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What If Our Textbooks Were Black?

Possibly of interest: What If Our Textbooks Were Black?, a BBC radio series "celebrating Black cultural figures who should be more central to history". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:22, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, it will be interesting to see if they come up with a list. We already have Gwendolyn Brooks in several languages.
As for fiction, the project https://archive.org/details/1000blackgirlbooks based on the list by Marley Dias is ongoing; it was also mentioned in the IA news about the ability to sponsor a digitised book. The list already has 1000 books by 638 authors. Having written a useful work of fiction doesn't necessarily mean the person will be notable but here's the kind of people we're talking about (ordered by number of books included in the list, 3 or more): Jacqueline Woodson, Nikki Grimes, Diana G. Gallagher, Angela Johnson, Connie Porter, Ni-Ni Simone, Nikki Carter, Sharon M. Draper, Toni Morrison, Andrea Davis Pinkey, Jewell Parker Rhodes, Whoopi Goldberg, Alice Walker, Eloise Greenfield, Mary Hoffman, Patricia C. McKissack, Reshonda Billingsley Tate, Rita Williams-Garcia, Sharon G. Flake, Anna McQuinn, Celeste O. Norfleet, Hilary McKay, Juanita Havill, Karen English, Maya Angelou, Anne Schraff, Atinuke, Carole Boston Weatherford, Denise Lewis Patrick, Derrick Barnes, Earl Sewell, Edwidge Danticat, Faith Ringgold, Frank E. Edwards, Ida Siegal, Joyce Hansen, Kekla Magoon, Mildred D. Taylor, Nnedi Okorafor, Sandra Belton, Stephanie Perry Moore, Tamora Pierce, Tee Michelle, Valerie Wilson Wesley, Walter Dean Myers, Zora Neale Hurston, Alan Schroeder, Alexander McCall Smith, Andrea P Sanchez, Ann Rinaldi, Babygirl Daniels, Barbara E. Barber, Catherine Egan, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Eleanor E. Tate, Elizabeth D. Gray, Jerdine Nolen, Jeremy Whitley, Jo Whittemore, Katherine Cox, Kathy Knowles, Melissa Thomson, Nikki Giovanni, Octavia E. Butler, Patricia McKissack, Rachel Isadora, Renee Watson, Robyn Ringgold, Rosa Guy, Russell Summer Island, Sharon Dennis Wyeth, Sherri L. Smith, Tanita S. Davis, Teresa Reed, Tonya Bolden, Victoria Christopher Murray, Virginia Hamilton, Zetta Elliott.
Authors with two books listed: Alaya Dawn Johnson, Alonda Williams, Angela Shelf Medearis, Anica Mrose Rissi, Ann Cameron, Antoinette Tuff, April Randolph, Bebe Moore Campbell, Bell Hooks, Calvin Slater, Candy Dawson Boyd, Cari Best, Christopher Paul Curtis, Coleen Murtagh Paratore, Crystal Allen, Cynthia L. Fails, Debbi Chocolate, Dia Reeves, Eleanora E. Tate, Esme Raji Codell, Evelyn Coleman, Havill O'Brien, Jabari Asim, Jamaica Kincaid, Jamie Reed, Joan Steinau Lester, Joyce Carol Thomas, Karen Hesse, Karen Sandler, Kate Hannigan, Kathryn Lasky, Kelli London, Kelly Greenawalt, Kimberly Reid, Mabel E. Singletary, Marguerite Abouet, Marilyn Nelson, Michaela DePrince, Misty Copeland, Nancy Farmer, Oneeka Williams, Robert D. San Souci, Ruby Bridges, Sapphire, Shannon Freeman, Sherri Winston, Simone da Costa, Sister Souljah, Spike Lee, Sundee T. Frazier, Traci L. Jones, Vera B. Williams, Verna Aardema, Virgina Hamilton, Yona Zeldis McDonough.
Does the list look useful for article creation purposes? I've not yet checked what sources are available on the red links above. Nemo 05:37, 20 December 2019 (UTC)
Nemo bis: Looks good. Many of them certainly deserve biographies. We could perhaps also think about creating a List of black women writers. In this connection, we're compiling a List of African-American women in classical music. Perhaps you (or others) can help us out by finding more sources or names which should be included.--Ipigott (talk) 07:46, 20 December 2019 (UTC)
I'm going to copy this conversation to, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Women writers, as it might be of interest to those participants as well. --Rosiestep (talk) 17:30, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

Catalan women

Hi, folk, you may remember me as making a lot of Venezuelan WIR biographies. I now have another challenge, and I thought I'd bring it here. In reviving the Catalan-speaking WP, a couple of us editors have been focused on the 1000 vital Catalan articles. It's the homing list for the project, and has a lot of biographies on it - not so many of these are women (also, whenever you see "Joan", that's a male Catalan name, and sometimes "Maria" is, too!). Only one of these women bios is in red (ca:Maria Antònia Salvà i Ripoll), but I think this suggests the greater problem that there's a disparity here. If anyone wants to help find more Catalan women and create articles on them, that would be great! Kingsif (talk) 03:52, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

Kingsif: Thanks for keeping us informed of your efforts to include more Catalan women. Why not, for example, create a list of women Catalan artists? That would not only highlight women's contribution to art but would encourage new articles on those who are missing. It might also reveal additional women's names for inclusion in your 1000 vital Catalan articles. Additional names would also be reflected in our Wikidata-based redlists, including Redlist of women Spanish painters and, more generally, in Redlist of Spanish women.--Ipigott (talk) 08:05, 23 December 2019 (UTC)
P.S.: You are of course welcome to add any missing Catalan names to our List of Spanish women artists, List of Spanish women photographers and List of Spanish women writers. I think all three probably need updating.--Ipigott (talk) 08:12, 23 December 2019 (UTC)
All three now updated.--Ipigott (talk) 17:11, 25 December 2019 (UTC)

Emma Hauck

I've just created an article for Emma Hauck, whose love letters to her husband, written from a psychiatric hospital, became posthumously famous. Edits welcome!ThatMontrealIP (talk) 16:36, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

2020 New Year Honours

This year's British New Year Honours list has a majority of women (51%), most of whom are not yet covered on Wikipedia. Those who have received the more important distinctions deserve to be covered without too much delay.--Ipigott (talk) 08:40, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

Actually I had to go several screens down before encountering a female redlink (in "Knight / Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE / DBE)"), whereas there are male ones right at the top. Maybe this has changed in the 7 hiours since you posted. More evidence of WP's continuing bias .... Which reminds me, I've never written up the analysis of the 2019 new FRSs. A treat for the New Year. Johnbod (talk) 15:17, 29 December 2019 (UTC)
You should probably get a grip on basic statistics before posting anecdotal horsecrap, Johnbod. --Tagishsimon (talk) 15:19, 29 December 2019 (UTC)
Wow, where did that come from.★Trekker (talk) 15:29, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

More from Jess Wade in Signpost

The current edition of Signpost includes comments from Jess Wade in "Why we need to keep talking about Wikipedia's gender gap". I think it is worth emphasizing her concluding paragraph:

"We should all be doing more to tackle Wikipedia's gender and knowledge gaps. We should all be more active in editing, training and supporting new editors. We should all be encouraging journalists to cover more stories from and about those from minority groups, helping awarding bodies to recognise the outstanding work of scientists and engineers who are traditionally underrepresented and unearthing the stories of those who are all too often overlooked. We should all make more effort to edit and improve articles rather than deem them not notable. Wikipedia's a gift to the world – the whole world – and the information on here should reflect the diverse communities who benefit from it."--Ipigott (talk) 08:29, 29 December 2019 (UTC)
...and we should all get a grip on basic statistics around the issues before sounding off on national media ... (see above). Johnbod (talk) 15:11, 29 December 2019 (UTC)
Johnbod: Wade's above statement seems to me to deserve careful attention. To dismiss it on the grounds of one or two unfortunate misunderstandings on Twitter is not very constructive. As you can see, it only upsets other contributors. Since it was created in 2015, the level of discussion on this site has been almost completely free of disputes. If there are disagreements, it may be better to raise them on user talk pages or even off-wiki. Let's try to keep things as civil as possible, particularly at this time of year.--Ipigott (talk) 17:54, 29 December 2019 (UTC)
What you should pay careful attention to is Wade's statement here, at 30:30 to a large national UK audience that "about 90% of the editors of Wikipedia are white men in North America" - which is of course complete crap (pay careful attention to the discussion higher up the page). What "unfortunate misunderstandings on Twitter" there may have been I have no idea, as like most of the world I never look at it. Johnbod (talk) 18:22, 29 December 2019 (UTC)
You brought this to our attention on the 5th December, at some considerable length. Indeed the thread is still on this page, above, as I write. Has somethng new or noteworthy occurred, that you bring it to us again? And if not, are we to expect a Pavlovian reprise every time Dr. Wade is mentioned on these pages? If so, Help:Template is probably your friend; it'll save typing in the long run. --Tagishsimon (talk) 03:01, 30 December 2019 (UTC)
I clearly hadn't managed to bring it to Ipigott's attention, and indeed it was tacked onto another bout of praise-singing, so he may have missed it. Perhaps you could settle on a standard outburst of abuse for my comments, and do a template for that? Johnbod (talk) 03:07, 30 December 2019 (UTC)
Good thinking. --Tagishsimon (talk) 04:21, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

Marvella Bayh

I don't know anything about this woman, but I'm sure she was more than her lede, which says nothing about her besides she was the wife of so-and-so and the mother of so-and-so: "Marvella Belle Hern Bayh (February 14, 1933 – April 24, 1979)[1] was the wife of Indiana Senator Birch Bayh and the mother of former Indiana Senator Birch Evans Bayh III (Evan)." Anyone up for fixing this, please do! I don't have any access to sources out here in my beloved potatoland that would help write a better lede. -Yupik (talk) 00:21, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

Her notability seems to have basically been that she was the matriarch of a very significant political dynasty, but also her work for the American Cancer Society seems to have been more notable than our article makes out. The New York Times obit has good quotes/information about both and is not cited in the article. There's also details about her own thwarted ambitions referenced both in the NYT and in NPR's obit for Birch Bayh and more about her role: Birch credited her as the inspiration for his authorship of Title IX and his work on the ERA, which is fairly monumental. Her published autobiography might also have some useful details. Her cancer diagnosis forced Birch's withdrawal from the 1972 presidential race. A biography of Birch calls him and Marvella "Indiana's version of the charmed Kennedys" and again explains her continual role in his career; also pointing out that she was separately stumping the state campaigning for him in his first Senatorial race. It certainly doesn't seem like she was just your average political wife. The Drover's Wife (talk) 00:36, 30 December 2019 (UTC)
Thanks to Teblick, we now have a far better article. Just as well you pointed out the shortcomings, Yupik.--Ipigott (talk) 07:42, 30 December 2019 (UTC)
Oh wow, that was quick! You are all incredible! Thank you so much. -Yupik (talk) 07:45, 30 December 2019 (UTC)
You're welcome, Ipigott and Yupik. After I read the post above I decided to see what I could find to add to the article. Perhaps others can find more resources and add more to it. Eddie Blick (talk) 14:00, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

Eduskunta all done!

Remember that Vox article that said "Finland’s new parliament is dominated by women under 35"? I've finished the entire Parliament that was elected at the election, including all the female MPs! What do you think? ミラP 04:12, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

Great work, Miraclepine. Over 100 short stubs over the past few days, identifying them all with their party affiliations, some with photographs. Maybe Yupik and other WIR contributors will now add more background to those about women.--Ipigott (talk) 09:14, 30 December 2019 (UTC)
Agreed. If you're going to do something, be an obsessive completionist. Good work, Miraclepine; thank you. Now we just need to get wikidata up to date https://w.wiki/Eed --Tagishsimon (talk) 12:17, 30 December 2019 (UTC)
And the pictures are really good! They're helping to populate December 2019 Pinterest board.Penny Richards (talk) 17:09, 30 December 2019 (UTC)
Tagishsimon: I thought I would compensate for my generally inadequate contributions to Wikidata by adding basic descriptions in English, French and Spanish for all Miraclepine's additions. I can see additional work is required on many of the others in the 2019 parliament.--Ipigott (talk) 17:16, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

Redlist for women entering the public domain

One of our priorities for January is Women in the public domain, especially those entering Wikipedia's PD on 1 January. A number of useful Wikidata searches are included on the meetup page but it would be really useful to have a normal Wikidata redlist, if it is possible to put one together. Can anyone help out?--Ipigott (talk) 08:58, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

Something like Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/Women in the public domain/2020 ... includes all red-women who died in 1949, not just those with creative occupations.That caveat could probably be added should you wish, but right now the list comes to around 1,000, which seems good. You might, for all I know, want to amend the explanatory text for the new redlist, or move it to a new name ... so far, it's not linked to the main redlist page. Might drop in later & do more, but fleeting northern hemisphere daylight demands IRL tasks are done now. --Tagishsimon (talk) 13:53, 22 December 2019 (UTC)
@Tagishsimon: Thanks very much. That list looks great, just the way it is. I don't think we need to rely only on creative occupations. Many editors will no doubt be interested in covering people from their own country whatever their occupations. Hope Scann and Rosiestep are happy with it too.--Ipigott (talk) 16:34, 22 December 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for the list, Tagishsimon. I think it should be moved to Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/Missing articles by time period/Deaths 1949, and then added to the event page. Ipigott, note that Scann created 4 lists for this event, although each is a combo of red and bluelinks. Are Scann's lists sufficient, or do we need something else? --Rosiestep (talk) 17:25, 22 December 2019 (UTC)
  • Women creators in Asia entering the public domain 2020 (WD)
  • Women creators in North America entering the public domain 2020 (WD)
  • Women creators in Latin America entering the public domain 2020 (WD)
  • Women creators in Europe entering the public domain 2020 (WD)
Rosiestep: I think it would be useful to include both Scann's lists and the one from Tagishsimon. Scann's lists cover only those specifically identifiable as creators on Wikidata whereas the one from Tagishsimon covers all those who died in 1949, irrespective of their occupation. I've checked out a few of those for whom no occupation is listed and discovered by reading the articles in other languages that they were in fact creators too. I also think we should put the emphasis on the red links rather than the blue ones although it should be possible to create new, illustrated articles on the works produced by those listed blue.--Ipigott (talk) 07:27, 23 December 2019 (UTC)
Rosiestep: hey, sorry I didn't show up earlier in the conversation. I think that these lists look great, and the one that Tagishsimon did is also great. Maybe we can create a page that puts all of them in one place so we have all of the lists available? Scann (talk) 17:28, 30 December 2019 (UTC)
Sorry, I'm just realizing I did create a page here, so I can add Tagishsimon list there linked directly.
Scann: In the meantime, we created a meetup page and grouped the lists here (Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/Meetup/149#Redlists (lists of redlinked articles to be created)). --Rosiestep (talk) 17:36, 30 December 2019 (UTC)
Rosiestep Yes, just saw that. I think that's great. I'll see if we can replicate the same in Spanish. Scann (talk) 17:44, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

End of the year

In addition to all the new articles created, there are other things we could toast at the end of the year. What can you think of?! For example, did you know: --Rosiestep (talk) 17:49, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

  • There are 765 talkpages on our monthly invite/Opt-in list. That's a lot!
  • Since the founding of Women in Red in July 2015, this talkpage: has had 16,539 total edits; 632 unique editors; there are 441 pagewatchers; and in the last 60 days, there have been 7,062 pageviews.
  • Photos added to the Women in Red Commons category in 2019: 4,564
The activity on Women in Red is certainly encouraging but in fact our metrics indicate that the number of new articles about women and their works will probably end up almost exactly the same as in 2018 when we had 26,995. The current figure for 2019 is 26,345 but this should rise a bit over the next few days as the last batch of new articles for December comes in and drafts are moved to mainspace. The Wikidata percentage of new women's biographies has gone up from 17.79% this time last year to 18.18% today, a seemingly small but nonetheless significant increase. For me, one of the most important aspects of our work has been the interest in improving the quality of our WIR creations up to GA status. We have certainly never had so many successes as in 2019, thanks mainly to SusunW's interest in promoting those in connection with suffrage. I believe she alone has almost single-handedly brought ten up to GA status during the year, one even reaching FA. While this is not perhaps the principal aim of Women in Red, it is good to see that there has been increasing interest in quality and not just quantity. Finally, you Rosie, deserve our appreciation for tirelessly bringing WIR developments to the attention of countless conferences during the course of the year, especially those directly related to Wikimedia.--Ipigott (talk) 10:02, 31 December 2019 (UTC)
I truly apologize for my limited ability to contribute in December, but real life things have been obstacles. My plan is to hit the ground running in January. Thank you so very much for your support, Ipigott, could have done none of it without your help. I am heartened and thankful for the diversity in contributors to WiR. It is honestly motivational to collaborate with a group of people of varied genders on content that has been underrepresented in the historic record. Hope everyone is safe and has a wonderful holiday. May 2020 bring us renewed growth. SusunW (talk) 21:23, 31 December 2019 (UTC)
Wishing you all a very happy and productive new decade. We should set a target for 2030 and use a progress bar to see if we can reach it this decade! How many articles were created or expanded during the contest? I notice Victuallers was particularly productive!♦ Dr. Blofeld 12:28, 1 January 2020 (UTC)
Dr. Blofeld: 2030 is still a long way off. I prefer to take things a year at a time. Victuallers was indeed very productive and ended up as the overall winner of the new stubs section over the full three months. As for statistics, over the three months there were 468 new stubs, 149 destubs and 81 new stubs which did not meet the rules. That gives a total of 698. Hardly comparable with the World Contest but it has attracted a number of enterprising new users. If ever we repeat it, I would appreciate some assistance. Three months was probably too long. Participation was much higher in the first month than in the other two. Happy New Year to you too. Hope you'll manage to find a bit more time for Wikipedia.--Ipigott (talk) 18:58, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

Should we add a statement (or template) on event talkpages requesting that comments be made instead on the main WiR talkpage?

I just noticed a question on the Meetup #147 (Women from the Arab world) talkpage dated December 8th, and I responded. This makes me wonder how many other questions and/or comments we might be missing because we don't keep as close an eye on event talkpages as we do here. What do you think about creating a template to be used specifically for event talkpages requesting that questions/comments be made on this (main) WiR talkpage instead of the individual event talkpages? Perhaps something like: --Rosiestep (talk) 21:35, 1 January 2020 (UTC) 

This event talkpage may not be closely monitored. So instead of writing a question or comment here, please consider doing so on the main Women in Red talkpage instead. Thank you, and we apologize for any inconvenience.
  • Good idea but I think it is also important to encourage discussion on the relevant talk pages. Particularly important discussions could perhaps simply be linked from this page rather than being duplicated. It would be useful to have more contributors commenting on our Ideas page, in particular those who have suggestions on future priorities or more general views on how to improve our project, attract new members or reinforce our impact.--Ipigott (talk) 07:59, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Editathon banners

Hello. I noticed that there's no editathon banners for #1day1woman 2020 and the 2020 sports initiative. I was wondering why this was the case. Thanks! --MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 01:42, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

MrLinkinPark333: Where did you find they were missing? They are both included at the bottom of the corresponding meetup pages. They are Template:WIR-150 and Template:WIR-151.--Ipigott (talk) 08:26, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
@Ipigott: I meant the specific talk page banner for them that indicate "This article was made for X editathon". I either might have missed them or typoed them. I assumed the #1day1woman one would be at WIR-00-2020, but it's at WIR-150 instead. Nvm lol --MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 18:45, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
MrLinkinPark333: The 2019 WIR number was in fact changed early last year to #108. The corresponding template was therefore WIR-108 (although WIR-00-2020 continued to work as a redirect). Hope the confusion has now been sorted out. WIR-150 is an easy one to remember for talk pages and provides "This article was created or improved during the #1day1woman initiative hosted by the Women in Red project in 2020. The editor(s) involved many be new; please assume good faith regarding their contributions before making changes."--Ipigott (talk) 07:52, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Draft:Nell Jessup Newton

Hi everyone -- I recently postponed G13 deletion on this stale draft from 2018; the creator appears inactive. The subject is a lawyer who seems likely to be notable. Unfortunately I don't have time to work on it right now, is anyone here interested in taking it over? Cheers, Espresso Addict (talk) 03:14, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Espresso Addict, I cleaned it up a bit. She sounds very notable per Wiki standards and that was a good decline. HickoryOughtShirt?4 (talk) 05:34, 4 January 2020 (UTC)
Thanks, @HickoryOughtShirt?4:! It's surprising how many nuggets of decent articles float past in the G13 feed, sadly. Cheers, Espresso Addict (talk) 10:42, 4 January 2020 (UTC)
Espresso Addic, think there is a DYK here? HickoryOughtShirt?4 (talk) 04:12, 5 January 2020 (UTC)
Espresso Addict, fix ping. HickoryOughtShirt?4 (talk) 04:13, 5 January 2020 (UTC)
@HickoryOughtShirt?4 and Teblick: DYK would require all of it to be sourced, which isn't yet the case. (Though much of the uncontroversial material would probably be ok to cite to her resume, which is online.) What hook would you suggest? Espresso Addict (talk) 04:23, 5 January 2020 (UTC)
@Espresso Addict:, If we can find a ref then "DYK that Nell Jessup Newton was the first woman at Catholic University's Columbus School of Law to be tenured and promoted to full professor?" would be a good one. "DYK that Nell Jessup Newton was named the first woman dean of the University of Denver Sturm College of Law" also works.HickoryOughtShirt?4 (talk) 04:25, 5 January 2020 (UTC)
@HickoryOughtShirt?4: I thought "first women x" hooks were not preferred by WiR? Espresso Addict (talk) 04:27, 5 January 2020 (UTC)
@Espresso Addict: How about "DYK that as the first woman dean of the University of Denver Sturm College of Law, Nell Jessup Newton raised the school's profile as a resource for local Indian tribes and state government?" I think they aren't preferred as just "first women x" but if we add context it should be OK. If we want to do away w first woman totally then "DYK that in 2019, American lawyer Nell Jessup Newton was awarded the Sagamore of the Wabash, the State of Indiana's highest honor?" would fit.
Coming here to say that if you nommed any of those, I'd happily review. Kingsif (talk) 04:47, 5 January 2020 (UTC)
@HickoryOughtShirt?4: I like your first suggestion. Perhaps we should make sure the referencing is solid before nominating, though :) I'm working on another DYK possibility (gasp, a man) at the moment, but when I'm through with that I'll take another look. Espresso Addict (talk) 04:56, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Two more drafts

Came across both of these while I was doing newpage patrol: Draft:Urszula Chowaniec and Draft:Chiara Frugoni. If anyone would like to help shepherd them through, or otherwise take a look at them? Neither is really in my wheelhouse, I'm afraid. --Ser Amantio di NicolaoChe dicono a Signa?Lo dicono a Signa. 18:48, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for finding them. I did some work on Chiara Frugoni and moved it to mainspace. --Rosiestep (talk) 22:07, 4 January 2020 (UTC)
Thanks both. I'm not sure that Chowaniec meets WP:PROF at this time; her two university positions are too low level and GS isn't finding a strong citation record. She might be notable as an author, if someone could dig out multiple reviews of her two authored books or her edition of Krzywicka, but only one of these is in English. There's one on JSTOR ([1]) for one of her co-edited volumes. I'm also not sure what kind of publisher Cambridge Scholars Publishing is; if it is out of Newcastle then it isn't (afaik) a part of Cambridge University Press. This blog [2] suggests it might be dodgy. Espresso Addict (talk) 00:22, 5 January 2020 (UTC)
@Rosiestep: - fancy a look at Draft:Salvatore Settis as well? Bit outside our purview, but he is her former husband. --Ser Amantio di NicolaoChe dicono a Signa?Lo dicono a Signa. 02:43, 5 January 2020 (UTC)
For sure he's notable, but I can see why it was moved from mainspace to draftspace: it's currently a rough, incomplete translation from it:Salvatore Settis. Plus, it's not well-referenced. --Rosiestep (talk) 05:33, 5 January 2020 (UTC)
I did some work on the Settis piece regarding his time in Los Angeles. BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 05:41, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

February 2020 at the VIC

Making plans at WiR's VIC

Are you wondering how you can help plan next month's activities? Grab a cup of your favorite beverage and join us at the Virtual Ideas Cafe! There, you can:

  • Comment on the suggested topics or suggest one yourself.
  • Add a link to a redlist or suggest one that someone could create.
  • Volunteer to draft one of the February meetup pages and/or meetup talkpage templates after the schedule is finalized.
  • Check out the archives for inspiration or to see how we've firmed up plans in previous months.

It's a new year and a new decade and we're open to new ideas on what to do and how to do it. See you there! --Rosiestep (talk) 18:01, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the reminder. I've added a new item and look forward to reactions. (When I read the heading, I thought it was about the theatre!)--Ipigott (talk) 07:29, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

"Vital articles"

Following links from the post above I ended up looking for the first time at WP:Vital articles. This is "Vital articles, level 3", 1000 English Wikipedia articles which should all be brought up to FA status eventually. There are no biographies at levels 1 or 2 (10 and 100 articles). There are 129 biographies, of which I can identify 11 as female. I wonder who else ought to be included? Here below is the list (I copied the list and removed the males, leaving the headings which show the totals adding up to 129). Not within the scope of WiR, but an interesting indication of the background in which we are working. If you have any suggestions for other names which should be swapped in (remember it's a list of 1000 articles), the talk page is the place, and its "Frequently asked questions" gives useful background. There is a current proposal that Nefertiti should replace Hatshepsut, which wouldn't change the male:female split. PamD 11:38, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Discussion

  • PamD Thanks for this but isn't the whole point that there are too few women included in this list as a result of male bias? Maybe one of these days we should try to rectify the situation by creating a "balanced" list in which 50% of names are those of women. Any volunteers?--Ipigott (talk) 14:55, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
Male bias in writing up history and acknowledging achievements since the start of time, I guess, and the restrictions in opportunities available to women over time, too. There's a list of 2007 biographies (aiming for 2000) at Vital articles level 4, with lots of discussions and proposals on the talk page. I haven't counted the women (not a lot of them), but it might be useful to have a look at those and in particular see which ones are tagged as being only "start" level, and worthy of development: fit to be tagged with {{WIR-150}} if anyone wanted to work on them. PamD 15:15, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
Thank you, PamD; this is very interesting. So if I'm reading it correctly, there are 129 biographies in the 1000 Vital Articles group. Of these 129 biographies, 11 are women, which equals 11.7%. According to the 2018 WMF Editor Survey, 9% of the en.wiki editors are women, so perhaps there's a correlation between editor gender and content gender when making consensus-based decisions regarding biography Vital Articles. I've done no research to support this hypothesis, but it is my opinion that no women in any of these categories -Religious figures, Explorers, Businesspeople, Mathematicians, Composers/musicians, Filmmakers- seems blatantly biased. I am concerned about the affect that this information/misinformation may have on girls, and I'm perplexed as to how to bring about change in the Vital Articles project. --Rosiestep (talk) 16:28, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Decisions are made by those who show up. I've done a little work on horse articles in the vital articles area, the first thing is to look at the existing sections to see if the people listed there are a) appropriate, and b) complete. There is room in a lot of areas to upgrade the representation of women, particularly in the sciences, where there's a lot of "low-hanging fruit." (For example, Ada Lovelace is not listed at the level 3. That's an easy one!). I think the thing to do is to review the list carefully, select a few relatively clear cases to either add or swap out, and establish credibility as a group who understands the area and doesn't make frivolous nominations. Also, the Hatshepsut/Nefertiti issue is a perfect example of where we can monitor and alert folks on this page of things of interest. Montanabw(talk) 16:56, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

I have done some work in Vital Articles too. I did try to swap out a person from one list for another once and there was a really long debate that ensued ending in no change. I also did make many changes in the writers and animals sections (and a few others) that were mostly accepted. Well, the animal changes were accepted in Level 5 (5 is not finished so everything will be reviewed eventually). Some of the writers I added were removed (two I think) even though they were FA class. But many were accepted because they were obvious no brainers such as Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Louisa May Alcott, etc. At any rate, some of these levels are considered done and closed. Which means they are not accepting changes to them anymore. I think Levels 1 through 3 are done and they are working on Level 4 and 5. It will take forever to finish 5 though...which I mean is to finish 5 as a level and to make all those article FA class. dawnleelynn(talk) 19:15, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
Personally I think the people who spend a lot of time debating changes at the lower levels have failed to grasp (depite being warned over the years) that nobody is watching, nothing is changed, and the effort is really completely wasted. These pages have a long history and the higher levels were used for the WP on CD-ROM project (given free to 3rd world schools etc), but that was years ago. I very much doubt anybody is selecting FAs to do from the lists. They can be invoked in judging Wikipedia:The Core Contest, but so can pageviews, plus the contest hasn't been run for over a year I think (HQ is in Sydney, so we probably can't expect one soon....). I really wouldn't worry about them - they should probably be marked as historicaL, to save people wasting their time. Johnbod (talk) 19:50, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
Ok, so I looked it up to be 100 percent certain. The swap I proposed was at level 4. I never said it was level 5. Just so we are clear, I also agree that debating on entries at level 5 is pointless. For example, I polled montanabw and many other equestrian editors at the horse racing and equine wikiprojects, most of whom I was acquainted with at some level. Especially montanabw, who has been a mentor to me since I began editing. I can vouch for her expert equestrian knowledge in many fields of horsemanship. Based on her input and these polls, I had added entries to the horse category. For the first go round, we started with a minimal number while awaiting feedback. Before the finished result could be added, another editor (who admitted to little knowledge about horses and horseracing) added all of the Triple Crown horses, saying that they must be notable just for winning the Triple Crown. Naturally, the equestrian authors, who have added most of the famous horses in Wikipedia as FA articles, noted that the scope of the Vital Articles is to include many types of races, breeds, etc. The point is not to add a list of thoroughbreds and thoroughbred races. What about horses of different breeds: Standardbred, Morgan, Quarter Horse, What about other types of horse racing such as steeplechasing, harness racing, etc. What about at least some horses from other countries, from earlier time periods? Also not all Triple Crown winners had superlative careers outside of their Triple Crown wins. There are many statistics to consider. You get the idea. You can see the current list here: [6]
If you are interested in the polling, and the reply of the editor who felt that the TC horses should stay and his response, go here: [7] There is an unreasonable expectation that myself or someone should respond with a reason why each horse should be removed on a case-by-case basis, even though the list was added in a bulk movement. Further responses to him were ignored however, and the list was updated with the poll results. To search the list for the editor, his name is Presidentman. He's been quite active on the Vital Articles list overall, at least when I was still active. Not sure about present day. But I think JohnBod is close to the truth, that there is just a lot of activity of selecting articles but no editing going on. dawnleelynn(talk) 05:11, 4 January 2020 (UTC)
P.S. I now recall I added sports figures and rodeo competitors in level 5. I also recall when I added 5 golfers that I got there first to add the last five. Apparently others were discussing what to add and I beat them to it. We ended up compromising on the final entries. dawnleelynn(talk) 05:11, 4 January 2020 (UTC)
And for other women who are popular on Wikipedia, see the 5,000 most popular Wikipedia pages in 2019.--Ipigott (talk) 11:12, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Proposal

  • It's interesting to have all this background on how the vital lists were compiled. Maybe we should just leave the existing ones as they are and accept them as part of Wikipedia's history as has been suggested. On the other hand, I still think it is a pity that there is no balanced listing of the biographies of the most significant men and women on the English Wikipedia. How about trying to put together a list of 100 names (50 men and 50 women), not necessarily adopting exactly the same occupations as in the vital articles on people. We could work on it over the next few months, perhaps in collaboration with other wikiprojects such as Women in Green and Women's History, aiming to wrap it up by the end of April. We could then try to encourage press coverage, etc., so that Rosie doesn't have to worry too much about the effect of the present vital list on girls. For starters we would need to put together a list of 50 women from various walks of life, including perhaps writers, artists, leaders, scientists and business. Maybe also activists. Initially, for discussion and selection purposes, the list would have to be much longer. We would also need to work on selection criteria. If we could encourage two or three editors to work on each of these categories, we might be able to progress quite quickly. Would this be a good idea? Any offers of assistance? (If there is no immediate interest here, it might be worthwhile including it in a general mailing, either separately or as part of the February invitiation.)--Ipigott (talk) 08:33, 4 January 2020 (UTC)
You'd get horribly embroiled in how to cut down 118 men to 50, wouldn't you? Espresso Addict (talk) 10:55, 4 January 2020 (UTC)
I don't think we need to touch the existing lists. Once we have established our list of significant women, we can begin to think about men using the selection criteria we have developed. Maybe there'll be some new names there too, including a few "living" figures. Let's see how it goes. I've just noticed, by the way, that the Wikipedia:Multiyear ranking of most viewed pages Top-100 includes the following women: Lady Gaga, Elizabeth II, Kim Kardashian, Miley Cyrus, Taylor Swift, Rihanna, Selena Gomez, Angelina Jolie, Mila Kunis, Nicki Minaj, Jennifer Aniston, Scarlett Johansson, Ariana Grande, Katy Perry, Adele, Marilyn Monroe, Jennifer Lawrence and Britney Spears. I'm not suggesting these should be included but it's interesting to see what people are looking at. They're all actresses and singers except for Elizabeth II and all living except for Marilyn Monroe. If my count is correct, there are 18 women and 36 men, i.e. a third or 33% are women. Rather better than in the vital list.--Ipigott (talk) 12:34, 4 January 2020 (UTC)
The Vital Articles focus on subjects that have already completed their contribution in history. So, the people you have mentioned, most of them would not be found in it. They are the living who have retired or those who have passed on, for the most part. Of course there are some exceptions, for golf Tiger Woods is one example of an entry who is still competing. So really any list we come up with if it's modern people would not really "cross streams" with Vital Articles. The best way to see what I mean is to explore the people sections in levels 3, 4, and 5. You would not find most,if any, of these entertainers. dawnleelynn(talk) 17:56, 4 January 2020 (UTC)
That was another issue with throwing all of the Triple Crown horses in there. The recent ones haven't even begun to finish their careers as sires and some might still be racing. Just another aside because they can also be true of other subject areas as well. dawnleelynn(talk) 18:02, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Peggy Siegal draft

I wanted to ask here if anyone wants to help improve the draft I created on Peggy Siegal. She is a publicist for many major media organizations who organizes small private events, mostly in Manhattan, with artists, filmakers, publishers, etc. She also has connections to Jeffrey Epstein.—Naddruf (talk ~ contribs) 06:56, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

I've removed all details of Epstein's crimes from the article and added much better sourcing for the details of their connections. Much early coverage / mentions of her can be found by going into google news ad searching for "peggy siegal" -epstein and starting from the last page of search results. Stuartyeates (talk) 20:23, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Female New Zealand professors

I've recently finished a project to write bios for (nearly) all Female New Zealand professors. The work has been written up at https://sciblogs.co.nz/guestwork/2019/12/18/how-i-came-to-be-writing-wikipedia-biographies-for-female-new-zealand-professors/ https://sciblogs.co.nz/guestwork/2019/12/19/what-to-put-in-a-wikipedia-biography-and-what-gets-left-out/ https://sciblogs.co.nz/guestwork/2019/12/20/15-years-of-editing-wikipedia/ to coincide with my 15th anniversary. Stuartyeates (talk) 01:05, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

@Stuartyeates: That's amazing! Brilliant work. I'm surprised that you only ran into three deletion/draftifying problems; my experience (as an admin who intermittently patrols A7 speedies) is that many articles that are clearly about full professors are nominated for A7 deletion, and certainly some of these do get deleted. Cheers, Espresso Addict (talk) 02:40, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
Yes, being a full professor is no guarantee of notability. Johnbod (talk) 04:09, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
@Espresso Addict: I think 'professor' in New Zealand is different to other places. Here it's an academic rank that many life-long academics never attain. Stuartyeates (talk) 19:11, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
It's just the same elsewhere (the UK for example, at least in the old days), and no, it does not guarantee notability - see WP:PROF. Johnbod (talk) 19:17, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
@Johnbod and Stuartyeates: Indeed, it sounds like the old UK system; I well remember when the first woman who lectured me (in my second year!) was subsequently made a professor, in 1991 when the university decided to allow more than one person per department to hold a professorship. Before that, as I recall, there were no sub-department chair professorships. It isn't a cast-iron guarantee of meeting WP:PROF, but a decent research-focused university will not be handing out professorships to people whose research doesn't meet #1. Espresso Addict (talk) 22:28, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Canadian Museum for Human Rights

Hi everyone, I recently went to Winnipeg where I visited the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. I have been in contact with the Head of Collections who said if there was specific images we are interested in, she would be happy to work with us to discuss use permission requirements. So, if anyone has had their eye on an image we can work on getting it added to Wiki. HickoryOughtShirt?4 (talk) 06:06, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

Nike Doggart

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Nike Doggart

I nominated this article as part of a walled garden that was set-up by a sockfarm. The socks are now blocked, but the borderline notability of this particular scientist/conservationist is such that I'm wondering whether any participants here might be able to salvage the article using reliable sources (perhaps the BBC?).

jps (talk) 18:31, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

It occurs to me that I'd have a really hard time explaining to someone not involved with Wikipedia exactly why "they discovered a new species" is not adequate for notability. (Particularly if it's a frog species — there's that vertebrate chauvinism at work, but also the sense that discovering a new frog requires a lot of splashing through the mud and isn't as automatable as other processes of discovery.) Where was this decided, anyway, and does it make sense across all taxa? I recall it being argued that what taxonomists do is name new species, and not every taxonomist should be notable just for doing their job, but that doesn't seem applicable here, with the taxonomist being somebody else (J. C. Poynton) who identified Doggart's specimen as a new species [8]. XOR'easter (talk) 19:12, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
The controversy over whether "they discovered a new element" Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Clarice Phelps (and what, exactly, "discovery" entails in these situations) as a threshold for notability comes to mind. In general, I find these rules of thumb for notability to be somewhat problematic. What I would hope for, instead, are enough high-quality sources on which to base a decent article. I have no doubt there are people who have discovered a species or two for whom it would be impossible to write a decent biography on Wikipedia given the rules at this website. YMMV. jps (talk) 19:46, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
It's about secondary sources and secondary sources are biased by the numbers of people studying them. There are more academics studying people (and their parasites) than there are all other animals put together; and more academics studying mammals and birds (and their parasites) than all the invertebrates put together.... This bias in secondary sources is reflected in tertiary sources such as wikipedia which are necessarily built on them. Stuartyeates (talk) 19:48, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

I agree, but it's hard for me to see what the standards should be for biographies considering this kind of systemic bias. We can understand the lack of sources because someone has labored in obscurity, but we also are under an obligation to produce content that conforms to the standards that Wikipedia set up to avoid problems that can arise when writing articles about obscure subjects. Right now, the sources in the article are pretty mediocre at best. Indications are that there may be some better ones, but I've been less than thrilled with the options hinted at. jps (talk) 22:16, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

Enquiry

I would like more information on how to post an article. It is actually about my wife. I am U.S. born but she is from Kathmandu Nepal and we together own a karate school in New Mexico. She competes Nationally in the Brown Belt Womens division and recently won world Grand Champion in kata and also finished National points champion in both kata and fighting with the United States Association of Martial Artists. I thought her being a Nepalese citizen yet winning a world title in America, and also her back story on paying her own way to America and going to college here, and her journey could be an inspiration to other women that are also foreign born and or minorities, or just women, that posting facts about someone like my wife could show that any goal can be achieved, regardless of where you come from, or what roadblocks are in your way. Let me know and I will write something up for approval, editing, and submission , if that's possible Dbossong6193 (talk) 17:46, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

moved to bottom Mujinga (talk) 04:23, 8 January 2020 (UTC)
i replied on the talkpage of Dbossong6193 Mujinga (talk) 04:29, 8 January 2020 (UTC)
Dbossong6193: In general, it is not a good idea to write about close friends and family on Wikipedia. May I suggest you give us your wife's name and details of her championship here. Someone might then be interested in creating her biography. You could also mention her on the WikiProject Nepal talk page.--Ipigott (talk) 11:00, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

Lucille Lang Day draft

I have been working on an article about the San Francisco Bay Area poet Lucille Lang Day, and it has been rejected in part because "The literary awards she has won are local/state level awards." That is not true; for instance, the Blue Light Poetry Prize, and the Josephine Miles Literary Award is for "U.S. multicultural writers" (not just Bay Area writers). I'm sincerely interested in creating more articles about women writers, but this has been frustrating because I feel the reviewer did not really look into the specifics of these awards before dismissing the entire article. Of course, if there is anything else I can add that might help, I would be more than willing to do that! If someone in this group could look over the draft and give me some more constructive feedback, I'd be extremely appreciative. loudfan (talk) 22:36, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

@Loudfan: Sorry about that, Loudfan. I've promoted the article to mainspace - Lucille Lang Day - and suggest for the future that you avoid the Articles for Creation process, and simply start articles in mainspace, or move your own drafts. I forget how many edits you need to be able to do that; very few.
I had a quick look at the article. As far as I can see it passes WP:GNG and so questions of the territoriality of awards does not apply. Beyond that, it seems well written and solidly referenced - really, it's everything we want in an article.
It may yet, of course, get marked for deletion, because other editors have other ideas. If so, and we don't spot it, do let us know. --Tagishsimon (talk) 23:50, 8 January 2020 (UTC)
@Tagishsimon: Thank you so much! I truly appreciate it. I didn't realize it was possible to avoid the Articles for Creation process. loudfan (talk) 01:39, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia's gender bias in mathematics and literature

Another interesting article by Kirsten Menger-Anderson: The Sum of What? On Gender, Visibility, and Wikipedia, Undark, 2 January 2020.--Ipigott (talk) 13:03, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments in the article and for inspiring us, @Merrilee and Jane023. --Rosiestep (talk) 16:20, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
Thanks! It is always nice to read how other people interpret the hurdles we try to convey. As I recall (this was back when it was first a conversation on the Wiki mailing list) I was responding to the difficulties of sourcing artwork citations to the female authors who wrote about them. It's always been a hobby of mine to find who exactly contributed to museum catalogs (especially the "first" catalog any museum produces). Most were either written or commissioned by women, but go down into the museum's canon of publications as the work of then-director (mostly because people assume the choice of works on show are the personal choice of said director). Jane (talk) 16:41, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
Interesting, but it's hard to tell from this whether we are introducing bias in who we are citing in our mathematics articles, or merely reflecting the existing bias in the makeup of the people who write the material used as sources for the articles. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:25, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
In my opinion, Wikipedia citations amplify existing systemic bias, simply because they summarizes content published by reliable sources. They not only summarize the textual content of mathematical (or other arts) contributions, but they summarize the metadata of that content. So for example, museum wikipedia articles list artists in their collection, and such lists are based on not-so-precisely dated summaries printed in reliable sources. In reality, museums are living, breathing institutions that inhale and exhale artworks into and out of depots and sister institutions, as well as into and out of collections through sales, trades, and longterm loan agreements. Rarely do such short lists reflect the top artists mentioned on actualized museum websites, and rarely do they include works by women, unless it's some giant spider parked in front of the entrance, like in Bilbao. Jane (talk) 10:33, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

Duplicate redlists?

When creation Nicole Van Goethem, I noticed in the links to this article that WiR seems to have some duplicate lists. Most obviously Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/Missing articles by occupation/Screenwriters and Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/Missing articles by occupation/Screenwriter, which are either identical or extremely close; but also Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/Missing articles by occupation/Animators and cartoonists, which despite its more expansive title seems to be a subset of Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/Missing articles by occupation/Cartoonists.

It seems overkill to have two identical lists, but I'll leave it to you to decide which one to keep and which one to redirect (assuming there isn't a good reason to keep both). Fram (talk) 13:18, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

Fram: Well spotted! The "Screenwriter(s)" seem to have been created accidentally by two different editors. I was interested to see you mentioned animators and cartoonists as - if I remember correctly - this was the area of interest which you first worked on here. I hope you will be creating a few more women's biographies on them, perhaps with a few more from your native Belgium. When Tagishsimon sees your message on duplicates, he'll perhaps sort things out.--Ipigott (talk) 15:20, 8 January 2020 (UTC)
Thanks! I create articles rather randomly, when I stumble on something I see missing, but (comics) artists are a major part of them indeed. Although I think that Betty Haig could be a nice WiR article (with DYK material) as well[9]. Fram (talk) 15:46, 8 January 2020 (UTC)
I've redirected the Screenwriter list to Screenwriters; agree with Ian, that was he & I creating much the same list at much the same time. I suspect Animators & Cartoonists versus Cartoonists probably arises from a list created for a meet-up. Cartoonists hasn't been updated since August 2019, because the SPARQL now hits the time-out limit; so that needs a little work, which I'll do.
The policy question for WiR is whether or not we must retain lists because they were featured in a meet-up - in this case, Animators and Cartoonists.
There will be more instances of this - redlists created for meetups, whch are not listed on the redlist page, and which overlap or duplicate redlists listed from the redlists page. I'm not actually sure how to find them; is there a method of getting a list of all files within the Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/ namespace? --Tagishsimon (talk) 20:24, 8 January 2020 (UTC)
You could start with Category:WikiProject Women in Red but there are a lot of inconsistencies.--Ipigott (talk) 21:18, 8 January 2020 (UTC)
This query can help with Wikidata-based lists. --MarioGom (talk) 17:32, 9 January 2020 (UTC)
Excellent; thank you, MarioGom. That looks just the ticket. --Tagishsimon (talk) 18:32, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

Please put this in your watch list: Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Sexuality and gender. I am becoming convinced that there is a concerted effort to delete pages related to anything sexual, porn, genderqueer, gay, or anything that goes against conservative values. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 17:58, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

Coffeeandcrumbs: WiR is certainly open to assisting editors creating articles in these categories. If they join the project and tag the talk pages with WiR templates, any articles facing deletion will be displayed on the main WiR page and should attract attention. As for pornography, they are actually not doing too badly. They have over 4,000 articles, including 2 FAs and 32 GAs, many of which are among the most frequently viewed of all Wikipedia articles. But perhaps you should also bring your concerns to their attention on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Pornography which seems to be pretty active.--Ipigott (talk) 20:11, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

BBC 100 Women split discussion

Please see this. Thanks. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 17:52, 12 January 2020 (UTC)


Katie Bishops

I just moved Katie Bishop to Draft:Katie Bishop to save it from speedy, it's about a North American writer, who may or may not be notable. But there is also an English author of the same name who seems to be definitely notable, and an editor at OUP, hard to say.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 22:06, 12 January 2020 (UTC).

Talk:Corinna Löckenhoff; this is shameful

This came to my attention a couple days ago, but I've been busy. I was planning on PRODing the article as not meeting Wikipedia:Notability_(academics) (the only academic notability criterion I can see that has been meant is perhaps #3, elected as a member of prestigous scholarly society, although the Gerontological Society of America is less prestigous than the examples given in the academic notability guidelines). But the subject of the article has now made an edit request and has been met with more Wikipedia bureaucracy, and I'm not sure a PROD deletion is sufficient at this point to undo her negative impression of Wikipedia.

The subject of the article made some edits, and was reverted and blocked for making COI edits. She succesfully appealed the block, and then requested some edits, and got some bureacratic boilerplate requesting a more precise edit request (although it is pretty clear what remedies she would prefer from her request). She just made one further edit updating her employer. As I understand it, her first preference would be to have the article deleted.

There has been very poor treatment of the subject of a Wikipedia article, and this would rightfully be a PR black eye for Wikipedia if it made it into the media. Plantdrew (talk) 03:29, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Well, perhaps. See also Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Corinna Löckenhoff and policy at WP:BLPREQUESTDELETE. Perhaps the best thing to do is expedite the AfD so that we know whether the article stays or goes. --Tagishsimon (talk) 03:50, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for the deletion nomination, I thought there was something about article subjects requesting deletion but couldn't remember where to find it. Plantdrew (talk) 03:57, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
I've contacted Dr. L to keep her in the loop, fwiw. [10] --Tagishsimon (talk) 04:31, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

@Plantdrew: Thanks for bringing this up here. I'd meant to do so myself earlier - Dr. Löckenhoff contacted me on my talk page a couple of days ago to ask about a resolution - but I'm afraid I let it fall through the cracks. Regardless, I'd like to get some WIR input on this. --Ser Amantio di NicolaoChe dicono a Signa?Lo dicono a Signa. 04:54, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Ser Amantio di Nicolao: I'm glad you are calling for further reactions on this. Maybe the best solution under the present circumstances is to have the article deleted but I must say I think it is wrong to disallow corrections made by the person in question on the simple grounds of "COI". If these had been permitted, the article could have been maintained as it usefully documents an academic who is perhaps not yet top notch but is nevertheless contributing constructively to her field of interest. The need for secondary sources was introduced as a means of preventing articles being based solely on primary sources without any wider evidence of notability. However, when secondary sources are partly inaccurate, it should be possible to make corrections on the basis of primary sources, whether the changes come from the subject of a biography or any other editor. In my experience, as articles progress inaccuracies of this type are generally eliminated but in the case of new articles, it is not usual for them to be maintained for some time. Wikipedia should not be allowed to threaten people's careers by insisting on maintaining them in spite of clear contradictions with authentic sources, nor is it reasonable to expect newbies to be able to follow all Wikipedia's rigid rules and procedures. Maybe over the course of time existing policy on these matters could be amended. In any case, I am not very happy about how this case is proceeding. It's not good for the subject of the biography, not good for Wikipedia and not good for Women in Red's efforts to cover many more women academics. I would be interested to hear what other experts on new articles have to say about this, for example Ritchie333 and Yupik. It might also be of interest to Jesswade88.--Ipigott (talk) 11:42, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
The BLP was written in a way that caused offense and alleged harm to its subject. My own view is that, out of respect for persons, an academic subject should be consulted before a BLP is written about them, but I understand this is not a view that is widely shared. There is an AfD open on this subject Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Corinna Löckenhoff. Xxanthippe (talk) 22:33, 11 January 2020 (UTC).

What I find shocking is the response at Talk:Corinna Löckenhoff which refuses to re-implement the changes she had requested but throws down a bureaucratic response insisting that any proposed changes be presented in a particular form. It is clear what changes she is requesting, and a kinder response would have been to check that the content she proposed was sourced to the references and implement those changes. PamD 00:01, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

I agree. This should be seen as an example of exactly What Not To Do. The Drover's Wife (talk) 00:18, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
To be fair, throwing down a template asking for a more specific description of the proposed change is a reasonable response to many of the edit requests I've seen, whether they were requests on protected pages, COI edits or whatever. But this is a great illustration of why one size does not always fit all! XOR'easter (talk) 01:28, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

Dr. Löckenhoff has withdrawn her deletion request. XOR'easter (talk) 05:20, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Glad to see everything has been sorted out on this and that Biografer has been blocked. It would have been a great pity if we had had to delete the article.--Ipigott (talk) 08:18, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

International Archive of Women in Architecture (IAWA)

Came across this the other day while looking for information on Mary Brown Channel, the first licensed woman architect in Virginia. (Someone else on my to-create list, I find.) I never even realized it existed, yet it seems to be quite extensive, containing even a biographical database. Not sure as to the notability of all of the architects contained therein, but there's surely some fodder for future discussion/article creation. The link is here: https://iawadb.lib.vt.edu/index.php. --Ser Amantio di NicolaoChe dicono a Signa?Lo dicono a Signa. 15:02, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Ser Amantio di Nicolao, wow good find. I'm surprised to find industrial designer Rowena Reed Kostellow a redlink. Well, I know what I'm doing now . HickoryOughtShirt?4 (talk) 15:50, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
Good find. Contains lots of names of architects around the world but for the ones I looked at it contained only rudimentary information with a single link. It could no doubt help us with our crowd-sourced redlists if someone is able to invest some time on it.--Ipigott (talk) 16:10, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
After playing around with it a bit more, I am surprised how few of the women architects in our List of women architects are included. I'm also a bit irritated by all the January 1 dates in the various sections. But I admit it contains useful items which could enhance our own coverage.--Ipigott (talk) 16:24, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
I also found a book called "For the Record: The First Women in Canadian Architecture" which may also be a good resource. HickoryOughtShirt?4 (talk) 16:51, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
@Ipigott: It's not quite as well-organized as I would like, unfortunately, but it looks like a really useful starting point.
@HickoryOughtShirt?4: Nice. You've about persuaded me to cobble together something quickly about Channel on my lunch break. Watch this space, as they say... :-) --Ser Amantio di NicolaoChe dicono a Signa?Lo dicono a Signa. 17:51, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Question and request for information on this WikiProject

Hi all. I am very impressed with this fantastic WikiProject. I would like to list this WikiProject that I am creating at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council; I am compiling a list of active WikiProjects, and will be sure of course to include this one.

I was wondering, might it be possible to give me one or two people whom I could include as contacts for this WikiProject? I did find Megalibrarygirl (talk · contribs) on one project page, as someone who is a resource to others here. Is there anyone else whom I can ask? --Sm8900 (talk) 03:00, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Sm8900. Congratulations on the good progress you are making with your project. I was interested to see it included an updated list of the most active wikiprojects showing that Women in Red is now the most active topic-based one. Our project coordinators are Rosiestep and Victuallers while as you indicated, Megalibrarygirl is also an active member. If you are happy to list members who are not administrators, you are welcome to include me too. If you need any further details of what we do, just let me know either here or on my talk page I'm also a member of several other women-based wikiprojects.--Ipigott (talk) 10:44, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
Ipigott, that is excellent. we are going to start moving forward apace, to get Wikipedia:WikiProject Council revised, updated, and then revitalized to make it a fully-active resource instead of inactive as it was recently. the info you just provided is a great starting point. thanks!! --Sm8900 (talk) 19:19, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
Sm8900, thanks for reaching out. I'm glad to help in any way that I can. Please ping me if you'd like to chat. --Rosiestep (talk) 20:15, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
thanks, Rosiestep. hoping to do so soon. glad to be able to help. thanks!! --Sm8900 (talk) 20:20, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
Sm8900 I'm always happy to be listed as a resource. I have access to several databases and can help people do research. :) Megalibrarygirl (talk) 19:11, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

Biografer contributions

Biografer (talk · contribs) has been blocked as a sockpuppet; see Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Mishae/Archive. Biografer did not specifically concentrate on biographies of women, but created many biographies, among them many women. The discussion above about Corinna Löckenhoff involves one of these.

It seems possible to me that one consequence of this block is that the creations that were not significantly edited by others could be deleted under WP:CSD#G5, so it might be worthwhile to look through Biografer's page creations and making sure the ones on women are safe from this type of deletion.

It's probably worthwhile checking them over anyway; as it says on the SPI, many of Biografer's creations were inaccurate (e.g. one that I just checked myself, Lucija Čok, said she received an honor while serving as minister of education, but actually the source said it was while she was doing something else and was given for her earlier work as minister) or in some cases involved close paraphrasing. And in the case of Corinna Löckenhoff, it seems likely that the trigger for the deletion request was the subject's reaction to inaccuracies introduced by Biografer. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:20, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks David. Unfortunately, I see from here that they have nearly all been deleted. Fortunately most of them are about men. Maybe you and other administrators could have a look at those about women (at least some of the longer ones) and draftify them for further attention if they appear worthwhile -- or at least let us have the names of the women in question so that we can start from scratch again.--Ipigott (talk) 08:35, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Scraping the list, as a start here are the dozen most recently created (now deleted) and the descriptions I found by clicking on their log entries:

Name Description Languages Wikidata
Emily Agree sociologist Q81771862
Tanja Schultz professor of computer science at the University of Bremen. not found on Wikidata
Sandra Irving birth_place = Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada Q80726416
Sonia Aissa Professor of Telecommunications at the Institut national de la recherche scientifique, Université du Québec.  Q61304644
Amy Schmitz Elwood L. Thomas Missouri Endowed Professor of Law at the University of Missouri School of Law Q80124736
Silvia Fresco publisher=American College of Surgeons not found on Wikidata
Margaret Gatz professor of psychology, gerontology and preventive healthcare at the USC Davis School of Gerontology and at the USC Dor. Q57015022
Marcy S. Friedman Friedman graduated with B.A. (magna cum laude) from Smith College in 1972 and two Q76756612
Geraldine Downey Vice Provost for Diversity Initiatives and Robert Johnston Niven Professor of Humane Letters in Psychology at the Department of Psych Q76485855
Rebecca S. Eisenberg Robert and Barbara Luciano Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School. Eisenberg graduated from Stanford Un. Q76384046
Laura Crotty Alexander associate professor of medicine at the University of California, San Diego.  Q76202294
Abigail Marsh associate professor in the Department of Psychology and the Interdisciplinary Program in Neuroscience at Georgetown University. Q76490837

I'm happy to continue with the other 54 that I easily identified as female. Also, it might be an idea if I added their Wikidata Q numbers. Oronsay (talk) 13:47, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Q nos now added. As I said, happy to do continue with this later today if it will benefit the WIR project. Oronsay (talk) 14:02, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
Reformatted into table. Oronsay (talk) 14:22, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Thanks for this, Oronsay, a useful list. It may not be strictly kosher but the full text of most of the deleted articles can still be found on Google cache. I see David Eppstein has already been working on a few, including Nancy Combs, Lucija Čok and Caroline Forell. Many of those deleted are fairly short stubs on academics and in many cases it is not clear whether they are/have been full professors. I've looked through quite a few and it seems to me that among the first 200, the following look as if they deserve attention:
Sandra Irving: Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada
Sonia Aissa: Fellow of the IEEE
Birgit Spinath: professor at Heidelberg University
Sarita Giri: Nepalese politician and former minister
Patricia Rae Kennedy: Fellow of the American College of Surgeons
Leonie Cohn: BBC programme producer
Nadeen Peterson: creative director Saatchi & Saatchi
Elvira Khabibullina: Russian ballerina (only one ref)
Karyn Butler: Fellow of the American College of Surgeons
Nancy Albert: Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing
Angelina Vorontsova: Russian ballerina
Molly Cooke: Former president of the American College of Physicians
If this is useful, I can continue going through the list of 644 articles, looking for worthwhile women's biographies.--Ipigott (talk) 15:27, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
As well as the three you mention I've also been working on Angela Slavova. If you do make use of the old text through Google's cache or whatever other means, be very careful with it. Beyond the sockpuppetry itself, those articles are also riddled with misinterpretations of their sources and close paraphrasing. So it would probably be best just to go back to the sources and ignore the existing text, or at least check carefully whether the text agrees with (and is not copied from) its sources. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:43, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
David Eppstein: Thanks for all your efforts on these. I see that in some cases you have retrieved the deleted articles and proceeded to make improvements, leaving the editing history intact. As I am not an administrator, I am unable to adopt the same approach. I think I'll therefore wait a few days and see how many of the more important ones have been retrieved by you or other admins. If the red links remain, I'll no doubt start working on a few of them, particularly those which were fairly well sourced.--Ipigott (talk) 12:15, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
You're welcome! I actually haven't done any undeletions on these myself, and the only two that I think undeletion might still be in the works for are Tanja Schultz and Kathryn Albers. Otherwise, the discussion on whether mass-deletion was appropriate seems to be dying down. So if you want to take charge of any of these, please go ahead. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:25, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Here are more deleted articles, covering the creations from 2019 (there are many more from the previous two years). First some that are clearly notable:

  • Kathryn Albers,[1] Fellow of the AAAS[2]
  • Barbara Aldave, Loran L. Stewart Professor of Business Law Emeritus at the University of Oregon School of Law[3]
  • Heather Anderson (economist), Brunt Chair and Professor of economics and econometrics at Monash University, Fellow of Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia
  • Anu Bradford, Henry L. Moses Distinguished Professor of Law and International Organization at the Columbia Law School[4]
  • Federica Brandizzi, MSU Foundation Professor of Plant Biology at Michigan State and Fellow of AAAS
  • Geraldine Downey, Robert Johnston Niven Professor of Humane Letters at Columbia University, Fellow of Association for Psychological Science[5]
  • Rebecca S. Eisenberg, Robert and Barbara Luciano Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School[6]
  • Margaret Gatz, professor at the USC Davis School of Gerontology, Fellow AAAS[7]
  • Sarita Giri, Nepalese Minister for Labor and Transport
  • Erica Hashimoto, Josiah Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Georgia School of Law[8]
  • Sanne Knudsen, Stimson Bullitt Professor of Environmental Law at the University of Washington School of Law[9]
  • Antonia Lavanne, soprano[10]
  • Smita Narula, Elizabeth Haub Distinguished Professor of International Law at Pace University School of Law[11][12]
  • Yasodha Natkunam, Ronald F. Dorfman Professor of Pathology and Director of Hematopathology at the Stanford University Medical Center
  • Elinor Schroeder, Paul E. Wilson Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Law at the University of Kansas School of Law[13]
  • Caterina Scoglio, Paslay Professor of the electrical and computer engineering at Kansas State
  • Marika Tiggemann, Matthew Flinders Distinguished Professor of Psychology at Flinders University and Fellow of Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia

Notability not as clear but some of these are likely notable:

—David Eppstein (talk) 01:17, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ "Kathryn Albers". University of Pittsburgh. Retrieved January 5, 2020.
  2. ^ "2019 AAAS Fellows approved by the AAAS Council". Science. 366 (6469): 1086–1089. doi:10.1126/science.366.6469.1086.
  3. ^ "Barbara Aldave: A legal legacy". University of Oregon School of Law. May 12, 2013. Retrieved December 9, 2019.
  4. ^ "Four Distinguished Scholars to Join Faculty". Columbia Law School. May 14, 2012. Retrieved November 26, 2019.
  5. ^ "2019 APS Mentor Awards". April 2019. Retrieved November 26, 2019.
  6. ^ "Eisenberg, Rebecca S." University of Michigan Law School. Retrieved December 9, 2019.
  7. ^ "Psychological Scientists Elected as AAAS Fellows". Observer Magazine.
  8. ^ "Erica J. Hashimoto" (PDF). University of Georgia School of Law. Retrieved December 10, 2019.
  9. ^ "Sanne H. Knudsen" (PDF). University of Washington School of Law. Retrieved December 8, 2019.
  10. ^ "Antonia Lavanne Gives Song Recital". The New York Times. September 26, 1967. p. 52.
  11. ^ Jennifer Frey (2006). "Introducing Smita Narula". NYU Law Magazine.
  12. ^ "Professor Smita Narula Appointed Distinguished Haub Chair in International Law". Pace University. 27 September 2018. Retrieved 25 November 2019.
  13. ^ "Elinor P. Schroeder". University of Kansas School of Law. Retrieved December 9, 2019.
  • Save some time by not looking for sources on Aoyama Kisuaki, since there is no such person. The single source in the deleted article was a machine-garbled autotranslation that was taken at face value. The intended subject was Kika Aoyama (in English name order), a principal dancer in Asami Maki's ballet company who has a ja.wp entry here. Indignant Flamingo (talk) 03:59, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
    • Thanks for catching this. That looks like the level of quality control typical for these articles. There's a reason that the ones that hadn't been taken in hand and cleaned up by anyone else needed deleting. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:17, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
      • One other caution, if anyone is thinking of retrieving some of these articles and recreating them from the original markup: per this discussion on my talkpage some months back there might be some problems in doing so. Given that, and given the quality control issues, I think it would be better for us to just start from scratch on most, if not, all, of the above list. --Ser Amantio di NicolaoChe dicono a Signa?Lo dicono a Signa. 14:57, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
        • Even thinking about this pains me, but I'll bring it up anyway. Biografer also expanded a lot of articles from substubs and redirects, using exactly the same approach to text as they did for new articles. I can't get any edit summary search tools to work right now, but the key phrase is "expanded article" in the edit summaries. Indignant Flamingo (talk) 22:46, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Queering Wikipedia

Last call for scholarship applications to attend the upcoming meta:Queering Wikipedia conference. Visit Meta-Wiki for more info.

Happy editing! ---Another Believer (Talk) 01:45, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Victoria Pickett

This article was a stub when I created it, I've expanded it since then. I think that this would probably be a start-class article now, but I'd like to have another editor's input to know if it actually is or not. Clovermoss (talk) 21:37, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

I agree, this is start-class. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:43, 16 January 2020 (UTC)
Thank you for your input, David Eppstein. I appreciate it. Clovermoss (talk) 03:53, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
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