Join us! Become part of the Wikimedia Human Rights Interest Group. :)
Valued members of the WikiProject Women in Red!
Recognising the truly wonderful work you all have been doing in addressing the gender bias on Wikipedia, we are reaching out on behalf of the newly formed Human Rights Team(HRT) at the Foundation. We are currently in the process of forming a Human Rights Interest Group (HRIG) that aims to listen to and address the various human rights concerns and challenges pertaining to the Movement, its members and the readers around the world interested in the content you produce while also aiming to address the knowledge gap pertaining to human rights content i.e. human rights ideas, challenges, movements and actors (both historical and current) across the platform. We are reaching out to you to start a dialogue, present our ideas, hear your feedback and perhaps find some motivated Wikimedians to turn the HRIG into a successful initiative. Should this be of interest to you, please feel free to reply here or reach out to us at talktohumanrightswikimedia.org. We very much much look forward to hearing from you. :) -–KUrban (WMF) (talk) 08:23, 4 February 2022 (UTC)
The introduction to the group's statement discusses supporting people persecuted for working on various subjects. Later on it discusses addressing systemic bias. The introduction doesn't seem to adequately summarize the mission and activity of the organization. On English Wikipedia it remains very challenging to include diverse subjects such as African American history. FloridaArmy (talk) 13:11, 4 February 2022 (UTC)
Namaste KUrban (WMF): Thank you for bringing your new Human Rights activities to our attention. I have looked at the pages you recommend but am confused about your scope. It is not clear to me whether you are focusing first and foremost on Wikipedia editors who suffer from attacks on their rights for one reason or another or whether you intend to project human rights issues on how Wikipedia operates on the global scale. Women in Red has from the start devoted careful attention to women and their organizations who have participated in the acceptance and promotion of human rights, in particular women's rights. Could you be more explicit in your aims and explain how you think we could assist you in your work. Is there, for example, a forum where we could provide feedback on some of the issues we find important or is it more a matter of individuals expressing their reactions to the way in which they have been treated on Wikipedia?--Ipigott (talk) 14:46, 4 February 2022 (UTC)
Would anyone mind helping out with the draft on the museum director and curator Heidi Zuckerman? It has been declined a total of 4 times (most recently after a rewrite by me) but judging from her activities and the available sources she seems notable. I've already included some sources within the Career section that I think can be used to bolster the biography from its current "skeleton" form. Would greatly appreciate any help. Best regards, Bridget(talk)02:01, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
I just worked on the article for Women's World, a Turkish women's magazine, which had been previously declined in AFC as it was created using Google Translate from the Turkish version. If it gets through review in time, I'll do a DYK for International Women's Day. DrThneed (talk) 02:55, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
The PROD on this Rwandan politician expires in the next 24hrs or so. I remember a bunch of these coming through WiR before that were salvageable - can anyone work some magic on this one? -- asilvering (talk) 00:25, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
Done. Notability seems to be pretty clear in multiple factors. I've also removed the PROD. Additional sources would be helpful though. Perhaps in Rwandan language specific sources? SilverserenC01:19, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
Article on WikiEdu course at University of Minnesota Morris
I really enjoyed that piece. Thank you for sharing it. It really does show that there are so many ways one can contribute. Heartening to see that some of them want to continue. SusunW (talk) 14:23, 9 February 2022 (UTC)
Query - cross-listing outcomes in multiple WIR projects
I was wondering whether it is preferable to cross-list outcomes (e.g. new articles) in multiple WIR projects or whether it is preferable to have them listed once only. For e.g. if I participate in the Geofocus Hong Kong and Macau project and create a new article, should I also list the new article in #1Woman1Day, or is listing it once, in either page, preferable? Or is there a centralised list? Thank you. - Naushervan (talk) 18:03, 9 February 2022 (UTC)
Above was posted on the #1day1woman Talk page but I've copied it here for greater visibility and response by WIR members.
It raises a question that may have been asked before: Should we place a message on each new meetup's talk page, directing editors here?--Oronsay (talk) 19:15, 9 February 2022 (UTC)
It wasn't officially a WIR event, but during WP:100 DC Women, editors were encouraged to submit their articles to both that contest and the WIR event running that month. So why not more than one WIR event? Gamaliel (talk) 21:19, 9 February 2022 (UTC)
Naushervan: It seems quite clear to me that if an article coincides with one of the applicable priorities, it is not necessary to add #1day1woman, which is useful if no other priorities apply. On the other hand, if someone from Hong Kong was also active for example in connection with Climate, then I think it would be useful to add that too.--Ipigott (talk) 21:22, 9 February 2022 (UTC)
Interesting proposal, Rosiestep. I rather like the "Join a current event" line but I think we should keep the icons. They liven the page up. How about including the current events line separately at the beginning of each month or whenever a change becomes necessary?--Ipigott (talk) 07:29, 9 February 2022 (UTC)
I'm neutral on the icons but also like the idea of a really quick link to the current ongoing projects at the top of the page. Perhaps each could be annotated with "February", "All year", etc, for added value? PamD12:42, 9 February 2022 (UTC)
Is "Schedule" out of sequence? Apart from that the buttons are A-Z (renamed from "Ideas" perhaps?) Might "Planning" or "Future" be a clearer name? PamD12:46, 9 February 2022 (UTC)
Thanks for the quick feedback. Yup; sequencing issue with the "Ideas" subpage, which needs a clearer name; I like "Future". Annotating the event links with more info (the month; all year) would but a good idea so that people would know the links are fresh each month. Personally, I got tired of looking at big icons, which is why I didn't include them in the 2022 version. Please feel free to change up the template as you please!! I would be nice if the top of our page was prettier, e.g. rotating photos of the women whose articles we just created, but I don't have design skills so am clueless how to make our mainpage look more like an inviting webpage than what we've got going. Anyone up for the challenge? If there's eventual consensus to go with an updated look, let's do it; if not, no worries. --Rosiestep (talk) 15:47, 9 February 2022 (UTC)
I certainly agree that it would be a good idea to make the page more attractive. Perhaps WomenArtistUpdates could come up with some ideas. The top priority for me is the membership box, now headed "Meet the participants". Unfortunately, no one can meet them as the list is too long. Is there really nobody with the technical skills necessary to adjust the code? Maybe Earwig can help us out with this or refer us to someone who can. I'm happy to see it still works for wp:Women writers.--Ipigott (talk) 12:52, 10 February 2022 (UTC)
Ipigott, your comment resonated with me. The top of the page does need more emphasis on people -- as editors (as you mentioned), and (IMHO) photos of recently-created biographies. I wish there were a designer who could help us with this. --Rosiestep (talk) 14:45, 10 February 2022 (UTC)
Urgent need to sort out membership functions
Rosiestep: If no one can help to restore the membership functions, would it at least be possible to remove the "Meet the participants" section and maintain only "View full list" (perhaps as "View membership list" or "View list of participants"). It looks extremely unprofessional for both Wikipedia and for this important project to have a facility at the top of our main project page which simply does not work. If this can't be changed, then it seems to me we will have to forget about user cards in the registration progress and adopt a more traditional approach to lists of members/participants. Maybe there is some other facility which can remove inactive members from the main membership list? (cc MarioGom, Earwig, Isarra, Harej).
Wikipedia Edit-A-Thon International Women and Girls in Science
Congrats for organizing Feminism and Folklore 2022 now whats next ?
Dear Organizers,
Congratulations on successfully organizing Feminism and Folklore 2022 on your local Wikipedia language. Here are few things that you need to look around during the contest.Make sure that all submissions follow the set of rules as mentioned below and are related to the theme of the project.
The expanded or new article should have a minimum 3000 bytes or 300 words.
The article should not be purely machine translated.
The article should be expanded or created between 1 February and 31 March.
The article should be within theme feminism or folklore.Articles will be accepted if it either belongs to Folklore or Feminism.
No copyright violations and must have proper reference as per Wikipedia notability guidelines.
Please refer to the set of rules and guidelines from here. During the contest if you face any issue or have queries regarding the project please feel free to reach out on Contact Us page. Feminism and Folklore team will be assisting you throughout the contest duration. We thank you for your numerous efforts which you have put in for making this project successful.
Been a while since I've done this. As usual, WP:CANVASSING is a thing, so don't use this as a voting list (It's also why I don't link nominations) This is meant as an update from a part of the site not visited by article writers as much. I'm also afraid that, at the moment, no-one but me is nominating women there, so...
So, first off, let's cover the ones that are new featured pictures, with marking ones that have passed at Commons as well:
Pretty sure Rosalind Goodrich Bates is the only Woman in Red. Of these, the first is passing, the last two are only nominated today, and no idea what's going on with Hall. Probably going to see Marguerite Priola soon.
Funny you mention her! I had put her on my list last week. Definitely seems worth it, and that damage is happily away from anything of note in the image; at most needing a chair arm touched up. Adam Cuerden(talk)Has about 7.6% of all FPs16:13, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
And Bates is now an FP. Probably going to stop updating at this point until the next one. Wouldn't expect to see many others of the list promoted, none of them are reaching quorum Adam Cuerden(talk)Has about 7.6% of all FPs13:54, 11 February 2022 (UTC)
Thanks, Adam, for nominating the image of Marguerite Priola for FP. The poor girl certainly deserves wider recognition. Perhaps other WiR opera enthusiasts will be interested to see how well you have restored the historic image. When things settle down a bit in a few weeks time, perhaps we can work together on some of the other Gallica images from the same period. I would be particularly interested in writing articles about actresses, opera singers and even writers who have not yet received articles in any language versions of Wikipedia. It's always very satisfying to cover women who hit the headlines at the time but have now been almost completely forgotten. As you can see from Priola, thanks to the assistance of SusunW I'm becoming increasingly familiar with many of the sources which rarely show up on a normal Google search but which vividly document the individuals in question.--Ipigott (talk) 15:04, 11 February 2022 (UTC)
Thanks Ipigott. It definitely takes a village. I can usually find sources, but your language expertise is needed to interpret those, and Adam's skill with images helps illustrate their lives. Not to be forgotten either are all the others who can help with evaluating technical aspects, those who have specific knowledge about fields of work and finding sources for context, and those who are good at gnoming and tying articles in with others in the encyclopedia. SusunW (talk) 15:29, 11 February 2022 (UTC)
If it helps, Gallica is great for French-language newspapers. I don't think it has all of them digitalised, but I've found all sorts of things there. Adam Cuerden(talk)Has about 7.6% of all FPs16:03, 11 February 2022 (UTC)
@Adam Cuerden: Thanks for the reminder that some items of interest were up at WP:FP - I've gone through and put in my oar on a number of fronts. (Nice especially to see Sissieretta Jones, a fellow Virginian, up for a vote.)
@Ipigott: If you're interested in more semi-obscure opera topics to look at, this site has always been of use, I've found. It may not contain much information in and of itself, but it's a great road map for finding names for future expansion. (I know a lot of those one-line entries represent singers who had major careers with French Radio, for instance.) --Ser Amantio di NicolaoChe dicono a Signa?Lo dicono a Signa.16:21, 11 February 2022 (UTC)
I was recently reading about the new film Apart, which follows women who have recently returned home after serving time in prison for drug crimes. I saw that the director Jennifer Redfearn didn’t have a page. One of her films Sun Come Up (film) was nominated for an Academy Award. Thriley (talk) 05:27, 15 February 2022 (UTC)
You may all have read about the Growth Team Features in a past thread on this talk page, so I won't go into it too deeply. One of these new features is a 'mentorship' program, where brand new users are assigned to an experienced 'mentor' to whom they can ask specific questions via a 'Your mentor' box in a new 'Homepage' tab. Currently, this feature is given to 2% of new users, but we plan on bumping this percentage up to 10% in the near future.
To lessen the load on our current list of around 60 mentors, I'm reaching out here and elsewhere to see if any experienced editors who like helping others might be interested in signing up as one. The workload is relatively small; User:Panini! reports receiving four questions a month, on average, all of which were simple ones of the type we often see at the Teahouse and elsewhere. To view a list of every question asked of all mentors over the last 14 days, Click Here.
If becoming a mentor and helping new users on their first few days here interests you, then please sign up at Growth Team features/Mentor list.
As a volunteer since this option started, it seems to me that the time and effort you devote to it depends on how much assistance you are prepared to give and how many additional queries and responses you receive. In many cases, the questions are childish, sarcastic or even insulting but overall I have found the experience worthwhile as I have been able to help quite a number of new users along. A few have even become active editors, some creating a number of well prepared articles. I should perhaps also point out here that nearly all those assigned to me have been men although as always I have been able to identify many new women users requiring assistance from their participation in editathons or WikiEdu assignments or simply from articles refused by AfC. Given the need for many more women editors, it's a pity, Nick Moyes, that the mentoring facility cannot target more women users, as many really do seem to require special attention.--Ipigott (talk) 07:34, 15 February 2022 (UTC)
@Ipigott I do completely agree with you, but how could the software be able to determine the gender of a new user and slew Homepage allocation towards more women? All new accounts default to "Unspecified: Use gender-neutral terms when possible" in Preferences, and it wouldn't not seem appropriate to ask anyone to declare that on sign-up. It's a Catch-22 situation whereby we would require sufficient experience on the part of a new user to know (and be motivated enough) to alter their pronoun preference at a point in their journey where they probably haven't even created a userpage yet, and only want to know how to make a few simple edits. Nick Moyes (talk) 11:02, 15 February 2022 (UTC)
Nick Moyes: There are a number of ways in which the likelihood of a new user being a women can be judged. First of all, the user name itself. Most of the names which look female prove to be so. Then there are those who take part in WikiEdu initiatives in connection with assignments on women or who take part in editathons specifically designed to attract more women participants. Many new women users come in by first registering on Women in Red, often specifically stating they are women. In addition, even some of the more cryptic user names are the same as those used on social networks where the gender is clearly stated. If we are covering only 10% of all the new users, why not just publish a list of all the non-mentored new users once or twice a week and allow mentors either to pick new contributors themselves or add them to a list of those who are probably women? From Special:Log/newusers, it looks as if there are four or five new users every minute. By making a subset of those who have actually made contributions, it should not be too difficult to pick quite a number who are probably women. If you wait a day or two, you could also look at their user pages. Maybe other contributors to Women in Red also have suggestions.--Ipigott (talk) 11:37, 15 February 2022 (UTC)
@Ipigott We have to accept that assignment/activation of the new Homepage tab (and thus the mentor box within it) is a wholly automated, random process. Equally, so is the allocation of any given mentor to each new user (unless, of course, that mentor has chosen to add their name to the Manual list purely so they can choose precisely who to be a named mentor for (editathon attendees etc).
But, I think you raise an extremely interesting point about whether someone could go through a list of users who have not been assigned a Homepage tab and 'activate' it for them. I don't think that is currently possible. Whilst you can 'Claim a Mentee' at Special:ClaimMentee, unless their Homepage Tab has already been enabled, they won't see that you're their new mentor, though I think they do get notification that you've 'claimed them'. I'm going to ping @MMiller (WMF) and @Trizek (WMF) who might be interested to read about this idea. Nick Moyes (talk) 13:26, 15 February 2022 (UTC)
@Ipigott -- thank you for being a mentor. I'm glad that you see value and are able to nurture great editors although there is a lot of cruft. I agree that you're raising a really important point: though we want to offer mentorship to all, how might we focus on or ensure that those people who need it most, such as women editors, can get it? This is something I would like the Growth team to continue thinking about, but I have a couple of thoughts now, and I'd like to hear your opinion (and anyone else's).
Using your mentor dashboard, you can look through the users who you're assigned to mentor and proactively reach out to them if you see fit. This might help you direct concerted mentorship toward users who seem to need it most.
We've talked about how mentees might choose their own mentors (as opposed to random assignment). Perhaps they might want to do so based on topics of interest (e.g. a newcomer interested in art might choose a mentor interested in art), or they could choose based on geography or gender -- in the vein of helping newcomers have mentors who they are comfortable with. There are definitely ways this could go wrong, but it's an interesting direction to think about.
We are considering to automatically opt-in a person if they visit Special:Homepage. You have to know that this page exists, and a conformation step would be provided. Maybe it could help?
Regarding mentors assignments to mentees, new accounts have a mentor. The majority of newcomers have no idea of it, as they aren't seeing the mentorship module on their homepage. You can already claim mentees, and, if they don't have access to their homepage, you can encourage them to turn them on in their preferences (until we have the easier access I mentioned above).
It is also already possible to force the activation of the features during account creation. This way, you can create a call to action that will provide the Growth features to the users who will click on the right button, campaign banners, etc.
@Nick Moyes: I set myself up as a mentor for specific editors associated with a particular Women in Red event. This was done manually and feedback indicates that the mentees were notified. But I've never seen anything on the Mentor dashboard and so I don't think that the feature is working properly. I was expecting something like the Outreach dashboard but am still unclear what added value the mentor feature is supposed to provide.
I am unwilling to take on random mentees because they are unlikely to have common interests or background. Unfocussed projects like AfC tend to be unsuccessful because Sturgeon's law applies. Having a particular focus like Women in Red seems needed to provide some bonding and motivation.
Thank you MMiller (WMF) and Trizek (WMF) for your immediate reactions. (You Trizek may be interested in looking at Les sans pagEs.) As far as I am concerned personally, as explained above, I have plently of new female editors to mentor. I nevertheless hope that with due reflection you will be able to come up with an improved approach which will enable more general support for mentoring new women contributors. I realize this might not be as easy as your current approach but please bear in mind some of the possibilities I have mentioned and see whether your facility can be adapted to the real need to reduce the gender gap. Please let me know if I can be of any further assistance.--Ipigott (talk) 21:31, 15 February 2022 (UTC)
@Ipigott, based on my knowledge of how Les sans pagEs host workshops, it is quite easy for hosts to signup as a mentor on the "workshop hosts" list. This way, during workshop, attendees can be claimed by some mentors being aware of the challenges of women becoming editors. Pairing people on topics of interest, as Marshall explained, is a possible improvement point. We have also the idea of creating campaigns, where communities could define topics of interest, in order to invite newcomers to join a shared effort. We can totally imagine to have a button that says "join efforts in order to fil the gender gap", that would select a set of articles newcomers can work on. Do you think it would be helpful?
About helping, overall, I think having more women to be mentors is very important, and anyone who would encourage them to sign up as mentors would be really helpful. I also think that outreaching mentors is a key factor. As the majority of mentors are willing to help newcomers to succeed at editing Wikipedia, it means they are more likely to hears and understand the challenges some new users may face based for instance on gender.
(As a volunteer, I am happy to help and support Les sans pagEs. In order to fill the gender gap I now only create articles about women when I can spare time to create new biographical articles.)
Trizek: If you can put these ideas in order for the EN wiki too, we can no doubt work together on attracting more women editors and mentors. What to you mean by "outreaching mentors"?--Ipigott (talk) 18:35, 16 February 2022 (UTC)
There seems to be very little about her apart from primary sources. The key source referenced as 2 doesn't work for me.--Ipigott (talk) 07:04, 16 February 2022 (UTC)
Alas I believe such a photo cannot be uploaded to the Commons as copyright on a 2018 mural belongs to the muralist, in the best of my understanding of US freedom of panorama law. Unless someone else knows better? Innisfree987 (talk) 03:18, 14 February 2022 (UTC)
You are most welcome! I saw the name and knew it sounded familiar--turns out that image has been sitting in a folder on my desktop for a couple years, patiently waiting for an article. Because her name was Addie, she was always at the top of menu, so extra-memorable. Glad she finally has an infobox to live in, instead. :) Penny Richards (talk) 02:03, 15 February 2022 (UTC)
I had planned to ask for help with improving this article if it survived the pending AfD discussion, because after I accessed the Wikipedia Library, and particularly ProQuest, and started adding titles of her works in addition to her name as search terms, there appears to be a lot to do. However, the issue of developing more focus to the article was raised on the Talk page, so I have decided to make a request for help with article improvements now, for anyone with Wikipedia Library access and some time to give this article a fresh look. Thank you, Beccaynr (talk) 17:00, 17 February 2022 (UTC)
Hello all, I did a short session on how to edit with the Women's Network at the University of Leeds yesterday. I've encouraged everyone to sign up as participants here, so if people could keep an eye out that would be very welcome! One person said they felt "really empowered" to make changes, which is great! Lajmmoore (talk) 11:36, 19 February 2022 (UTC)
I see there is considerable support at the Village pump but I'm not so sure there will be similar support for the creation of new male categories for football and other popular sports all the way down the line. It might also be useful to point out that our many women's categories in sports and a wide range of other occupations and interests have served as a useful incentive for adding more articles about women. Side-by-side with our lists of women, they also serve as a useful research tool for those interested in examining the contributions women have made and continue to make in a wide variety of fields and activities. Even in cases where we have non-diffusing women subcategories, they provide interesting overviews of the extent to which women contribute, frequently backed by further subcategories by country/nationality, century, ethnicity, etc. I'm not at all convinced at this stage that it would be useful to create male equivalents for all these too although we might envisage including explanatory information on gender where applicable. It would be interesting to have reactions from category specialists such as Ser Amantio di Nicolao and BrownHairedGirl.--Ipigott (talk) 09:27, 20 February 2022 (UTC)
@Ipigott: I have not so far examined the VP discussion, but basically @Mike Peel is right: the women are ghettoised, and per WP:CATGRS they should not be. The current structure is appalling, treating women as an anomalous exception. It's like something from the 1970s or 80s.
Football is a gender-segregated sport, so men and women should categorised separately, just like actors or swimmers or runners. I have considered rising this many times over the years, but always shied away from it because I expected a backlash from the football fans. So many thanks to Mike for raising this, and I hope the blowback isn't too horrible. BrownHairedGirl(talk) • (contribs) 09:42, 20 February 2022 (UTC)
I created two pages
I joined a few months ago, but didn't do anything until now. Today I checked the list of red links and found one that existed already under a different name, so I deleted it. I then created pages for Chantal Kabasinga and Lizzie Kiama. Do I need to do anything else, or is that it (can I just keep choosing red links as per my interest and get on with it?) CT55555 (talk) 03:07, 20 February 2022 (UTC)
Thanks, CT55555, for making a good start with these two articles. They are well presented and in fact coincide with our current focus on Black women. As a result, I have altered the WIR tag to WIR-220 and added their names to the list on the corresponding event page. I have made a redirect from Almaas Elman Ahmed (which you deleted from the red list) to the existing Almaas Elman. Please continue along the same lines. I see you have already added another short biography on Abigail Borah. Happy editing!--Ipigott (talk) 07:12, 20 February 2022 (UTC)
Generally, I agree that redirects are preferred, but in this case it's not clear that anyone outside of Wikipedia called her Almaas Elman Ahmed. There are very few Google hits for that name. pburka (talk) 14:08, 20 February 2022 (UTC)
Hi there, Pburka. Thanks for stepping in. You might well be right for English-language searches but I noted she was the daughter of Elman Ali Ahmed. As she came from Somalia, I thought the married name could well be used in the local languages. Most of the women I write about come from non English-speaking countries but even when I have no responses to Google searches in English, I can often find useful material in other languages by looking for birth names, maiden names, married names and other name variations in newspaper articles, biographical dictionaries, databases, etc.--Ipigott (talk) 17:36, 20 February 2022 (UTC)
Both were tagged as orphans. (CT55555 you can see if an article links to others in the encyclopedia by clicking on the "What links here" tab in the left-hand tool box. Every article needs at least one link to another article or list on WP.) I deorphaned both and in doing that created a small and definitely incomplete list of the national presidents of the Association des Veuves du Genocide. Two of them have multiple hits in sourcing and appear to be notable, and of course the list can be fleshed out, if anyone is interested. SusunW (talk) 17:25, 20 February 2022 (UTC)
Categories
I also created Mariama Mamane. I guess English Wikipedia doesn't have much content on people from Niger, as there were not categories:
Category:Nigerien company founders
Category:Nigerien engineers
Category:Nigerien ecologists
I added them anyway, but someone deleted them immediately. I'm not skilled to make categories, but if anyone wants to do that, it would be good, I think, if I understand things correctly. CT55555 (talk) 18:48, 20 February 2022 (UTC)
The ODNB suggestion above reminds me of something I floated on the "Ideas" page a while back, so I'll air it here again. I see that "May Maries", "June Junes" and "July Julies" are actually listed in the "Table of annual events/collaborations", though they seem very Euro-origins-centric.
How about taking the whole A-Z range of either surnames or given names and divvying it up into 12 (or 24?) and offering a list of redlinks each month? If the file was too massive we could (well, I assume someone with the technical skills could) narrow it down to perhaps one or more birth decade(s)? Just out of interest I looked at the 1921 births category (to find a manageable number: 8,448), sorted by DEFAULTSORT (ie usually surname), and looked at the first name on each page of 200 entries: it would split into 12 very roughly equal chunks at AA, BJ, CE, DE, GA, IA, KH, MB, NA, QA, SF, UA. (Obviously that was a list of blue links of both sexes, but the distribution of redlinked women in Wikidata is likely to be not too dissimilar). So we could go through a year's worth of very broad ethnicity-neutral coverage. Another idea would be to have a "born in the month" or "died in the month" each month - could alternate them, and then next year alternate the other way (born in Jan, died in Feb, one year, the reverse next year). Again, a random group of women not biased like the May Marys etc. It might appeal to some of our editors.
ODNB etc could be included as part of the "Crowd-sourced" element of our suggestions, as well as a redlist generated from Wikidata. For those with eclectic editing habits and who treat the WiR editathons as a challenge each month, this approach might offer an interesting variation. PamD14:40, 21 February 2022 (UTC)
"Visual Gender Biases in Wikipedia: A Systematic Evaluation across the Ten Most Spoken Languages"
Thanks for this Rosiestep. It makes interesting reading, especially the bit about biographies of men scientists containing more images as a result of their inventions and creations than those of women scientists which present fewer images often based on the development of their careers. It nevertheless seems a pity to me that in such a large study no attention was given to the dates of birth and death of the subjects as these so often have a significant effect on the inclusion of images. It was good to see that Women in Red was mentioned twice. I'll include a link to the article on our research page.--Ipigott (talk) 11:07, 22 February 2022 (UTC)
Drawing on the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
Back in February 2019, Victuallers suggested on our Ideas page that given the reliability of entries in the ODNB, it could be used to improve our statistics. These have recently been further discussions on the Ideas page. One suggestion is that we could start with all the women whose first name begins with A. Once these have been completed, we could go on to B and continue through the alphabet. From here, it looks as if there are about 25 As, 10 Bs, 20 Cs. etc. We realize that not everyone (myself included) may want to create bios from the ODNB but it nevertheless looks like a useful source for those who have an interest in the UK. It has also been suggested that rather than running this as a month-long event, we should continue to work on it letter by letter with no time constraints. It may therefore be worthwhile to draw attention to it on our invitation for March, perhaps linking to this item. Would this be a sensible way forward?--Ipigott (talk) 11:32, 21 February 2022 (UTC)
I agree with Ian as that was not my idea. My suggestion was "we have a go at picking off all the women whose name begins with A (or alpha if she is ancient Greek) in any country. Others have added to this on the ideas page and it looks as if we have interest from Australia and others. Victuallers (talk) 13:57, 21 February 2022 (UTC)
Sorry, Victuallers, if I distorted your idea. I simply thought it would be useful to refer back to the beginning. I realize that others have since commented on the Ideas page. As for me, I think it would be really useful to devote a month-long event to covering women included in biographical dictionaries, whether in English or other languages. There are lots of them and many are fully accessible. See, for example, "Dictionaries and other reference works" in our Redlist index, List_of_biographical_dictionaries, List_of_online_encyclopedias#Biography, etc.--Ipigott (talk) 11:46, 22 February 2022 (UTC)
I work with Julie Arliss and her page has been recently deleted for some reason, however it is not promotional and it was simply her biography and info about her life and books written in a neutral tone, not spreading anything divisive. I have tried to get it undeleted but to no avail, we have the rights to her website JulieArliss.com which is where we have used the text from and have tried to prove that to the administrator but they were not very helpful, what we would like is for somebody to explain in simple terms (we are not Wikipedia or tech experts) what we need to do to get Julie Arliss' wikipedia page undeleted?
I have linked the pages here about deletion but do not fully understand the reasons for deletion, can you help me fix this?
In short, Willisgm, wikipedia has notability requirements for the subjects of articles. Julie Arliss has, per the Articles for Deletion discussion, been found to be insufficiently notable for an article. Absent new information which demonstrates her notability, there will not be an article. You'll understand that some people wish to use wikipedia for promotion. That is not what it is for. --Tagishsimon (talk) 11:12, 21 February 2022 (UTC)
Thank you Tagishsimon, I understand and appreciate this, so I have gathered a collection of independent secondary sources to validate the notability of Julie Arliss below, please do let me know if you need anything else and if this is sufficient then are you able to help me reinstate the page?
Issue 3 The Matrix
Issue 14 The Da Vinci Code and the Sacred Feminine
Issue 25 Smoking Gun
Issue 27 Pornography and Education
Issue 29 The Big Idea of Tolerance
Issue 35 The Value of Knowledge Cogito Ergo Sum
5. 2009 Julie founded The Symposium for Philosophy and Religion:
A 3 year project for University of Oxford, funded by a $403,969 grant from Templeton World Charity Foundation; worked with 20,031 students, 2987 teachers, 173 headteachers. This project was selected by the Faculty of Theology and Religion at Oxford, to be presented as part of its current submission for the Research Excellence Framework.
I believe that I was the only editor who argued in favor of keeping the biography. I did so on the basis of her books, which I believe are notable as they were reviewed by multiple reliable sources. I think you'll have an uphill battle to recreate her biography, but articles about her books would be more likely to survive scrutiny, so perhaps you should start with those. Please do be mindful of our WP:COI guidelines and remember to present a WP:NPOV, including criticism of the works. pburka (talk) 14:32, 22 February 2022 (UTC)
I don't see how a PW description (that discusses Vardy but doesn't even mention Arliss) of one book and a piece in New Humanist tearing down another book (or I guess a second volume of the same book?) could add up to N:AUTHOR. Those were the only "reviews" in RS (the IJFM is clearly not academic, there don't seem to be any named editors(?), and anyway editorial vetting seems barely more than "we'll review your submission fairly"). If this article had been kept the ONLY independent commentary on Arliss/her work would have been the extremely negative NH review and the -- at best -- neutral characterization in the Philosophy of Religion for AS Level. Surely Arliss would not want her wiki bio to be primarily quotes like "[The Thinker's Guide to Evil is] a thoroughly TRASHABLE TOME", where the only praise is of the pictures and formatting, but that is what it would have to be given the lack of any other independent analysis. JoelleJay (talk) 20:56, 22 February 2022 (UTC)
There is only one independent source in this list, and its coverage of her is decidedly not significant. Every other source is neither independent nor secondary: 0. Her personal website is not independent/secondary. 1. The Guardian article on a conference series she co-ran only gives her a trivial mention, so is not acceptable for considering notability. 2. A youtube video ripped from a TV series that briefly features her is not a reliable source nor indicative of notability, and this link seems to be a copyright violation on top of that. 3. Her own books are obviously not independent/secondary. 4. A non-indexed publication chaired by a PhD candidate is not an academic RS, even if it calls itself a journal. Articles published by Arliss are also not independent/secondary, and merely being published does nothing to contribute to notability. 5-7. Symposia she founded and companies she worked for are not independent sources on her. 8. Devising the tasks for a student competition does not contribute to notability. 9. Founding an organization does not contribute to notability, and her profile on its website is not an independent source. 10-14. Collaborating with a university and receiving grants do not contribute to notability. Her profiles on the websites of collaborators are also not independent. 15. See above. JoelleJay (talk) 20:56, 22 February 2022 (UTC)
Catherine L. Ross Review
Hello!
I'm trying to get a review to happen for Catherine L. Ross' Wikipedia Page and was recommended to ask here. Her page on Wikipedia has a undisclosed paid tag, and I would love to be able to remove that tag if possible or get a review/edit to make her page comply. Thanks so much in advance!
ReginaDevi (talk) 20:59, 22 February 2022 (UTC)
Having this as your only edit does not do much to allay suspicions of undisclosed paid editing. If you have a connection to Ross, Wikipedia and Wikimedia's conflict of interest policy requires you to disclose it. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:09, 22 February 2022 (UTC)
The article is only 246 words long and has barely reached the Start class. Why do you think the article should be reviewed?--Ipigott (talk) 21:14, 22 February 2022 (UTC)
DYKs for International Women's Day March 8th
A reminder that International Women's Day is on March 8th, and we are collecting Did You Know nominations in order to have as many women as possible on the front page for 24h. (I had meant to post this sooner, but have had a longer than expected break from editing over the summer.) Any new article (as long as it isn't a stub), article expanded 5x or article improved to GA can be nominated within 7 days of its creation/improvement. If you spot interesting candidate articles but don't know how to nominate for Did you Know, or would just prefer someone else did it, then please let me know! DrThneed (talk) 23:40, 18 January 2022 (UTC)
Great idea and thanks for coordinating! I will keep an eye out on any articles that might fit the bill and will nominate accordingly at WP:DYK. Good luck! Ktin (talk) 21:47, 23 January 2022 (UTC)
@DrThneed: I have just made a self-nomination for Gertrude Hart which has been reviewed. I put that I'd like it to be considered for IWD, but wasn't sure how best to flag this. My thanks to @Victuallers: for attempting a DYK for an earlier bio. I'm sorry your time was wasted and I was unable to help get it over the line.--Oronsay (talk) 05:15, 12 February 2022 (UTC)
@Oronsay: I've moved it to the special occasions area, thanks for that. We are now up to 6 hooks. There's one I've reviewed and one I've nominated which I would hope to have sorted in time, so that gives one set's worth of hooks. And I'm sure there are others in progress that can go towards a second set too, I just haven't trawled through to look. Nice work everyone (especially @Victuallers: I was worried about denuding DYK of women in the run up to March if I tapped too many DYKs on the shoulder, but with a nomination every day there are lots to choose from!). DrThneed (talk) 19:24, 12 February 2022 (UTC)
I have an article pending DYK, Stella Madzimbamuto which I really want to appear for March 8th. There's lots of red links, which give an inkling of how poor our coverage of Africa is, if anyone is interested in topics for Black History Month that may not be about women. SusunW (talk) 05:28, 12 February 2022 (UTC)
I've added two more. I think we have enough for a set but great to have two sets and an overflow! Tapping up articles in the DYK queue might work. Victuallers (talk) 08:45, 23 February 2022 (UTC)
Our year-long Climate initiative
Anyone have any good ideas to encourage more editors to contribute to our year-long Climate initiative? Since January 1, only 23 articles; plus 7 early starts in December. I know the blurb says "Our initial priority for January to March will be research, targeting all those scientists and academics who have helped to provide an increasingly solid basis for action", but surely any article related to climate should be added there as an achievement? I find it too hard to hold off for the "correct" quarter and just write as I find someone, so many go to #1day1woman. Time to drum up some climate interest, methinks.--Oronsay (talk) 02:40, 22 February 2022 (UTC)
I've noticed quite a few on #1day1woman which seemed to qualify for Climate. The important thing for me is that we should encourage wider coverage but if the listing is important, I'll look into it and add the banner.--Ipigott (talk) 21:07, 22 February 2022 (UTC)
Perhaps we should remove the 'quarters' idea, if that's proving a bit of a barrier? The other thing I wondered (& it might be food for future years now), is whether there's enough dead people on the list? Lots of people don't work on living people, so perhaps that's a factor too? For now I've dropped a couple of messages on the talk pages of WP:Women scientists and WP:Climate and on the meta page for Climate Change. Are there other places where we could signpost people from? Lajmmoore (talk) 08:34, 23 February 2022 (UTC)
It was just yesterday that I became aware of meta:Ukraine's Cultural Diplomacy Month 2022. While WiR typically participates in the CEE Spring event focused on women's biographies (April, I think), I thought that, in light of world news, some of you may be interested in knowing about this Ukrainian event which runs through 17 March. --Rosiestep (talk) 18:08, 23 February 2022 (UTC)
Hi, a friend just asked me about how to finish this draft article and get it into mainspace, would anyone be able to take a look and help out? It's been declined at AfC three times now, but doesn't look too far off to me. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 06:40, 25 February 2022 (UTC)
Thanks, Mike Peel, for drawing our attention to these. I hadn't realized there were so many. In addition to 61 Category:Draft-Class Women's sport articles, in connection with our March activities, we also have about a hundred Category:Draft-Class Women artists articles. There are also 131 Category:Draft-Class Women writers articles and 30 Category:Draft-Class Women's History articles. Most of them seem to be a result of refusal at AfC, although many seem to me to be notable enough. Perhaps we should start a systematic drive to tidy them up and move them to mainspace? Perhaps we could find volunteers willing to upgrade at least one per week? We could also provide links to any relevant draft women categories in our meetup pages and draw attention to them on the talk pages of appropriate wikiprojects. It might also be worthwhile to sift through them in order to highlight those which could most easily be promoted. Any volunteers? I'd be happy to commit myself to at least one a week (in addition to other draft upgrades). I believe that from time to time there are also incentives in connection with AfC to reduce the number of drafts. Perhaps Innisfree987 could help out here?--Ipigott (talk) 07:38, 25 February 2022 (UTC)
(EC) I've promoted a couple so far. Draft:Rena Aliyeva is notable but more than I can cope with right now. Kelly-Ann Allen needs categories. So 40% notable (on a sample of 5) with 141 drafts to consider. (Plus what Ian says: these seem to be v.useful mines for AfC snafus). --Tagishsimon (talk) 07:42, 25 February 2022 (UTC)
With a few days remaining in February, there are a variety of opportunities to improve articles that also happen to be the subject of pending AfDs, with sources already identified in the discussions:
Polite query for someone in the women in red project group to read and advise on draft page
First, my apologies for cross posting.
I have chosen a woman in red, Carol Van Strum, US environmental activist and have written an article about her. As I am a rank beginner, I wonder if someone would be kind enough to look at the article which is in VisualEditor in my sandbox and have the patience to help me to improve it. I know you are all busy so no hurry! And my apologies to the person who offered to help me some days back. My only excuse is that I have only just learnt how to use the talk pages! Balance person (talk) 12:39, 24 February 2022 (UTC)
@Balance person You're off to a great start! By the way, I notice that you've used the Daily Mail as a source for this article. This is (somewhat notoriously) a "deprecated source" on wikipedia. I see someone has already tagged it as "not a reliable source" (ie, not WP:RS), but I think this link might be additionally helpful: WP:DEPRECATED. By the way, VisualEditor is an option for editing wikipedia articles, but you can actually switch back and forth between that and the wiki markup editor. Your mileage may vary, but I found the wiki markup editor very helpful when I was new and trying to figure out why the heck things were working (or not working) the way they did. Now, I use them both, for different things. Preferences (top right on desktop version of website) --> Editing has options for this. I also really recommend turning on everything under "discussion pages" on that page. -- asilvering (talk) 01:38, 25 February 2022 (UTC)
asilvering (talk) I now understand about the deprecated source and have removed one of them. Can I ask how to remove the little notice about the better source needed? I will remove the other one soon.Balance person (talk) 18:51, 25 February 2022 (UTC)
@Balance person: If you're using VisualEditor (the "what you see is what you get" editor), just click on the little "better source needed" notice and hit delete on your keyboard. If you're using the source editor (the one where the "code" is visible), you delete the bit that looks like this: {{Better source needed|date=February 2022}}. Looks like you've got this sorted out already? -- asilvering (talk) 19:16, 25 February 2022 (UTC)
Inspired by a calc made by Nav Evans I was noting that the number of footballers is a similar figure to the number of women. I was hoping that it was more as it would be a great meme. So I rephrased it as "experts believe" ... so experts ... do you agree?
"There are so few women on Wikipedia that experts believe that there are more pages about footballers and football related stuff than there are about women who make up 51% of the populationthere are 60,000 more articles about footballers and football related stuff than there are about women. So, who decides which people are included in Wikipedia? How do they justify that? Yes, ask yourself that question, because that is who decides, you!. Anyone, including you, can join the people who make that decision. Sometimes it's only possible to rant about injustice, but in this case you can start to fix it. Women in Red is a project made up of people of all genders who want to be the people to make the decision. The number of women on Wikipedia was 15% when the project started and it's now over 19%. If we can add the women footballers, the women scientists, the women engineers and the women artists then we can help to close that gendergap. Women in Red have organised over 200 editathons to help fix this and they are organising four more on Wikipedia Wednesdays during March." Victuallers (talk) 08:55, 23 February 2022 (UTC)
Victuallers: This is indeed an interesting way of attracting attention. I think it is indeed more as there are 415,118 items included in the stats on Wikipedia:WikiProject Football, compared to the 358,922 biographies of women posted on the main WIR page? As for details of the Wikipedia Wednesdays, it would be good to see the corresponding meetup pages.--Ipigott (talk) 11:52, 23 February 2022 (UTC)
- Work in Progress and a neologism @Dsp13:, @Ipigott: - thank you (in large font size, double underlined, bolded with three screamers). You have supplied the fact that supports my vague hand waving of "experts believe" into a hard defendable fact. I was asking for a query to be written but I think you have nailed it. The emerging sign up page is a sub stub here its a copy paste of the adawiki24.org page that I'm rewriting. Help is always welcomed. Victuallers (talk) 12:04, 23 February 2022 (UTC)
Glad to have helped out. Yes, I noticed you were preparing a page on Wikipedia Wednesdays. I'd be pleased to help out if I have further details.--Ipigott (talk) 12:16, 23 February 2022 (UTC)
Victuallers: I realize you are addressing potential users from the British Isles and are therefore most concerned with association football, but just in case anyone objects to this analysis, I see there are also another 30,746 articles on Rugby union, 19,835 articles on Rugby league and 7,932 articles on American football.--Ipigott (talk) 13:32, 23 February 2022 (UTC) So in fact there are more than twice as many articles about footballers as there are about women.--Ipigott (talk) 13:36, 23 February 2022 (UTC)
Don't see how you get to that "twice as many" conclusion. A flaw with all these comparisons is that there are large numbers of non-biography articles in all these projects on clubs, competitions, matches, rules etc etc. See for example the 84 national sub-cats of Category:Association football cup competitions by country or the vast tree under Category:Association football teams. Plus of course that if it were true "that the number of footballers is a similar figure to the number of women" most Wikipedians would be likely say that it is more obvious that there are too many footballers than too few women. Wikidata should be able to provide precise figures for male footballers and women. Johnbod (talk) 17:38, 23 February 2022 (UTC)
Thats the problem with equality, if you really squint and close one eye then all those football articles are just a mistake and "most Wikipedians" would say "there are too many footballers". I would like to think they would but would you start an RfC with that premise, say to remove just 10% for a start. Victuallers (talk) 19:05, 23 February 2022 (UTC)
There's a Russian fable which I've seen more than once in recent days. For example, the NYT has it "A Russian peasant pleads to God for aid after he sees that his better-off neighbor has just obtained a cow. When God asks the peasant how he can help, the peasant says, “Kill my neighbor’s cow.”" See also beggar thy neighbour... Andrew🐉(talk) 17:24, 26 February 2022 (UTC)
Draft meetup page
I see that the Draft meetup page contains provision for a WIR event template. Perhaps in connection with our plans for March, Rosiestep can help us to assign a number. Unless we combine some of the others (e.g. Folklore with Art and Activism), it looks as if it could be #227. Last time I suggested an event number before everything had been firmed up, I apparently got it wrong.--Ipigott (talk) 14:05, 23 February 2022 (UTC)
Rosiestep: Was on the point of sending you an email. Glad to see that everything's been sorted out. I can understand that you found things a bit confusing.--Ipigott (talk) 16:47, 23 February 2022 (UTC)
Hi all. I just created this article on soprano Nancy McCord who was actively performing in operettas, musicals, and operas from the 1920s through early 1940s; including performance on Broadway and at the Metropolitan Opera. I can't seem to find any information on her birth or death; although multiple sources say she was a native of Long Island, New York. There are a lot of reviews of her performances from 1929 (and a few as early as 1923) through 1941, but after her marriage in 1942 she disappears. Likewise, none of the sources give her age but from pictures in newspapers in 1930, she looks to be in her early to mid 20s at that time. My guess is she was born sometime between 1900-1910. If anyone is able to assist in locating an obituary or details on her age or date/place of birth I would appreciate it. Thanks.4meter4 (talk) 14:14, 26 February 2022 (UTC)
@4meter4: I think these may be her obituaries: [5][6] My assumption is that you won't find her under the name Nancy McCord very much later in life, but instead under her married name, Nancy Fleming. - Whisperjanes (talk) 16:18, 26 February 2022 (UTC)
Portrait of Florence Ladd - Question about use of a portrait of a living person, by a living person.
A portrait of Florence Ladd is on the Harvard Museum website. The website states The Harvard Art Museums encourage the use of images found on this website for personal, noncommercial use, including educational and scholarly purposes Does anyone think that means we could use the image on her page? Fair use? Creative commons? Any suggestions or advice appreciated. Does Harvard have the right to release Stephen E. Coit's painting? Thanks! (And the painting has a listing at wikidata, but no image in the commons.) WomenArtistUpdates (talk) 02:36, 25 February 2022 (UTC)
Not without a different permission from the copyright holder. Uploading to commons requires that it be made available under a license that permits all uses, not the limited subset of uses listed in your quoted statement. (That is, the -BY and -SA clauses of the Creative Commons license are fine but the -NC clause is not.) And fair use is basically impossible under Wikipedia policy (which differs from the legal minimum requirements) for someone who is still alive. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:46, 25 February 2022 (UTC)
wikimedia.org. We very much much look forward to hearing from you. :) -–KUrban (WMF) (talk) 08:23, 4 February 2022 (UTC)
marking ones that have passed at Commons as well:
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Pearl Bailey in the role of Butterfly in St. Louis Woman
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