Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Women in Red/Archive 3

This is an archive of past discussions about Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Archive 2

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Female prods

Of 362, 25 are female - if we include DC Super Hero Girls, Beatrice International Models and Factor Women

Alessia Glaviano Vogue Italy photo editor. A few quotes, but no substantial RS I could find.
Andrea Scholer COI autobio, author, largely self-published or ghost writer. Deprodded, as second prod. Now at afd.
Beatrice International Models Modelling agency, for men and women. No RS I could find. Deprodded as second prod. Now at afd.
Becky Garcia
Christina Cock (Swedish pioneer) I could find nothing on her.
Ciera eastin (Ciera Eastin is a redirect to Survivor: Blood vs. Water the usual fate for reality TV contenders)- I made it into a redirect.
Cosima Coppola
DC Super Hero Girls - deprodded by me.
Ei Khaing Htwe Myanmar martial artist. Found a ref to support her silver in Wushu at the 2005 Southeast Asian Games. Probably not enough for the sports notability - anyone with a knowledge on local languages and media might be able to find more. (Was deleted so I put a redirect in.)
Factor Women modelling agency - no RS listed only directory entries and own website. No RS I could find
Gloria Marshall minor American actress - deprodded by me, as not a living person, so BLP prod invalid. (Added sources SusunW (talk) 05:24, 31 August 2015 (UTC))
Hilary Bardwell, Lady Kilmarnock, English zookeeper and wife of Kingsley Amis. Now a redirect to Kinglsey Amis. Could be resurrected.
Jennifer Perrin, reality TV contestant in List_of_Wipeout_Canada_episodes#Episode_10:_Food_Fight (where she finished 16th in her episode, being eliminated in round 1) only one RS, and that's part interview. Made it into a redirect.
Leisa Pulido
Lisa Garrigues
Liyah Pebblerock, musician, no RS I could see. ""Raise 'Em High" featuring J-Kwon charted no 1 internationally" - no source for this I could find. Refs (mostly YouTube videos) added, so deprodded. Now at AfD.
Marisela Arizmendi Torres, De-blp-ref-prodded by me, I found a ref, Mexican gymnast. Original article was a half-sentence. Still does not demonstrate GNG, though subject probably meets it.
Maya Gnyp, film producer, info about the films she produced but not about her, now at AfD.
Tiffany Oshinsky
Victoria Langley
Violet Oaklander deprodded. Article is still orphan. (de-orphaned SusunW (talk) 05:24, 31 August 2015 (UTC))
Vittoria Yeo deprodded by me. Found references. May still have trouble meeting/demonstrating GNG.
Vivalda Dula Singer/band from Angola. Can only find short mentions.
Vrushali Gosavi possibly COI, south Indian film actress. Lots of pictures and self-pub on the web. Might be some RS somewhere.
Yolande Hobby COI (and former copyvio) autobio - motivational speaker

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 00:34, 28 August 2015 (UTC).

Thanks for making this list! It gives me something to think about... Do you patrol new pages often @Rich? Megalibrarygirl (talk) 16:42, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

No, I thought it was worth the effort to establish if there was an egregious issue. I will be interested to see how many of the above are rescuable, I suspect not many. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 16:47, 28 August 2015 (UTC).

Result (not over yet... just notes for now please feel free to update

Deleted: 12 (+1 replace with a redirect)
Deprodded: 7 (+3 that were redirected)
Redirected: 3 (+1 that was deleted)
Afd (pending): 4
Pending prod: 7

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 22:18, 2 September 2015 (UTC).

Clearly there are confounding factors (notably that I de-prodded 4 of the articles), and no control set of articles. Might be worth a more detailed an sustained study. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 21:31, 12 September 2015 (UTC).

Projected outcome:

DC Super Hero Girls will remain and become more notable
Gloria Marshall, Marisela Arizmendi Torres, Violet Oaklander and Vittoria Yeo survive, all have difficulty meeting GNG, though Oaklander has probably crossed the line. Torres needs someone with the language skills, to see if sources like this will provide what is needed for GNG. Marshall surely is documented in RS somewhere, but what we have does not meet GNG. Yeo might well be on the cusp of GNG, and pass easily in a few years.

I don't think any of these prods were unreasonable, although some were procedurally flawed, and DC Super Hero Girls would have benefited form a little BEFORE.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 17:25, 28 September 2015 (UTC).

WiR cafe

I really like this page, Wikipedia:Meetup/Philadelphia/2015 GLAM Cafe, and wonder if you do, too? I think it would be cool if we had something like it for WiR as a central point for keeping track of our "events"... what will happen when, links to a redlink list which corresponds with an event, plus the event's invitation and thank you notes, etc. I'm not a designer but I bet someone reading this might be one or know someone who is that might feel like coming up with something? It doesn't have to be WiR cafe... it could be something unique to us. Maybe tied in with our logo? or not. --Rosiestep (talk) 03:38, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

I like the idea of a page to keep track of all of the events. I'm really impressed with the amount of work we've done already! Are you looking for a logo? Megalibrarygirl (talk) 16:29, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

Yes, a logo, maybe somehow incorporating the WiR logo, or a twist on that logo, or maybe a different logo altogether? But I think we do need an Events page, Wikipedia:Meetup/Women in Red/Events(?) Wikipedia:Meetup/Women in Red/Events cafe(?) to track all of the edit-a-thons etc. Thoughts? --Rosiestep (talk) 17:13, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

Also, I think it would be cool to make a template like this one:

This article was edited as part of the Wikipedia:Meetup/NYC/WomeninJewishHistory

The editor who attended the event may be a new editor. In an effort to support new editors, please assume good faith to their contributions before making changes. Thank you! Wikipedia talk:Meetup/NYC/WomeninJewishHistory)

Megalibrarygirl (talk) 16:29, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

I like both ideas. Don't have the technical skill to facilitate either. SusunW (talk) 16:53, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

I made this... Megalibrarygirl (talk) 18:20, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

@Megalibrarygirl: I think it's a really nice template. (a) Does it allow for 2 images so that we include the WiR one? (b) If the template is used for a WiR event, can we consider using a naming convention something like WiR2015blahblahblah (hoping that makes sense). (c) As for using the template, two philosophical viewpoints were addressed at the Edit-a-thon Facilitator Training in Washington D.C. last year: it's good to use this type of template so that trigger-happy AfD folks give the article a bit of breathing room while it gets expanded/improved; and don't ever use this type of template as it draws attention to a newbie and all of their other articles might get tagged by trigger-happy AfD folks. Personally, I'm on the fence, hoping that the former viewpoint is the way to go; but a highly seasoned admin/editathon facilitator stated that she never uses the template as her experience is that the newbies are targeted and the latter viewpoint is closer to reality. I will say that I saw the template used a lot in March during Art+Feminism editathons, so I know it's popular at least some of the time. What's your experience been? --Rosiestep (talk) 17:13, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

@Rosiestep: Thanks! Actually, I'm thinking it might be better to use the WiR logo--and make other changes. I really like the Art and feminism ones. If we used a template on our edit-a-thons, it might help draw attention to WiR. As for targeting new editors, I see that as an opportunity, not a bad thing. If WiR, for example, tagged our edit-a-thon articles, we'd also be tagging the articles of experienced editors. If an experienced editor has articles were tagged are also harassed as a "newbie," we could take care of it and keep an eye on the problem: start documenting that it's going on. I think that problems don't get taken care of on Wiki since people don't document that they exist or react to them. So much of our "evidence" is anecdotal... like it "seems" like certain kinds of articles are targeted, but if we don't have data, I don't see how we can convince others it's happening. :/ Megalibrarygirl (talk) 19:05, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

@Megalibrarygirl: makes sense so let's go for it. So we'll need one in mid-October for the architects editathon. Plenty of time between now and then to create it. Do you want to do so? Also, it goes on the talkpage, right? --Rosiestep (talk) 03:50, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

I'll get it ready. :) Megalibrarygirl (talk) 16:56, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

Gendergap report on content relating to women artists

As quick answer to the above question on the "15%", please see the Meta page on the Gendergap as all of the published survey results are linked from there. In the Netherlands particpation is lower (measured in 2013 as 6% and in 2015 as 11%). My work on artists and artworks is fairly useful, as the matching occurs without gender-specific workflows. See d:User:Jane023/Gendergap report. I will update this occasionally based on wikidata query. The reason you can't get a good measurement for the English Wikipedia is because there are still lots of items not tagged with gender. There is also a lot of content "grandfathered-in" which is by definition male. It would be more useful to measure the number of women biographies proportionally who were born after 1900, but this is as yet impossible because the birth dates have not been added to their wikidata items yet. Ergo, we can only say something based on the gender proportions of external databases matched to wikidata. Jane (talk) 07:03, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

@Jane023: that's a very interesting report. Thank you for sharing it. If you are attending WikiCon USA, I'd really like to chat with you. --Rosiestep (talk) 14:22, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

@Jane023: Is this the page your are referring to? All very interesting. But am I right in thinking that unless articles are included in Wikidata, they are not taken into account in these studies? As you know, new biographies are generally only documented in Wikidata if they have infoboxes or appear in other languages. Women in Red is hoping to see substantial progress between 2014 and 2015 on the basis of the evolving statistics. We should indeed expect positive results, now that around 800 new articles are being added each month, especially now we are increasingly involved in editathons. Unfortunately, apart from the huge number of biographies of women in sports (which almost always have infoboxes, even for one-liners), most of the biographies about women in other areas of interest do not have infoboxes. It therefore seems to me that we should either be including infoboxes (or manually adding info to Wikidata) on all our new biographies. If we don't, they'll probably just be overlooked in future analyses. Maybe there's a more straightforward way of including biographies in Wikidata? For example, as far as I can see, for writers the "authority control" template seems to be effective. Is there any hope of undertaking an analysis of all biographies of men and women on the basis of the lead sections? And is there any way to calculate the total number of biographies, including all those not in Wikidata?--Ipigott (talk) 07:41, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

Yes that is the page I meant (scroll to Wikimedia, then Dutch and the Dutch page contains the survey summaries in English). No, there is no way to do a comprehensive analysis of biographies based on gender. That said, the natural systemic bias is of course visible, but that is not a Wikipedia problem of course. Almost all articles that are created have an item associated with them in a few days. All people working on Wikipedia should create these associated items themselves and fill in basic data, but most do not (because they are either unaware or because they are "afraid" of learning their way around another project). The item has nothing at all to do with infoboxes btw. You may be thinking of DBpedia, which is a project based on infobox information scraped from the English Wikipedia. This has nothing to do with WIkidata. There has been talk of automating infoboxes, but this has not been done for anything besides the Authority control template (which only uses a tiny subset of mostly biographical properties from Wikidata). If you are curious, take a look at the item for the last article you created. I create all of the items by hand for articles I create, but today I do it the other way around (picture on Commons and Wikidata item first, then article creation). Jane (talk) 07:52, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

I have looked at about a dozen of the biographies of women I have created over the past three weeks and see that about half of them appear in Wikidata (but only as human and female). Far better, all those from the beginning of the year seem to be there, usually with additional details. There seem to be a number of dedicated people who look out for recent articles and enter them in Wikidata. As it seems so important for them to be there, in future I'll adopt your policy of entering them whenever I create a new article. Sorry for confusing DBpedia with Wikidata but as far as the stats on biographies are concerned, DBpedia is of course the source and needs to be taken into account. So it would seem to be vital to include infoboxes in our articles too. I was also under the impression that Wikidata picked up basic info from the infoboxes (as discussed in attempts to dispense with Persondata). One of the reasons I have hesitated to include information in Wikidata is that for years I took care to enter details of all my biographies in Persondata only to learn that the data will not be taken into consideration as the approach is unreliable and will probably be deleted. If what I did there is unreliable, why should it become more reliable if I put it in Wikidata?--Ipigott (talk) 09:37, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

@Jane023: I've just been looking at your analysis of artists here. Very interesting results. In a way, it makes Wikipedia look better than might be expected.--Ipigott (talk) 09:44, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks! I have always said that Wikipedia is really quite good at evening up the score on the gaps (all scholarly knowledge gaps - not just gendergap). Much better than, say, our scholarly libraries or museums are. If you are interested, I just updated my gendergap report on Wikidata (linked above) with a list of the biographical article percentages m/f across the large Wikipedias. You can easily see that Swedish is the winner at 20% (as far as Western languages go - what the situation is with Chinese, Japanese and Korean I couldn't say). Jane (talk) 10:24, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

This entire conversation is both fascinating and completely over my head. I have no idea what y'all mean by completing information in Wikidata. I also know that authority control does not work for many of my activists. One right off the top of my head is Mary Nelson Winslow. Try as I might, I cannot get this to connect to her file and after an hour of searching and trying to figure out how, I gave up. If it isn't simple, people aren't going to do it. Most would not have spent the amount of time I tried. And this is one example of many of the activists. Most do not have authority control linkages even if they have a file. It doesn't seem to work. What data are you saying we need to input and where do we need to input it? SusunW (talk) 13:40, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

And because I forgot to ping @Jane023 and Ipigott: so you won't think this is a one-off 2 more, but literally IMO I would say most of my activists don't get a linkage: Amalia González Caballero de Castillo Ledón [1] and Blanche Christine Olschak [2]. I am assuming, of course that I understand what you all are talking about, which I may not. I just know that I put in authority control on every file, and rarely does it show a code on Wikipedia, even if they have a VIAF file. SusunW (talk) 14:04, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

@SusunW: I created a Wikidata item for Mary Nelson Winslow here, adding the VIAF, and removed the VIAF parameter from her Wikipedia article. If you look at her Wikipedia article now, her Authority control template shows the VIAF. Creating Wikidata entries for every Wikipedia biography is the key. I do it 25% of the time just because of time constraint; my bad. --Rosiestep (talk) 14:22, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

@Rosiestep: I am working on coming over for WikiCon! I may be in a panel with Josh Lim about building US-Wikipedians working on other projects and communities. I also looked at SusunW's article and added the ISNI number to her wikidata item and now it is showing up as well. My problem with the authority control template is that it generally only takes the items that have those properties set and ignores all others (though in this case those are the only authority control parameters set). For example for women artists the CLARA Database would be a good authority control for women artists or maybe the Anna Wintour Costume Center could be a good authority control for fashion designers. Jane (talk) 14:32, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

@Rosiestep: I create it never because I have no idea how. Even going to the links you provided don't tell me how to do it. I initially just assumed that the reason authority control doesn't work on most of my articles is that they are not primary English speakers, but then when I did ones that were, I realized it just does not work for activists as a general rule. Shut those women up! *sigh* SusunW (talk) 14:44, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

SusunW, the authority control template pulls its information from the Wikidata item . You did not input any authority control into the Wikidata item. If you do to the page now and click on the Wikidata item link on the left hand side, you will see that two properties are set that will be read by the Authority control template: VIAF and ISNI. You need to look these up and add them to the wikidata items individually. That's all it is, no more and no less. Jane (talk) 15:12, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

@Jane023: Thank you. 300+ biographies later this is the first I have ever heard of such a thing. *sigh* Why on this green earth is this a manual input???? 99.999999999% of people are not going to go to the trouble and my guess is most, like me, have absolutely no idea that this is a manual input requirement for data tracking. Had Gerda not told me to input authority control, I wouldn't have known to do that either as it does not come up in the "create article template". SMDH SusunW (talk) 15:35, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

Well, apparently that isn't all, because I can and did create the link for Amalia González Caballero de Castillo Ledón, but there is no Wikidata link on Blanche Christine Olschak's page, so no way to create it? Unless of course there is a manual way to create it and grumble, grumble, grumble, this maintenance is using up my available creation time. SusunW (talk) 15:44, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

SusunW, First of all, thanks for the time you take on these articles! Your work is appreciated. I am sorry to see you grumbling about Wikidata, but all I can say is that lots of people are doing their best to improve it. The reason the item doesn't exist yet is because you created the article, but you didn't create the item. Just install the script to see the wikidata info on your screen and then when you click it you can create it. Alternatively, you can just go to Wikidata and create the item using the create an item link and then add your article to the item. In general, it is best practice to create the item first and then use this Prepare Biography tool to create your article stub. Otherwise you are inputting the same data twice. Jane (talk) 16:09, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

SusunW to help you along, I created the item for Olschak. I first went to Wikidata and filled in the data from the infobox you added. Next I went to Mix-n-Match and looked for her name and she was in two libraries. These "authority controls" are now in her item, but she still needs VIAF for the template to work. Jane (talk) 16:19, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

...ad now I see that the HDS is enough - no VIAF necessary! (I learn something new everyday) Jane (talk) 16:24, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

@SusunW: On the basis of these exchanges, I think we should develop simple instructions (for members of Women in Red and other wikiprojects on women) on how to add basic info to Wikidata and how to make sure "authority control" functions as it should when appropriate. I fully agree with you: if it's not simple and straightforward, people will not use it.--Ipigott (talk) 16:06, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

Thank you Jane023 Unfortunately, I have no earthly idea or understanding of what it is you did to create that. I am a writer and a researcher. I have very little technical skill with Wikipedia and all of that programming went right over my head. I am totally confused as to why when I create a document in a template within Wikipedia that it would not automatically create whatever template it needs to work within other wikiformats. If it doesn't, why on earth is there not some simple thing to fill in that is attached to the creation so that it is not multiple go here do that functions? And yes, Ipigott we need simple instructions *in plain English* not techinsiderspeak. I have no more time today and have spent almost all of it trying to understand this conversation and fix 3 files. SusunW (talk) 16:29, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

Sorry to break the news, SusunW, but all content is generated by hand. It can at best be semi-automated (so using PrepBio to pick up the data that was input previously to Wikidata is just a shortcut, but the data was originally entered by hand). No programming involved I'm afraid. We are all just writer/researchers and queens of copy/paste here. Hope it doesn't spoil your day. Jane (talk) 16:45, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

@Jane023:, you didn't ruin the day, but it is just one more thing that totally confuses me about Wikipedia. I am not sure I am cut out for this. It's been a year I've been writing articles and it seems I know less about doing it now than when I started. It is mind-boggling. No wonder so many editors walk away. Clear instructions do not apparently exist for all the minutia that is required for things to work properly. I know so little and am constantly amazed that anything gets done on here. I am very appreciative of those of you who understand it, as it is an incomprehensible maze for me. I often feel as if my inadequacies with the technical know how just create way too much work for others. SusunW (talk) 16:58, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

Don't worry about the minutiae - that's all it is: minutiae. The main thing is creating articles that stick and the barebones is simply that shortlist of things that keeps your stubby beginnings from being nominated for deletion. After that you have all the time in the world for minutiae and we even have WP:WIKIGNOMEs who like minutiae (as you noticed when you looked up the items on articles you previously created a few months back - the data was in there automagically). The main things you need are a clear claim to fame, a category, and an incoming link. The rest is all extra sound and fury. Jane (talk) 17:32, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

@Jane023: Try as I might, I have unfortunately not been able to find your gendergap report with your list of the biographical article percentages m/f across the large Wikipedias. It sounds very interesting. It would help if you could give me the exact URL. I'm not at all surprised Sweden did so well. For a small country with a minor language they have developed a huge number of articles on the Swedish Wikipedia. Local interest in equal opportunities for men and women has obviously encouraged people to write many biographies of notable women. But I would really like to study your report in more detail.--Ipigott (talk) 16:06, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

Sorry it's not too long - just a few tables here: d:User:Jane023/Gendergap report. Jane (talk) 16:09, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. You are doing some very useful work here. Although Sweden (with 20%) has far more biographies, the proportion from Norway (20.8%) is slightly higher. I also note that in GENDER GAP THROUGH TIME AND SPACE: A JOURNEY THROUGH WIKIPEDIA BIOGRAPHIES AND THE “WIGI” INDEX, Sweden also comes first in the WIGI analysis in Table 2.--Ipigott (talk) 16:29, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

Yes - I think their work was based on VIAF data. The reason I claim Sweden as winner is indeed due to the number of articles. You will notice though that the orient has far better stats (ko, ja, zh). Maybe this is due to Manga? Dunno. I didn't ask for human data, just male or female. Jane (talk) 16:45, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

I think it's all those studious young ladies over there. I think if you were to analyse the proportion of women editors in those countries, it would also be much higher than in Europe. In any case, as far as I can see, the Manga characters are usually included in Wikidata without gender. Do you intend to have your study published or is it completely unofficial? It would be great if we could include your research as a basis for future work.--Ipigott (talk) 19:24, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

Editing Wikipedia articles on women's studies

I thought this might interest some of you: Editing Wikipedia articles on women's studies. It was developed by WikiEdu. --Rosiestep (talk) 05:24, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

September article list

@Rich Farmbrough, can you do the cleanup on this month's list, removing the dups, etc., in the same way you did it last month? Thank you! --Rosiestep (talk) 03:22, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

Did you know that 15% of the biographies on Wikipedia are about women?

We keep citing this figure in our communications and it might well be true but I have not been able to find any evidence of careful analysis of the problem. If such evidence exists, then it should be cited (and possibly also included in our lists of publications or research). It would also be interesting to know if the figure applies only to the EN Wiki or if it is true for all language versions of Wikipedia. Finally, it would be useful to find out whether our efforts are having any effect on correcting the situation. Could we not also determine what proportion of biographies over the past year (or maybe year by year for the past five years) have covered women? Perhaps Dr. Blofeld can cast some light on these findings as I believe he was the first one to draw our attention to the figure of 15%?--Ipigott (talk) 08:08, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

Actually it was Rosie who alerted me to it. I had no idea it was that bad, in fact I assumed that it was around 35 % vs 65%. I thought it was important to cite because 15% vs 85% is pretty pathetic. Yes, it would be interesting to know how many biographies exactly and how they compare on various wikipedias.♦ Dr. Blofeld 08:22, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

OK Rosiestep, can you let us know where we can find the sources? Could it have something to do with Wikidata?--Ipigott (talk) 09:26, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

After thinking there could well be a tie-up with Wikidata, I found "Asking Ever Bigger Questions with Wikidata" by Maximilian Klein. In it, he asserts "In fact the example given for analyse was my first exploration of gender and language, where I analysed the ratio of female biographies by Wikipedia Language: English and German are around 15% and Japanese, Chinese and Korean are each closer to 25%." He provides a link to Sex Ratios in Wikidata Part III. Unfortunately, I could find no specific reference to women's biographies in either document. Furthermore, I think there might be serious problems in basing the whole of Wikipedia on Wikidata as a considerable portion of Wikipedia articles are simply not included there. Most of those which are included appear to be picked up on the basis of data boxes or simply because an article exists in more than one language. Maybe Maximilianklein would like to comment, perhaps providing more specific sources on his analysis of women's biographies? Or maybe Rosie can provide other sources?--Ipigott (talk) 09:58, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

This isn't exactly what you were after, but I don't know how to work that out, and the conversation got me wondering what percentage of FA biographies were on women. Couldn't be easy to work out of course, because not all the categories separate out biographies and for some reason the music category has bands in the biography section, but here are the results of my shoddy analysis. (Grand Bretagne nul points):

22% of biology biographies 2/9
0% of business, economics, and finance biographies 0/7
0% of chemistry and mineralogy biographies 0/2
12% of history biographies 13/107
19% of law biographies 3/16
28% of literature and theatre biographies 26/94
11% of maths biographies 1/9
39% of media biographies 24/61
14% of music biographies 18/128
0% of physics and astronomy biographies 0/14
6% of politics and government biographies 8/131
5% of religion, mysticism and mythology biographies 3/59
26% of royalty and nobility biographies 32/124
4% of sport and recreation biographies 7/178
25% of transport biographies 1/4
0% of warfare biographies 0/148

Overall, from the FA categories that have a separate biographies section, women's biographies make up just under 13% 138/1091. I don't know if I should be happy or sad that we are so underrepresented in "Warfare"; peace and love... Belle (talk) 10:10, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

@Ian, @Roger and I spoke of the 15% during our talk at Wikimania 2015. The figure comes from here, Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias/Gender gap task force/Media and research, which was cited to here (page 3): "Of the set of 1,445,021 biographies (articles in the DBPedia Person class), only 15.5% are about women." Many of us are looking forward to seeing the 2015 numbers via Wikidata or WIGI, which uses the Wikidata dataset. Earlier posts on WiR's talkpages have addressed this also. --Rosiestep (talk) 14:09, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks very much, Rosiestep. I had a feeling you would be in a position to quote chapter and verse. I've read the study carefully and conclude that only articles with infoboxes have been taken into account. (Infoboxes also seem to be the main basis for Wikidata except in cases when an article is written in more than one language.) Unfortunately, I (and many other contributors) rarely use infoboxes for biographies as we believe the basic information can be efficiently summarized in the lead (called the "overview" in the study). That will mean that the new version of the study's results for 2015, like those for 2014, will not take into account a considerable proportion of the new biographies we have been writing on women. Furthermore, there is no clear evidence that the proportion of articles on biographies about men with infoboxes is the same as that about women with infoboxes. (The study highlights metadata differences between articles on men and women; the difference may therefore not be trivial.) I have a sneaking feeling infoboxes may be more prevalent for men but I cannot provide any real evidence.) The proportions could well be almost the same (or at least within one or two percentage points of each other) but as far as I can see there has been no serious research on this. If our work is only going to be taken into account on the basis of infoboxes, then either we should be giving priority to their inclusion in all biographies about women or we should be encouraging the researchers to look at the "overviews" as an essential source of information. In the meantime, it would be useful to know what proportion of Wikipedia's EN biographies are actually included in DBPedia. The figure given for 2014 is 1,445,021. Can anyone provide a reliable figure for the total number of biographies in the EN Wikipedia or a method for calculating it? I see 1,318,199 biographies have been specifically included in WP Biography but virtually every day I find new biographies (particularly of those who are not "Category Living people") not attributed to the project.

My comments are not intended to upset our current assertions which seem to be well based. I do feel, nevertheless, that it would be useful to document the research underlying the famous "15%" and decide how important it is to add infoboxes to all our new biographies.--Ipigott (talk) 16:54, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

@Jane023: Based on what you know about Wikidata, are you able to answer this... how many biographies are on the en-wiki, and how many are on women? I recognize the answer would not be exact as not every biography is accounted for on Wikidata, and not every biography on Wikidata has a gender code associated with it. Any assistance would be appreciated, or if you could point us to someone who might know the answer, that would be helpful, too. --Rosiestep (talk) 22:57, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

Sorry missed this one. I have just measured it on Wikidata: male humans are 2298036 (with 1093233 biographies on enwiki) and female humans are 430229 (with 205814 biographies on enwiki). As you now know, this number could change slowly or quickly depending on a "Wikidatathon" to make items for new biographies. Jane (talk) 06:45, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

Adding basic information to a Wikidata item created after the Wikipedia article was created

Hi all, here is a screenshot of my screen, just clicking on woman adds "gender"=female, and "instance of"= human. Next I click on "U.S." and click on "C. of Citizenship" to add her country of citizenship, and then I select the detected options at the bottom to add birth and death dates. I could add an occupation like writer from this screen, but I don't see her occupation so I leave that alone. Later I can add the occupation property and fill in "ordained minister" or some such. Hope it helps. Let me know if you don't see this helpful window. It may be a gadget you have to enable in Wikidata preferences. Jane (talk) 11:40, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

Do you have some sort of tool or gadget activated? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:04, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

OMG I probably do. I am somewhat upset that you of all people don't see this. Lemme check it out (must be in my commons.js on Wikidata). Jane (talk) 12:25, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

But of course! It is more magic from @Magnus Manske:. See the script here d:User:Jane023/common.js. Jane (talk) 12:29, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

@Jane, I have the same view and the same gadget enabled and it is helpful. --Rosiestep (talk) 14:01, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

Oh that is a relief, glad to hear it! Jane (talk) 14:43, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

FYI

I am working on adding WiR created articles to Wikidata (and improving some Wikidata pages related to those that might already have content on WD). So don't fret ;-) Missvain (talk) 19:10, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

I've started learning how to add my articles. It's less scary than I thought. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 19:12, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

@Missvain and Megalibrarygirl: y'all are awesome and I wish you luck. I think I created a bigger problem than I solved. BTW, Megalibrarygirl, I did an article on one of your Alabama Hall of Fame redlinks, Agnes Ellen Harris. I loved the hook for DYK - Tomato Clubs, who knew? We'll hope it gets approved. SusunW (talk) 22:07, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

Thanks Missvain. This will relieve us of considerable concern.--Ipigott (talk) 07:58, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

Women in Architecture virtual editathon

Just wanted to note that the list of potential articles being posted at Wikipedia:Meetup/Women in Red/3#Articles to be created is daunting in its length! In the previous virtual editathon on women in leadership, I found it much more manageable to be directed to a list of women by country. Perhaps we could do the same thing here? Yoninah (talk) 09:36, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

Yoninah Ian and others have been on it. See here: Wikipedia:WikiProject Women/Women in Red/Women in architecture. (By the bye, I am working on those one-liners from last month trying to flesh them out. SusunW (talk) 17:15, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

Next event?

Hi there! Three cheers to @Ipigott for the highly successful Women in Leadership editathon which produced, at last count, 169 new articles, produced by at least 26 unique editors. This virtual world editathon was Ian's idea and he did all the backend work; we are very appreciative of that effort! That said, let's talk about our next event. We'll be participating in the Women in Architecture World Virtual Edit-a-thon on 15-25 October, sponsored by the Guggenheim, and hosted by WiR. If you're up for a virtual editathon between now and the architecture event, we could host one on STEM Women, 3-13 October, in conjunction with Ada Lovelace Day, sponsored by GLAM Cafe. I'm asking as I don't want us to burn out, and it's not clear to me yet how much time between events is ideal for our membership. Your thoughts? --Rosiestep (talk) 04:10, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the acclaim but I also say three cheers to Rosiestep who came up with the great idea of a two-week virtual editathon in the first place, and to SusunW who (a) participated so actively in adding to the Women in leadership list, (b) wrote lots of articles herself, and (c) monitored progress on new articles within the scope of Women in Red.

While I think we should support the Guggenheim event on Women in Architecture (and build up our coverage of women architects on our List of women architects), I am not too sure about the STEM Women so soon. While we should certainly give more focus to the coverage of women in science and technology, if we intend to be really successful, we need more time to prepare it. I would be happy to embark on a "Women in science and technology" list for a two-week editathon along the lines of Women in Leadership, perhaps for 1 to 15 November (or maybe a bit later). I think two fully-fledged edithons in October would be too much and would prevent many of us continuing other work in progress. We should not just be "creating" short articles but improving them up to GA and FA. That said, maybe we should invite our participants (and perhaps those from other WikiProjects on women) to decide what other areas need special attention: entertainment, health, religion, politics, sculpture, non-governmental initiatives, social networks/blogging or whatever else. In particular, we should prepare for major participation in Women's History Month next March.--Ipigott (talk) 15:37, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Religion would be interesting for the future, I don't think anyone's ever done that as an organized campaign before.--Pharos (talk) 15:42, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

December might be a good month for a Women in Religion editathon... maybe Friday-Monday 4-14 December. --Rosiestep (talk) 04:19, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

I second that, Rosiestep. Hanukkah this year is December 6-14. Yoninah (talk) 00:45, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

Cool! Let's make it happen! For a start, we could set up this page: Women in religion list (see this, Women in leadership list, as an example).

Thank you Ian. You made me smile. Maybe for October in conjunction with the architect's editathon we ask people to flesh out those stubs created during our leadership editathon. As @Yoninah: pointed out there were quite a few one sentence articles. I'd love to do an editathon on social workers and their projects. Plenty of worthy NGOs that are not on Wikipedia. SusunW (talk) 16:39, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Another good idea. Let's make it happen! For a start, we could set up this page: Women in social work list. And here are two which I'd like to make happen: Women entertainers list and Women in STEM list. --Rosiestep (talk) 04:41, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

@Rosiestep:, I'd love to help set up those lists. I could move a lot of the women "activists" who are really social workers from the Missing articles by focus area to that list. Also, a lot of the state hall-of-famers seem to be social workers. I can move some of the Asian American redlinks that are entertainers which we didn't get to to the Entertainers list. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 14:44, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

@Megalibrarygirl: That would be absolutely awesome! If you feel up to it, then go for it! --Rosiestep (talk) 01:41, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

I'll still need a few days on the List of women in leadership and want to expand the list of red-linked women architects. Then we can move to the others. But lets call it Women in science and technology list.--Ipigott (talk) 11:43, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

@Ipigott: Yes, those two lists would benefit from more attention. Question... I thought STEM was the inclusive acronym for science/technology/engineering/math, but I could have that wrong. Is the preferred term these days "science and technology"? --Rosiestep (talk) 01:41, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

@Rosiestep: I think STEM is more often used for students. I'm a librarian who works with teens and we have a goal of creating X amount of STEAM programs at our location (with the A being for Art) every month. The children's section has the same goal. My impression is that it may be for kids... not unlike Trix. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 02:02, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

@Rosiestep: I don't think STEM is widely understood. As we are trying to attract new contributors too, I think it would be far more effective to use women in science and technology. For me, engineering is covered by these anyway and math is part of the equation (as they say...).--Ipigott (talk) 09:11, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

Did you see the architects I added here? And yes, the women in leadership editathon was AWESOME!!!! I enjoyed it very much. I like the women in religion idea, too, since there's a lot of Muslim and Secular Humanist women that are missing on Wiki. :) Megalibrarygirl (talk) 14:40, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

@Megalibrarygirl: I hadn't realized you had also been putting together a list. Great work! In the list I started at Wikipedia:Wikipedia/WikiProject Women/Women in Red/Women in architecture I have tried to provide links which give contributors a starting point and also demonstrate notability (just as in the one on leadership which seemed to work quite well). I have included a see also link to your list but if you agree, it might be useful to combine them -- at least in cases where it is easy to find external or interwiki links clearly demonstrating notability. For an editathon, I think it is important to try to guard against AfD problems while ensuring the most notable players are included.--Ipigott (talk) 09:49, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

@Ipigott: I found a book on our library shelf titled Women of Steel and Stone and I got a lot of names from there. You can totally add them to your list if you like any of the names. I just thought I'd try putting some together to get ready for the editathon. :) Megalibrarygirl (talk) 16:02, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

@Megalibrarygirl: Thanks. As the book is available from Google books, it should be easy for people to compile biographies.--Ipigott (talk) 16:12, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

I was wondering if November might be a good month to do activists and social workers since these are people who help others... and helping others makes me think of Thanksgiving. :) Megalibrarygirl (talk) 16:35, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

I would love that, but I will do activists regardless ;) SusunW (talk) 17:16, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

AfD nomination which led to User giving up

Hi all! If you have a chance, hop over and take a look at this article for deletion: Malissa A. O'Dubhtaigh. The user, Rmujaahida, seems new and wasn't given any time to develop the article. As a newbie, the user seems to have felt intimidated by the aggressive AfD culture and has given up. I hate seeing this, so I wanted to try to help fix the article. I can't find any sources, though! I recommended turning the article into a draft on AfD since I'm sourceless right now. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 13:58, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

Also, please see my post on the Village Pump, if you're interested in contributing to my AfD suggestions. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 14:12, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

I thought I was replying here, but unfortunately was replying at the Village Pump. My assessment is that this particular article is an invasion of the subject's privacy. She has expressed in the lawsuit, her medical privacy has been breached and also changed her name. There are no secondary sources that I can find. There has to be a much more sensitive way to treat newbies, even if swift action is required. This culture of deletion is completely appalling, IMO. SusunW (talk) 15:11, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

You make a good point, SusunW. I'm afraid I didn't think about being sensitive to the subject of the article. Mostly I was feeling bad for the editor. But thank you for bringing it up: a person's right to privacy is important. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 03:02, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

Don't beat yourself up. Had there been sources, it might have been a different story. Since the only source I can find is the lawsuit, we have nada to work with. No way you could have known that until you had spent some time digging. The editors are not less important than the rules. It could have been handled much differently, with the potential for a different outcome. SusunW (talk) 03:10, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. :) I just hate seeing people treated badly. :( Megalibrarygirl (talk) 20:47, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

37 possible quick articles

User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) has a significant number of articles or stubs written in his user space, but due to problems some years ago it has been deemed that they must be checked and moved to articles pace by another editor - who then takes responsibility for those articles.

I have made a list of the female articles at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Rich_Farmbrough/RAN_%281958-%29 . You may copy the list here if you wish.

Richard has asked on his user page to informed about any that are moved to article-space.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 18:47, 10 October 2015 (UTC).

Great! I will add the mainspace article names to make it easier to see which have been done, or have a blocking article. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 13:16, 14 October 2015 (UTC).

Thanks, @Rich, for the notification; I moved the list here for ease in review. And thanks, @Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ), for the work you put into this. --Rosiestep (talk) 13:03, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Just use the move function to take the article to mainspace, then expand the article.

Four women in one batch of DYKs

Have you all seen that in the second batch of DYKs released on 13 October, four of the eight items covered new articles on women: E. E. Holman, an architect; Wendy Tan White, an entrepreneur; Nancy B. Jackson, a chemist; and Mary-Lou Pardue, a geneticist? Maybe we should be displaying DYKs on the main page? Great stuff! Thanks to all involved.--Ipigott (talk) 07:09, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

And I have just noticed there will be five women in the next batch of DYKs!!--Ipigott (talk) 07:15, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

Actually five in the first batch. too Abiah Darby was a woman who identified the start of the industrial revolution - by her family Victuallers (talk) 08:12, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

Not to be greedy, but I am so wishing that one day ALL the entries on DYK for just one day, maybe March 8th will be women. I tried to drum up interest in putting DYK on the front page @Ipigott:, but no one with technical skill responded. I don't know how to do it. SusunW (talk) 14:25, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

Yes, Susun, I remember you brought it up and I think Rosie strongly supported your idea but nothing happened. I think one of the problems with the WiR main page is that it is driven by the icons, etc., at the top and does not function in the normal way. I would prefer to see a standard layout which I think would also be more user-friendly for new participants. But I'll start a DYK section now. Ready in five minutes or so.--Ipigott (talk) 14:30, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

You ROCK Ian :) SusunW (talk) 14:31, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

Done. I'll add names for the past few days.--Ipigott (talk) 14:53, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

The 10 women that appeared on DYK today were placed in honor of Ada Lovelace Day (October 13), on Victuallers' initiative. I just added to Ipigott's list all the DYKs I submitted for articles written for the Women in Leadership editathon. The only reason I have nominated so many women for DYK is because I'm familiar with the system, having worked on the project for many years. If Women in Red is interested in promoting its new articles through DYK, some kind of mentoring or nominating system could be set up with editors familiar with the DYK system. Yoninah (talk) 15:11, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining some of the background, Yoninah (and contributing so swiftly to the new DYK listing), but unless I am mistaken Ada Lovelace has been primarily associated with science and technology, especially as a result of her work on mathematical algorithms facilitating early work on computation. I'm glad to see it was thought advisable to include women who were more concerned with the arts and humanities too, whether working in the fields of architecture, literature, politics or even religion! In the final analysis, it's thanks to all our valuable contributors that Roger, Gerda and you yourself were able to put together so many biographies at such short notice. Are you aware of any other important dates over the next few weeks which would provide us with further opportunities for large displays of DYKs on women's biographies? We can expect many, many more biographies to be created in the coming weeks and months.--Ipigott (talk) 18:46, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

@Harej and Isarra: Nice to spend time with you again at #wikiconusa. Can you please add another header on the WiR mainpage for DYK articles? We'd prefer that over maintaining a DYK list as a subsection of Metrics. This was a previous request of ours but I believe it was buried within a heavy talkpage and didn't get any traction. Thanks, --Rosiestep (talk) 12:55, 14 October 2015 (UTC) Like SusunW (talk) 13:33, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Yoninah I have long wanted to have an "assembly line" production so to speak. Creation of articles, review of articles, nomination of articles for DYK or GA. So far, haven't been able to drum up much support but would be willing to help. I go in and out of enthusiasm for DYK as it is tedious at times with those who either have no clue or those who want to make it a GA review when it is not. But, right now I seem to be on a positive phase with it. SusunW (talk) 14:47, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Moving comments from Yoninah's page

On Rosie's recommendation, I am moving my recent comments to Yoninah here:--Ipigott (talk) 14:57, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Hi Yoninah. I thought I would bring this up on your talk page. You suggested having a mentoring or nominating system for DYKs on articles created under Women in Red. There are several issues here:

First, many of the DYKs seem to me to be more closely associated with the other projects covering women. Maybe it would be more effective to step up coordination with each of those projects. Furthermore, in some areas, such as women in architecture, the DYKs are also listed under the individual projects (e.g. Wikipedia:Architecture). It is therefore not clear to me if DYK coordination should be on WiR or in connection with the other projects or both of these.
Second, thanks in particular to the editathons and Megalibrarygirl's lists of missing articles under Women in Red, we have an increasing number of new participants in our work. In my opinion, we need to ensure that they are not put off by offensive templates or even article deletion. So you are absolutely right: an effective system of mentoring needs to be developed, not just for DYKs but for new articles in general.

I realize that apart from you and Victuallers, there are several other editors (e.g. SusunW and Rosiestep) who also regularly monitor or review new biographies of women. Perhaps together we could draw up lists of new editors requiring support and new articles for DYK nomination. Personally, although I spend quite a bit of time reviewing and improving new articles and liaising with their creators, I am not keen in joining the DYK nominating process. On the rare occasions I have nominated in the past, I have been involved in an unnecessary amount of administration and adaptation taking up time which I could more usefully have spent on content creation and improvement. I would not, however, object to participating in recommendations (e.g. on WiR) of articles suitable for DYK nomination.

Finally, if we are going to pursue developments along these lines, I think it would be useful to review the main page for Women in Red. I find it difficult to manage changes and additions in the various sections which are controlled by icons rather than in the traditional format for WikiProjects. Even the addition of a section for DYKs was difficult as the Metrics (i.e. New articles) icon does not function and there is no section on Featured content. Worst of all, there is no table of contents at the top of the article. Anyway, I really like your proposal and think we should develop it further. How do you think we should go forward?--Ipigott (talk) 09:22, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Hi Ipigott! I really like your idea about contacting editors who seem interested in writing about women. We could have an invite template to put on their talk page, too, maybe. I've had pretty good success with contacting new editors who've had their articles nominated for speedy delete or AfD only a few hours after creation. They seem pretty happy that someone is taking a positive interest and it doesn't take long. I usually just say something like "Thanks for creating article X, it's going to need some more references. You may also want to visit WiR where there are friendly editors who can help you out, too. If the article does get deleted, don't worry. I've had articles deleted, too. Look at it as a learning process. :)" or something like that.... I think it's important to "smile" as much as possible, LOL. ;) As for the WiR main page, do you think tabs would help? I like those on other WikiProjects. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 16:11, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for your suggestions. If there is consensus, we could begin to compile a list of new contributors in order to follow them up, not just for deletions but for general assistance and encouragement. Most of those from the March editathons on architecture have disappeared. I think I've made a start by writing to all the newbies I have identified.--Ipigott (talk) 16:15, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Dear Ipigott,

First, I'd like to say that I find Women in Red a very upbeat, positive place to hang out. I've worked on other WikiProjects where there is either a lot of sniping, or a lot of unknowledgeable editors. Here we're just working on articles about women – straightforward, and certainly gratifying to make those redlinks disappear!

I'm not familiar at all with the other women wikiprojects, nor am I able to understand your comments on this page about culling other lists. My suggestion about DYK was just in response to your observation that it would be great to get more women articles on the main page. While I would prefer to spend the bulk of my time researching and writing articles, I would be able to help you set up a DYK nominating system for new articles. All the new articles could be put in a list – which you're already doing – and then a DYK nominator could go through them. Aside from nominating my own articles, I did that when nominating Sandi Peterson and Azita Shariati, which I saw on the Women in Leadership list.

Since we are generating hundreds of new articles a month, however, nominating all those articles will prove to be quite a handful for even a core group of editors. Moreover, each article that is nominated for DYK must be backed by a QPQ (another article reviewed on the DYK page). This rule is going to limit the number of nominators and nominations. So I’m not sure this will be a viable, ongoing thing, but as you suggested, it may be good to nominate a bunch of articles for a specific women’s day, and I could help nominate articles and mentor other nominators for that purpose.

(An idea for more visibility: Is there any way to get a small "Women in Red" box featured on the main page? It could briefly explain the 15% figure and offer a few redlinked articles to get people interested in contributing.)

Regarding the new article creators on the project, we definitely should create a brief subpage describing what an ideal Women in Red article is. Essentially, this would reiterate the basic Wikipedia guidelines for how to write a great article.

I agree that the main page for Women in Red is difficult to navigate. A table of contents is essential. I don’t understand the purpose of the icons under Announcements. The rest of the sections look haphazardly organized. It would be nice to enclose the Metrics and DYK lists in stand-alone boxes. Unfortunately, I have no programming experience and wouldn't know how to go about fixing this. Best, Yoninah (talk) 17:23, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

@Yoninah and Ipigott: I sort of envisioned that we use the existing list of articles and depend on editors to point us to ones with interesting criteria. Like for Women's Month, I thought we might have a group of people doing reviews so that if an article was ready to be nominated, one could just "pick one" of the already completed reviews, if that makes sense. But, it would require coordination if it were done that way.

If we were adopting the how to write a great article for WiR I'd want to add a section on finding sources for women. Because it isn't always straightforward. Let me think on it a bit and I'll post what I think needs to be added. SusunW (talk) 19:55, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Maybe something along these lines, which can be edited and added to by anyone for clarity. It's just off the top of my head:

Writing biographies of women can be challenging because sources may be difficult to find. In some cultures women change their name upon marriage, in others they don’t. In some cultures multiple naming patterns are in use. In addition, at various periods women were known only by their relationship to their spouse or it was customary in some cultures to refer to them by title rather than name. Using a first name was often seen as overly familiar, so even if a woman was a professional and noted in their field, you might only see articles referring to them as Professor Doe. When searching for sources, it is often helpful to search using various surnames.

For example Mary Jane Doe became Mrs. John Roe upon marriage. Search Mary Doe, search Mary Roe, search Mary Jane Doe, search Mary Jane Roe, search Mary Doe Roe, search Mrs. John Roe. All will return different results.
In “Spanish naming customs” it is traditional for the surname to be preceded by the maternal family name thus María García Sánchez’s father was García and mother was Sánchez and María’s surname is García in the English-speaking equivalent. Upon marriage de Spouse may be affixed, or María may use only de spouse or María may retain her own name. The titles Sra. or Doña may also be used to designate married or unmarried status. Thus search María García Sánchez, María García, María García Sánchez de Spouse, María de Spouse, María García de Spouse, Sra. García Sánchez, Doña de Spouse, etc.

If you are receiving too many search results that bring up a similar name, i.e. George instead of Georgia, you can input your search as Georgia, -George and it will eliminate a lot of the excess hits.

Obviously this can be expanded, but these three I encounter a lot and know how hard it is to find sources. SusunW (talk) 20:20, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

I've found a similar problem to naming customs in Singapore... which I'm only aware of and don't completely understand. Some names have a patronymic, and therefore they aren't "really used" and other names are Westernized, while some use Chinese customs. It makes me wonder, though, if other cultures do similar things besides the Spanish and Singapore cultures... Megalibrarygirl (talk) 16:36, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Yes, absolutely Megalibrarygirl and just to reiterate the point...This was posted yesterday Talk:List of women architects#Puerto Rico is not a country. With a wee bit of knowledge about the name, we went from this] to Beatriz del Cueto, which is now 5x expanded and could be much more. People don't know how to search for women and we could make it easier by updating the documents to tell them how. SusunW (talk) 01:34, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

The current WiR mainpage layout isn't set in stone. We can change it if we wish. If someone feels strongly about making a change, I think the first step is to draft a proposal with suggested changes, allow for adequate time to discuss options, and then let's go with the consensus. --Rosiestep (talk) 03:01, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

To be clear, though, the WiR mainpage involves technical programming by the WikiProject X team. We cannot makes changes to that ourselves, but we can make requests. And it is fair to say that we can scrap it altogether and redesign it ourselves if consensus sees that as the best path, just as we can choose to separate from WikiProject Women, because none of this is set in stone. --Rosiestep (talk) 01:49, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

I really like the idea of WiR on the mainpage. I'll support however I can, Rosiestep. :) Megalibrarygirl (talk) 16:36, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Moving forward

I will write up more details over the weekend, but I wanted to let you know that my content gender gap presentation went well and the work we're doing at WiR has generated a lot of interest. Several people approached me regarding sponsoring edita-thons (e.g. We've been asked to participate in an end-of-November event with New York Academy of Sciences. Art+Feminism will be a big event again in March, the weekend preceding IWD.) We'd be well served by developing a centralized Events page where we document/link to our various events, event subpages, sponsor meetup pages, etc. Hoping someone can get this started up: Wikipedia:Meetup/Women in Red/Events. --Rosiestep (talk) 14:21, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Yay! Glad it went well Rosiestep. I don't have the skill to set this up, but would remind whoever does that we have talked of a Women in Religion editathon for December. I am neither promoting or refusing to promote it, just reminding that it was being discussed. SusunW (talk) 14:50, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

That totally rules, Rosiestep! Do you have transcripts of your presentation or a power point? Megalibrarygirl (talk) 14:56, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Glad to hear things went so well in DC. I'm ready to support any future editathons. They are providing excellent opportunities for covering women's contributions to a variety of areas. I think we need to combine our own ideas on future priorities with participation in events being organized by others. We've already participated in one round on sciences. Maybe Wikipedia:WikiProject Women scientists could play an active part too in the end-of-November event. May I suggest we come back to our future programme of editathons towards the end of October when we have had time to catch our breath after Women in Architecture. There has already been some interest in supporting Religion in December. I suggested several months ago that Women artists should be a priority for Women's History Week next March -- so that looks fine. I'm sure Missvain will be supportive too. And maybe sooner or later we should have a drive on Women in Politics, especially from the historical point of view.--Ipigott (talk) 17:12, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

And I am reiterating LOL since I am *sure* no one is aware of my own interest, I would love to do an event on activists and social reformers SusunW (talk) 19:01, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

It's on YouTube. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 02:34, 15 October 2015 (UTC).

@SusunW: I think there would be strong support for an editathon on women activists and social reformers. Based on your work to date, you would be in a strong position to contribute and help set up a list of red links by country. I see Megalibrarygirl has already created a list of feminists, many of whom would seem to fit your ambitions. But maybe you need to create a more specific list. Any ideas about when we should schedule the editathon?--Ipigott (talk) 10:16, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

I don't have any idea Ipigott maybe January? I also think we need to plan for a big month-long event for Women's Month in March. So maybe we don't do it in January because people will be recovering from holidaying. Maybe we do it in March, do a week of activists, a week of artists, a week of writers, and a week of musicians? SusunW (talk) 14:08, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

SusunW Traditionally we have devoted the whole of women's history month to one aspect of women's involvement. In 2012 it was architecture, 2013 photography, 2014 dance and 2015 literature. There had been some discussion of covering artists in 2016 but maybe others would prefer activists. Alternatively we could have a virtual editathon on activists from say 25 January to 7 February (unless you can suggest more suitable dates).--Ipigott (talk) 14:31, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Art+Feminism and International Women's Day (March 8) have become an important international Wikipedia effort, and I will be supporting it, and I'd like WiR to support it. Most of the on-ground edit-a-thons will occur the weekend before March 8th. But I was thinking... how about if WiR supports both parts of that -- Art and Feminism (artists, works of art by women, feminists, activists, etc.) -- during the entire month of March? Typically, some of us have worked narrower focus area... writers, dancers, and so on in March, but I think working the Art+Feminism theme during all of March presents variety for those who might feel burned out with an entire month of just one focus, while allowing those who like one focus to, well, focus on it. Thoughts? --Rosiestep (talk) 14:34, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Yay! I see Rosiestep's proposal as marrying mine and Ipigott's. It give us a single theme but lets us do mini sections throughout the month. Besides which, I think if we break it up by weeks per subject, the lists will be easier to manage than a giant one covering all the arts. SusunW (talk) 14:40, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

I think both Missvain and Belle would like this too. Belle could help us to find top-quality images. This will probably take us beyond just biographies to articles about trends in art as well as specific examples of feminist art. Challenging but achievable.--Ipigott (talk) 14:47, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Woot! I know Gerda Arendt‎ will be happy with musicians. And does that mean then that we could do Educators for the 25 January to 7 February slot? SusunW (talk) 14:56, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Megalibrarygirl has worked on lists for a bunch of these topics too, so I know she will support it too. SusunW (talk) 14:58, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

I love making lists! I have a nice long social worker list now, have been adding to activists and women in religion (which includes secular humanists). I think I should link the lists to the main page so others can add to them. :) Megalibrarygirl (talk) 16:38, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Megalibrarygirl I was 99.9999999% sure that would be your take on this :) SusunW (talk) 18:51, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Megalibrarygirl Here is the slidedeck for my WikiConUSA presentation, "Women... it takes a village". --Rosiestep (talk) 01:04, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

Rosiestep I love the presentation! On that Glam & education section, see the discussion immediately above this one. Yoninah suggested the How to write a great article be shared. I think we should do something like that on the front page BUT add information about searching for citations on women. And I haven't even addressed the length vs. depth thingy yet. Your thoughts? SusunW (talk) 01:50, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

Thank you, @SusunW. :) I think that's a great idea, @Yoninah and SusunW: to link to How to write a great article, augmented by what we've learned regarding citations, length, linkage, categories, talkpage posts, and maybe even mentioning the possible AfD side trip. --Rosiestep (talk) 01:58, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

I wish I could have been there. :) Very cool presentation. Thanks for sharing, Rosiestep. @SusunW:, OMG, if only we could get other editors to understand length vs. depth. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 02:13, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

More AfDs!

Since we're still waiting on some of the ideas to be implemented, I'm adding these AfD's. To me, it looks as if the nominators don't really understand the AfD process or how to use a database or a search engine. Not to be snarky: I'm really pretty sure there is a misunderstanding in how to do research. Anyway... here they are:

Marilyn R. (Lynn) McDonald

This nominator seems to have difficulty in assessing notability. How can a woman who invented a program which has been implemented in "2000 schools in 14 countries, including in 49 states in the US" not be notable? Article needs work, but that is not a reason for deletion but rather improvement. SusunW (talk) 16:33, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Dating Violence Awareness Week: which btw I think can be improved by expanding away from just the action in Singapore
June Julian, though may be borderline. :(

And.... seriously... you need to read this link at an AfD: [3] There's a place for off-color jokes, but not on a Wikipedia discussion! :/

Facepalm Montanabw ^(talk) 02:26, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

In updating the Metrics I found a couple that I am not sure of:

Amy Meyer There are tons of articles about her, and I find no special instructions for dealing with Judo athletes. Anyone know? her record

I found some articles and interviews about her and added them. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 00:27, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Cresilla (female sculptor) Prod says she is same as male sculptor Kresilas. I find nothing but a single line from the Brooklyn Museum that makes that claim and there are sources in the article that states she is a woman? Surely there is some scholarly work on this? SusunW

(talk) 02:02, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Ingrid Rivera Rocafort I expanded this, but seriously, why was is nominated? SusunW (talk) 18:51, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

I added a few references, too. I think the nominator thought she was "just" a tourism shop owner. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 00:09, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Here's another one:

Jagoda Szmytka, Polish composer up for AfD. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 00:27, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Anyone? @Rosiestep and Dr. Blofeld: or anyone else know why this is still open if the guy withdrew it on the 22nd? SusunW (talk) 02:34, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

It just needs an admin to come by and close it. It should happen soon. As I consider myself close to the subject (content gender gap), I recuse myself from these types of AfD closures. --Rosiestep (talk) 03:21, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

Totally understand why you wouldn't close it. Just seems like all the other "withdrawals" disappear the next day. This one seems to keep hanging so it seemed odd. I'll be patient, or will try to be anyway ;) SusunW (talk) 03:26, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

Shadi Amin, Iranian writer

Great work on Amin Megalibrarygirl I noted some additional sources as well. This is becoming exhausting. The culture of deletion is ridiculous. Why does ST say on almost every single article that there does not seem to be room for further improvement? How is that even possible? There is always something to learn and new sources are developed every day, but why should articles require constant improvement if they are notable and the article is well written? SMDH SusunW (talk) 21:32, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

HUGE Grin! Thank you, SusunW! I take what you wrote above as a huge compliment. :) As for ST, my theory is that he's someone who thinks Google-Fu is where it's at. I don't think he has any really good searching skills and may possibly be biased. The AfD process feels very broken. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 02:11, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

I'm with you. It seems very broken. 200-page essay indeed *sigh* What newspaper article, magazine article, even juried, would run 200 pages. o.0 SusunW (talk) 02:34, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

Zina Saunders illustrator
Kat_Blaque vogger trans-woman, feminist
Małgorzata Tracz I know squat about Polish politics and can find nothing from Mexico?SusunW (talk) 06:55, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
Babette Bensoussan
Mary Jane Woodger

A couple more SusunW (talk) 07:14, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

Peggy Speas co-wrote the official state textbook for the Navajo language, but not notable?
Kristen Darling megalibrarygirl brand new editor. Know nothing about the file, was trying to put it into wikiprojects. Exhausted will try to look at it tomorrow, but you might welcome her. SusunW (talk) 08:30, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

Tokyogirl79 did some amazing outreach on that user's talk page. I'll invite the new editor to participate in WiR, too. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 16:17, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

Wow! Totally impressed with Tokyogirl79's concise explanation and want to know if we can add it to our how to make a great article stuff. I think the only thing she doesn't cover is the length vs. depth and that can easily be added. Thank you Megalibrarygirl for following up. :) SusunW (talk) 16:36, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

Thanks! Length vs. depth though, that's when you have an article that looks to be long but really doesn't cover much and/or when you have long articles, but they're published during a really short period of time and the notability claims are something like "one event"? Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 03:44, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

Tokyogirl79 yes and no on length vs. depth. I was more talking about sourcing and the weight that they give. For example, recently we were involved in an AfD when the guy said the article should be deleted because there was no substantial coverage "say like in a 250 page book". We get this a lot on articles about women, "She was only namechecked". I explained that substantial is not the length of the creation but rather the weight of them. A single sentence in each of say The New York Times, The Canadian Globe and Mail, the Press Office of the United States, The Press Office of Harvard Law School that Barack Obama is the president of the United States carries more weight than a 1000 page book on Obama's college escapades, even if the book is written by a noted author. (Unless of course the statements are all mirrors of another source, which *could* happen but is unlikely if they are RS). Historically women were not covered in sources and we often see one line in a compilation of other people. That is why GNG allows combining of sources. "Namechecking" is not in the guidelines and is only valid argument if the statement about that person is not weighty. (He attended an event is not the same as he was president of a country). Thus substantial doesn't refer to length, you can have hundreds of articles that impart no real information, but rather depth, a few RS with notable claims. SusunW (talk) 17:59, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

And oh yeah, take whatever you want or need from it. A few years ago I made an essay page about common notability arguments as it concerns AfDs, which I still have here. I do need to update and clean it, though. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 10:49, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

Good stuff Tokyogirl79 in the AfD responses. And some of that could also be used. We are more looking at ideas to try to help people create better articles and ones that avoid AFD entirely for this project. If you look here Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Women/Women in Red#Four women in one batch of DYKs you will see that Yoninah proposed using Wikipedia:DEV as a starting point. I think for women specific articles we must also address sourcing and names, as you see further down in the text, where we have started that discussion. What I'd like to do is combine all of these ideas into a sort of "how to" guide for the Main Page. SusunW (talk) 18:40, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

We need more autopatrolled users and to figure out how to patrol some of these before the AfD crowd finds them... Montanabw ^(talk) 23:46, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

Sometimes that still doesn't help, Montanabw since the AfD crowd is very particular about "amount of coverage", the problem SusunW has mentioned. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 12:45, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

May be worth going into the policies of what is "amount of coverage." That "can we google it?" nonsense is troll bait. I ran into this on a very silly article, Dogie Butte. Montanabw ^(talk) 20:16, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

Lol. I'm not sure if Dogie Butte passes GNG with only two references, though. ;) Megalibrarygirl (talk) 20:30, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

As someone who regularly participates in some AfDs, I can say that generally people want about 4-5 sources in an article in order to really show notability. There's been some movement away from two sources showing notability, as the general consensus is usually that two sources can only show notability if the claims to notability are fairly major. There are some exceptions to this, like when the sources are two reviews for a book or film - we can usually rationalize a keep in most of those situations. A lot of times I'll openly admit that it's dependent upon the crowd. If there's already a deep set idea that the article is non-notable then it'll be harder to argue for inclusion, although luckily people are only deep set over this when it comes to repeatedly deleted articles. Incels is probably a bad example of this because the notability/coverage is very limited and it's a special situation, but it's an example of something that (at this point) will need to have GA type coverage (as in dozens of journal articles and news coverage sources) before it'll ever get accepted on Wikipedia even as a mention somewhere. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 05:57, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

another AfD for you fully bilingual Spanish-speakers: Rosa Otárola, Chilean nun and founder of a school. Single source. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 12:45, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

Megalibrarygirl I looked and find no sources other than the obit. Suggested she be merged with the school she created. SusunW (talk) 13:36, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

That's a much better suggestion than deletion. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 14:04, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

Anyone want to weigh in on Babita Sharma? I did some work on the article (BBC Journalist) and think she passes GNG. It's languishing in AfD land waiting for consensus... :P Megalibrarygirl (talk) 20:32, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

Nvvchar can you weigh in, or do you know someone else from India we can hit on since you are so busy creating files? I hate to take you away from your work, and we do keep asking you for your expert eyes, but you are "our man in India" :) (It's a play on words...if you have never read the book "Our Man in Belize" about the ineptitude of the British towards their colony Belize during Hurricane Hattie, it is a hoot. You will laugh so hard it will make you cry. And the tragedy is that is was supposed to be a serious situation. ;) SusunW (talk) 05:27, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

SusunW I have added whatever text I could find in Babita Sharma. However, I find text from ref 5 has been adopted verbatim by the user who has added the text. This needs to be paraphrased to avoid copy vio.Nvvchar. 09:11, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

Nvvchar Thank you! I cannot access the sources. Don't know if the links are dead or just not available here (says database error) so I just did a basic copy edit to the whole first two paragraphs. Hopefully that cleared up any issues. Something I learned early in the game was to save every possible link in Wayback so they can always be retrieved. I paste it in Wayback at the same time I add it to my Wikipage, otherwise I will forget ;). SusunW (talk) 17:49, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

Lydia Gonzalez-D'Ross no sources, Hispanic, I see snippits, but maybe there is more on a US search? [4], [5], [6]

Effie Maud Aldrich Morrison

If any of you have access to some additional sources, it would be nice to help this one along: Template:Did you know nominations/Effie Maud Aldrich Morrison. Thanks, --Rosiestep (talk) 03:45, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Not much there. Found 3 newspaper articles, all about the project, not her. A couple of book snippets that could add social work. Maybe his library has access to one of them? SusunW (talk) 07:06, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

British + Commonwealth honours recipients

There are a good number of red-linked women in 2015 Birthday Honours, and in its earlier siblings, which are in the navbox at the foot of that article. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:35, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

@Pigsonthewing: it's a treasure trove of names! Thanks for pointing to it.

Teams: I'm thinking we need to get that list replicated as a WiR subpage, remove the gents' names, redlink the women's names, determine who is notable enough for a Wikipedia article, create those articles... tired just thinking about it. Where are the university interns? --Rosiestep (talk) 01:45, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

Great list @Pigsonthewing and Rosiestep: LOL, I am not volunteering for another gnoming project. The one I am on is making me crazy. Yes, we need an intern :) Waving magic wand furiously in hopes that one appears. SusunW (talk) 02:42, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps it would be a more effecitive use of folks' time to compile a page of links to such lists of red links? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:21, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

I made a rough version of a culled redlink list from the 2015 Birthday Honours at my sandbox, feel free to move it into a WiR subpage if you like (I don't know how to do that). I still have to go through for false bluelinks, and I'm sure many wouldn't meet notability, but some will.Penny Richards (talk) 15:57, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

Okay, done some cleanup on it, still roughish, but I added some links to starter resources for a few of the women, removed some who already had entries under different names, etc. Penny Richards (talk) 18:37, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

Yay Penny Richards! I cannot help you with the technical move thingy, maybe @Ipigott and Megalibrarygirl: can. But, lists are helpful and allow lots of different people to pick out their diverse interests :) SusunW (talk) 20:29, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

As well as removing those "who already had entries under different names", please create redirects and/ or fix the links in the original list. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:39, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I did exactly that, for eleven of the names. I was only spot-checking, though, so there might be a few more to do. (The trick is that the awards are given in the full legal names of the recipients--including formal first names and middle names--so many aren't listed under the name someone actually uses-- Jillian is better known as Jill, Maria Jane never uses the Jane, etc.)Penny Richards (talk) 23:08, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

Thanks to Pigsonthewing for bringing these names to our attention and to Penny Richards for creating a long list of red links. We could move the list of red links as it is to WiR but my own inclination would be to use the original honours lists as a basis for adding names to our existing lists under Tasks on the main project page. There is a well-established hierarchy in the honours lists, the most important awards being listed at the top. Nevertheless, many are simply awarded for years of service in the armed forces or the civil service and the recipients are therefore not necessarily "notable" in accordance with Wikipedia criteria. For Britain, I would however expect to find several "notable" women under CBE. The advantage of working from the original lists is that you can see the occupation or area of interest for each individual. There are also separate lists Australia. I think those interested in creating new articles would find the official government press release helpful as it gives summaries and explanations for various categories. The subsequent newspaper reports also tend to highlight the most "notable" recipients. See, for example, Queen's birthday honours list: knights outnumber dames five to one. We could perhaps return to this after the current editathon. In the meantime, as Andy suggests, I think we should simply include links to the more recent lists (2013, 2014, 2015) and draw attention to Category:Birthday Honours. Just where we should do this, I am not sure.--Ipigott (talk) 07:28, 21 October 2015 (UTC)