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Our useless WiR pages

I've just added a couple of items to our announcements page and thought I would check out how many people actually use it. Over the past 12 months, the page had only been viewed 122 times, and only eight times over the past month. It actually looks like my personal toy as no one else seems to edit it. Unless we can find a way of encouraging wider access, I suggest we delete it. (Maybe when people look at our announcements on our main WiR page, the page views are recorded there. Does anyone know how this works?) Our Resources page and Press page have not fared much better. As for our most useless page, it's Social media. It's only been accessed twice over the past 12 months - and I think that must have been me on both occasions! Looks as if we should get rid of all four. If there's anything important, we can use this talk page. (cc Rosiestep, Victuallers).--Ipigott (talk) 15:21, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

Ipigott The announcements page has only 16 watchers. The resources page has 8 watchers, the press page has 3 watchers, and the social media page has 7 watchers. This talk page has 598 watchers. I think you are correct to make the announcements on this talk page. — Maile (talk) 16:05, 13 November 2021 (UTC)
Yep I'd come here if I wanted to announce something big ... or to find a big thing that was coming up/ being proposed. Victuallers (talk) 16:21, 13 November 2021 (UTC)
Maile66: I fully agree but the way things are set up at the moment, it's not possible as the Announcements page is rooted in Project X and has to be edited separately. Some of us have been trying to rework the WiR main page into standard Wikipedia editing but we are confronted with serious difficulties, especially in connection with membership lists, etc. Maybe we should just warn everyone we are experiencing too many difficulties, delete everything and start again from scratch. We could try to find volunteers capable of re-establishing membership records, etc., or simply encourage all those who are active to re-register. At least our talk page is not suffering from the same problems.--Ipigott (talk) 16:31, 13 November 2021 (UTC)
If we can't easily delete the pages, we could do this: Delete the contents from those pages and put up a hatnote/redirect notice or some such pointing somewhere else. For example, for Announcements, we could point to the WiR talkpage, while for Social Media, we could move the content into a section on our mainpage. --Rosiestep (talk) 18:33, 13 November 2021 (UTC)
  • Rosiestep: Thanks for these suggestions. As far more people visit the main WiR page than the talk page (ca. 700 vs. 150), I think it is important to maintain it as well as we can. Now that the announcements are physically part of the main page, page watchers will be alerted whenever they are added. Given the popularity of our use of the social networks, I don't really think we need an icon on the main page. As you say, if there are developments we could mention them on the talk page and we always include them in the invitations. There might also be a case for adding new additions on press and research to the main page rather than to the transcluded subpages. This would also draw the attention of page watchers to the additions. What do you think?--Ipigott (talk) 15:26, 21 November 2021 (UTC)
Ipigott: I don't have a strong opinion other than I'm good with whatever is supported by consensus. --Rosiestep (talk) 19:59, 21 November 2021 (UTC)
As no one looks at them anyway, if we blank them and include a delete request, I expect they'll be removed -- unless, of course, our friend Harej still exerts so much influence that they have to somehow be preserved. He has never been willing to help us out since he abandoned Project X despite his enthusiastic encouragement at the Mexico conference back in 2015. Even our helpful Isarra has said she can no longer assist. But first, of course, we should make sure we somehow copy all the important info into our main page or into a draft version of what will replace it. I don't know how the original page has been set up but I would suggest we start drafting a completely new version which, when ready, could be substituted for the existing page. As for Social media, this seems to be a non-starter and should just be removed. There are plenty of links to social media from our meetup pages or indeed from Victuallers.--Ipigott (talk) 19:18, 13 November 2021 (UTC)
Are you referring to Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/Announcements? That page is transcluded to the main page of WIR, so that people will read it there. That will not register as page hits to the subpage, but people do see it on the main page and it registers as page hits there. We shouldn't be deleting pages based on a mistaken interpretation of pageviews. Gamaliel (talk) 20:25, 13 November 2021 (UTC)
Gamaliel: If there was real interest in this page, there would be more activity on it. As Victuallers says, important announcements are far more effective on the talk page.--Ipigott (talk) 20:58, 13 November 2021 (UTC) As far as I can see, there's no way of seeing how many people watch the talk page as compared to the main page.--Ipigott (talk) 21:04, 13 November 2021 (UTC)
On further reflection, Gamaliel, you are of course right to point out that new announcements can indeed be seen on the transcluded version on the main page. Unless I am mistaken though, page watchers are not alerted to changes in transcluded items there and therefore are unlikely to notice any additions made. Would it not be useful to delete the transclusion mechanism and simply add a normal section on "Announcements" on the main page itself? Is there anyone around who could handle the code to make this possible, as I certainly think it would be a step in the right direction? Maybe MarioGom, if Rosiestep and other page watchers agree.--Ipigott (talk) 11:50, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
I didn't know there was a Press page, but I actually don't see any harm in keeping it as a record of press coverage. Very few people will regularly use it, but every now and then someone may find that helpful/useful. It's a bit of a different breed to the other pages you mentioned. The social media stuff, which is actually meant to be read but isn't being read, can be merged into the main page, as someone has already said (so could the resources links for the same reason). —Noswall59 (talk) 09:50, 17 November 2021 (UTC).
Glad to see you are taking an interest in this, Noswall59. Hope you saw my latest addition to the press page. There is in fact an icon to "Press" at the top of the main WiR page but it should now probably be removed. Other "transcluded" pages which are seldom accessed include Resources and Research, both of which contain valuable info. "Resources" are viewed from time to time but "Research", despite its vital role, practically never.--Ipigott (talk) 18:59, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

Anouncements now directly on main WiR page

Further to the above, I've deleted the transclusion code and moved recent announcements to the main WiR page where they should be more visible for page watchers and those who examine the page's editing history for updates. The editing history of our earlier announcements can be seen on the old announcements page. I hope I have carried out these changes correctly. Let's see if the new postings are indeed more effective.--Ipigott (talk) 07:50, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

Time for a fresh start?

Back in June-July 2015, Victuallers and I thought that the Wikiproject X page templates made sense for WiR page/subpage layout/look&feel. But that doesn't mean we have to stick with them forever, especially if they don't work the way we want them to, and if there is no current volunteer who has time/inclination/know-how to maintain the templates in a way that's consistent with WiR preferences (I don't know if any other Wikiproject is still using them). Perhaps it's time to consider if (a) someone has time/inclination/know-how to implement the change to standard wikiproject layout and (b) if there's consensus amongst our members to make this change. P.S. December could be an ideal time to get the work done, so that we start afresh in 2022. What do you think? --Rosiestep (talk) 19:59, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

Percentile in gone down shock horror probe

For the first time I can remember in all the time I've tracked the women biogs as a % of all biogs metric, the percentile has this week gone down from 19.12% to 19.11%

I presume the cause is the new SvG mass deletion mentioned a couple of threads up at 'User:SportsOlympic and 500+ articles deleted'. The number of biogs on WP rose, in the week, by 438 (it's normally around 2k per week, iirc) and the number of women biogs fell by 102.

Ho hum. --Tagishsimon (talk) 23:36, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

(All of which I now notice Oronsay has reported in that thread. So this section for the tl;dr crowd. --Tagishsimon (talk) 23:46, 12 November 2021 (UTC) )
And the extra annoying part is that almost all of those bios were on notable people. SvG might not have been the best at referencing the articles they made, but they seem to have at least made sure to pick people that were indeed notable with ample referencing available to use. But, since the goal is to punish sockpuppets rather than improve Wikipedia, they all must go, I guess. SilverserenC 23:51, 12 November 2021 (UTC)
It's a real pity for all those notable women who thought they finally had a biography on Wikipedia. Most of them will probably never be covered again.--Ipigott (talk) 07:33, 13 November 2021 (UTC)
Or, more to the point, for readers who want to learn about these notable women, or ought to be alerted to their notable existence. PamD 08:30, 13 November 2021 (UTC)
You are of course absolutely right, PamD, but I cannot forget the emails I received from some of those deleted a few years ago, asking if their biographies could be restored. That was probably because they found my email on my user page and I had been closely in touch with SvG. We had a more open approach four years ago and we were able to save quite a few. This time round, the situation looks pretty hopeless, unless we have anyone ready to resolve the mass deletions. I was wondering whether specialists such as Lugnuts and Tagishsimon could draw up lists of those from the Olympics and Paraolympics who have been deleted. That would at least provide a start. Last time round, Aymatth2 was a great help. Maybe he would like to help this time too.--Ipigott (talk) 14:38, 13 November 2021 (UTC)
I'm not so bothered about Olympians, many of whom may, I suppose, soon be up for deletion anyway if they are routine non-medalllist Olympians with no other coverage giving them notability. It's the others (like the church organist who led me to get interested in this whole palaver). Dipping into the list of deletions, it looks as if the sockpuppet created a lot of articles on the basis of recent deaths - and so a lot of the deleted articles can be found, with a reference and a brief annotation as to who they were, by looking at recent deletions from Deaths in June 2020 etc: see this batch of deletions. That might be a way to spot interesting women whose articles ought to be considered for re-creation? As an example, the first one is Mariya Shtepa, 95-year old Ukrainian writer: Googling finds she has an article in Simple English wikipedia, created by someone else and edited by SportsOlympic to correct her pronoun, and is also in Ukrainian wikipedia where she has had an article since 2016, currently quite substantial and with an image and several sources. PamD 15:49, 13 November 2021 (UTC)
And the next, Rosa Canales, is in Wikidata and Spanish Wikipedia with 7 references. PamD 15:55, 13 November 2021 (UTC)
Ah, far less complicated than diffs: just look at the last version before 8 Nov of that deaths page, and see the red links. PamD 15:58, 13 November 2021 (UTC)
It's amazing how many he managed to cover.--Ipigott (talk) 16:07, 13 November 2021 (UTC)
Earliest are March 2020. PamD 16:10, 13 November 2021 (UTC)
Given his dismal AfD record (and his frequently-rebutted claims of SIGCOV examples therein), I would be extremely surprised if his notability gauge was any more accurate for page creations... JoelleJay (talk) 20:39, 13 November 2021 (UTC)
The majority of his articles I ran across were not only notable people, they were also translations from other language Wikipedias where they were also determined to be notable. If his AfD record is bad, that just implies to me the people in the AfDs were not following WP:BEFORE like they're supposed to. Which is, sadly, common. SilverserenC 21:43, 13 November 2021 (UTC)
I don't think nominators not following BEFORE explains a 45% match rate, especially if the only sources he was finding to rebut the nom were names listed in event results. JoelleJay (talk) 11:54, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
I don't know how to extract the Olympians from the deleted lists, but I did look at some random creations done during the time of the Olympics. There's now a few gaps (as you'd expect), such as at the Volleyball at the 2020 Summer Olympics – Women's team rosters page. Def. the Kenyan players were created by SportsOlympic, I haven't checked the rest (or intend to, TBH). However, with it being the most recent edition of the Olympics, less than a few months old, I'd be amazed if there wasn't coverage on all of these people somewhere. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 17:58, 13 November 2021 (UTC)
Unfortunately Listeria does not want to update the redlist, Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/Missing articles by identifier/Olympedia, but when run in SPARQL, there are now about 300 more names than there were at the beginning of September. I can’t recall if the underlying website from which this list is drawn includes Paralympians tho. That could account for some increase during September. (Right?) Though as PamD points out, less certain all will be notable anymore, anyhow. Innisfree987 (talk) 18:34, 13 November 2021 (UTC)
@Silver seren: Ordinarily I would agree with you - the notion of deleting all contributions from a banned editor as punishment has always struck me as a bit foolish, to say the least. I understand the reasoning is "we don't want to let them reap the benefit of any of the articles they've created", but in the worst cases I don't think that's a deterrent at all, as we have seen. In this instance, though, I think the concerns about Sanders v. Ginkel's sourcing overshadows that. We know that a large proportion of his original articles were shoddily, and incorrectly, referenced. for a number of reasons I think it's quite likely that any new articles would be similarly constituted. Setting them aside to save them would be nice, but given the sheer numbers in play I think nuking them and starting afresh is the best policy. Unfortunate, but there you go. --Ser Amantio di NicolaoChe dicono a Signa?Lo dicono a Signa. 03:18, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
Most of the ones I saw outside of the speed skater ones (and sports people articles are often underreferenced) were properly referenced. Heck, most of them were translations from other language Wikipedias and just used their sourcing. So one could argue it wasn't even SvG doing the sourcing there, just the translating. Being even more so a reason that they didn't need to be deleted. SilverserenC 03:28, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
  • You know, these mass deletions can be challenged and restored. WP:REFUND is another mechanism. Don’t assume a so-called successful RFD is a done deal unless accompanied by a major policy change or major consensus shift. These mass deletionists get slapped down all the time! If nothing else, request they be draftified so that the can be properly assessed. Montanabw(talk) 03:37, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
Montanabw: If you are familiar with the procedure, perhaps you can challenge the deletions yourself. For Women in Red, now that we're back at 19.07%, it means we've lost the equivalent of two months' work.--Ipigott (talk) 08:44, 19 November 2021 (UTC)
Did the sockpuppet editor list their contributions as part of WiR? And, if so, will the listings of their contributions be removed from list of article creations for the WiR project pages? If the answers are "Yes" and "No" respectively, then looking back at the WiR projects and following up on red links would be a way to identify some of the deleted articles.
Thinking further: there are several levels of information we could request/ hope for / find:
  • The deleted articles, as drafts
  • The titles of the deleted articles, with supporting info - some or all of
  • Short description
  • Wikidata link / links to other wikipedias
  • Categories which were assigned
  • WikiProjects which were listed on the talk page
  • References and External links
  • The titles of the deleted articles, alone.
PamD 13:51, 19 November 2021 (UTC)
  • PamD: Without being able to search for the others, on the basis of xtools, it certainly looks as if he specifically included the WiR tag in Talk:Lucy Robinson (wheelchair basketball) and the few related articles which have not been deleted. Do you think this could be a means of obtaining draftified versions other deletions which were tagged WiR? If so, we could at least try to restore the Olympics items. Unfortunately, none of our admins seem interested in helping us out.--Ipigott (talk) 17:19, 19 November 2021 (UTC)
I see from Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/Meetup/204 that he seems to have been the main contributor. Maybe someone could screensave these pages so that we can at least see his deleted contributions.--Ipigott (talk) 17:26, 19 November 2021 (UTC)
Others, such as Talk:Dina Recanati, are simply tagged WIR.--Ipigott (talk) 17:36, 19 November 2021 (UTC)
  • Lugnuts: On the basis of the above, would you be able to create short articles on those deleted? It would be a pity if those related to the Olympics and Paralympics were no longer on Wikipedia.--Ipigott (talk) 08:28, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
@Ipigott: - thanks for providing that link - I knew we'd recorded some of the page creations somewhere! Yes, I'll have a look working through some of those redlinks. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 08:55, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
Ipigott and Lugnuts, the editathon page for Olympic & Paralympic Games | Jul-Aug-Sept 2021 should retain all the redlinks, unless someone takes it into their head to edit the page. Perhaps we should mark it "please do NOT removed redlinks". WomenArtistUpdates (talk) 16:18, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
Agreed. Even if someone starts deleting the redlinks, I suppose we could still find them in the page's history. It's not so easy to find old red links in our month-by-month listings as these are edited by a bot. You can only find them by looking for diffs.--Ipigott (talk) 16:24, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
All the articles created by SO are still listed on xtools. I have downloaded spreadsheets of all 4 pages, which include women's bios, men's bios, redirects and other pages. I've created a single table in my sandbox. Problem is that csv makes a mess of special characters (eg ') and obviously doesn't have the flags (minor issue). Only 292 of SO's article creations remain on Wikipedia. Next I'll delete the obvious men and non-women related. Obviously happy for this list to be moved to WIR subpage.--Oronsay (talk) 20:10, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
Hey, you can see some of the ones I saved down at the bottom of the list. It's nice to have a list. It'll be a lot of work, but eventually we (editor-wide we, not just WiR) can recreate every single last one of them again. It'll be a waste of editor time and effort that could have been prevented, but hey, it's an ongoing battle to fight against those trying to harm the encyclopedia we're all trying to write. SilverserenC 20:22, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
I just updated the speed skaters' redlist, which has gone from 334 names on 22 Oct to 995 today, including the 1932 Olympic champion, Elizabeth Dubois.--Oronsay (talk) 01:33, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

Articles by Sander.v.Ginkel

I've just been looking at the articles by Sander.v.Ginkel. At first sight, it seems as if quite a number of deleted articles were never recreated but if you look into it, most of those listed as deleted and not recreated -- including those started at over 1000B -- are actually now broken redirects as new versions have been created with a slightly different spelling. It is to be hoped that most of those deleted this time round will also be recreated sooner or later. If anyone is interested, the thread "July Women in Red metrics" dated 1 August 2016 in this S.v.G. archive shows how many of the articles he wrote for WiR are still red links after being deleted.--Ipigott (talk) 13:48, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

Is there a way to easily distinguish between articles deleted after discovering he was an abusive editor (or SportsOlympic's after finding out he was a sock) and those deleted before? We definitely shouldn't be recreating articles that were deleted as non-notable by consensus discussions. JoelleJay (talk) 18:48, 21 November 2021 (UTC)
JoelleJay The speedy deletion reason you're looking for is WP:G5. -- Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 19:16, 21 November 2021 (UTC)
Thanks! I was just looking through the xtools list which didn't have a filter option, but of course just doing it on WP would be easier. JoelleJay (talk) 23:09, 21 November 2021 (UTC)
Dodger67: G5 might well apply to SportsOlympic but it is not correct for S.v.G. who was involved in a long and messy process. The outcome, involving over 18,000 articles. can be reviewed at User:Aymatth2/SvG clean-up/Guidelines.--Ipigott (talk) 08:18, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

G5 controversy

WP:G5 has been controversial since day one. As far as I know, it was introduced here on 1 July 2003, changing the policy from nominating "hard banned" editors' articles at VfD (as was, now AfD) to directly deleting them, and summarised here on 26 July. The root of this is "All edits by a hard banned user, regardless of their merits, will be reverted." which is on the earliest revision of Wikipedia:Blocking policy as of 4 May 2003, but I believe the discussion that led to practice is some time before that. A related discussion here says that unilateral deletion "This isn't strictly accurate in practice, though it might be in theory. I wonder how it could be phrased better.". The conclusion I reach is that indiscriminate G5 deletion was never intended to be part of Wikipedia and my longstanding view is people that do it are more interested in bureaucracy than writing an encyclopedia. I have overturned several articles from G5 deletion, most recently Broomhead Reservoir, and though the odd person gets annoyed, when I improve it to DYK standard, they go strangely silent.

Bottom line, I will restore any G5 deleted article if requested by any user in good standing, provided it meets no other CSD criteria such as G3 (vandalism), G10 (attack page) or G12 (copyvio). Just ask. If you want to publicise overzealous G5 tagging leading to a (at least perceived) increase in systemic bias against women, it would probably make a good signpost entry. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 12:02, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

That's a great offer, Ritchie333, but it's a bit of a chicken and egg problem. Unless we can actually see the articles, we cannot really choose which ones we would like to work on. I suppose we would have to start by checking for the "errors" listed as revealing the sock connection. Would it, for example, be possible to prepare a draftified list of all the women's biographies from SportsOlympic, more or less on the same basis as those for Sander.v.Ginkel. We would then be in a position to ask you to restore fully those we would like to develop further. Those written specifically in connection with monthly priorities established for Women in Red would appear to merit special attention, for example those mentioned above in connection with the Olympics and paralympics.--Ipigott (talk) 16:29, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion

I ran into this discussion the other day - about renaming Category:American women journalists - and am leaving the link here in case anyone would like to offer some input. --Ser Amantio di NicolaoChe dicono a Signa?Lo dicono a Signa. 17:11, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

What to do if a redlist name might not have existed

Hi all. I've picked a name from the redlist of UK born silent film actors to try to create - User:EEHalli/Frances_Eldridge - and immediately bumped into a couple of things where I'd appreciate some advice, as someone who has not edited for ages. Her IMDb biog does not match facts checked on ancestry.com.

  • Are we able to cite sites such as ancestry.com? I've used to do some research, but I've a feeling it's not a permitted source.
  • I'm not sure the person on the redlist actually existed! I've put my notes so far on the talk page of the draft. Should I continue to look, putting the research on the draft page? Or should I flag she may not exist?

Any and all advice appreciated... EEHalli (talk) 16:40, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

Well, for sure, she actually existed. American Film Institute, Internet Broadway Database. I'm not sure you can get more than a stub out of these sources. But I don't have access to British sources, which might get you better results. Both ancestry.com and IMDb are crowd sourced, so use them for general research, but not as citations. — Maile (talk) 16:58, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
This is the source for one of the Wikidata photos of her, and looks pretty convincing. PamD 18:13, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
Thanks to Pam's sources, I've managed to disentangle the American film actor Frances Eldridge's history. She was not British, and not married to a British theatre critic! The draft article is now here for improvements: Draft:Frances Eldridge. EEHalli (talk) 17:28, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

Death date for May Isabel Fisk?

See May Isabel Fisk (Q109713500). This will probably become an article soon, but I like to have birth and death dates in hand before I start. This says she was born 22 May 1885 in New York City but doesn't give a death date. "Fisk" is her first married name. Born May Isabel Taylor, married Clinton Bowen Fisk (possibly son of Clinton B. Fisk) on 23 January 1903 and Malcolm Campbell-Johnston on 1 August 1922. Campbell-Johnston was British so it's possible she died in the UK and that's why newspapers.com isn't helping much (much stronger in the US than elsewhere). Can anyone find anything? AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 19:05, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

@AleatoryPonderings: It looks like she was living in Hollywood as of January 1939, going by an article in the Kingston Daily Gleaner (part 1, part 2). That's all I've got so far. Nick Number (talk) 21:58, 24 November 2021 (UTC)
@Nick Number: Wow, great find! Looks like Ivy de Verley also needs creating as well. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 22:10, 24 November 2021 (UTC)
And still alive in December 1942, working as "a lecturer in Southern California upon British-American relations", per "Last Tribute Paid Noted Pasadena Woman at Rites". Nick Number (talk) 22:18, 24 November 2021 (UTC)
AleatoryPonderings if she married a British man on 1 August 1922, she became British and lost her US nationality. (Cable Act wasn't effective until 22 September 1922 and to repatriate, she'd have had to naturalize as a US citizen). That is confirmed on this ship's manifest], nationality British. Don't have the actual record to look at, but this link says she died in Paddington, London in 1955. Maybe someone who has a subscription to the British newspaper records can help? SusunW (talk) 23:21, 24 November 2021 (UTC)
From Maggie B. Gale, “Going solo: an historical perspective on the actress and the monologue” in The Cambridge Companion to the Actress (via ProQuest), footnote 17: “Birth and death dates for Fisk have proved extraordinarily difficult to find. The Times records two performances of her work in England in 1909 and 1913. She married an English barrister, Captain Malcolm Campbell Johnson, in 1922, but The Times lists her, interestingly, as the ‘American writer' (she published short stories and journalism as well as her monologues), rather than as a performer.” Sounds like maybe even with access to British sources, confirming date of death could be tough. But the scholarly material on her still seems worthy of attention! Innisfree987 (talk) 23:52, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, all. May Isabel Fisk is live—have at it. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 01:12, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

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