This page is within the scope of WikiProject Women, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of women on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.WomenWikipedia:WikiProject WomenTemplate:WikiProject WomenWikiProject Women articles
This page is within the scope of WikiProject Women's History, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Women's history and related articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Women's HistoryWikipedia:WikiProject Women's HistoryTemplate:WikiProject Women's HistoryWomen's History articles
This page is of interest to WikiProject Women in Red.Women in RedWikipedia:WikiProject Women in RedTemplate:WikiProject Women in RedWomen in Red articles
WikiProject Women in Red is a community-led project launched in 2015. We're interested in reducing the gender gap in content coverage across all languages, especially concerning women-related biographies, but also women-related topics (broadly construed), such as artwork, books, sports events, and scientific theories. This concerns both works/topics by and works/topics about women. Specifically, we collaborate on
the creation of new articles
the improvement of existing articles (featured articles, good articles, DYK articles, stubs...)
events such as edithatons and hackatons
developing gender-gap related metrics
the identification of missing content Wikipedia ought to have
scholarly publications
We're not, however, trying to solve editor gender gap, meaning that we think both men and women are equally able to create articles about notable women.
How is WikiProject Women in Red related to other WikiProjects?
WiR is intended to be a parent project and a resource hub for other projects (in all languages) whose scope covers women and their works, such as
What specific efforts is WikiProject Women in Red making to reduce/improve the content gender gap?
We maintain lists of blogs, conferences, contests, discussions (Wikipedia; Wikimedia), editathons, Inspire grantees' projects, mailing-lists, meet-ups, newspaper articles, scholarly articles, social media campaigns, workshops, etc. We use Wikidata to manage several aspects of the project because of its size and scope.
We hope to collaborate with international festival organizers (example: Litquake).
In addition to needing editors to write the articles, several key volunteer positions have been identified: Data Coordinator; Promotions/Events Coordinator; Lead Coordinators for each language.
We hope to establish a teaming arrangement with the Wiki Education Foundation as we believe university students are important to this endeavor. We would like to build on the education outreach efforts described by User:Kruusamägi (Wikimania submission: Possibilities for university cooperation: Estonian example) "Every academic year more than 500 articles on Estonian Wikipedia are created as part of local cooperation with universities."
Anyone can join! You do not need to have edited Wikipedia before, nor is the project restricted to women. Any help you can give, big or small, is greatly appreciated! To get started read our primer.
The 2024 Summer Olympics start soon, with the first competitions taking place on July 24 and the majority of qualifications having wrapped up. For anyone who's looking for sportswomen to turn blue, there are a lot of qualified athletes missing articles, including for nearly every sport and country, a large number of which likely pass GNG (though should not be assumed without proof). Below I've listed the number of qualified women Olympians who are redlinks by sport, with links to the lists:
Thanks, BeanieFan11! Sports is a little out of my usual topic areas, and the only one of these events that I have any particular interest in and knowledge of is sport climbing, but I've already added two (Piper Kelly and Jenya Kazbekova). There's more of a language barrier for some, and I think for Beatrice Colli most of the in-depth sources are unfortunately in video rather than text, but I'll see what more I can do. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:14, 11 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Looks like Newspapers.com has been made completely unavailable now (with the button even being removed from The Wikipedia Library, replaced with "Temporarily unavailabe") and no explanation forthcoming thus far. A lot of threads on Wikipedia talk:The Wikipedia Library and Wikipedia talk:Newspapers.com, but no answers. I'm not even sure if there's a Phabricator ticket open on it (or would this be rolled into the several prior tickets covering the many issues we've been having with Newspapers.com access?)
It leaves me kind of at a loss on how to do proper research though. The vast majority of biographical subjects I have to write on require access to that one directory (and Newspaper Archive is a very poor substitute). Not sure what to do at this point. SilverserenC18:55, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There is a Phabricator ticket T322916. Click on "Temporarily unavailable" for a link.
Ah, I didn't realize they had turned that into a link. I see I was right though on this being added on to the same issues we've been having for nearly two years now. And no response on the ticket for three days or even really the week prior to that. That's concerning. SilverserenC19:31, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Most of the articles that I start are biographies and this is so frustrating. I don't have the money to sign up for a membership either. SL93 (talk) 19:35, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This is the same problem I was having, that I mentioned to you in that recent AfD. I wonder why you're still unaffected. I was able to read only two of your clippings, but not the others. -- asilvering (talk) 17:10, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
TSventon, thanks. I still can't figure out how to clip, but for days I have changed the newspapers.com to www-newspapers-com.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org to read the articles and then just pasted the newspapers.com link with subscription required tag. It's annoying, but at least it works. SusunW (talk) 16:05, 6 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I have not had any success in accessing Newspapers.com in the last few weeks. Not sure how to implement the cookies suggestion. Hoping it is fixed soon bc I used it frequently when drafting bios. TJMSmith (talk) 19:41, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hello folks! Next month as part of National Allotment Week in the UK, I've been invited to speak on a panel about women and vegetable gardening. Its come about because I told a friend about the event on Plants & Gardens (which started as an idea in my head), and like lots of others here try to regularly edit about women in botany/biology/etc. I have a ten minute slot & I wondered a) if there are key things you'd like me to mention and b) if any of the stats wranglers had any figures for how green-fingered professions might have improved (or not) while the project has been running. (I bet Women in Science has also done a lot of contributing too) Lajmmoore (talk) 21:48, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Lajmmoore, I checked the contents of Category:Women horticulturists and gardeners and only 23 of the articles existed when Women in Red started in 2015 (marked x below), so 40 have been added since, including some by yourself. TSventon (talk) 14:31, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Contents of category
Helen Vickroy Austin 2017
Ernesta Drinker Ballard 2011 x
Helen Ballard 2020
Iris Bannochie 2006 x
Émile Napoléon Baumann 2018
Jelena de Belder-Kovačič 2018
Rae Selling Berry 2015 x
Sue Biggs 2018
Sylvia Blankenship 2023
Andrea Brunsendorf 2018
Maggie Campbell-Culver 2013 x
Angelika Campbell, Countess Cawdor 2024
Pamela Cunningham Copeland 2017
Emma G. Cummings 2018
Anna de Diesbach 2009 x
Margaret Bell Douglas 2019
Jane Edmanson 2018
Margery Fish 2016
Catherine FitzGerald 2019
Olive Fitzhardinge 2012 x
Elizabeth Gilmer 2009 x
Jane Norton Grew 2023
Annie Gulvin 2018
Jane B. Haines 2020
Beatrix Havergal 2009 x
Isabelle Bowen Henderson 2024
Amelia Egerton, Lady Hume 2018
Alice Hutchins (gardener) 2021
Charlotte Knight 2015 x
Snježana Kordić 2012 x
Joy Larkcom 2021
Abra Lee 2021
Norah Lindsay 2009 x
Cecily Littleton 2022
Tatjana Ljujić-Mijatović 2018
Mary McMurtrie 2014 x
Corinne Melchers 2020
Hilda Murrell 2004 x
Lady Dorothy Nevill 2008 x
Anna B. Nickels 2021
Ethel Anson Peckham 2015 y
Frances Perry (gardener) 2007 x
Elza Polak 2018
Nora Pöyhönen 2016
Hortensia del Prado 2021
Isabella Preston 2016
Chrystabel Procter 2018
Elsie Reford 2010 x
Patricia Easterbrook Roberts 2018
Eleanour Sinclair Rohde 2006 x
Lester Gertrude Ellen Rowntree 2014 x
Kate Sessions 2006 x
Theodosia Burr Shepherd 2018
Holly Shimizu 2021
Midori Shintani (horticulturalist) 2021
Lady Beatrix Stanley 2020
Frances Tophill 2015 x
Elisa Bailly de Vilmorin 2014 x
Edna Walling 2005 x
Susana, Lady Walton 2010 x
Karen Washington 2017
Cynthia Westcott 2017
Frances Garnet Wolseley, 2nd Viscountess Wolseley 2016
Women in Red & National allotment week slides For anyone interested, the slides I used are uploaded to Commons now! Bear in mind I had 12 minutes, there was a lot of interest in this project, and the wider world of Wikimedia Lajmmoore (talk) 21:58, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
How best to cite Newspapers.com references with the current situation?
I've been trying my best to go with biographical subjects where the sources wouldn't be newspaper based (scientists and such), due to the current situation discussed above about Newspapers.com access. But I can't avoid that entirely even with these biography subjects. So, question, if I still need to cite a Newspapers.com article, but am unable to clip things with the current situation, what's the best way to make a reference citation? Is a URL link like this okay to use in a reference? SilverserenC22:25, 28 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Silver seren: I've been linking to https://www.newspapers.com/image/foo and adding |url-access=subscription for now. I've bookmarked all the articles and plan to go back to add clippings once (if?) this is fixed. Nick Number (talk) 03:31, 29 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hey there! So I recently made a list of women sportswriters and have purposefully added red links to it of women who have had significant careers as sports writers. Since this month focuses on Women in Sports, if anyone is interested, do check this out! Omnis Scientia (talk) 11:38, 31 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, Omnis Scientia, for starting this list. At the moment, it looks rather like a set based on categories. It would be more useful if you could add basic details such as DOB and DOD, and any important types of involvement. Many of our other lists of women carry such information. See for example List of women architects or our many lists under Template:Lists of women writers by nationality. Maybe your sportswriters could also be included in pertinent nationality lists.--Ipigott (talk) 12:39, 31 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Ipigott, its very much under construction ATM. I'm gathering more names where I can and was surprised how much distinguished women don't have articles. Will definitely be adding their basic info and the newspapers and works they are known for, of course! Omnis Scientia (talk) 12:42, 31 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Omnis Scientia In an international encyclopedia it's not appropriate to divide the list into "American" and "Others"! Please rearrange it into a neutral geographical arrangement. See List of women architects as an example - by continent and then by country. PamD13:10, 31 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Omnis Scientia But I see your list still started with North America. Why? It's just an ordinary continent and files under "N", even if it's some editors' centre/center of the universe. I'll change it to a neutral A-Z sequence. Also, are the headings to be adjectives or placenames - they were a mixture so I standardised it on adjectives, not sure that was the best choice but at least it's consistent.
I don't know that it makes sense to have a distinction between sports journalists and sportswriters; I thought they were synonyms...unless journalists is meant to include non-written journalism, I guess. pburka (talk) 23:20, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Pburka, sportswriting has a long history which is very interwined with sports itself. Until quite recently, sportswriters even considered themselves as being in the same profession as athletes rather than journalists. Expansion of media from print to television and then internet lessened that connection.
As for "journalists", those include a wider range of people now, including television analysts, broadcasters, writers, bloggers, and so on. Its a catch-all term, basically. Omnis Scientia (talk) 23:27, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm happy to see this is now progressing. I know from experience that these list require considerable time and effort to develop. I'll try to help out as time permits.--Ipigott (talk) 09:14, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, Omnis Scientia. A friendly FYI that a list of women sportswriters will be helpful not only while WiR is facilitating our Women+Sports campaign, but also next month, as every September, WiR facilitates a month-long "Women Writers" event. Thanks for starting the conversation on this topic. --Rosiestep (talk) 19:34, 4 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Living parameter in the biography wikiproject template (and also women in sports)
While going through Category:Biography articles without living parameter, I noticed a slightly disproportionate number of women Olympic athletes were within it. I suspect, but am not certain that this is because of the article run WiR is hosting on Olympic athletes. I wonder if adding "living=no" or "living=yes" can be semi-automated somehow in the WiR article creation process.
I dream of horses: The project is actually Wikipedia:WikiProject Women's sport. Thanks for pointing out it is considered inactive. It seems to me the state of activity is frequently based on the extent of editing on the project page and its talk page. This is only one measure of activity and can be misleading. I make wide use of Women's sport when reviewing or assessing articles. The information displayed on Wikipedia:WikiProject Women's sport/Assessment shows that there are now over 138,000 articles carrying the template and that a considerable number of articles are listed under Article alters, etc. I therefore think WhatamIdoing, MSGJ, or other members of WikiProject Council should list it as active.--Ipigott (talk) 10:31, 5 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Is anyone actually coordinating with each other to create/maintain the articles of women athletes (or other aspects of womens' sports)? If so, we may as well consider Wikiproject Women's Sport active, and start the cat herding process of getting people to actually use the project page. If not, is Wikiproject Women's Sport really active? It's not like adding a Wikiproject template takes a lot of effort. I dream of horses(Hoofprints)(Neigh at me)10:54, 5 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
On the basis of this discussion and recent activity, I've changed the status of Women's sport to "active". In my opinion, it's one of the most important of the "women" projects listed on sites such as Wikipedia:WikiProject Women.--Ipigott (talk) 14:44, 5 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for updating the group's status.
A WP:WikiProject is a group of people (i.e., not a subject area, a collection of assessments, or a bunch of pages). If there are no people there, then the group should be marked as inactive. However, if there are people responding to questions, then it should be marked as active. (I suggest using semi-active for borderline or unclear situations.) It's perfectly fine for groups to change their activity levels over time. The main point behind the active/semi/inactive tags is to give people a hint about how likely they are to get the help they need. Unlike, e.g., a WP:PROD tag, marking a group as being inactive does not have any direct consequences. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:14, 5 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I just started an article on Puerto Rican nurse and public servant Susana Centeno. She is the namesake of the Susana Centeno Hospital. I am having trouble finding her year of birth and death. Best I can find is that she was born in 1911 or 1912 and died before 2006. I also can't find any photographs of her. Hoping someone else may have better luck. TJMSmith (talk) 00:57, 5 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I found this in the Social Security Death Index via Ancestry. Also there's an Ancestry family tree that claims that the same Susana Centeno as in the SSDI has the same names for the parents as the ones in your article. Not sure if this is conclusive under WP:RS standards but seems plausible. Gamaliel (talk) 02:05, 5 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Birth Date 24 May 1911
Issue year 1952
Issue State Puerto Rico
Last Residence 00949, Toa Baja, Toa Baja, Puerto Rico, USA
I asked about this over on Media copyright questions a couple days ago, but no response thus far. So I thought I would bring my question to you good people. I finished an article on Janet W. Hartley the other day and was looking for a potential public domain image for her. I ran across this photo posted by the official social media account for the NIH History Office. Is there any way to figure out if this counts as an "official publication of a US government employee during the course of their work", which would make it public domain? SilverserenC21:20, 5 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe? The problem is that the post doesn't say "... and this is a photo from that 1995 interview" or even "and this is an unrelated NIH photo of her", so, even though that does seem likely, it still might be "and this is a personal photo of her taken by her grand-niece who doesn't have anything to do with the NIH, thank you very much Shirley". But the bottom of the page says "Email: [email protected]". Maybe send a quick email? "Hi, I'm a Wikipedia editor, who wants to know whether this photo you posted on X/Twitter is an NIH photo (which would make it public domain, so we could use it in our article). If it is, would you be so kind as to send a copy of your reply to [email protected]?" --GRuban (talk) 21:35, 5 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
True, those are an option. If it comes down to it, which of the two there would you think turns out better if cropped to just be Hartley? SilverserenC22:40, 5 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, so I got a response, GRuban. They said that photo in particular was also scanned from an NIH publication (though didn't say which one) and they also linked to this issue as yet another photo option. All of them should be in the public domain, they said. Though I'm not sure I should use the original one I linked above if we don't know the exact source publication it's from. SilverserenC23:22, 5 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Wow, that was fast! Were they kind enough to CC [email protected] (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Volunteer_Response_Team)? Then it depends on which VRT person you get. Honestly, I think if an NIH person says that it's an NIH photograph, that should be sufficient, without demanding publication name and page number (after all, the point is not where and when it was published, but that it was taken by the US federal govt); but you could well get a VRT person who demands a shrubbery; I have had one who demanded my article subject scan in and email their driver's license. --GRuban (talk) GRuban (talk) 00:50, 6 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I, uh...may have forgotten to ask that part, GRuban. >_>; They did respond again though and said that the specific photo I was asking about was from the 1987 NIH issue of Women in Science, page 138. Also, they linked another issue of the NIH Record with a photo of Hartley. They said that all of these photos of her in NIH publications are public domain and requested that the Office of NIH History and Stetten Museum are put as the attribution as the holders of all said issues. But, otherwise, free to use. SilverserenC03:06, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
So, I can't find information about any magazine called Women in Science. (I can find lots of pages on the subject from various science magazines and websites, including a https://womeninscience.nih.gov/ website, but that says it was created in 2007). The 1987 NIH Record issues can be found at https://nihrecord.nih.gov/past-issues/1987 and I have not flipped through them, but doubt any one has a page 137, they normally run 20 pages or so. So are you quite sure the NIH person meant this was an NIH magazine called Women in Science? If so, again, I'd be willing to take their word for it; but if not, it would be a shame if it turned out to be a Women in Science issue of some different non-NIH magazine, that happened to have a section about the women of the NIH. --GRuban (talk) 20:05, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hartley in 1987
The photo appeared in the publication National Institutes of Health Women in Science published in 1987 on p. 138. It is public domain.
OK, that's good enough for me. I uploaded that image and put it in the article. Now if you either (A) want to go for GA or FA or something or (B) have editors that don't like you (basically anyone who might be unusually picky), you probably want to reply to your wonderful quickly-responding NIH contact, and ask: "Thank you so much, but could you please resend that email saying 'The photo appeared in the publication National Institutes of Health Women in Science published in 1987 on p. 138. It is public domain.' to [email protected], CC-ing me?" Then the VRT responder will very likely stamp the file with https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:PermissionTicket, which will be good enough even for the unusually picky. (Say 90% chance; I am occasionally surprised by the evidence demanded by our fearless volunteers, as mentioned above.) The VRT people will want the link to the Commons file, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Janet_W._Hartley.jpg; including TSventon's Google Books link may help convince a skeptical VRT-er that such a thing did likely exist. --GRuban (talk) 16:50, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Marina Kondratyeva, who shaped the history of the stage of the Bolshoi Ballet for 70 years, first as a dancer, then a master tutor, died and appeared among the recent deaths. The attempt to also present her on DYK resulted in a tag for better sources that I hate. Any help in finding secondary sources which may be in Russian (which is very foreign to me). Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:53, 6 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you! I don't know where they get the 102 from, though. - I did what I could, but that was not enough. I hope for someone knowing Russian, and I hope that the rest of the NYT is more solid and can be quoted by someone who has access. I am busy with two men who died more recently, but really don't want to leave a celebrated ballerian of the #1 ballet in the world with the tag that I think is appropriate when a starlet has nothing but her own website. I am not in a position to remove it. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:59, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Gerda Arendt, I was able to access the International Encyclopedia of Dance article Ipigott mentioned via Wikipedia library and Oxford reference and searching for Marina Kondratieva (not Kondratyeva). It is only a couple of paragraphs, but every little helps. TSventon (talk) 08:51, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, can you please add that ref and use it where applicable. I'm busy - two RD articles on the Main page at the same time - and it would also look better if more people showed interest. I guess it's more or less what Classical Music Daily also has, and Oxford looks more serious ;) - Anybody to read the NYT. We got the advice to archive it and then read. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:33, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
On NYT, it has been suggested that if you remove the cookies, you can read the article in full. My problem is that I don't know how to remove NYT cookies without making a mess of everything else.--Ipigott (talk) 15:45, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry for making so many threads around here lately. I've been working on this weeks biography article for me: User:Silver seren/Betty Hanley and run into a brick wall. Finding two full length articles entirely about her was easy, popped right up, and I already knew about the third article that mentioned her from previous article work. But, after that...I can't find anything. I've looked high and low through The Wikipedia Library and done a fairly exhaustive Google search. Maybe I'm just not using the right keywords? I feel like there has to be more out there since I found two full length articles about her, one even being from a US paper and not a British one. Anyone have any ideas? SilverserenC21:41, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
hello folks, I'm at Wikimania & the head of research just shared this slide about how many women's biographies (across all Wikipedias) & how many are orphans.
head of Wikimedia Research discussing new insight at Wikimania International Conference Centre
It could certainly, at least, be a monthly tip. But I like tasks like destubbing and deorphaning. I observe my own informal "December Destub" every year; in the busyness of the holiday season, it's a nice way to keep contributing without the full absorption of creating articles. Penny Richards (talk) 13:24, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the suggestion, Lajmmoore. In many cases, women articles deserve to be included in appropriate lists. This is a simple way to de-orphan those displaying the tag. Many of those needing to be de-orphaned have been created by relatively new Wikipedians who also need help with categories and sorting. I spend quite a bit of my editing time trying to help them along. New articles about women are usually displayed on User:SDZeroBot/NPP_sorting/Culture/Biography/Women but as a result of database problems, the list has not been updated since 2 August. For those seriously interested in de-orphaning women's articles, lists can be found here and on similar lists linked from Wikipedia:Orphaned articles by WikiProject.--Ipigott (talk) 15:07, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
One of the easiest ways to de-orphan biographical articles I've found is adding them to surname list articles. Obviously, we'd want to spread around the biographies more than just that single place, but it's a start. There's also alumni lists for university pages, some lists for certain professions, and other things like that. SilverserenC15:17, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm rather doubtful about de-orphaning; many articles don't "need" to be de-orphaned at all - categories are a different matter entirely. Apart from the affiliation lists SS mentions above, which are fine, care should be taken not to shoehorn links into articles where this is WP:UNDUE. For example most biographies of academics & scientists should not be linked to from the pages of their areas of research; there are just too many. Novelists and artists are similar. I know of no evidence that this is an issue affecting female bios more than male - was there any in the presentation? Ok, apparently there was - the slide shown says this. Johnbod (talk) 17:00, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It says "overrepresented", but not by how much, and given that the pageviews only increase by about 10%, I'm not sure it's all that important. That's not to say I think it would be bad to have a de-orphaning drive, since that is obviously going to improve the encyclopedia! But I'm not convinced, at least not from this slide, that it's a huge issue. -- asilvering (talk) 02:35, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm all in favour of adding to surname lists in particular: it reminds readers that there are Georginas in among the Georges everywhere. For many women (academics etc) it's worth searching on their name to see whether they are cited in other articles so that an "author-link=" can be added to refs. Anyone with a British honour, such as an MBE, will be listed in the relevant honours list and should be linked there - but may be there with a longer form of name, which suggests the need for a redirect as well as a link. I wonder what that "causal evidence" is, showing that de-orphaning leads to 10% more internally-referred pageviews? Does just adding to a surname list do the trick, or is it referring to inclusion in the text of relevant articles? PamD19:32, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Lajmmoore, sorry that I missed that session! I'm a +1 to de-orphaning as a monthly initiative, (a) particularly if Leila Zia is talking about it at Wikimania. (b) As Penny Richards mentions, some months, veteran WiR editors want/need to shift their workflow. (c) I think article-improvement events have the potential to attract editors from other areas of EN-WP, who might become WiR editors. (d) I think it's fun to have occasional (2? 3? 4? /year) article-improvement events (double-the-lead, add-a-cat, de-orphan, etc.) sprinkled in with our article-creation offerings. --Rosiestep (talk) 05:50, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks very much everyone! It sounds like people regularly de-orphan (great) but that there is also appetite to perhaps use a monthly theme to raise awareness that this is a useful and important task, and is fun to switch up what/how people edit. I'm going to add it to the ideas page - perhaps as "Deorphan December"? De-stubbing could be included too? Lajmmoore (talk) 06:16, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'll just add on this that when I see an "orphan" tag, I often look at "what links here" to check, & pretty often the article isn't actually an orphan - sometimes they have quite a few links. I don't know if the research mentioned above works off the tags or does its own research to get its numbers. Johnbod (talk) 12:25, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Bdatpal: As the article was also listed as WP Sweden, I have already reviewed it. I check additions to WP Denmark, WP Norway and WP Sweden at least once every two weeks. Please let me know on my talk page if you need assistance with Sweden articles.--Ipigott (talk) 10:27, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for the offer of assistance, Ipigott Could you please guide me on how to find the appropriate WikiProject for any new page I create? Additionally, what’s the best way to notify an available editor to help review and improve the article once it’s under the right WikiProject? Your advice would be very helpful in ensuring the quality of future articles. Bdatpal (talk) 10:48, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Bdatpal: You should have contacted me on my talk page on this as your articles do not appear to involve women. I see one more was pending review and I have now reviewed it. I can't offer any further assistance on how to have your articles reviewed more quickly. Things are particularly slow at the moment as there is a backlog on database applications which means listings of new page reviews in specific fields are not being updated as often as usual. Let's see if your future articles are reviewed within a reasonable time. If not, please let me know. Happy editing!--Ipigott (talk) 11:27, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for taking the time to review the articles, Ipigott. I apologize for not contacting you through your talk page earlier, I was not involved. I appreciate your efforts, especially given the current backlog. I’ll keep an eye on the review process for future articles and will reach out if there are any significant delays.
Hello all, I have been getting an error message "Google Error: HTTP Error 429: Too Many Requests".
https://copyvios.toolforge.org/
I have been getting the message for about a week. Does anyone know if the Earwig Copyvio Detector is broken? Any recommendations for alternative sites? Thanks. WomenArtistUpdates (talk) 21:37, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's been broken for quite a while. Over a month, at least. Though it's specifically the internet search part that's broken. If you uncheck "Use search engine" and only have it copyvio check with the sources in the article, it will work. SilverserenC21:41, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hi everyone! Over at Women in Green, we have been keeping track of our backlog of unreviewed GA nominations about women and women's works. At time of writing, this backlog has over 60 nominations still waiting on a review, some of which were nominated last year. asilvering (talk·contribs), who recently coordinated the July backlog drive, which focused on helping new reviewers get started, suggested I bring this up here. If you are an experienced reviewer that can contribute to bringing down the backlog, we would be more than happy if you could help. Or if you are interested in reviewing GA nominations, but haven't yet started, we can provide you with a mentor to help navigate you through the process. Feel free to comment here or over at the WiG talk page if you're interested, we'd love to have your help! --Grnrchst (talk) 09:38, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
And just to add: if you're interested in reviewing but "mentor" sounds a bit formal and you just want someone to check over your first review (or first couple of reviews) before you close them out, we'd be happy to do that too! -- asilvering (talk) 19:29, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"Endurance against oblivion: The case of the Articles for Deletion with gender perspective in Wikipedia"
I read the paper with interest and agree with the difficulties cited about writing about women. What I missed was a firmer, more strategic proposal on how to reduce the number of women's biography deletions, especially on the EN wiki. Perhaps Hiperterminal has some suggestions in this connection.--Ipigott (talk) 13:18, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I confess I find myself unimpressed by this paper; it shows a very poor understanding of the AfD process, and of deletion process in general. Most deletion of new pages doesn't happen at AfD. The paper doesn't actually show data for how many pages were nominated for deletion by gender, nor for how many were actually deleted. 115 pages is a tiny sample, easily skewed in either direction by a UPE/COI cleanup, for instance. And they confuse cause and effect when they suggest lengthening discussions. Indeed the only concrete finding here is that AfD's for biographies of women scientists attract more attention: and eyeballing their figure, end with deletion less frequently: which, in a vacuum, indicates the opposite bias they claim (I'm not saying such a bias exists in actuality). Vanamonde93 (talk) 16:29, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Well at least it is mercifully short! I think by now we expect "a very poor understanding of the AfD process, and of deletion process in general" in papers, don't we? They have adopted the (to my mind) unhelpful and confusing way of describing successfully-defended Afd's as "miscategorizations" (by wrongly "categorizing" the article as non-notable). I think this was first spotted in a paper by Tripodi et al, given a very rough ride here. As usual the possible impact of this project and similar initiatives in - say, possibly - producing more new female bios by very new editors is not even mentioned. That would be super-difficult to handle in statistics, but it should be at least mentioned, to my mind. That "that AfD's for biographies of women scientists [and other types of women I think] ... end with deletion less frequently" is not a new finding - the argument is that the bias is shown in an excess of nominations, which may indeed be the case. Johnbod (talk) 17:27, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hello both @Hiperterminal is one of the authors, so perhaps you could be mindful of that in the tone it is discussed in, use good faith, and be constructive for how future iterations could be improved. Lajmmoore (talk) 17:42, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Many thanks for this comment. I was thinking the tone was unnecessarily rude and doubt about myself. I will put a little bit more of love to my research but many thanks for give me a perspective about how I was reading the comments. For me it is very useful. At the end, it is not hard to be constructive, right? Hiperterminal (talk) 09:34, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think all comments here are constructive. If you don't like them you could pick areas of research where the subjects can't talk back. As a bonus friendly tip, next time get a native speaker to check at least the title of the paper - I'm sure Lajmmoore would be happy to help. Johnbod (talk) 14:51, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
AfD's for biographies of women scientists [...] end with deletion less frequently: which, in a vacuum, indicates the opposite bias they claim (I'm not saying such a bias exists in actuality) – this was Tripodi's (2021) core finding and none of the nitpicking of that paper on-wiki has actually been able to explain it. If AfDs of women are more likely to end in keep than AfDs men, then that is ipso facto evidence that more notable women are ending up at AfD than notable men (Tripodi's 'miscategorization'). This is not a positive bias. – Joe (talk) 10:12, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Joe Roe there are two possible reasons that might explain why AfDs of women are more likely to end in keep than AfDs of men: firstly that nominators are more likely to nominate notable women than notable men for deletion and secondly that AfD participants try harder to establish the notability of women than of men. Tripodi accepts the first reason. TSventon (talk) 12:03, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Fair point. I suppose Tripodi's conclusion is based on the assumption that AfD outcomes are an accurate test of notability. I think that's a defensible assumption at scale, but certainly not always true. – Joe (talk) 12:31, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
At least 3 possible reasons: #3 being that the long-running furore over "gender imbalance" leads to more new bios by very new editors (often their first and only edits on WP) of subjects that are non-notable, or close to it. It would be amazing if that factor had no contribution. By contrast, many male bios at Afd are COI-ish puff-pieces of lawyers/doctors/businesspeople that have absolutely no chance at Afd. They get a few opposes very quickly, & other regulars don't bother. This probably explains, Joe, "why AfDs of women are on average longer than AfDs of men". They also tend to be on people from areas where notability criteria are more complex (academia, arts, activism), and there is more to debate. Plus there are sorting/alert lists, both on and off-wiki, for female bio afds, but not for male ones. Johnbod (talk) 14:00, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's been a while since I read her paper but as I recall Tripodi found that bios of women aren't more likely to be nominated, just more likely to be kept, which excludes most explanations based on differential article quality. But what you're suggesting is that new articles on women are more likely to fall into a notability grey zone, and therefore produce more contentious/less easily closed AfDs, whereas men's are more clear-cut? This sounds similar to Hiperterminal's hypothesis below. – Joe (talk) 14:09, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Understandably, neither of us can be bothered to re-read her paper, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't attempting any new research on whether bios of women are more likely to be nominated, but cited older research, some of which suggested they were. Johnbod (talk) 14:51, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The three reasons aren't mutually exclusive. Nobody can deny there is a corps of editors who put considerable effort into demonstrating the notability of women scientists, but not men. Many members of this project do so. And that effort is a good thing! But it absolutely skews the length of AfDs. I also agree with Johnbod's thesis, and I don't really think it can be disputed; a movement dedicated to writing new biographies is inevitably going to create a few that are of marginal notability. It is easy to see how those would lead to contentious AfDs that end in keep/no consensus outcomes. Essentially, my point is that the data in this paper speak to the existence and effectiveness of the WIR project and of like-minded editors: it tells us little about why a gender gap persists. Vanamonde93 (talk) 15:25, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for this. It's interesting that AfDs of women are on average longer than AfDs of men; do you have any ideas on why that might be, Hiperterminal?
I'm also not convinced by the conclusion that there is a causal relationship between the length of a discussion and the likelihood of a keep outcome, though. I think you're overlooking a potential confounder in the level of consensus. In other words I suspect the causal graph is not:
I am still working on my thesis and developing ideas about the different factors. Another not published yet, are the arguments used in the debates. I still need more data but, I have an idea that notability (or non-notability) is clear for men but not for women or other genders. Seems people can easily vote for non-notable men (2 votes to generate consensus) but where there is a woman, people doubt more if is notable or not, generating a longer debate.
Slight correction, I joined this WikiProject in February 2019 (I didn't start editing at all until September 2018). Thank you for the ping, I'm honoured to be mentioned here. I've never been the most active on the writing women's biography angle but I do try to improve our coverage on subjects that at the very least women like me are interested in. Some examples of that are: no kid zones, Rock 'n Play, and Creatable World. My only GA is Katherine Hughes (activist). Clovermoss🍀(talk)11:04, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
My congratulations to you, as well, Clovermoss. Well done! Enjoy the honor and I hope you revel in whatever is ahead. BTW... that your only GA is a woman activist... fantastic! --Rosiestep (talk) 11:24, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Humaniki, the site we use to update our statistics each week, is offline at the moment, returning a 404 Not Found error message. I don't know who to contact about this. Hopefully, another Women in Red editor can follow this up. Oronsay (talk) 19:44, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for keeping a eye on this Oronsay. The person to contact on serious delays is Maximilianklein but last time I alerted him, the problem had been automatically resolved before he had time to look at it. I realize many contributors are interested in seeing when we reach 20% women but let's give it another couple of weeks and see whether things are back to normal again.--Ipigott (talk) 09:16, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Silver seren: I've included a pertinent template at the top of the article. While it is understandable that the subject of the article is keen to add personal details, this is not acceptable under COI, especially as many of the additions are self-promotional. I think an administrator should revert the article to the version of 25 July. JoelyProudfit should be informed on her talk page that the best way to have suggestions incorporated into the article is to list them in order of priority on the article's source page together with reliable secondary sources. Let's see how things evolve over the next couple of days-Ipigott (talk) 09:53, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Someone else already added a COI template to her talk page, but she seemed to ignore it. I'll give a little bit of time, but I'm definitely going to eventually just do a wholesale revert of the changes. SilverserenC14:38, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
She has replied on her talk page now to my COI notification, so hopefully with that, we'll be able to productively help include any COI edits as long as their supported by RS and follow our other guidelines.
I pointed her to request edits on the article talk page using the COI template and explained the RS requirement.
I'll let you handle the either reversion or copy-editing if some of their changes are supported by RS, since COI edits are strongly discouraged, but not strictly forbidden, so maybe we don't need a wholesale reversion, but I'll let you judge it based on the content added.
I just helped step in with the COI note to start when you made your original request here and as I said to the user on their talk page, I'm happy to help guide her on the COI disclosure and edit request portion at least. Raladic (talk) 16:43, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
After further discussion on their talk page, the user now understands the process, I have pinged you on their talk page to discuss the best path forward and they have started making the edit request process on the article talk page, so I think you should be able to take it from there and work collaboratively with them to help fix issues of the page in line with our guidelines and policies. Raladic (talk) 17:57, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Drafts have been initiated for the five women who have served as chairmen of the powerful Public Utility Commission of Texas (the title of the office is "Chairman"). Any help in getting these drafts finished and moved to mainspace would be of great benefit to this project. Most of these officeholders have also held other prominent positions in public life or industry.
Similar notice to above, except the article itself doesn’t need attention, I’ve significantly expanded it already. It is nominated at ITN, and the nom would appreciate some attention, in part due to the circumstances around the discovery of her death meaning it’s just been nommed but already in the lower half of the page. Kingsif (talk) 16:28, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Kingsif: In cases like this, it's important to post the item asap. It seems to me that thanks to your additions, she is adequately covered in the article.--Ipigott (talk) 16:40, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hello all, I was contacted by someone from Jesus College, Oxford, who is involved with an initiative to celebrate "hidden figures" in the college, as they are celebrating the anniversary of the college admitting women later this year. They shared a list with me, in case editors here might feel inspired by some of the names:
Almeria Vaughandaughter sister of Peter Vaughan, the Warden of Merton College, who married the Jesus College principal David Hughes only for him to shoot himself some weeks later... ref
Anne Rastell, she was the aunt of poet John Donne, was married to Griffith Lloyd- he was the first principal of the College 1572 to 1586.
Jane Thelwall, the mother of college benefactor Eubule Thelwall and her portrait with Eubule as a child on her knee still hangs in the College WD (image)
Goody Asaph her portrait wearing a traditional Welsh tall hat hangs in the Principal’s Lodgings “a seventeenth-century portrait of an unknown serving woman offering an onion to a monkey on her right arm; she is sometimes called ‘Goody Asaph’.(image) - I wonder if her portrait is notable, rather than her?
Elspeth Hughes-Davies campaigner for womens’ education, womens’ votes, Celtic studies, educational reform, wife of Principal John Rhŷs, in 1878 she hosted in College the inaugural meeting of the Association for the Education of Women, the committee which led to women’s colleges being formed in Oxford, (ref) & her daughters Myfanwy Rhys (1874-1945) - mentioned in the 1911 census as researcher in history; living in the principal’s lodgings in college & Olwen Rhys decoded a Greek and Latin cryptogram in the Juvencus Manuscript (ref to archive) & the Olwen scholarship (ref)
May Harper a leading figure in the cultural salons of the early twentieth century: the daughter of Principal Daniel Harper lived in the Principal’s lodgings and was an exponent of literary circles with friends including Oscar Wilde. (ref)
Alix Jennings an artist in her own right, she stepped in to help when the College needed a portrait of T E Lawrence to be done posthumously. born in Carlisle as Alice Agnes Thomson the daughter of a plumber and engineer she lived to age 96. (ref) (ref)
I've added the list to the Education event, but I'm dropping it here in case anyone is looking for inspiration - quite a few are connected to Wales as Jesus College has historic links with the country. My understanding is that the college is creating a trail, and when you find a person, you'll scan a QR code to go to more information, and I think some of the places you will go to are Wikipedia articles which already exist e.g. Saint Frideswide owned the land the college was built on, so the link will go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frithuswith (but don't hold me to this as I'm just passing on info, rather than being directly involved). Thanks in advance Lajmmoore (talk) 21:03, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]