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Unjustified aggression and stalking

I am concerned that several of the keenest and most productive editors I know have recently been faced with such a level of aggression that they no longer feel happy about contributing to the English Wikipedia. There have been instances of stalking by editors and administrators who set out to find fault, especially with those who try to explain the reasons behind the work they have undertaken. In addition to having their articles deleted, editors who attempt to argue their cases with administrators can be threatened with action by ArbCom. Some are officially suspended from editing, others feel they are unable to edit further without facing continued aggression. While a number of new editors seem to face repeated discouragement, I am mainly concerned that several editors who have contributed for years are now so fed up with the hostile atmosphere here that they have decided either to abandon ship completely or to cut back on their contributions. Many have stopped contributing to DYK or to discussions on AfD.

It seems to me that there is little hope of improving participation on Women in Red unless we can put a stop to continued harassment along these lines. It would probably be counter-productive to cite specific instances of aggression on-wiki as this could well result in further oppression. As a result, I have decided after some consultation to try to draw up an account of serious instances of hostility by inviting those involved to keep me informed by email. Those who have suffered unjustified aggression should therefore let me know by email. They can first let me know in general terms how they have been treated. Later, it would be useful to have more details, including the names of the editors and administrators concerned, backed if possible by reference to specific instances of aggression and cases of continued stalking. It would also be useful for me to have the names of other editors who have been mistreated so that their cases can be investigated too. On the basis of the communications I receive, I will try to research cases in more depth although as I am not an administrator, I may have difficulty in identifying articles and talk pages which have now been deleted. Once I have sufficient evidence of aggression, I shall communicate the results to a number of progressive Wikipedians who have expressed interest in taking concerted action at appropriate levels.

As many of you will know, the Wikimedia Foundation hopes to improve the editing environment on Wikipedia, especially as a means of attracting more women editors and better coverage of women. If we can assist by identifying those behind cases of aggression, we will certainly help to bring about improvements. I look forward both to general support here and to more specific details of bullying by email.--Ipigott (talk) 10:24, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

One of the main reasons I've not been contributing much in the last few months is the level of childishness I experienced from the infobox enforcement lot. Cassianto in particular was being targetted. The nastiness that went on and the blatant bullying has soured my attitude towards wanting to produce content. At times it seems nobody seems to care if I contribute or not. Another major concern is the level of deletionism which goes on on here, the laziness in checking for sources and helping the wikipedia cause. Just look at my talk page for what people have tried to delete in the last month. Deletionism is a major obstacle if we're to keep editors contributing women articles. We need something to protect newbies and their articles created at editathons. I hope the site will get better again later in the year with the contests I have in mind and the project will become more positive.♦ Dr. Blofeld 10:54, 24 February 2017 (UTC)
Wow. I am really sorry to read this thread. All I can say is that on the Dutch wikipedia this as been going on for years and our little Gendergap group has a safe haven on Facebook where we can exchange tips and tricks. The odd thing is that the most determined "stalkers" as you call them are mostly just over-sensitive Wikipedians trying to defend the "rules". As everyone knows who works on articles about women and their works, it is sometimes really hard to find reliable sources. I think it is important to keep in mind that all of the work here is harder than work on items about men. I think that helps. Since my hobby is 17th-century art it is always easy for me to escape from time to time. I agree that we need to keep it fun and sometimes crabby people seem to suck all the fun out of it. It helps to remember that crabby people are just reacting to what annoys them individually, and it may have nothing to do with the female aspect, but simply fallout from the fact that there is no single source for the text you have written. But let's keep the faith! Jane (talk) 14:58, 24 February 2017 (UTC)
This is a sorry story. Can you give some links or diffs to indicate the extent of the problem? Xxanthippe (talk) 05:54, 25 February 2017 (UTC).
Xxanthippe: Thanks for your interest. I'm afraid bringing up specific instances of harassment here might only create more problems for those concerned. That is why I have suggested further contacts by email. I should nevertheless point out that many of us, including Jane023 above and I myself, have never experienced any serious problems on Wikipedia. Furthermore, WiR members have generally welcomed the positive and cooperative atmosphere they have experienced in the project, not only in our discussions but perhaps more importantly in collaboration on our articles. That said, the cases of harassment which have come to my attention seem to be serious enough to call for more careful investigation.--Ipigott (talk) 10:03, 25 February 2017 (UTC)
Yes but it might help to put up some examples of what happens in user talk page exchanges. I think a lot of problems occur because people "mis-read" each other and jump to conclusions. Unfortunately it seems to me that some Wikipedians love to bait new users for some reason. I am willing to give people the benefit of the doubt, but some very experienced users do seem to be overly critical of minor details in a way that may come across as aggressive. Without naming names I think we can document a few common scenarios. What bugs me is there is no central page for this, but it comes up in almost every newbie editing session I have attended. So some general work is needed, but I am at a loss as to which form it should take. Jane (talk) 10:51, 25 February 2017 (UTC)
This is very sad and terrible and not acceptable. I'm circling FloNight into the conversation as she has wiki experience in this area. --Rosiestep (talk) 16:42, 25 February 2017 (UTC)
Ipigott, I'm sorry to hear that this is happening and understand you frustration. If you don't want to publicly point out particular situations with editors, you can send me an email with more details so I can offer suggestions of possible methods to resolve the problem. Sydney Poore/FloNight♥♥♥♥ 16:54, 25 February 2017 (UTC)
There are also problems with overzealous new editors sometimes, I've found. I've had a couple of people swoop in to touch up articles I've been working on even though I've had an under-construction tag up on them and was still working on them myself. Not the greatest sin in the history of things, but after a while it can become frustrating. --Ser Amantio di NicolaoChe dicono a Signa?Lo dicono a Signa. 17:43, 25 February 2017 (UTC)
I split this conversation, because edit-a-thons are a whole different subject. I think it may be helpful here to mention that there is a draft code of conduct being written here: mw:Code of Conduct/Draft, which has sparked a lively thread on Wikimedia-l mailing list here. Jane (talk) 09:05, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
This a a very sad thread. WIR has remained a safe area but we have well meaning and imperfect editors being hounded by editors who claim that they are improving Wikipedia by getting rid of contributors they don't think are "up to standard". There seems to be an idea that the project is more important than one editors work. Some believe that one day Wikipedia will be free from errors - that may be possible but only by getting rid of all the editors. The editors create content AND errors AND corrections. The project is proof that this works. What is happening is that editors are being hounded off the projects and the middle-ground editors who create the majority of the content are (not surprisingly) the people who create the majority of the errors. They are also create the majority of the corrections but this is never noticed. The argument goes that we can get rid of most of the errors by getting rid of the most productive editors. This is a valid argument if you want the project to stagnate. We need new additions, we need productive editors and we need errors. WIR has remained a safish area - why does it attract so many good editors? ....Sadly this means that other areas of the project are creating stagnation. I didn't think that editors should be hounded off the project .. but .... Victuallers (talk) 10:03, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for your comments Roger, and of course I agree with you, but I think we all need to step back and think about why this is happening now. For example, that CoC I linked above has been stalled for a year but has now become the lively subject of the mailing list. We are dealing with various forces in the media that have to do with fake news and suddenly people are looking at Wikipedia for answers. After years of being ridiculed and vandalized by academics and journalists (though thankfully not all of them), the irony of people looking at Wikipedia's NPOV policies as a way forward is just amazing to me. So the typical Wikipedian doing their normal duty of "cleaning up the errors" has now suddenly gone into overdrive. This project has not been targeted I don't think. It's just a simple factor of the systemic bias that means most of what we would like to create in terms of women's bios is just not going to pass muster in the current scheme of things, because we lack the reliable sources. Add to that simple fact that we have been looking at Black women in particular this month and suddenly our "normal lack of reliable sources" has been dialed back even further! All of that said, I think we need some guidelines about how to deal with this kind of talkpage conduct, even if all we have is "go vent on the Women-in-Red talkpage" which may help people, who knows? Jane (talk) 11:31, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
I have been watching this thread with interest, trying to gather my thoughts. I am thankful that WiR remains a safe place, with the exception of a few stalkers who watch our pages and occasionally comment or push their POV. I think that overall, Wikipedia will not change unless the WikiMedia Foundation actually puts effort into creating policies that stop these behaviors. Self-policing has not worked. The groups of people who participate in these types of behaviors reinforce each other and back each other up. When one begins their Wikilawyering tactics, the rest will follow. I don't participate in many projects on here simply because of the pack mentality, whose goals appear to be to tear things down rather than build them up. The ultimate goal of WP is to create a reliable encyclopedia and yet, creation always seems to take a back seat. It is interesting that the proposed code of conduct refers very little to the actual work of the encyclopedia. "Harming the discussion or community with methods such as sustained disruption, interruption, or blocking of community collaboration (i.e. trolling)" appears to be the only reference and is totally insufficient. Is is so vague as to not address anything, in that the offenders are likely not to consider their behavior to be sustained issues, nor trolling. SusunW (talk) 15:13, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
  • In answer to some of the above comments, I should let you know that the Wikimedia foundation is in fact taking all this extremely seriously as you can see from here. It is therefore all the more important that we monitor unacceptable behaviour on talk pages, article reviews, DYK submissions, AfDs, etc. It certainly looks to me as if we can expect positive changes over the next few months. Better reporting mechanisms are to be introduced soon but for now we have to rely on more traditional forms of communication.--Ipigott (talk) 15:59, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
Well...I hope your optimism isn't misplaced. But I'm afraid that at least some of the problems have been longstanding...it's only now that they seem to be lapping at the feet of more established editors. (I have evidence from discussion with a couple of friends that we've lost some potential new editors over the past couple of years due to some nastiness.) Whether or not that will lead to a long-term change in attitudes I cannot say. Apologies for the cynicism, but...well, it's well within my nature. :-) --Ser Amantio di NicolaoChe dicono a Signa?Lo dicono a Signa. 20:16, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
  • Perhaps sadly, it is not safe to edit on Wikipedia under a username as the default "winning" strategy here is to be a bully. I found life is very happy as as IP editor. Since I took a cleanstart and moved to IP editing, my experience of wiki haraasement and bullying has been very minimal, as my routr resets so frequently that any problems disappear.104.163.152.194 (talk) 06:27, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Google anti-harassment tool

This is now a long way up the talk page but in connection with all this, I happened to come across news of Google's recently launched Perspective technology as part of its Jigsaw safety project. In particular, I was interested to see that Google had analyzed a million annotations from the Wikipedia EN talk pages in order to study how harassment had been followed up. Apparently "only 18 percent of attackers received a warning or a block from moderators, so most harassment on the platform went unchecked." Has there been any collaboration with Google on this? It seems to me that it would be useful to draw on their analysis, possibly adapting the approach to identifying aggressors and preventing unwarranted abuse. It seems to me that the Wikimedia Foundation should be able to draw on these results to obtain the same overview that Google now has of behaviour on our talk pages. Furthermore, if the Perspective approach were to be user here, it would facilitate on-going monitoring of abuse, providing a basis for concerted action against harassment. So finally there seems to be light at the end of the tunnel. (cc: FloNight Jane023 Rosiestep Ser Amantio di Nicolao SusunW Victuallers).--Ipigott (talk) 14:51, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

Ipigott I remain hopeful that at some point things will change. Very glad to know that there is broad evidence of what we have been repeatedly saying over time. Existing protocols and policing are not working. Our structure does not require admins/moderators to have the skills necessary to stop these behaviors, nor provide training to improve the lack of skill. This technology could clearly shine a light on the issues and perhaps form the basis of *real* change. SusunW (talk) 15:08, 3 March 2017 (UTC)
Ipigott More info about it on Wikimedia-l mailing list, the WMF blog, and various wiki Facebook channels. (These sources of information, in general, are apropos for those who want to stay informed about the wiki movement.) Also, I'm proud to say, I've been participating in the Jigsaw research. --Rosiestep (talk) 16:36, 3 March 2017 (UTC)
Thanks, Rosiestep. Glad to see you've been following this up and playing an active part. Well done! I know you are extremely busy with all kinds of things but I think some of us would be interested in hearing about developments such as this, especially anything specifically designed to diminish harassment. If you come across further developments of interest, you could drop us a line here, on Announcements, Press, Research or whatever. I see that some of the sources date from 7 February. Perhaps by now Perspective is now being used more systematically on a day-to-day basis. From the various descriptions I have seen, it is capable of far more than making general analyses. Is there any indication the WMF intends to use it to prevent serious cases of harassment? If so, this could act as a warning to those who continue to cast abuse, particularly those whose activities have discouraged members of this project over a lengthy period.--Ipigott (talk) 17:08, 3 March 2017 (UTC)
Hi Ipigott, I'm glad that you highlighted Perspective here. Perspective and other tools are going to be an important part of the solution. I hope that you and others at Women in Red will get more engaged with helping to give feedback as they are rolled out. The best way for them to be fine tuned for Wikipedia is for Wikipedians to offer constructive criticism and other feedback as opportunities arise. Sydney Poore/FloNight♥♥♥♥ 18:22, 3 March 2017 (UTC)
It's great that others want to get involved in this important work! The best way to stay informed is to subscribe to Wikimedia-l, to read the WMF blogpost, and to subscribe to the The Signpost. That is to say, as I'm stretched thin with wiki responsibilities, let's spread the workload and have someone else take lead in this regard. Thank you. --Rosiestep (talk) 22:04, 3 March 2017 (UTC)
I've looked at Wikimedia-l and the WMF blog and am afraid to say it would take a considerable amount of time to follow them on a day-to-day basis. Maybe the best solution is to wait to see what is picked up by the world press. (Unless of course anyone is ready to look out for items of special interest.) In regard to Perspective, I for one would be happy to participate in the development and application process. We obviously have a number of problems here which could be priorities for the evolving system. It would be interesting to know whether it could be made available for those wanting to investigate cases of harassment associated with identifiable users who are either causing harassment or being subjected to it.--Ipigott (talk) 11:52, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Laura Larson

Laura Larson is up for deletion.104.163.140.193 (talk) 08:43, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Day Without a Woman

Project members and page watchers are welcome to help expand Draft:Day Without a Woman. Thanks! ---Another Believer (Talk) 19:46, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

Another Believer This is a protest in the US, right? The first couple of sentences should probably specify where the strike is taking place, as not everyone is American. Joseph2302 (talk) 21:36, 5 March 2017 (UTC)
@Joseph2302: Well, actually, I think the strike is global. ---Another Believer (Talk) 22:14, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Gurmehar Kaur

Gurmehar Kaur is up for deletion. A heated AfD is in progress. 103.6.159.81 (talk) 11:29, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Joan Braderman

Joan Braderman is up for deletion.104.163.140.193 (talk) 12:37, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Noticeboard

Is there a secret WIR noticeboard somewhere? Seems like the project needs one.104.163.140.193 (talk) 09:13, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Our "noticeboard" is pretty much this talkpage, plus we have an Announcements section on the mainpage, a Twitter page, and a Facebook page. There aren't any secret pages... at least that I'm aware of. ;) Or maybe I'm just not groking what you mean by "secret WiR noticeboard"? --Rosiestep (talk) 15:33, 5 March 2017 (UTC)
thanks!I did not phrase that question very well. What I meant is that several projects have noticeboards, and I think WIR could use one for items like the one I posted directly preceeeding this.104.163.140.193 (talk) 17:48, 5 March 2017 (UTC)
This page works perfectly well for that. Why would we want to have to watchlist yet another page? What, exactly, is the fault you find with this page? --Tagishsimon (talk) 21:33, 5 March 2017 (UTC)
Just an idea. Surely more infrastructure (to enable expansion) for a worthy project is not a bad idea?104.163.140.193 (talk) 23:11, 5 March 2017 (UTC)
Thanks 104.163.140.193 for bringing this up. We have recently undertaken some redesign work on our pages and I'm afraid our announcements were not appearing for a few days. I for one appreciate the trouble you have been taking to keep us posted here of valid women's biographies which are threatened with deletion. As you can see, it has been working very well. Keep up the good work.--Ipigott (talk) 11:11, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
Perhaps not today, but in the future, when hundreds of people are coming to the project each week or day week to find out how to contribute and how to do different things, the infrastructure will need to expland beyond a single talk page wihtout any explanation as to its purpose. A little infrastructure (for example a page called "noticeboard") can be very helpful to the uninitiated, for the same reason that they put signs in airports: to help peple to get to where they are going.104.163.140.193 (talk) 12:37, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
Perhaps. I think we do, possibly, lack a noticeboard, but I'd be inclined to place such a thing on our main page and point related discussion to this page. Meanwhile I, too, thank you for posting AfDs here. --Tagishsimon (talk) 18:43, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
I'm supportive of creating another high-level subpage -noticeboard or named something else- where we address "... how to contribute and how to do different things..." We recently made "Tasks" a redirect to "Worklists". So we could repurpose Tasks, 104.163.140.193, and use it in the way you just described, e.g. a stable, high-level page which outlines different things a participant can do, and gives instructions re each. The first few ideas which come to mind would be: AfD, suggesting/planning an event, liaising with an outside partner for a future WiR event, creating Learning Patterns to document our processes, create a slidedeck re our branding, and so forth. We could start such a page in a WiR Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/Sandbox and sort out its name -Noticeboard, Tasks, etc.- later. --Rosiestep (talk) 19:45, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Nela Arias-Misson

Nela Arias-Misson is up for deletion.104.163.140.193 (talk) 21:24, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Kept. --Ipigott (talk) 08:55, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Vaj (street artist)

Vaj (street artist) is up for deletion.104.163.152.90 (talk) 20:47, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

update: User:LauraHale went to work on the article, doing what can only be described as a spectacular job. Stellar would be another word for it. 104.163.152.90 (talk) 23:15, 8 March 2017 (UTC)
I'm very pleased to see that Laura is back with us and look forward to her future contributions. She has indeed done a very thorough job on Vaj.--Ipigott (talk) 08:41, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

Women in Red in the media

Nice post! SusunW (talk) 21:01, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hari Bhimaraju

AfD concerns an 11-12 yr old young lady who created a software program to help the blind. Atsme📞📧 13:51, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

At a glance the deletionists' arguments seem positively vindictive, they are certainly exposing themselves to sever criticism. Their focus on the minutiae of wording rather than the pillars of Wikipedia, and the goal of providing content to the encyclopedia is tedious.--ClemRutter (talk) 15:13, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
The lede of the BLP sets the pace. In one of the relists at the AfD, an editor drew attention to another editor's criticism of cited sources, which I'm not sure bodes well for maintaining a neutral position. In the discussion that follows, there's another list of sources that may help participants properly weigh the arguments for or against. Atsme📞📧 17:27, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

Day Without a Woman organizer discussion

There is a current discussion on the Day Without a Woman talk page on whether, and how, to include the information that one of the main organizers was convicted of terrorism. Funcrunch (talk) 17:49, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

Iris Fontbona

Iris Fontbona has been nominated for deletion, after an attempt to redirect her article to that of her late husband was unsuccessful. Edwardx (talk) 15:07, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up. It has been withdrawn. 96.127.243.41 (talk) 01:17, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

Marilyn B. Young

For those so inclined, the article on Marilyn B. Young, recently deceased, could use some copyediting and reference improvement.96.127.243.41 (talk) 01:13, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

This is one article that won't have any trouble passing AfD, if it ever gets taken there. The sources and notability are excellent. Xxanthippe (talk) 01:22, 11 March 2017 (UTC).

Patricia Beck

Patricia Beck: 20th-century American writer with disabilities who committed suicide. I've improved and expanded the article, plus added two university references, but additional support is welcome if you are so inclined. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Patricia Beck. --Rosiestep (talk) 20:29, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

Surely there's a more appropriate place to mention the red links appearing in the article 2017 dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy, but for now I'll just make a note of them here in case any project members care to create new articles about some of the women attorneys who were asked to resign. Thanks! ---Another Believer (Talk) 01:38, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

Another Believer: I think the appropriate place to include them would be Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/Law. Are they all "notable" enough to be included? How about U.S. attorneys dismissed after former changes of president? Have they all been covered? If not, perhaps we should add some of them as red links too.--Ipigott (talk) 10:33, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Ysabel Birkbeck

Ysabel Birkbeck is up for deletion. --Tagishsimon (talk) 19:20, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

Bulked up sourcing for notability proving. --LauraHale (talk) 15:18, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Help with Carol T. Christ article?

Could use some help cleaning up and updating the Carol T. Christ article. She was just named the first female chancellor of UC Berkeley which is huge, but when I looked at the article it was a mess, with no lead or discrete sections and few citations. I did some work on it but don't have the energy for much more editing today, and I'm sure lots of people will be looking at the article so it would be great to get it in better shape ASAP. Funcrunch (talk) 21:51, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Fluent in Italian? See if you can help this article at AfD

I'm fairly sure this person is notable, so I'm looking to see if anyone on here is fluent in Italian. Francesca Genna is an Italian printmaker who seems to have originated a new concept in the field. Ipigott, since you are our polyglot, do you know any Italian or know anyone who does? Thanks in advance to all! Megalibrarygirl (talk) 22:47, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Megalibrarygirl: Yes, Italian is no problem. I'll get back to it later today.--Ipigott (talk) 12:42, 14 March 2017 (UTC)
I've added a few bits and pieces. Genna appears to be one of Italy's most prominent modern etchers.--Ipigott (talk) 16:07, 14 March 2017 (UTC)
Thank you, Ipigott! I had the hunch that she was notable! :D Megalibrarygirl (talk) 16:27, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Nahid Afrin

Hello, I saw that this page is edit protected. There's quite enough material available to source this article. Would you like to help in its creation? -- Pankaj Jain Capankajsmilyo (talk · contribs · count) 18:30, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

It's been deleted already. :( Megalibrarygirl (talk) 18:36, 15 March 2017 (UTC)
I can unprotect it if you'd like to recreate. I can't speak to her notability, though. --Ser Amantio di NicolaoChe dicono a Signa?Lo dicono a Signa. 18:47, 15 March 2017 (UTC)
I would be happy to recreate, if it can be unprotected. -- Pankaj Jain Capankajsmilyo (talk · contribs · count) 05:24, 16 March 2017 (UTC)
@Capankajsmilyo: - tell you what, can you recreate it in userspace? That way I can unprotect and make it live when it's ready to go. --Ser Amantio di NicolaoChe dicono a Signa?Lo dicono a Signa. 00:10, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
I've compiled Draft:Nahid Afrin for a start. Will expand once moved to mainspace. -- Pankaj Jain Capankajsmilyo (talk · contribs · count) 07:57, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
@Capankajsmilyo: - it's ready for you. Go ahead whenever you're ready. --Ser Amantio di NicolaoChe dicono a Signa?Lo dicono a Signa. 14:05, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
Thanks, would add more details soon. -- Pankaj Jain Capankajsmilyo (talk · contribs · count) 15:57, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Draft:Jacqueline Hoang Nguyen

I just came across Draft:Jacqueline_Hoang_Nguyen, which in my eyes seems like a well-sourced article. It has been rejected at AFC four times for notability/sources. Could someone have a look and push it through? There are several decent quality reviews as well as sources in Swedish.198.58.158.1 (talk) 08:44, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

I see absolutely nothing wrong with the article. It easily passes WP:GNG. I'm not sure what the issue is, unless work has been done since the last decline. freshacconci talk to me 15:06, 14 March 2017 (UTC)
What's messed up about this situation is that there was a new editor who created the article in 2014 only to have it rejected 4 times at AfC. They don't seem to have gone on to create anything else. It does seem like it passes GNG, Freshacconci. If there is consensus here, I can move it out of AfC. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 16:32, 14 March 2017 (UTC)
Please do -- I didn't go through the draft history so I don't know what, if any, changes were made with each declined draft. But as of Nov. 2016 it looks totally fine and, WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS notwithstanding, there are plenty of articles out there that have fewer sources and less claim to notability. I've been on here over 10 years and it's basically holding back the tide with a broom. freshacconci talk to me 16:39, 14 March 2017 (UTC)
I've moved it into article space. --Tagishsimon (talk) 20:36, 14 March 2017 (UTC)
Excellent. I've done a little category tweaking. --Ser Amantio di NicolaoChe dicono a Signa?Lo dicono a Signa. 01:25, 15 March 2017 (UTC)
I see the original creator 13ab37 is closely involved in the A+F project and is still productive. She has recently created Elise Gravel and Julie Tremble which is up for deletion. I do not agree with 198.58.158.1's assessment in this case.--Ipigott (talk) 10:36, 15 March 2017 (UTC)
Did some quick work on the Julie Tremble article. It could use with some one doing SPAG and other cleanup as it was an edit mostly to improve content. --LauraHale (talk) 16:54, 15 March 2017 (UTC)
  • It seems that most if not all 13ab37's article creations were tagged for deletion in some way. It's too bad and I hope this doesn't discourage her from continuing with Wikipedia. Had my first few articles been targeted in such a way I may not have kept going. Jacqueline Hoang Nguyen is clearly notable and it looks like Julie Tremble is shaping up as well. freshacconci talk to me 17:24, 15 March 2017 (UTC)
  • Just another example of the very many available to show that the AFC process has gone to dogs. 103.6.159.85 (talk) 11:24, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Thank you, 198.58.158.1, Megalibrarygirl, Tagishsimon, Che dicono a Signa?, Ipigott, LauraHale, freshacconci and anyone I might have missed. I really appreciate your help and support! --13ab37 (talk) 19:30, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Anytime, 13ab37. If you ever need help with an article, please feel free to contact me or post here on this page to get more feedback. We like to help people build up Wikipedia. :) Megalibrarygirl (talk) 18:33, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

March DYKs

Decreasing interest in DYKs

I try to keep an eye on DYKs within the scope of this project. I'm afraid to say that there has been a drastic fall in interest since this time last year. Between 1 and 5 March 2016, we had 17 DYKs. This year there have only been four. I realize many have been dissuaded from participating in DYK nominations as a result of the negative and sometimes insulting reactions they have received. It would nevertheless be good to see more women included during Women's History Month. Many different editors contributed to last year's DYKs including Yoninah, SusunW and Rosiestep.--Ipigott (talk) 10:59, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Actually, I thought of nominating new articles from this project for DYK. I clicked on the first 5 new pages under March 2017, and all were stubs. That was discouraging. Yoninah (talk) 11:20, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
Yoninah: Thanks for your quick response. Maybe you've been looking at the list under Metrics which picks up all the articles on women. If you look at those listed for our editathons on A+F or Role Models, I think you will find that most are at least "Start". You might be interested in my recent Amelia Sarah Levetus, an early Jewish art historian active in Austria.--Ipigott (talk) 12:06, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
@Ipigott:, okay, I'll do that. I looked at your article to nominate it. Find a Grave is not a reliable source. Can you replace it with one that is? Yoninah (talk) 14:11, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
Yoninah: Find a Grave was one of the very few sources I could find in English. I don't think I can replace it but I can delete the information I found there. Some of the details are covered in the German sources but not all.--Ipigott (talk) 14:23, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
Ipigott Find a Grave is written by volunteers who copy the material from other sources. You might try searching on some phrases mentioned in the Find a Grave writeup to find their original sources. If you'd like, I could try to find more sources, but I'm pressed for time this week. Yoninah (talk) 15:43, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
Yoninah: Thanks but don't bother. There's nothing of very much importance and I have already spent enough time on searching for good sources. Anyway, you've now added Find a Grave to EL if anyone is interested. I think it is more important for me to create new biographies. I appreciate your efforts on DYK.--Ipigott (talk) 15:49, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
Ipigott I stopped participating in DYK after last March with the only exception being our GAs and one file I reviewed for Gerda because she asked. As I have been concentrating on writing C class or better articles, it is too time consuming to monitor DYK nominations and the QPQs required on the scale I previously was submitting to that project. I only have so much time. It can either be devoted to writing the best articles that I can, or quibbling over what someone thinks is an interesting topic for the front page. Frankly, I'd rather just write the articles and avoid all the conflict. SusunW (talk) 14:53, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
SusunW - I stopped participating in DYK for similar reasons some years ago. I don't have the time, nor the ability, to properly review a nomination the way it has been requested I do. I'd rather spend that time creating content. --Ser Amantio di NicolaoChe dicono a Signa?Lo dicono a Signa. 15:10, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
I, too, avoid DYK as Byzantine & capricious. --Tagishsimon (talk) 18:40, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
I avoid DYK for the same reasons mentioned here. These days, a hook is rarely approved "as is". Editors feel as if they have to find something wrong that must be changed before they will approve the hook. If an article meets the minimum requirements, it's not my style to nitpick, nor do I like to have a nominated article be nitpicked. I want to create content! Others who were major contributors to March DYKs include @Gerda Arendt, Dr. Blofeld, Nvvchar, and Victuallers. --Rosiestep (talk) 19:18, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
I've not bothered much with DYKs for a few years now. Too much nitpicking and too slow to go through, often a month or more. Most of the top DYK contributors no longer contribute to it. I don't mind doing the occasional one but I think the feature is past it's sell by date and the main page needs a revamp.♦ Dr. Blofeld 12:35, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
Look at the former pillars of DYK that are mentioned here and the DYK project doesn't seem to care. Sad, I devoted 1,000 or hours, I bet DYK keep wondering why they get so few "new" articles without really wanting to know the truth. DYK was a major contributor to the Wikipedia project. Victuallers (talk) 20:01, 16 March 2017 (UTC)
So it's not just me who sees this? Or maybe it is just me. I truly believe there are people over there who care about accuracy and quality. But through my eyes, a different phenomenon has evolved in the last year or so. More about personalities than anything else. One of the most trite, abused and overused, excuses trotted out anywhere on Wikipedia is, "I'm here to build an encyclopedia..." It's like an additional tier of reviewing has been unofficially adopted that amounts to, "Hey...I have an idea...change the hook to what I want..." That, besides the nicpicking almost to the point of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. The winner is whoever is able to grind everybody else down until they give up. Or go away and just stop contributing. Too bad, really. There used to be some good things happen over there. There are still good people over there, but ... — Maile (talk) 16:26, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
Maile66 I don't think it is you at all—we all see that DYK is clearly a different place than it was even a year ago. It seems that there has become this idea that any mistake is a crime. It's crazy. Mistakes happen. We aim for accuracy, but if there is an error, so be it. Fix it, move on. Even if there isn't an error, in my experience, no hook is approved as submitted, someone must put in a change to suit their own tastes. The nitpicking has gone beyond the pale. I adore, "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin", it accurately expresses my frustration. SusunW (talk) 17:09, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
SusunW What I meant by "...maybe it's just me" is that maybe it's just me who has been driven to frustration about what's happening. There has always been a bit of combativeness about DYK. But what I'm seeing now are needy personalities who sit in the background, seldom involving themselves in the actual reviews, until something is promoted. Then they drag it out on the project talk page and take the argument as far and as long as they can get involvement. If this wasn't about personalities, about the need to be noticed, then the discussions would be on the nomination templates. It takes just as much time to point out mistakes on the project talk page as it would on the individual nomination templates. This is not about errors. It's about grandstanding, the need to be noticed. And it's so out of control.— Maile (talk) 18:01, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
Or just as bad or worse, doing this fiddling on the queues which hardly anyone watches, effectively by subterfuge, so that the nominators are unaware. Johnbod (talk) 18:09, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
Yes. Which sometimes produces main page errors, because hooks that got approved and promoted are not the same hooks that appear on the main page. They get changed in queue with no discussion. — Maile (talk) 18:23, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
"Fiddling", "subterfuge", emotive language. If the hooks made it to the queues without errors then there would be no issue. Instead, and as I can adequately demonstrate, approximately one hook in every set that's ready to go to the main page has an error, either in the hook or the article. Generally the articles are weak but that's ok, but the errors must not manifest on the main page. Working harder on DYK quality is required. I think, in the past, DYK was an easy place to get sub-standard, error-prone articles onto the main page. That's no longer the case. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:01, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
Today, we "fiddled" (violinist!) all day, to replace an unwanted "random" piece of music by another just as random piece of music, I hope our readers will appreciate the difference and the time invested in the change. That other piece had - until I fixed it - ref errors, bad quotation marks, practically no links (still could take more), and still has a strange ref system with links from the author's name to the their entry in the bibliography instead of numbered citations, and the full stop behind that name, - I won't fiddle with that. - I still supplied three noms today, just found no time to improve the first piece which had been my main goal for the day, DYK? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:35, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

I still supply DYK, my own articles and those of others, and with women if I have them, in March a few more than normally. 8 March could have been all women, but for reasons I didn't understand they stopped at four each set, and may be it's really better to spread them out a bit. In March, 6 of "mine" appeared (2 nominated for others), and 5 more are planned. I'd like more company there ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:22, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Gerda Arendt I believe they stopped at 4 women hooks on 8 March as there's a guideline that no more than 50% of DYKs on a set should be BLPs, and also it's Women's History Month, so we can run them in that period.
I also stopped doing DYKs in fairly short order because the QPQs ended up being so tedious and time-consuming, and also because so few of the nominated articles were ever in my areas of interest. Like others above, I decided I'd rather spend my limited Wikipedia time on writing and editing pages.Alafarge (talk) 16:52, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
  • I agree that DYK is now too much of a battleground but I persevere with it regardless. Others have been here before. I was quite taken with the article, In the Neolithic Age, which I came across recently – a fine contribution by StarryGrandma. Rudyard Kipling was vexed by critics in a similar way but was able to rise above and make fun of the fray:

Here's my wisdom for your use, as I learned it when the moose
And the reindeer roamed where Paris roars to-night:—
"There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays,
And—every—single—one—of—them—is—right!"

Andrew D. (talk) 18:43, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
Charming, but one of the key issues is that DYK is part of the main page. Like it or not, a minimal level of quality is expected, and until recently that's not been the case. I can see why people would be discouraged because their own article has been criticised for poor referencing or bad grammar, etc, but why would we post error-prone material to the main page of the most significant encyclopedic gathering of knowledge in history? The Rambling Man (talk) 21:04, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
As far as I can see, the DYK section on the main page has been steadily deteriorating over the past year or so. We used to have a much wider range of articles and many more were posted, sometimes requiring four different updates on a given day. Wikipedia does not seek perfection. Rather, it draws on the interest of mainly amateur enthusiasts who enjoy developing articles on items they believe qualify for inclusion in the encyclopedia. Errors exist in articles of every level, even GAs and FAs. I cannot see why they are seen to be such an enormous problem on new contributions which in any case will be improved as other editors contribute. In my opinion, action by a handful of "experts" has taken much of the fun out of article creation where editors used to receive tremendous satisfaction when their articles appeared on the main page. Now, only too often, they are confronted with criticism of their work. It's certainly not what it used to be. And as a result, we are losing more and more enthusiasts.--Ipigott (talk) 08:28, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
Ipigott makes some good points. It is sad that DYK has developed a "perfection" mentality to the extent that many participants in this thread no longer submit articles there nor help out behind the scenes. I would ask, are fewer new articles being created now or is there just a diminution in the number being submitted to DYK (where newly promoted GAs are also allowed now)? Cwmhiraeth (talk) 11:37, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
Cwmhiraeth From the statistics listed here, it looks as if as of 18 March 2017 the average number of new articles per day over the past year (365 days) is now 526 compared with 754 per day for the whole of 2016 and 995 per day for the whole of 2015. Our own "metrics" for WiR show that up to now there have been an average of 60 new articles per day in March this year compared with 97 per day in March last year. For February: 58 for 2017 vs 75 in 2016; for January: 56 for 2017 vs 61 for 2016. (The 2016 figures were in fact higher as the BLPs by S.v.G have been automatically subtracted.) So there has indeed been a substantial decrease in new articles since this time last year.--Ipigott (talk) 08:48, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
Ipigott Yes, yes, yes. The point I made above but you made it so much better. Even in academia errors exist. My recent GA on Maymie shows that. Persistently she was mis-identified as Nicaraguan because no one bothered to look at primary sources, save one researcher. We are humans, therefore we err. Perfection, IMO is not a lofty goal. When one makes mistakes, one learns. When one is perfect, only the ego is fed. SusunW (talk) 15:29, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

International Women's Day at DYK

In case people are interested, Yoninah set up a holding area for International Women's Day on 8 March. Probably too late to write new articles to get on there, but will be great to see lots of women on the DYK front page. 18:23, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Louisa_Gould

Today I came across the fascinating story of Louisa Gould, a Channel Islands resident who was a member of the resistance in WW2. No page existed for her, so I made one. Anyone and everyone is of course welcome to edit it. I'm not a great writer, so please do jump in! It's here. There is significant detail that could be added on: the radio she hid, the nature of the charges, the arrest, the trial itself and what happened to her sister and brother. Wikimedia comons has another plaque image as well. I"m good at finding sources but not at writing an article with great "flow", so please do jump in if you feel inspired to. 104.163.144.60 (talk) 04:39, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Also, here's the movie trailer for the film about her resistance work during the war. Not a good source, but fascinating nonetheless. 104.163.144.60 (talk) 07:19, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
Interesting page. Although not sure why it uses US English rather than British English. Joseph2302 (talk) 08:10, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
Probably written by a US editor, Joseph2302. I write everything in US English because I don't know the rules for British. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 16:37, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
It's fine, the only difference was harbour and harbor, and also the date format (dmy or mdy). Someone else changed it anyway. And it's an interesting article. Joseph2302 (talk) 17:04, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

International Women's Strike

Project members are invited to assist with the newly-created International Women's Strike article, which is related to International Women's Day and Day Without a Woman. ---Another Believer (Talk) 03:23, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

I added some refs. It seems like the background section and the indivudual country details need the most fleshing-out.198.58.162.200 (talk) 08:09, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

A note on metrics

Our metrics and the Wikidata Human Gender Indicators metrics both rely on the creation of wikidata records pointing to our articles and having two properties, human, and female. Absent the wikidata record, the pointer, or either of the two properties, the article is not counted.

There is no effective means of ensuring that we have the requisite wikidata records, beyond a ridiculous amount of fairly dull work which I've been doing for the past few months, and from which I anticipate a need to withdraw (in favour of writing articles). I fear the consequence is that metrics will progressively & cumulatively undercount both male and female biographies. I don't have a solution to offer, other than that others might involve themselves in Petscan activities; but as the opportunity cost is that we cannot at the same time create or improve articles, it's not a task I would urge on anyone.

For the spods amongst us, the tasks & issues associated with metrics maintenance are:

  • finding en.wiki female biogs with no wikidata record, and creating a record
  • finding en.wiki female biogs with a wikidata record lacking human or female, and adding the missing property
  • Petscan provides a means of finding qualifying articles, but:
  • Multiple searches are required across a number of sets of categories (e.g. by occupation, year of birth) to find candidate records. (I have a stable of 12 petscan reports which I've been running daily.)
  • Lists of candidate articles returned by Petscan need varying levels of weeding & scrutiny before they're useful; such as:
    • distinguishing biographies from not-biographies - involving fishing out by eye the titles of likely female biogs, or the titles of non-biogs, from lists of article titles running (depending on the petscan report) from tens to hundreds to a thousand or more in length, and inspecting the article
    • distinguishing between male and female biographies - involving checking the article, for hundreds of articles per week
    • matching new articles with existing wikidata records - necessitating inspection of a set of search results for every article for which there is a correspondingly named wikidata record, many hundreds per week

Petscan does all it can to help, but none of the above is automatable with our current resources and technology. It is a problem which will not go away in the foreseeable future. Equally, eventually, well-formed wikidata records will be created by the normal wikimedia process of gradual accretion.

So. There you go. Stats, eh? They're a bother. --Tagishsimon (talk) 20:30, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

@Tagishsimon: Are there ways the rest of us can help in this? Thinking of adding "woman" categories and/or WikiProject Women talk page banners -presumably they help? Anything else? Should we create a Wikidata record whenever we create a biog - and, if so, how do we do so? PamD 22:44, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Yes to add "women" categories - especially those under Category:Women by occupation. Articles in this category tree are low-hanging fruit for semi-automated additions since their gender is more-or-lesss assured.
As to adding a wikidata record, absolutely. That is the very best thing to do once you've written an article, if you wish it to contribute to either of the metrics. Two methods:
  • In wikidata, from the New Item page ... fill that in, and in the succeeding page, add the wikipedia article (you need to specify it is for the EN wikipedia) and add two properties, instance of = human and sex or gender = female. The user interface takes a little getting used to. This is what your record should look like, at minimum, when you've finished.
  • using the WE-Framework gadget, which provides a very much easier to use user interface, once you've installed it. It provides a list of links on the right side of all article pages; clicking on the WEF: Person link gives you a pop-up form into which you can add 'female' and any other data you wish. (It deals with the article link and the 'human' bit). To start using it, place at Special:mypage/common.js the following string, and follow the instructions at the top the .js page about reloading page; then go to some biography:
mediaWiki.loader.load( '//ru.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki:WEF_AllEditors.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript' );
Note, however, that you are well advised to search for your person in wikidata before creating a new record, least there is an existing record. (Duplicates get merged, so no long term harm is done, just best to avoid dupes). --Tagishsimon (talk) 23:11, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
I am a fan of the gadget. Loaded it and it is really simple to fill out. I've been completing the info on every bio for several months. NOTE: to input a birth name, in the first block, you have to choose a language *before* you fill out the name. If you do not, it will not save any of your additions. Learned this the hard way. SusunW (talk) 00:46, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

@Tagishsimon:@SusunW: OK, I've had a go at both the routes recommended above and:

  1. Going to the Wikidata page... I think I have created an entry there for Jean La Fontaine (though the page offers no help or clues (eg on what to put as "description", perhaps there's an "Introduction to Wikidata" I should have read first?), Tagishsimon, could you perhaps have a look at it and check that it looks OK? Thanks. It's at https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q28910631
  2. Went to the page to download the gadget: first instruction is " Copy the following code into your meta:Special:MyPage/global.js:". Aaargh. Where do I find that? I have a vague recollection of having edited my .js a couple of times in my 10 years of editing, but no idea where I find it to edit it.

Perhaps this illustrates a common problem in Wikipedia: to do fancy stuff you suddenly get faced with terribly un-user-friendly instructions. Could someone give me a clue? Thanks.

If it's so useful that this Wikidata is added, perhaps we should include it, at least as a "And if you'd like to go one step further" optional extra, in the standard WiR instructions on how to create a page? The WikiData data entry page didn't seem too difficult to use, with advance instructions like (an expanded version of) Tagishsimon's brief notes above. I'll certainly now go back through the female biographies in my list of page creations, and create the Wikidata for them, using the Wikidata entry form unless or until someone helps me to find how to use the Gadget! PamD 09:50, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

PamD: I certainly sympathize with you in regard to Wikidata. Like you, I also found it extremely difficult to edit until I installed the gadget about a year ago. It's much easier to use and you don't need to leave Wikipedia. I'll look back for the installation instructions and post them on your talk page. In the meantime I've updated the Jean La Fontaine entry on Wikidata.--Ipigott (talk) 10:06, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
@Ipigott: I've looked here where I'd expect to see your update, and can't see anything. What did you need to change? Meanwhile I've been going through the earlier articles I've created - apart from Jean La Fontaine, they're all already in Wikidata, though I've been able to add extra fields to some. They all had the all-important "female" tag already. PamD 10:20, 7 March 2017 (UTC
PamD: I'm afraid you've added a duplicate. The original entry was J. S. La Fontaine (Q20897552). You actually linked your article to it on 5 February. Still trying to find the gadget installation.--Ipigott (talk) 10:29, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
@Ipigott: Oops - I did search before but didn't notice the very different form of name. I've now put in a "Request for deletion" for the newly-created duplicate. Sorry about that. Perhaps this Wikidata lark is just a step too far ... though I've enjoyed a little gentle button-clicking on the "Wikidata games" or "Is this a person or not: yes, don't know, no", and "Male, don't know, Female". Might try some of the others as a gently constructive pastime. The introduction to Wikidata at https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Help:About_data is a good read, which I'd recommend to others. PamD 11:17, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
PamD: I've finally found the instructions for installing the gadget. You'll find them here. I'll also save the link on my user page for future reference.--13:25, 7 March 2017 (UTC)Ipigott (talk)

Need for reassessment

  • First of all Tagishsimon, thanks for all the time and effort you have put into this. It's been a tedious job but at least it has resulted in many more of our articles being included as women's biographies in Wikidata. I've also been going through all the new articles on the AlexBot output on Women in Red once or twice a month, manually adding to the Metrics lists all the articles other than biographies which qualify for inclusion. These include sports clubs and events, organizations, fictitious women, womens works (paintings, books, music, films) and other articles reporting on women. As a result, up to 15% of the articles listed in metrics have been found manually. No doubt many more could be found if we were to go through the lists on Women Writers and Women Artists. The manual finds are of course not included in the WHGI statistics which only pick up biographies from Wikidata.
My other concern about our statistics is that while our month-by-month "Metrics" have taken account of the 9,000 odd women's biographies by Sander.van.Ginkel which have been moved out of the mainspace and are now drafts, for some reason the WHGI stats have not made any noticeable adjustment. As far as I can see, this is because almost all his articles still have some kind of link to the EN wiki in Wikidata. One of these days, perhaps when the majority of his articles have been deleted from draft space in a month or two, the WHGI stats will be adjusted downwards. When that happens, I expect the proportion of EN biographies on women will decrease from today's 16.86% to just over 16%. This would of course mean that there had been little or no progress over the past year. As we have been widely publicizing this figure as an indication of our progress, I am beginning to wonder whether it is not time to abandon global statistics and concentrate more on our coverage of women in different occupations where I believe we have made substantial progress. In any case, even our figure of 16.86% is well behind the achievements on other versions of Wikipedia: Korean 23.64%, Japanese 22.25%, Norwegian 22.0%, Persian 20.65%, Swedish 20.30%, not to mention Wikidata-driven Welsh at 52.25%. I have mentioned the reduction in DYKs as compared to last year but our overall monthly output as recorded in "Metrics" has also decreased. This year we had 1,755 in January and 1,590 in February compared to last year's 1,908 and 2,089. There might well be a case for reconsidering how we handle our stats and how we present progress. But let's first see how we come out of Women's History Month.--Ipigott (talk) 09:54, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
I am personally not a fan of the Korean/Japanese Wikipedia model. The statistics might look good on the surface but the Korean wikipedia essentially functions like Wikia (at least in terms of Kpop coverage). For a comparison, the group Mamamoo has a single article here, but on the Korean wikipedia, every band member has their own article. Articles such as these also contain a lot of trivial details. I have seen articles which contain details of 5 minute appearances on television shows. Others contain details of insignificant controversies or details which (although sourced) are likely to cause harm. I don't think this is a good inspirational model. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 14:46, 10 March 2017 (UTC)
Let me echo the sentiments of Ipigott when I say thank you to you, Tagishsimon, for the Wikidata work you've done on behalf of our WikiProject. I don't know whom else to ask, so I'm turning to you, Harej, for ideas of how Tagishsimon's work could be continued without interruption, but in automated fashion so that our metrics don't falter. If this is outside the scope of WikiProject X, could you guide us with where to put in a request for automation? --Rosiestep (talk) 03:02, 12 March 2017 (UTC)
Thanks, Rosiestep. Sadly, I don't think it can be automated, at least not without an unhealthy number of false-positives and duplicated wikidata records. I've not abandoned wikidata-ing entirely, but equally it's occupying a much smaller amount of my week :( (although :) for me.) --Tagishsimon (talk) 19:00, 12 March 2017 (UTC)
@Tagishsimon: I think that it is possible to create a bot for that task. Using women categories and rough word statistics in article text (her, she, occurences versus him, he, etc), I think it is feasible to detect when a biography is a female one. Of course, it won't detect 100% of cases, but it may help. I will make some tests and post the results. (Also, first I will check how many biography items in Wikidata doesn't have a male/female tag. I didn't know it was so common). emijrp (talk) 18:37, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

I am running a prototype of the bot and doing test edits. The bot works like this:

  1. It checks Special:Newpages periodically and finds new biographies
  2. For every new biography, it checks if it is linked to Wikidata
    1. If it is linked, it checks if the human/gender properties in Wikidata are missing. If so, it adds them (example)
    2. If it isn't linked, it checks if there is a Wikidata item which its label is the same as our page title, and compares birth year in Wikidata with the biography birth category
      1. If the candidate item passes the checks, we assume it is the same person, and bot adds a sitelink for enwiki (example)
      2. Otherwise it creates a new item, and add human/gender and sitelink (example, list)

The bot works for female and male biographies. It think the checks will keep the creation of duplicates very low. Anyway, duplicates (in low numbers) isn't a problem as Wikidata allows to merge items easily. Please @Tagishsimon: check if the bot is curating all the biographies you used to do. Regards. emijrp (talk) 14:14, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for your work, @Emijrp:. I'll look at it in detail in the next 48 hours and start talking to you properly; IRL getting in the way right now. It's excellent that you've interested yourself in the problem and I look forward to looking at your first results. Instantly, of course, I wonder: if you are as adept with bots as you must be to do what you've done, then do you fancy looking at the possibility of extracting DoB & DoD from (normally) the first set of brackets found in the first line of the article (after the infobox & other header cruft). Not least, these two will help greatly if duplicates are being created at the edge. But for now, good work & much thanks. --Tagishsimon (talk) 23:39, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
I've had a look, now, @Emijrp:, and it all looks very good. I've seen men coded as male & women as female, and an uncertain biog as merely 'human', and a list coded as a list ... no issues at all so far. I've not checked for duplicated entries, and agree these are not a huge problem & probably get picked up quickly enough.
I use a bunch of Petscan reports, mainly sized to return results in a few minutes or so - Women by..., C19 & before births & deaths, and C20-C21 births & deaths (and then I'll run the same reports, this time asking for instances where there is a wikidate item, but no P21 value, so Women, C19-, C20+. These would be the ones to keep our eyes on to see if the bot's hitting all of the biogs it needs might ... and that depends on the frequency on which you run it: what's your plan there?
The most useful change you could make right now would be to describe in the edit summary exactly what you've done - Added Human, Male - so that I can work from the New Pages and Contributions History to see if I can spot any false issues, without needing to visit the wikidata item. WELL DONE, Emijrp, if you'll forgive the shouting there. Your bot is just what we needed; thanks. --Tagishsimon (talk) 20:07, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for your kind words Tagishsimon. The bot runs automatically every 10 minutes. I will check your Petscans reports to see if the bot is finding all the bios. Now the bot needs 2 occurences (she/her/Cat:female/Cat:women) to set gender as female. I think that I will change it, so having 1 female/women category is enough to set the gender. When there isn't such categories, I will keep the wordcount in 2 occurences at least, just to be sure. Thanks for checking the bot work, I think you don't have to keep looking at it, I didn't find errors neither. emijrp (talk) 23:33, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
'actresses' is another category string you could look for, @Emijrp: - cf. Q28973778, Lucille Powers & one other I've come across - Sarah Dagenais-Hakim ... I've added gender to the wikidata items (as I will for any other of these suggestions I may post). Your bot has been doing good work today - we really are in your debt. It's not (for obvious reasons) catching the fair few which were created before it started patrolling newpages looking for biogs, and which have only recently been categorised to appear in my petscans ... I'll mop these up, and try to keep on top of assigning genders to the very few your bot can't decide on. I've yet to see it make an error (yay!) but I will keep watching it - not because I think there's anything wrong with it, more because we can only improve it by looking at what it does when exposed to the mess of real data. So. Continued good job, Emijrp. Please do not go anywhere. --Tagishsimon (talk) 21:45, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
Not sure where you're up to with reliance on a single "he" or 'she' for substubs, @Emijrp:. Take this example, about which the bot declined to determine gender. I'm thinking a single 'he' or 'she' should do (at least for substubs)? I also spotted Dixon Flores, which got an appropriate category three hours or so after its creation; but which was visited by the bot 9 minutes after creation. There are cases for delaying the bot's visits by a few hours to allow the article to take shape before it's inspected; or else for revisiting cases where gender cannot be determined, at some later point, to see if there's more to grab hold of. --Tagishsimon (talk) 00:05, 21 March 2017 (UTC)
@Tagishsimon: I have added your suggestions: actresses category string, and now a single he/she is enough to determine gender when article is < 2000 bytes. About the feature for revisiting the article, I will code it soon. Thanks for your suggestions. (Now you can patrol bot work from here, it adds a comment with the added properties) emijrp (talk) 10:58, 21 March 2017 (UTC)
Thanks @Emijrp: ... especially for the changed edit summary, which will make checking much easier. You are a superstar. --Tagishsimon (talk) 16:10, 21 March 2017 (UTC)
At the risk of starting to make the code baroque, if category contains 'duo', then P31=Q10648343: Willis & Vere. --Tagishsimon (talk) 16:28, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

Who should @Roricomics celebrate with a portrait? - Role Model list

@Roricomics is a great artist who drew 100 women in the run up to the US election. We used lots of her pictures in our twitter feed @wikiwomeninred. She offered to draw a cc by sa picture that she would donate to the world (@GivingPic2World). I have suggested Rosalind Franklin as a great rolemodel. But Rori has suggested she might do two.... Is it possible that readers might like to suggest another woman who Rori might celebrate. (My own discovery was Kate Marsden who was a classic explorer ignored by history because she may have been gay or worse, less than perfectly selfless). Do click here to see the kind of stuff Rori does. Is it possible that we might discover our own heroic "Women in Red" list? Victuallers (talk) 11:11, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

  1. Rosalind Franklin - DNA discoverer (no free image)
  2. Kate Marsden - Siberian explorer (poor image only)
  3. Simone de Beauvoir - French philosopher (poor PD image)
  4. Artemisia Gentileschi - Italian Baroque painter (free self portrait)
  5. Sojourner Truth -- African American suffragist, feminist
  6. your suggestion (please add)
Please to report the Rori has started a picture of Rosalind Franklin and I'll point her at this list here. I wonder if she has an account? Victuallers (talk) 15:51, 21 March 2017 (UTC) Rori is really interested in creating an image where there is no free image Victuallers (talk) 18:11, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

"women in red" as an internet adage

I was intrigued seeing "women in red" used as an internet adage in this blogpost. It is the first time I've seen the words "women in red" used in this way. Not quite Godwin's law... yet. --Rosiestep (talk) 16:53, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Rosiestep: Interesting article. Looks to me as if we should be giving more attention to Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Psychology. Maybe we could include Women in Psychology as a focus for April. For the time being we only have "Geo focus: US, Puerto Rico, Guam" (a destubathon) and "Book artists" in collaboration with University of California, Irvine.--Ipigott (talk) 08:47, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
Ipigott: Good idea; let's do it. Regarding the US/PR/Guam Women Destubathon: I'll get invites sent out shortly; just waiting for meetup/contest page to link to; Sturmvogel 66 = facilitator. I think it'll be exciting to work on this destubathon contest! While the scope of WiR doesn't include "improving" articles, I think the contest will fall within our scope because an editor could create a stub, and then improve it to Start or better. --Rosiestep (talk) 15:30, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
Rosiestep: "Rules are for the obedience of fools and the guidance of wise [wo]men." Isn't creation the art of destubbing? Take it as re[a]d.--Ipigott (talk) 17:43, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
Ipigott: First, a smiley to you. :) That said, Sturmvogel 66 is facilitating the contest and one of the possible rules discussed was that articles created during the contest would not be eligible. This may have had something to do with a tool but I don't know. We shall have to wait and hear from Sturmvogel. --Rosiestep (talk) 15:30, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
Rosiestep: In that case, we can simply complement the destubbing by creating new articles. Let's put the emphasis on Guam and Porto Rico and perhaps also on the American Antilles, i.e. Saint Croix, Saint Thomas and Saint John which used to be Danish.--Ipigott (talk) 15:46, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

That's what I meant below when I said about why not support the Destubathon and have a general focus on US women for April? Creating new start class articles to compliment the destubbing like I allowed with the Africa contest.♦ Dr. Blofeld 10:29, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

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