forget. Jane (talk) 12:36, 20 March 2016 (UTC)
Hi Jane. Is this correct? That is incredible. Particularly as there had been a non-gender specific push on artists last year (although I think you and I might have done a few extra women). Can we use the Dutch wikipedia as "a control"? I think its great to see these figures expressed as our effort over normal growth. Roger Victuallers (talk) 12:01, 20 March 2016 (UTC)
Yes I find it incredible too, but remember these are not art-related but include all sorts of female-related pages pushed in the past few months (I just queried for male/female, so this could also be manga characters, etc). I didn't take measurements beforehand because it didn't occur to me, so I have no idea what the impact was of the March of last year's A+F work. If I did make measurements, I didn't keep them. I will place the Dutch stats here below. Jane (talk) 12:36, 20 March 2016 (UTC)
#gendergap NL CLAIM[21:6581097] CLAIM[21:6581072] %vrouw
6-dec-2015 link[nlwiki] 152878 30188 16.49%
18-mrt-2016 link[nlwiki] 155302 30830 16.56%
# nieuwe 2424 642 20.94%
%toename 1.58% 2.12%
@Jane023: FYI, these are stats for October 2, 2015: men = 1098901,women = 209118. Queries should be the same (CLAIM[21:6581097] and CLAIM[21:6581072]). I think I have some more, but can't find anything in archives. --Edgars2007 (talk/contribs) 16:12, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, Edgars2007! I assume you meant the same query for sitelinks for the English Wikipedia, since we have way more male and female items on Wikidata and these numbers seem to work. Here is the same chart showing the (now historical) growth in male & female articles between 2 October and 6 December of last year:

#gendergap EN CLAIM[21:6581097] CLAIM[21:6581072] %female
2-oct-2015 link[enwiki] 1098901 209118 15.99%
6-dec-2015 link[enwiki] 1112419 212778 16.06%
# new articles 13518 3660 21.31%
%increase 1.23% 1.75%

Clearly there is interest in "bridging the gap" since the ratio of new articles is higher than the norm. It also seems to be in that period that "the needle" went past the 15% mark. That's very reassuring to see. Jane (talk) 16:49, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

@Jane023 and Edgars2007: and etc: This is indeed good news. We keep thinking we're making a difference, but unless we see measurements, we're working on faith alone. Are you able to assign values for X and Y and Z in these examples?
  • For every X amount of articles produced by Women in Red there is a Y percentage change in women's biographies?
  • For every 1,000 (or 2,000) articles produced by WiR, the percentage of women's biographies increases by Z?
Also, can you clarify what you're measuring in addition to women's biographies (you mention manga characters)? Are you including articles on the paintings women painted, or the schools established by women? As you probably know, WiR tracks "women's biographies as well as works by women or works associated with women". I understand that "works" articles might not be trackable using Wikidata. If they aren't included in your measurements, WiR should address them as a secondary dataset. --Rosiestep (talk) 17:19, 20 March 2016 (UTC)
We are limited by what we can measure. Here I have opted to keep it as simple as possible and just measure articles on a specific Wikipedia that are gendered male/female (so no non-binary gender, no selection of occupation, not even specifying human). So regarding your queries, no I can't do that. I query the data for the two qualifiers 1) "has a sitelink to English Wikipedia" and 2) "is male" and then I run it again for female. Because I did not include any other measurements, I don't have any other measurements. There are several caveats besides the "female or male mythical beings". For example I didn't measure new articles that have not had their gender assigned yet. Basically if the article is on English Wikipedia, has a Wikidata item, and has a binary gender assigned, then it is counted and otherwise not. Hope that clarifies it for you. Jane (talk) 17:28, 20 March 2016 (UTC)
But please remember, that these numbers are not obligatory about new Wikipedia articles. It just means, that somebody in that timespan marked them as women/men in Wikidata. Those articles may be created several years ago, it doesn't obligatory mean, that those articles were created somewhere between Oct 2 and Dec 6. And there are at least somewhere 1700 Wikidata items about people, that aren't marked with some gender. --Edgars2007 (talk/contribs) 17:42, 20 March 2016 (UTC)
Yes that's true too. I guess though that the Wikidata gender game has really helped in bringing this number into a smaller range though. Just as there are articles that get created, get onto Wikidata with lots of information (including gender) and then get deleted. Deletion in Wikipedia does not mean deletion in Wikidata necessarily. It all depends on the incoming links to the item, which can give it a better status on Wikidata than on Wikipedia. We have lots of items about wives and mothers on Wikidata that are allowed to stay for their "connective qualities": links to notable relatives nieces, cousins, and so forth. When the item loses its sitelink to Wikipedia however, it will no longer be counted in this query. Jane (talk) 19:24, 20 March 2016 (UTC)
So that makes we wonder whether I may not be responsible for part of the percentage change. I have consistently added authority control to many of the older women's biography articles I have included in my lists as I was informed this would help processing on Wikidata. In many cases, I have also linked the EN articles to existing articles in other languages which were already on Wikidata. These two operations might indeed be distorting the number of "new biographies" apparently written as a result of WiR. Furthermore, I have noticed that although most of our new biographies are included in Wikidata, many of those without boxes or links to wikis in other languages do not have gender established as female. I know Missvain and others have been trying to catch up with us but with all the new articles created through our editathons, it's not always easy. So unfortunately we are left with a lot of guesstimating. It's really a pity that there is no reliable way of analysing the proportion of genuinely new female vs. male biographies on Wikipedia itself without the various distortions from Wikidata. But all in all, Jane's approach probably provides a reasonable assessment of impact.--Ipigott (talk) 20:31, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for doing this! Also, please do not forget to include the Wikidata entry for transgender female, too, please. Missvain (talk) 03:51, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

I don't mean any disrespect, but the work involved in making extra queries for transgender doesn't pay off, as this query results in a statistically insignificant number (less than a half of a percent of the women's articles). Currently there are only 127 transgender women on English Wikipedia that are labelled as such on Wikidata. Here is the query: http://tools.wmflabs.org/autolist/autolist1.html?start=1150&q=link%5Benwiki%5D%20and%20CLAIM%5B21%3A1052281%5D I can make a listeria tracking list for transgender females if you want. Just tell me where to put it. Jane (talk) 09:14, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

I have now put all 4600 of the Q numbers that were returned from Wikidata with the query "is female" and "has sitelink to English Wikipedia" and "has a Q number higher than Q21664932. The entire list is here: Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/Analysis of New articles 6-dec-2015 to 20-mar-2016 and a list of spotchecks I made are on the Talk page of that page. Note that 33 deletions are still included in the data, and that the data does not include page creations on English Wikipedia that were linked to pre-existing Q numebrs. Jane (talk) 11:50, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

I, too, don't mean any disrespect. And I can't overstate how much I appreciate the effort it takes to run the queries and analyze the data. And I agree that running various listeria tracking lists is good for those who want to review subsets. That said, transgender females are women so please include them in the query process, without regard to the percentage they make up of women's articles. --Rosiestep (talk) 14:25, 21 March 2016 (UTC)
I agree with Rosie - thank you very very much for running these queries! I can't overestimate how important it is for us to be trans-inclusive, though, and it will be very helpful for us to have a picture of where we're starting with biographies of trans women. :) Keilana (talk) 14:47, 21 March 2016 (UTC)
Greaat you agree that it is important to be trans-inclusive, which is why they deserve better tracking than to be lost in the scale of data queries rendering them insignificant. I setup a listeria list split by citizenship here: Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/LBT Women/Transgender women. Jane (talk) 19:58, 21 March 2016 (UTC)
@Jane023: if you're interested, you can skip Autolist and use method described here (second post from end). It uses a little bit different queries (I'm counting only people there). It would ease the work a little bit. --Edgars2007 (talk/contribs) 16:43, 21 March 2016 (UTC)
Thanks Edgars2007, that looks promising indeed. If I play with it a bit then I can maybe put in a botrequest to set this to run every first of the month or so and dump it into a table. Because of all the caveats (counting deletions, "new" articles that only get added to Wikidata 2-3 months after creation, etc) we will really only know how we are doing if we track this regularly over time. Jane (talk) 19:58, 21 March 2016 (UTC)
@Jane023: you can ask Pasleim to do that. --Edgars2007 (talk/contribs) 08:21, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

Emily @ AfD

Of interest to members of this project: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Emily Temple-Wood. Montanabw(talk) 02:30, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

I think it's going South again, Ipigott Megalibrarygirl (talk) 02:57, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
The creator of the AfD is arguing with everyone who supports the article. Kei has stated no opinion one way or the other, but I'm starting to see stuff there that worries me, such as "the Gender Gap is contrived nonsense." Montanabw(talk) 01:16, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
What surprises me is that we have a host of sports people added every day on the basis of membership of a team without any wide news coverage. For example, today we have Sebastian Johansson (American football). But because a person's world news coverage results from an enterprising approach to the success of Wikipedia, she is not considered worthy of inclusion. We also have dozens and dozens of biographies on bloggers whose blogs can hardly pretend to the coverage or interest of Wikipedia. Strange basis for recognition! Hardly a level playing field.--Ipigott (talk) 11:56, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
I agree, Montanabw, there have been some troubling opinions raised in her AfD. Hers isn't alone in that, either. There is a lot of negative discussion surrounding the Art + Feminism articles that are up for AfD and also in some of the women that I think were created for the Wales program. And I can't agree more, Ipigott! Especially when you have people complaining that articles about women will make Wiki into a "directory" and then there are these sports figures who just "did their job" and have little coverage. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 16:48, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
Do you have a list somewhere of the Art + Feminism articles that are up for AfD? I'm tempted to prod tag every article on some person who played a single season of professional cricket in, say, East Norfolk in 1986... though, I might also suggest a positive approach, such as is done at WP:NSPORTS where an extensive set of guidelines have been promulgated to assist in establishing notability for sports figures. Maybe that's the way to go. Montanabw(talk) 17:18, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
It seems to me it's a fairly complex problem as there are several levels of proposing deletion, starting with the need to establish more grounds for notability, etc. But I have also seen lots of biographies of artists which really have little claim to inclusion, especially those on living people added by those with a personal interest. I was actually amazed how many escaped untouched during the height of the editathons. By and large, I think we have been able to maintain most of the valid biographies by sorting out the problems as we come across them.--Ipigott (talk) 10:36, 20 March 2016 (UTC)
Good points, we do need to create a fair balance - we do need to show that we know that there are unnotable women as well as blokes. We are trying to correct a thoughtless bias. If you press random article a few times you come up with a lot of (directory of?) Anglophone sporting men. I'm so pleased we have so many extra non Anglophone women as it shows they are notable too. That's important that women are notable (and its not just a list of non-men). I am so thrilled that the 15.X % is now 16.08%. Wikipedia is a vast creation. To have changed its balance is impressive. Victuallers (talk) 11:34, 20 March 2016 (UTC)
How ironic that people would want to delete Emily's page, a fact which seems to underscore the necessity for this project. I speak as someone who has written many biographies of women but also had biographies of women deleted.--Michael Goodyear (talk) 15:00, 20 March 2016 (UTC)
Firstly, posting here violates WP:CANVASS as a notification to a partisan audience. Secondly, as the creator of AfD, it's rather unfair of User:Montanabw to accuse me of "arguing with everyone who supports the article". StAnselm (talk) 05:19, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
There is no violation of canvass, I merely alerted an interested wikiproject to the existence of an article within the scope of the project. Then I joined in the discussion. And you were the creator of the AfD and as such you need to just drop the stick and move on. Montanabw(talk) 05:37, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Comment @StAnselm: should immediately and without delay strike the false allegations of improper canvassing, given that WP:CAN explicitly allows the notification of "The talk page of one or more articles, WikiProjects, or other Wikipedia collaborations directly related to the topic under discussion." Complaining about this now seems like nothing less than source grapes. AusLondonder (talk) 06:35, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
This Wikiproject is not directly related to the topic - this project is specifically concerned with the creation of redlinked articles. As far as I know, Emily Temple-Wood has never been a redlink on Wikipedia. StAnselm (talk) 07:32, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
You are incorrect, StAnselm. This Wikiproject falls under the umbrella of WikiProject Women and therefore is an interested project directly related to the topic which could (and should) be notified about the issue. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 18:48, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
In that case the note should have been at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Women. But how does one pick and choose which women AfDs one notifies about? What made this one so special? StAnselm (talk) 19:30, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
WiR is still an interested WikiProject, so you are still incorrect, StAnselm. WiR is heavily involved in patrolling AfD's. Why do you think I'm on AfD all the time? Emily Temple Wood didn't have to be on a redlist to be a redlink: if she's not on Wiki, she's a redlink by default. As for your other questions, her article is "special" because it is high profile. Everyone's talking about it in case you hadn't already noticed. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 19:41, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

Redlists

We have developed some amazing redlists and I believe WiR is becoming as well known for the articles we create as the redlists we curate. So I think it's time that we standardize the naming convention of our redlists.

  • Whatever moves you make, leave behind a Redirect.
  • For a start, let's move all of the redlists which contain "Wikipedia:WikiProject Women/Women in Red/" to "Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/".
  • What do you think about simplifying "Women foo" (e.g. Women activists), "Women in foo" (e.g. Women in architecture), "Foo Women" (e.g. Indigenous Women), and "Foo women" (e.g. Antarctic women) to just "Foo"?
  • Many, not all, of the geographic redlists contain "/Missing articles by nationality/". Do we want to keep all of this? Do we want to keep part of this (e.g. /Missing articles/)? And if we keep all or part of this for the geo redlists, should we include it in the naming convention of all the redlists (e.g. /Missing articles/)?

Here are some examples. You can view the master list here, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Women_in_Red&action=edit: --Rosiestep (talk) 13:07, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

I prefer the "foo" method. I've started moving and relinking. Also I've started splitting lists that are rather long into smaller, more focused areas. The librarian in me wants to further categorize things... but I don't want to go crazy on it. LOL. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 18:40, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
Me, too. I like the "foo" way. I think splitting is good. With a link in the navbox, editors can find the topic they seek. --Rosiestep (talk) 03:13, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
This is good, so long as they are all linked in the navbox as Rosie says!♦ Dr. Blofeld 10:16, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
Yes, I'm working with the template too. :) Megalibrarygirl (talk) 13:29, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

Awaken the Dragon

I've created Wikipedia:WikiProject Wales/Awaken the Dragon/Women biographies. I will be giving more points to editors in the contest who expands/starts the most articles on women listed within there. Anybody here feel free to further expand it. There will be a book prize on 100 Welsh Women for the person who does the most work towards Welsh women in general throughout April, not just science. Hope this compliments the women in red project and might prove more productive. Again, anything anybody can produce here for Wales, contest or editathon in general is warmly welcome and will all be listed at the bottom of the page of achievements.♦ Dr. Blofeld 14:09, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

Interesting list from Wikidata. I gather all those in italics need bios in the English wiki. Does the competition run strictly from 1 to 30 April?--Ipigott (talk) 14:37, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

Reviews needed

I told project DYK that they should schedule three women each set to cope with the number of nominations. They did! only, as you see Wikipedia:Meetup/Women in Red/8, we now miss REVIEWS! The table may not be up to date (and if you find that please change), but there are certainly more in need of a review than being ready for promotion to a prep. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:44, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

I saw that they have increased the number of women in the sets Gerda Arendt. I've been so busy writing, but did a couple reviews this morning. Will try to get in a couple more later. I cannot review my own, so we definitely need help with the reviews.
@Gerda Arendt: Good to see that thanks in part to your efforts, today we have reached 100 published DYKs since the beginning of the month. Sincere thanks too to all those who have been contributing and reviewing, especially SusunW and Rosiestep. With so many new names on the main page each day, people must finally be beginning to appreciate the important role women have played in virtually every field. Unfortunately I still find the DYK procedures too difficult and time-consuming to cope with but I am happy to list successes under Showcase on our main page. Of course you are all welcome to nominate any of my recent articles for DYK if you are running short. I see that the number of new articles on Art+Feminism is now down to a trickle.--Ipigott (talk) 08:16, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
Thanks, Ipigott! About 40 more are in the list, 13 in prep, 4 approved, still too few reviewed! I am very busy preparing for Easter (want to get two more Bach cantatas up to GA quality, and have this new project, following the Nielsen works, needs to be ready for DYK by tomorrow). - Three women in a set of seven: that looks good. I reviewed the two picured right now ;) - No. 100 will appear with the next set. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:51, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

Publicity

Not sure what you've got to date but have you considered drawing up a list of universities and colleges with courses in women studies and related historical studies and potential scholars which could be approached? While a lot of them will scoff at wikipedia in general, I've seen some of them complain about the lack of coverage of things like women scientists on wikipedia in numerous articles. Perhaps if you approached them and alert them of this project they'd be more sympathetic and let their students know about this? I think we need a lot of new contributors to really be successful and increase productivity, and I think approaching such people is worth a try. I know some agreements have been made with a few people already and we're seeing an increasing number of reputable institutions hosting editathons but perhaps there is more we could do towards contacting women scholars personally? Ideally we'd have regular editathons at universities and things each month aside from what we already have, and events planned in coordination with what we plan each month which can be publicized on their own sites. The difficulty of course is getting the reputable institutions and scholars to abandon the negative perception of wikipedia and start seeing it as an amazing way to produce content about women!.♦ Dr. Blofeld 14:38, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

Long been a dream of mine to get a gender program interested in what we do. I have been bogged down in my negotiations with them. WP documentation standards are the reverse of academic standards. Their job is to teach proper documentation, analysis and weighing of evidence. Thus it boils down to that it is more logical to encourage them to write articles for publication so that then others can add to WP. Slows down progress IMO. SusunW (talk) 17:00, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
Wikipedia does not enjoy much of a reputation in the universities as it stands out against primary sources. Scientists cannot even write articles about their own research, however widely accepted it has proved to be. Nevertheless, some academics are beginning to realize that Wikipedia is usually the first port of call for those wanting information on virtually any topic. As a result, some of them are beginning to contribute. By contrast, museums, libraries and archives are much more open to the Wikipedia approach as they are happy to offer bibliographies in support of the articles under development.--Ipigott (talk) 16:30, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
Seems to me it's a rich field for master's-level students; who are often major contributors here, anyway! Montanabw(talk) 20:13, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
Our project in Geneva Switzerland has involved the equal opportunity office of the university of Geneva. I find it much easier to approach organizations with a tailored project adressing the gender gap, rather than trying to push an academic in participating in the project, as they have very specific agendas (publishing their work, getting funding ect). However,on geography professor invited us in the classroom to talk about the wikipedia gender gap, and we had a few women professors who contributed by writing articles, but they engaged on an individual basis and did not belong to gender studies departments. I was told by two representants of students of the gender studies here in Geneva, who are also engaged in the Slutwalk movement here, that Wikipedia in their eyes does not represent a counter power to patriarchy, but on the contrary, a place which represents the main public opinion on a subject and as such is not specifically open to change. I found their positon a little obnoxious so to say, denigrating activist who were less radical in appearance, and also less litterate in the philosphy of gender trouble in the wake of the Butler generation. probably there is a generational gap there in the feminist movement - at least here in Switzerland. We do have a few students in our current workshops of Biographies femmes suisses however who do not think that way. Nattes à chat (talk) 09:12, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

Quick question on scope

Hi all, is this project restricted to humans? I always assumed that this project would measure any female-gendered data as an easy way of measuring the content-related part of the (participatory) Wikipedia gendergap. I created a few articles for dresses that will not show up (yet) in queries for this project, though they were commissioned for specific women. Also, I find it just as interesting to see the M/F ratio of fairy tale characters, Disney-movie heroes, figures from mythology and of course Catholic saints, not to mention the wildly popular manga characters. Please note that a recent article about a group of women such as the Cooney Sisters would not show up in a query for human females, though they were both human and female, because the Wikidata item for that article specifies that it is about a sibling group of humans, not a specific human. Jane (talk) 06:29, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

We can probably tweak the wikidata via redirects or something similar for a sibling group. As for the rest, I'd say that comic book characters and such are a bit outside the scope of this project, though girls and women portrayed in popular culture probably is within the scope of WP:WikiProject Feminism. Catholic saints, on the other hand, are not mythological, they were real people, and as such women saints are within the scope of this project. JMO. Montanabw(talk) 06:36, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
Well it depends on the Wikidata definition of Catholic saint of course, which varies according to culture and was one of the main issues during the Counter-Reformation. Why rule out Comic book characters? I should think that would be fascinating too. In my book, if there is an external database to compare to, I want to see our M/F score compared to theirs, whether it is paintings by women per collection, or Comic book characters in French libraries. Jane (talk) 07:30, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
It's a good question. The line is fuzzy with me, but I like the idea of including fictional human women, even part-human, e.g. Deanna Troi. --Rosiestep (talk) 12:38, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
We don't currently have a curated redlist of fictional women so maybe we should talk about it. WMSV did a series of editathons last year on fictional women -they brought Lisbeth Salander to GA- and maybe WiR would like to hold an editathon on fictional women someday. How women are depicted in fiction is scholarly after all. However, if we human fictional women are within our scope, what about half-human fictional women, e.g. Deanna Troi? Slippery slope. --Rosiestep (talk) 13:16, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
I don't think we should get too bogged down in Wikidata. For this project, the important thing is that the work should be created by a women whether the comic character or whatever is a man, a woman or a saint!--Ipigott (talk) 21:33, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

Well I don't think we should unnecessarily restrict ourselves. The point is to help women write about the subjects that interest them, and today I happened to come across Pope Joan, who is now labelled mythical, but who was very much revered in the past (and who's to say she didn't exist? Some sources say she DID exist). Jane (talk) 10:16, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

The motives for creating the project was to try and minimise the impression of young people (e.g. girls) finding that nearly every notable person is a bloke. Fictional role models are just as important. I remember reading that fictional women hardly ever have a discussion in films except about fictional men. ie Their characters are not seen as the people who move the plot forward, the impression is given that its bloke characters job to do important stuff ?!?!. So .... can we include fictional women please? Victuallers (talk) 11:49, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
I've created a list for Fictional Characters here: Fictional women Megalibrarygirl (talk) 22:26, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

Work on rejected drafts?

There is a new item here which might be of interest.--Ipigott (talk) 13:42, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

Can we embolden lists during editathons?

In looking at Wikipedia:Meetup/Women in Red/8 I had to scroll down a bit, beyond a long list of participants to find some missing lists and even then they're not emboldened or clearly lists. Would it be possible that when the editathon starts you add something in the lede luring visitors into creating like "Interested in contributing? You can create articles from this missing list!!. Something which is instantly accessible without scrolling down and leads directly to missing content.♦ Dr. Blofeld 15:22, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

Dr. Blofeld You're right, our pages are getting longer and longer as we achieve ever more interest in participation and in writing articles. One of the problems is that the article listings are now in only two columns. There used to be four but someone objected that only two was compatible with mobiles. Why not show us the sort of thing you would like to see in the form of a sandbox draft? And while we're in touch, perhaps you could update me on the Dragon Awakes. Does it officially start on 1 April or can articles be accepted beforehand?--Ipigott (talk) 15:56, 25 March 2016 (UTC)
@Dr. Blofeld and Ipigott: I've done some shifting to this one. What do you think? --Rosiestep (talk) 23:28, 25 March 2016 (UTC)
Yup, that's better, though not sure on the yellow!♦ Dr. Blofeld 10:17, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

Same thing with the main WP:Women in Red page, I have to scroll down a fair way to find this month's editathon page. The current editathon page should be mentioned in bold at the top of the page I think with a similar invitation "Join us for this month's editathon, you can start. xxx now".. The Dragon editathon is very much open yup, we already have 55 articles. The contest though won't formally start until April 1. Started Marie-Claire Faray, don't know if anybody can find some more scraps and nom for DYK.♦ Dr. Blofeld 16:14, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

The main WiR page is always a problem. It's almost impossible to make general changes in presentation without the assistance of Project X. I too think the editathons should be at the top of the page.--Ipigott (talk) 16:31, 25 March 2016 (UTC)
Perhaps a top banner/strip across the Women in Red main page every month with "This month's focus is xxx. Feel free to join in the editathon! " And then link directly to the page?♦ Dr. Blofeld 17:03, 25 March 2016 (UTC)
Order for everything from section "Events" till "External links" can be changed. --Edgars2007 (talk/contribs) 19:04, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

Can you ask the editor who designed the project to create a banner across the top of Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red "advertising" the month's editathon topic, with a direct link to the editathon. I think that would be good, something bold to attract people instantly when they visit the page!♦ Dr. Blofeld 10:19, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

@Dr. Blofeld: For April, I think I've fixed problem with a new header for Wikipedia:Meetup/Women in Red/10 by means of a new template. Up to now Rosiestep has been our interface for changes to the presentation of the main WiR project page. May I suggest that the easy way for us to handle your suggestions on a month-by-month basis would be to have an editable banner area at the top of the main page which would allow us to adapt it as we wish without requiring the support of Project X. Maybe Harej could let us know whether this would be feasible. Another solution would be to design a new project page outside the control of Project X. At the moment, the main page consists of many modules and editing areas which makes it difficult to monitor what changes are being made and how to respond to them or correct them. I have finally found out how to "thank" new members for joining the project but it was not easy to do so. In fact it can only be done by entering the edit area of the individual concerned and looking for the edit history there. It cannot be done in the traditional way by looking for additions to the list of members. Some participants believe we should keep the current approach as we need to maintain strong connections with those involved in the development of Wikidata. As you will have noticed, we are indeed beginning to see some positive results in the form of automatically created lists of red links, etc. and the ability to draw up lists of articles in the EN and other wikis on the basis of info stored at Wikidata.--Ipigott (talk) 10:53, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

Looks good, though I think either that or somethign needs to go at the top of the main WP:Women in Red page to alert people insrantly who might not be project members. Perhaps where it says:

"Welcome to WikiProject Women in Red (WiR), a WikiProject whose objective is to turn "redlinks" into blue ones within the project scope. The project scope includes women -real and fictional- their biographies and their works, broadly construed. Did you know that only 16.08% of the English Wikipedia's biographies are about women? Not impressed? "Content gender gap" is a form of systemic bias, and WiR addresses it in a positive way. We do this by hosting edit-a-thons on various topics, and socializing the scope and objective via social media. We invite you to participate whenever you wish. There is no requirement to participate in everything we do, or to even sign up. If the objective and scope of our project interest you, please join in the discussion on our talkpage or jump in and create articles. We warmly welcome you. You can join in this month's editathon, which has a focus on xxx, by contributing articles from xx list."♦ Dr. Blofeld 10:58, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

Dr. Blofeld. OK, I've gone half way to incorporating your suggestions but I thought it was possibily too much to include all the links to the pertinent lists in the main page intro. We now need to make the lists more prominent in the editathon pages.--Ipigott (talk) 12:56, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

That's fine. Shouldn't Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/Missing articles by focus area host the full lists by topic? What I was looking for was a general index of missing articles by topic. If you could link that and say "contribute articles from these lists" at the top of the main page that would be very useful. "You can participate in this month's editathon on Art+Feminism or prepare for April's focus on Women Writers. See the missing lists for details. We warmly welcome you. Perhaps you could create an index page to connect all of the lists together? ♦ Dr. Blofeld 12:58, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

Australia

I've been following this project for a while and been really keen to participate, but not seeing a great deal happening in the areas I'm interested in (which unfortunately lean heavily towards old dead white dudes). I had a look at the automated list for Australia, and it was just overwhelmed by minor sportswomen that I had very little interest in.

I had a bit of time on my hands yesterday and thought I'd start throwing together a handmade list from other resources so that I could find Australian women without articles in my areas of interest, but wound up creating something quite a bit broader. There are a whole bunch of women in STEM fields here that aren't really my area but definitely deserve articles, and I was wondering if some of you could add some of those to your own to-do lists: it'd be so nice to see some Australian names coming up on all the work that's been done.

It's far from complete yet, but it's at User:The Drover's Wife/womenbios if anyone is interested. The Drover's Wife (talk) 14:50, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

The Drover's Wife, Do you think you might be interested in working on topics such as pioneers in birth control? Many of them are men like Lazar C. Margulies. It would dovetail with women's health. Also there are so many men who are feminists and allies to women who are often overlooked. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 16:38, 25 March 2016 (UTC)
I'm generally interested in just Australian topics, but if you've got anyone in a field in mind I'd be interested (keeping in mind that I'm ferociously knowledgeable about politics and history but very daft about science and medicine). The Drover's Wife (talk) 17:02, 25 March 2016 (UTC)
If I find someone you might like, The Drover's Wife, I'll send 'em your way. Are you interested in New Zealand folks, also? :) Megalibrarygirl (talk) 16:45, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
Ta! As for NZ - I can have a crack at it? The Drover's Wife (talk) 16:52, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

Wikimedia DC Book Grants

Hello all! I’m pleased to announce the second round of Wikimedia DC Book Grants, a pilot program in which we help provide editors with resources they need to improve Wikimedia projects. If you live in the United States and actively edit Wikimedia projects, you are eligible; you do not have to be a member of WMDC or edit English projects.

Applications are open for one week, from today through Monday, April 4. We expect to let people know by April 10 whether or not their grant request has been funded.

More information is available on the Wikimedia DC website.

Apply for a grant here!

Keilana (talk) 19:02, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

Is she notable?

I was looking for information recently on the late Virginia S. Baker, a woman who's known in the Baltimore area (USA) and I was sort of surprised that she didn't already have a wikipedia article, so I was thinking of starting one. I'm not exactly sure if it falls under this project since she's not already on one of the lists, but she does technically have a red link in at least one article (Patterson Park#Attractions and activities)... since I added a wikilink recently. I've never started an article before, so I'm looking for a relevant project to share a draft with in the hopes that people will be interested in reviewing and/or adding to it. So I guess my 1st question is, is this the right project?

My 2nd question is: Is she notable enough for her own article? There are a few in-depth pieces about her in The Baltimore Sun,[4][5][6] plus a bunch of less in-depth mentions ([7][8][9][10], etc.). My concern about notability is that the vast majority of publications about her are in The Baltimore Sun. There are about 5 other sources that talk meaningfully about her outside of The Sun, though they're still mostly local publications. The only national coverage I've found about her (it's a biggie though) was when Barbara Mikulski addressed the Senate to recognize Baker's death in 1998 and spoke at length about her and asked that her obituary be printed in the record (which it was). I think there's enough information about her out there for an article, but I'm not sure if there's enough widespread coverage outside of the local area. Thoughts? Thank you! PermStrump(talk) 11:03, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

Permstrump, if there are multiple in-depth pieces about her (presumably published independent of her), that would make her notable. Harej (talk) 11:14, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
Yep, that easily passes notability in my book. The Drover's Wife (talk) 11:22, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
@Permstrump: Looks like a good biography to start you off. No problem with notability. And as for being suitable for Women in Red, she certainly is. Although we try to put together lists of red links for guidance, there is certainly no requirement for you to start with those listed. Any notable woman will do. Indeed, if you know of other notable women without articles, you are welcome to add their names to the pertinent lists, preferably with a reference. If you run into any problems or need assistance with your article, just let me know.--Ipigott (talk) 12:04, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
I love this kind of entry and I hope you will proceed. I started an article last year about Mary Dobkin, a woman who was mostly notable in Baltimore too, in case it's useful to you. Also happy to help.Penny Richards (talk) 13:15, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for the feedback everyone! I really appreciate that, Ipigott. I will give it a go myself first, but I'm sure I'll have questions once I get started. I hope you don't regret offering... I'm totally motivated now and have a bit of a wait ahead of me while I get my emissions tested, so now I know exactly what I will do to pass the time.
Penny Richards, I hadn't heard of Mary Dobkin, but she and Virginia Baker must have been friends. Dobkin has about 20 years on Baker, but they sound just like kindred spirits and it looks like they would have overlapped in the work/volunteer-force for at least 3 decades starting around 1940. Oddly, though, when I googled both of their names together, there's only one promising hit and it's for a book that I can't get online. It doesn't necessarily sound like it talks about their paths intertwining anyway. I was still going to buy the ebook on impulse, but sadly, it doesn't exist. :( I'm positive they would have been pals though... They were both into volunteerism, sports & rec, they were all about the kids and being inclusive, and they both have endearing nicknames. There's a reason we call it Smaltimore. PermStrump(talk) 14:07, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

#

Hashtags in edits

Hello! Has anyone experimented with using hashtags in their edits? You can read about how to use them here. We could create a hashtag for various editathons to keep track of participation or we could have a general WiR hashtag we use as we edit throughout Wiki. Any thoughts? Megalibrarygirl (talk) 14:06, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

I used a hashtag for 2 editathons in March 2015 in San Francisco. The hashtag was being piloted by WMF at the time. I like it! --Rosiestep (talk) 14:01, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

We've been using #womeninred. You can see some examples here but it looks to me as if the tag had already been established for fashion!--Ipigott (talk) 13:55, 25 March 2016 (UTC)
Hashtags have come to Wikipedia, helping you monitor the edits from different languages.
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/03/23/hashtags-expanding-outreach-wikipedia/
The tool Wikipedia social search tools.wmflabs.org/hashtags/search/
We are using the hashtag #fillthegendergap for the Swiss project on women biography.
--LaMèreVeille (talk) 04:28, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

#contentgap

Hi everyone! I'm going to start putting together a new Signpost column on efforts to reduce systemic bias/the content gap and I would love it if people here would contribute articles. I'm going to be using the hashtag #contentgap to track articles (because we can use hashtags now!), and if others follow suit that would be super useful. Or, of course, you can post any cool suggestions for new/expanded articles here. :) All the best, Keilana (talk) 21:45, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

Keilana Hi Emily! Never a dull day when you're around. Looks like an interesting initiative. How exactly do you intend to start it off? Is it a free for all or do you have any ideas about structure? As for #contentgap, I think it already exists here. Perhaps #wikicontentgap? That would be new.--Ipigott (talk) 14:03, 25 March 2016 (UTC)
@Ipigott: It's kind of a free-for-all, whatever people have going! I wasn't going to track the hashtag on facebook but I can totally keep an eye on #wikicontentgap there. Keilana (talk) 15:35, 25 March 2016 (UTC)
Keilana Once you start using them, they get onto all the social networks too.--Ipigott (talk) 15:38, 25 March 2016 (UTC)
@Ipigott: Oooh, I had no idea. (cool!!) #wikicontentgap it is! Keilana (talk) 16:23, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

#womeninred

We've started socializing #womeninred in our tweets, so does it make sense to use that one for now? That said, what about #womeninred-writers or #wirwriters during our writers editathon? We've been adding {{WIR-AF 2016}} to our A+F article talkpages... so would #wir-af2016 work? Does anyone know if we use a hyphen in a hashtag? --Rosiestep (talk) 14:01, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

@Rosiestep: See my comments above on #womeninred. It's already being used for fashion. How about #wikiwomeninred?--Ipigott (talk) 14:05, 25 March 2016 (UTC)
Ipigott Yup, this is true. While #wikiwomeninred is a lot of characters, it matches up with @wikiwomeninred so makes sense that way. Add both (the # and the @) to the "writers" invite (and meetup infobox)? --Rosiestep (talk) 14:12, 25 March 2016 (UTC)
Rosiestep Yes, let's go ahead on that basis.--Ipigott (talk) 14:23, 25 March 2016 (UTC)
I like #wikiwomeninred too. Let's promote it. :) Megalibrarygirl (talk) 16:32, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

@wpstubs

Wikipedia Stub Bot is tweeting stubs if:

  • There's at least 1 stub category
  • There's at least 1 hashtag in the Edit Summary

Here's the url: https://twitter.com/wpstubs. Ser Amantio di Nicolao What do you think about using AWB to tag WiR's untagged stubs, using hashtag #wikiwomeninred in the Edit Summary? For list of articles, we could use the January and February metrics lists, and when March is done, do it to that list. Metrics lists by month are here: Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/Metrics. --Rosiestep (talk) 21:41, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

Possible. Let me give it a look and see what I can think of. (Sorry - been out for the evening.) --Ser Amantio di NicolaoChe dicono a Signa?Lo dicono a Signa. 03:37, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
OK. What would I be changing with AWB? Anything? Or would I only be adding the edit summary? Because that would probably be a violation of AWB policies, if that's all I was doing. --Ser Amantio di NicolaoChe dicono a Signa?Lo dicono a Signa. 08:55, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

"Women are everywhere"

Hi, "Women are everywhere" is a project about the gender gap problem in Wikipedia, with a focus on Italian Wikipedia. You can find a draft for an Individual Engagement Grant at this link https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Women_are_everywhere. It would be great if I could have your help and your feedback on this project to improve it. Many thanks--Kenzia (talk) 09:36, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

Metrics

I re-arranged links to the Metrics archives in a sortable table here: Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/Metrics#Archives. This table needs additional data: how many participants and articles were associated with each of our editathons. If someone feels like making the updates, I'd be appreciative. If you want to improve on the table -it's rudimentary- go for it! If you want to create a diagram(s) based on the data, go for it! If you know me, you know that maths, stats, and I don't have an overly friendly relationship. (cc: Victuallers) --Rosiestep (talk) 00:58, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

Invitations to our April events

You are invited...

Women Writers worldwide online edit-a-thon

--Ipigott (talk) 15:47, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

(To subscribe, Women in Red/Invite list. Unsubscribe, Women in Red/Opt-out list)


Join us!

Women Scientists worldwide online edit-a-thon,
a Year of Science initiative

--Rosiestep (talk) 01:07, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

(To subscribe, Women in Red/Invite list. Unsubscribe, Women in Red/Opt-out list)

Interested in virtually editing?

Hey, I thought I'd give you guys a head's up about an event that's going to be running next week. There's going to be an edit-a-thon at the University of Virginia on April 13, as part of a larger Take Back the Night event.

Here's the event page:

Wikipedia:Meetup/Take Back the Night at UVA

We could definitely use suggestions on articles to edit, as well as any support from people who want to attend virtually or in person. Tokyogirl79 (。◕‿◕。) 03:44, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

@Tokyogirl79:, I added a few bios to the list. :) Megalibrarygirl (talk) 17:31, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

Surname additions

One thing I realized that we could do to increase exposure of women's bios is add their names to the Surname disambiguation pages. Most of those pages only list men. Here's an example of one of these pages: Duer. I'm adding women to both their married and unmarried names if I have both. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 20:40, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

I second this—indeed I was going to add this suggestion above, in response to Ipigott's observation about getting rid of orphans by adding to lists until I saw this post. I try to routinely add my bio pages to name/surname disambiguation pages for the orphan reason as well as the one you mention about how male the surname lists are. I've even created some surname disambig pages as a result. For a couple of earlier WiR editathons, I took it upon myself to go through the Outcomes list trying to do the same for other editors' entries. Time issues have prevented me doing as much of this recently.Alafarge (talk) 17:28, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
I think that is a great idea Megalibrarygirl. Never occurred to me. I wonder if this can be done by bots? Maybe Edgars2007 knows? SusunW (talk) 23:27, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
Theoretically - maybe. Realistically - don't think so. Not the process, that can be automated. --Edgars2007 (talk/contribs) 06:48, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

2016 Just For The Record IEG & PEG Grants notification — intersectional & gender diversity on Wikipedia!

more gender diversity on Wikipedia!
more gender diversity on Wikipedia!

Just For The Record has prepared a combined IEG grant and PEG grant application to work on the promotion of more gender diversity on Wikipedia with an intersectional perspective. These grant applications build upon the exciting results of our 2015-2016 Brussels-based series of events addressing the gender gap on Wikipedia. Just For The Record has created a network in which expertise on these questions is created and shared. With our new applications, we want to expand this knowledge and network beyond the context of the edit-a-thon!

If awarded, the PEG grant will fund: location and refreshments for the 2016-2017 Just For The Record edit-a-thons. If awarded, the IEG grant will fund: research and analysis into the representation of gender on Wikipedia, combined with the construction of a research/ambassador network, leading to an intersectional non-sexist guide on how knowledge and history can be written in a more diverse way. We seek community comment, discussions and endorsement signatures (section at the bottom of the pages) to help complete the grant process: here and here! Many thanks, Lfurter (talk) 09:41, 9 April 2016 (UTC)