Talk:List of women explorers and travelers

AfD

This article was reviewed for possible deletion in April 2012. The result of the discussion was keep.

List inclusion criteria

Hallo. All lists live or die by the quality of their inclusion criteria. Well-defined lists, no matter how esoteric, can flourish; loosely-defined lists, no matter how popular, perish through WP:OR, listcruft, personal bias, or simple neglect. The current set of criteria seem to have one well-defined test (two X chromosomes) and one hopelessly vague one (not sat in the office every day from 9 till 5). Why should porn stars and prostitutes be in here? The latter is certainly an old profession, but a very large one, with no connection to the adventurers-and-travellers that the list seems to have started out with. Indeed the association is demeaning.

Suggest we prune the criteria, and then the list itself; otherwise it'll have to go back to AfD, which would be a pity, given that the original idea had some merit. Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:55, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

In fact, on reading the history of the list, and finding it recently went to AfD, I've boldly reverted the list and clarified the criteria, as seemed very necessary. Happy to discuss. Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:09, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Including first "African American" female to climb Mount Everest in 2006, really? A nice personal achievement but not worthy of being on this list.

I'm curious, exactly what definition of the word 'adventurer' are you using to exclude the previous names that were in the list? For example, you removed 'Joan of Arc'. Also, Freya Stark was a journalist (does not meet the definitions given in your reworked lede), should she be removed? Mary Slessor was a missionary (again, not a category you have included in your definition of adventurer), should she be removed. --StvFetterly(Edits) 15:37, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

To quote from wikipedia's article on adventure: "An adventure is defined as an exciting or unusual experience; it may also be a bold, usually risky undertaking, with an uncertain outcome." Based on this definition, I will revert the names that you removed from the article. It seems like they were removed based on whim rather than reason. I think that the fundamental problem with this list is that the inclusion criteria of 'adventurer' is very broad. That is due to the naming of the article itself. Breaking the article up and renaming to something like "List of famous female sailors", "List of famous female mountain climbers", "List of female dog sledders", etc. makes sense (as it's a more easily defined criteria). "Adventure" by definition can refer to nearly anything, to narrow the category requires that we abandon the meaning of the word either via OR, or POV. --StvFetterly(Edits) 15:43, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

This is a lot to reply to; I'll try to be brief; if I haven't replied satisfactorily to some point, just ask and I'll do my best to reply.

Freya Stark was not just nor even mainly a journalist, but travelled very extensively in highly adventurous circumstances; I can quote chapter and verse if that is needed.

Joan of Arc was not an 'adventurer' in anything like the modern sense; if we were to include her, we would include potentially very many female leaders though clearly not very many as soldierly as her. The key point is that the criteria have been seriously loosened by the recent changes, to the extent that almost anything goes; and the inclusion of "prostitutes" in the list is risible from a man's point of view, and offensive from a woman's - we do not mean this list to imply that an 'adventurous' woman is merely sexually loose, I hope. So I cannot agree with your reversion.

I do not imply any breaking up of the article to lists of dog sledders etc; they may be well defined but are so narrow as to be of marginal interest, though I accept that would be a feasible solution. Better, I suggest, would be to keep the meaning as adventurous explorers and travellers, which does seem clearly to be the original intention of the list. If you feel that 'Female Es and Ts' would be better than 'Female As' then I guess I wouldn't disagree with you; for what it's worth, I'd be happy to use the existing name to mean the same thing, but you are certainly right that 'A' does have other meanings, notably the connotations of sexual adventurism which unfortunately are aggravated by the word "female".

Hope this helps a little. To be clear, finally: some resolution is needed as the status quo is not at all satisfactory. with best wishes Chiswick Chap (talk) 17:53, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for your response.

The problem with picking a non-standard definition of a word (in our case 'adventurer') and running with it is that things like this pop up: [http://www.amazon.com/Adventurer-saints-Martin-Chanel-Junip%C3%8C%C2%81ero/dp/B0007E08CY]. Clearly Joan of Arc should be considered an adventurer . . . she's listed as one of the "Adventurer Saints" in this book. The word "adventurer" applies equally to sexual adventures as much as any other type. A prostitute engages in behaviour that is "risky undertaking, with an uncertain outcome", which seems to fit the definition of adventure as provided by Wikipedia. Many unsavoury types (murderers, gamblers, addicts, thieves, etc.) can be (and have) been added based on the loose definition of adventurer. Your moral outrage at the correct usage of the term 'adventurer' is not an argument that I find particularly convincing.

If we're going to change the lede of the article and criteria for inclusion, the title should be changed to correctly refer to the content of the article. I agree that the 'List of Women Explorers and Travelers' title would work better (as it would remove the ambiguous 'Adventurers' bit) to narrow the women down in this article, though I'm not entirely sure that was the original intent for this piece. (The original article included people who were notable merely for physical feats (Jennifer Figge for example was known primarily as someone who swam for a long time, not for her exploration or travel).--StvFetterly(Edits) 18:27, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply.

Please feel free to remove Jennifer Figge and any other who have no special adventurousness; a simple physical feat surely does not qualify.

I am not at all picking any non-standard definition of a word, but using adventurer in its plain sense, someone who goes out on an adventure. We might possibly extend the explorer-and-traveller sense of Adventurer to mean "a warrior leader who undertakes dangerous battles to save her people from oppression" so as to include Joan of Arc, but this is an *extremely* far cry from the normal meaning of the word, and it opens a whole can of worms as you are surely aware.

The further extension to "unsavoury women with loose morals" does not outrage me in the slightest as a moral matter, I am not that sort, but it is certainly a completely different sense of the term with a derogatory if charmingly bawdy 18th century background, and it hopelessly loosens the list criteria, which is my concern here.

Very glad to hear you agree 'Women Explorers and Travelers' would work better - I think it is both exactly the original intention, Figge notwithstanding (perhaps her inclusion hints at the problem with 'Adventurers' which is now giving us pause), and as you say more likely to work well. I propose therefore that we move the (relevant part of the) list to that title. If you wish to maintain one or more other lists that would be no concern of mine, though my observations about the sharp definition of list criteria apply everywhere.

with best regards Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:00, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

The renaming sounds good to me! This will solve the current problems with the article. I'll revert to your changes, and remove Figge. You want to do the rename?--StvFetterly(Edits) 19:12, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Done. I'll also create a redirect with "travellers" for Brits. Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:20, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Parentheses (what she did)

Do people feel it would be helpful to add what each explorer/traveller actually did, e.g. "(skied across Antarctica)"? This would make the list more readable (might suggest future groupings into sub-sections), and would also help to deter irrelevant entries. Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:41, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes. Otherwise it will not be a good read for a reader to go through every link to find out who that person was TheOriginalSoni (talk) 10:25, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Agreed, but the parenthetical text should be brief and not contain any further links. MrMarmite (talk) 10:45, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

OK, I'll give it a go now ... Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:19, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Done. I marked up 2 doubtfully-relevant entries on first pass; have removed them on second pass (Coleman, Slessor) - they'd each need better justification for membership than their articles currently provide, so if you feel like adding them back, please also add references to their explorativeness to their articles.

... and a matching template?

Many lists have a matching navigation template (or navbox) to put in all the articles of the list. Opinions, offers? Chiswick Chap (talk) 17:13, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

List order

A great list. But, having it in alphabetical order seems a bit random and arbitrary. Wouldn't chronological order offer a better and more useful presentation? For instance, chronological order would make it easier for people to focus on women of a particular era. AusJeb (talk) 21:27, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

It appears as a dynamic table for me. I can click on the date header to sort chronologically, etc. Does it look different for you? (I do think it's unfortunate that it's alphabetizing by first names, when sorted by names.) __ E L A Q U E A T E 22:05, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

Yes, the table is sortable. Indeed it is even better now it's sortable by surname. Chiswick Chap (talk) 06:48, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

Additions

Perhaps Margaretha Heijkensköld and Eva Dickson would be suitable additions? --Aciram (talk) 23:47, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Dickson looks a good candidate. Heijkensköld need more evidence than is provided in her article. Chiswick Chap (talk) 12:03, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

I don't claim to understand the criteria for inclusion, but I suggest that Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Jane Digby, and Marianne North, have as good a claim to inclusion as many of those on the current list.86.174.78.53 (talk) 23:37, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

The question is perhaps whether they were pioneers. Dickson and North added without hesitation, but I'd say Digby doesn't meet the 'pioneering way' test. Frustratingly little written about Heijkensköld, even on the Swedish wiki. Wortley Montagu is already on a few 'List of ...' pages as a poet and writer, also the List of diplomats of the United Kingdom to the Ottoman Empire; that doesn't exclude considering her as pioneering traveller. Batternut (talk) 10:00, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

Woni Spotts

I reverted this recent addition because her article had been deleted at AfD. Of course if an article is created about her she could be added again, but in the right sequence, and not citing imdb as a source. PamD 05:19, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

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