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User:Ipigott/WiR redlinked women warning

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This is a guideline for new contributors, outlining the potential dangers of relying on Wikidata redlists.

Introduction

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The many lists of redlinks on WikiProject Women in Red are provided as a guide on women who may deserve to have biographies on the English version of Wikipedia. The lists fall into two categories, those compiled by editors (CS or crowd-sourced) and those created automatically from Wikidata (WD). The Wikidata redlists are based on names which have led to articles in one or more other language versions of Wikipedia or which have been included in Wikidata on the basis of other sources but have not yet led to any articles. While the crowd-sourced lists are generally fairly reliable, particularly those with names backed by appropriate sources, the names on some of the Wikidata lists can lead to problems. Indeed, relatively inexperienced editors who develop an article on a redlinked name, may find that it is quickly deleted.

Deletion of biographies based on names from Wikidata redlists may occur when the article does not contain sufficient valid secondary sources. This often happens when a biography has been included in another language version of Wikipedia where rules for inclusion are less strict than those for the English version or when English-speaking reviewers fail to find valid secondary sources in English. These problems can sometimes be overcome by establishing the validity of sources in another language or by finding additional sources in English but this requires considerable experience. Particular care should be taken when creating the biographies of living people.

Difficulties frequently occur when editors pick names from Wikidata lists which are cited as having one or more "site links" to articles in other languages or to images on Commons. Redlinked names often have several such site links and perhaps even include an image. These can occur when articles with the same or similar names have been deleted from the English version. It is therefore highly recommended that new contributors should not create articles from Wikidata redlists if they contain multiple site links. In any case, when creating a biography, they should look out for warnings about previous versions and deletions.

To illustrate the sort of names to be avoided, here are some examples. The names are listed as they appear in Wikidata. Articles may also have been created in English using variations of these names. Check these too if you are aware of such alternatives.

Actresses

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In particular, pornographic actresses (those below have 20 or more site links):

Dancers

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Be particularly careful with those associated with English-speaking countries:

Americans

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In addition to pornographic actresses: