Hi, I've recently created this. If anybody has created or improved an article on an Africa woman since July 1st please add it to the list at the bottom and please add your articles to the list in future. There is also Wikipedia:The 10,000 Challenge which started it all, which is the broader picture of the Awaken the Dragon, to cover the whole British Isles. So if' you've done articles on British and Irish women at them to that too.♦ Dr. Blofeld09:06, 3 September 2016 (UTC)
Contests along these lines might be useful for encouraging wider involvement in WiR. Would there be any support for arranging something specifically for increasing participation in the creation and improvement of articles about women? If so, any suggestions about fields of interest or geographical regions which could be targeted?--Ipigott (talk) 13:56, 7 September 2016 (UTC)
I got the impression that Rosie, Keilana, Megalibrarygirl and a few of the others here aren't keen on contests with prizes and don't like me trying to shove them down people's throats! I think we've shown with the UK ones though that they really do produce great results and should be seen positively. I think one of the reasons is that people don't like the idea of editors "competing" against one another. Perhaps if you create a Hot 1000 list, 1000 missing articles we really want started, covering all topics, one month you could reward whoever produces the most articles with a book of their choice up to a certain value, with the most articles with the highest value, and third with the lowest value. Think of it as more an "Editathon with rewards for hard work" rather than a "Contest". I don't think it would be aggressive, but a mechanism like that would see more content produced I think, I would suggest running something like that at the end of every year to try to boost production. At least give it a two week trial with a small reward first and see how it works. I'm guessing that this will largely be the end of this conversation though, some people here are just not interested!..♦ Dr. Blofeld14:42, 7 September 2016 (UTC)
Dr. Blofeld - I think Women in Red has always been open to new ideas. If you'd like to coordinate a contest within WikiProject Women in Red, go for it! Regarding a Hot 1000 list, I imagine between our crowd-sourced redlists and the Wikidata redlists, WiR must have close to 1000 biographies identified. Coordinating a contest (or any other campaign at WiR) is work, but if you're willing to handle it, WiR editors will probably enjoy writing the articles. If editors can choose how to participate -virtual editathon vs. a contest, e.g. as with Dragon- the campaign would attract both sets of editors (people who want to vie for prizes and those who don't).
Yes, writers would certainly attract interest. I also like the idea of combining a contest with an editathon. Then we should get the best of both worlds.--Ipigott (talk) 07:16, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
"Contest" is sort of an evil word for many on here. When you think about it purely as a contest or competition it doesn't seem compatible with writing an encyclopedia and our goals. But they produce results and mostly go without any fights or aggressive interaction. I see them more as "editathons with thanks to the hardest working editors". As contests are a necessary way to target old stale articles and provide a mechanism to get people to edit them, it might work best for Women in Green, but it could also work for missing articles and it would be good to do one as a trial. Create a Hot 1000 list of writers we really want started, trying to include most countries and a range of types of writers and reward whoever creates the most minimum 1 kb readable prose entries in a month or something. Up to you, but I'm sure there's editors here who might not like contests or the idea of "competing" but would really love to have $400 worth of books or something. I would view a "contest" for WIR as more an investment into content building than a contest, as it would give editors the books they needed to write for articles. some books can be pretty expensive or rare too. I know Penny Richards supports it and sees the difference it makes, but we need more people to change their perception of it I think.♦ Dr. Blofeld08:04, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
It's really Women in Green who could do with a contest though, as very few people are working on core women articles, they need to be improved too! A lot of them could do with nuking and restarting from scratch, suffering the usual bloat/poor sourcing. In fact some of the new articles we have coming in are better than some of the entries on the WIG page!♦ Dr. Blofeld07:00, 9 September 2016 (UTC)
@Ipigott: I'm planning on doing an Africa Destubathon next, and prizes for most destubs for each African country. If I did it in conjunction with Islahaddow's Wiki Loves Women and the overall woman project here, if we could get $1300 split into 52 with a $25 for most destubs for each country and then $200 for whoever destubs the most African women articles during the month we'd see some real big improvements. It is intended as a general destubbing contest, but I'm willing to help promote the women cause at the same time if it's something you'll all support here.♦ Dr. Blofeld08:16, 9 September 2016 (UTC)
Wiki Loves Women- Monthly Contest!
Just to let people know that a drive for Nigerian women is starting in late September which will run until March. If we could help Olaniyan Olushola and the Nigerian/Wiki Loves Women projects get off to a good start later in the month with some new Nigerian women articles that would be appreciated.♦ Dr. Blofeld11:15, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
Hello, this is to notify you about a monthly article writing contest organized by Wikimedia User Group Nigeria in collaboration with Wiki Loves Women to increase the coverage of Nigerian women on Wikipedia! This contest starts on September 20, 2016. Thank you.
@Ipigott:, I don't know if you want to put up an announcement somewhere on the main page or somewhere! It;s an ongoing thing for 6 months so worth being on the main page I think and might help them produce more articles.♦ Dr. Blofeld11:16, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
I'm just a tiny bit confused. We've been discussing an event on the 1000 most deserving writers but now you suggest Nigerian women. Are these two developments completely separate? If so, what exactly are the parameters for Nigerian Women: creating new articles, upgrading existing articles or arranging an editathon under the sponsorship of Olaniyan Olushola. Is there a list of articles to be created or improved? Perhaps people could start contributing to Nigeria here?--Ipigott (talk) 14:26, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
Nono, I'm not suggesting Nigerian women, I added a new section for Olaniyan's announcement, nothing to do with the 1000 women's writers! This is under a different thread on the talk page, so why would you think it about the writers? ♦ Dr. Blofeld14:28, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
OK. Fair enough. I've managed to find 15 redlinks by going through the other redlink lists. Olaniyan Olushola: Could you add more red links on Nigeria to this list. If we can get up to 20 names or so, we could announce the collaboration on our WiR Main Page a few days before we start in late September. Dr. Blofeld: Is Nigeria to be the focus for only one month or is it for a longer period? Is there a schedule for other African countries?--Ipigott (talk) 09:11, 9 September 2016 (UTC)
I believe he's hosting it for six months, until the end of March. Which does seem extremely long for a contest, but it's his baby, not mine. The destubbing one I'm planning for October is unrelated.♦ Dr. Blofeld09:58, 9 September 2016 (UTC)
@Dr. Blofeld: Well I've searched around a bit and eventually found Wikipedia:WikiProject Wiki Loves Women/Six Month Project Road Map for Team Nigeria. From what I can see, there have already been several events on women: medical women, terminated 15 July; information technology: continuing until 30 September; and civic/social sector: expected 2 October to 15 November. They are all sponsored by the Goethe Institut, Lagos.[1] Looks to me as if quite a bit of further coordination and preparation are needed before we make any announcements.--Ipigott (talk) 10:38, 9 September 2016 (UTC)
Hi Ipigott and Dr. BlofeldJamie Tubers, thank you for your interest in our contest. We have only sent out notifications to inform the likely contestants of our coming contest. We are presently working on the contest page which will come up on or before the commencement date and also circulated in the same way and channel. As the name of the contest implies , it will be a monthly contest and each month will focus on different theme. Purpose of the contest are : To create new content, Improve the existing and also correct few issues on image licensing.Olaniyan Olushola (talk) 11:44, 9 September 2016 (UTC)
@Olaniyan Olushola: Great to hear of these new contests .... BUT (I had not seen them??). I can see a minor problem. I won the Wiki Loves Nigeria contest (Woooo!) earlier this year because I just needed to write about any Nigerians. As there were "Women in Red" contests running for say "Women Writers" then I just needed to write about "Nigerian Women Writers" and I could do two contests. (This fits my own agenda as women are underrepresented as are Africans (and others)). If however the contest earlier this year had been for Nigerian Doctors and Women In Red were looking for athletes then I would need to find Nigerian doctors who were not only female but athletes as well. That is tricky. So I suggest Olaniyan that you join in the debate at WIR and choose (the same subjects or) ones that are complementary .... as I, for one, want to write about Non US/UK women and the projects should reinforce each other. Currently the Italians (Wikidonne) and Spanish speakers choose the same theme as us. Hope that helps. Oh and tell me when its clear and I'll tweet at #wikiwomeninred. Victuallers (talk) 12:47, 9 September 2016 (UTC)
6 months is extremely long for a contest too. Most editors wouldn't be interested in contributing just on Nigerian women for six months. Contests produce more results in short intense bursts I think, with a decent prize and them made exciting. If I was going to think about how I'd get the most content improved/created for Nigeria I would hold a month contest every other month or two, make it a general contest, with greater points and prizes for people who do women articles. That way you might be more likely to attract editors who might not otherwise contribute to women articles, and you could get a whole bunch of other articles which badly need improvement for Nigeria improved to.♦ Dr. Blofeld13:09, 9 September 2016 (UTC)
It seems to me there should also be more coordination with Goethe Institut on Nigeria and the other African countries their projects address. We should also officially welcome their support. I believe they would be happy to sponsor any contests or editathons in collaboration with WiR. There are a number of contacts here. Perhaps Olaniyan Olushola is already in touch with them. If there is wider WiR support, we could arrange a joint series of editathons in both English and German and attempt to develop some of our own editathons in accordance with their plans. Rosiestep: Do you think this would be a useful initiative? It might help to develop our international interests.--Ipigott (talk) 14:17, 9 September 2016 (UTC)
I am happy to learn about this campaign. I think we need to wait for Olaniyan Olushola to complete the contest page so that we understand how we can best support the campaign. Copying in Islahaddow who has been Women in Red's point of contact for Wiki Loves Women campaigns. --Rosiestep (talk) 20:06, 9 September 2016 (UTC)
Yes, Islahaddow is certainly the right point of contact, both for Wikipedia and for Goethe Institut (see here). Perhaps she can also advise us on how things are developing in the other three countries: Côte d'Ivoire, Cameroon and Ghana (can't see anything on their WikiProject pages). As Wiki Loves Women is scheduled to end on on 31 January, there is not too much time left. Perhaps we can organize a collaborative effort with Dr. Blofeld and his African interests? I think the most important thing at this stage is to define a time frame and one or more editathons. BTW, I see there is plenty of scope for Côte d'Ivoire thanks to our long list of redlinks.--Ipigott (talk) 10:07, 10 September 2016 (UTC)
I'll be doing a general West African contest next year sometime. The first one I'm going to do for Africa now though is Wikipedia:WikiProject Africa/The 10,000 Challenge/The Africa Destubathon, and give a largish prize to the perosn who destubs the most women articles. It's intended as a general destubathon overall though for every topic. I need to get the grant approved first though so won't publicize it fully until it's certain.♦ Dr. Blofeld13:51, 10 September 2016 (UTC)
Hi, is it possible somebody here could find all of the existing stubs on women by each African country and list them in a sub section for each country at Wikipedia:WikiProject Africa/The 10,000 Challenge/The Africa Destubathon? This now has the support of Anthere and Isla and hopefully Wikimedia will approve it later in the month. There's a few weeks to get this done anyway, so if people could help add them gradually that would be tremendously helpful, thanks!♦ Dr. Blofeld16:03, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
@Anthere: and @Islahaddow: Though it's a general stubbing contest primarily, as long as the focus is on destubbing articles then I think we can have a focus on women. In fact, if we could get the funding we could also offer a prize to not only the person who destubs the most African women articles, but in the spirit of the Women in Red and Wiki Loves Women contests we could stage it as a joint article creation contest and give a prize to the person who creates the most minimum 1.5 kb prose starter articles on African women during the contest. For that the prize could be books about African women, which in turn will fuel later article creation, so it would be a good investment ;-) As long as no stubs are created towards it, we reduce our overall stub count, and increase the number of start class articles on women overall we should be fine I think. Looking through the Algerian people stub category for instance the entries are heavily stacked towards men, so this could really benefit from mass new article creation too for every country on the African continent. We could also do with a full missing article list for every country of Africa from Algeria through to Zimbabwe. If somebody could create one at Wikipedia:WikiProject Africa/Missing women articles or Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/Missing African women articles it can include biographies and anything related like novels, institutions/festivals etc. I'd imagine the existing Women in Red lists would be a good place to start and cluster entries together from the various subjects into a purely African list, and Wiki Loves Women/Nigeria no doubt has a list somewhere for the West African ones?. ♦ Dr. Blofeld16:33, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
We also have Wikipedia:WikiProject Wiki Loves Women/Assessment, but not all articles are assessed and those only list the articles on which we have been working.
The one thing we really need is a nice Scan query that would list all women stubs in Africa or better, all women stubs in each African country. I have troubled using the tool myself :( Any help to understand how to do that query interest me. Anthere (talk) 08:59, 14 September 2016 (UTC)
Useful list, thanks. Yes, the focus is on destubbing. But I know a lot of people will want to produce new articles too, so I thought involving Women in Red so everybody benefits would be more productive overall.♦ Dr. Blofeld10:41, 14 September 2016 (UTC)
As you can see, I've created the list. I'm afraid there are only three names on it. Women anarchists don't seem to be too popular on Wikipedia. As far as I can see, most of the women already seem to have articles in English.--Ipigott (talk) 08:41, 17 September 2016 (UTC)
Thank you.
Hmm. I have about a dozen of them on my 100wikidays subpage, which I grabbed from a review of es and fr language wikipedias. I didn't sort through other language wikipedias yet, so figured a Wikidata search would take care of that. No worries. --Rosiestep (talk) 16:41, 17 September 2016 (UTC)
The problem seems to be that the people you have listed are not given as anarchists in Wikidata. I've been updating some of the entries so that might help. I noted that at least one was listed as "male" in Wikidata (now corrected).--Ipigott (talk) 11:28, 18 September 2016 (UTC)
Existing list of missing articles or articles that need to be expanded for indigenous women around the world
(Please note: for people from language communities that use avoidance language, the following list contains the names of deceased individuals.)
Hi, I've been collecting this list for a number of years. It should probably be added to the red link list for indigenous women. Many of them can also be added to the polar women redlink list. I wish I had known about the indigenous (and polar) women project last month before today. -Yupik (talk) 17:13, 21 September 2016 (UTC)
Welcome Yupik Feel free to add anything you think could be added to the redlists we have. While we do create articles when we have a specific editathon, the beauty of having the redlists is that we can refer to them whenever we want inspiration. SusunW (talk) 17:50, 21 September 2016 (UTC)
@Yupik: Some of the Sami articles could usefully be contributed to the Nordic Challenge. Any new biographies would obviously also extend our coverage of women under Women in Red. I can help with those in Norwegian and Swedish but I'm afraid I cannot handle Finnish. In any case, it's great to know we have someone interested in our project with a fluent knowledge of Finnish, not to mention the Sami languages. I hope you'll consider participating in our activities and in the Nordic Challenge. I see you have been spending almost all your time on the Sami wiki (a tremendous achievement for a native English speaker) but many of these people deserve recognition in English too. Perhaps you could devote some of your time to writing English-language biographies too. Sooner or later, there might be an opportunity to compile a List of Sami women. In the meantime, I have copied your Sami lists to the "Missing article" section on the Nordic Challenge in the hope that they will be picked up there. I am relying on Megalibrarygirl to copy all your indigenous women redlinks to the appropriate WiR lists.--Ipigott (talk) 09:27, 22 September 2016 (UTC)
Will do, Ipigott! Nice list, Yupik! Btw, do you think a link to avoidance language would be a good thing to add to our indigenous women list? I was not aware of that in some cultures, but it's good to be aware of other people's feelings! Megalibrarygirl (talk) 21:16, 22 September 2016 (UTC)
My opinion
There's been convo on this talkpage and some user talkpages about supporting other projects' campaigns. As we are the most active WikiProject on English Wikipedia (#yay!), there are a lot of eyes on us so a lot of editors would like to tie in their campaigns with us. I'd like to share my opinion about that here.
WiR does not support systemic bias. WiR will not slight one group's campaign and favor another ("You tailored the WiR event for that group so why don't you do it for ours?").
Our support of other projects' campaigns doesn't bind WiR into identical alignment in terms of event type, event focus, or event duration. Consider the distinctions between identical twins, fraternal twins, siblings.
We don't have to say yes to everything. But it makes sense to say yes if someone suggests a campaign which supports our scope (women's biographies, women's works, women's issues) and our goals (safe space for editor participation; content creation in order to "move the needle").
Take care of yourself. Avoid burnout. We don't have to do all the tasks for a joint campaign. We need to get better at asking others to share in a joint event's task load.
I would just add that some of the worthy causes we have supported, most recently Polar Women, have benefited from our redlinks, our approach and our contributions, especially as a result of work after their event had officially come to an end. Only after the first round of article creations was it possible to develop an overall view of the picture. On the other hand, thanks to the enthusiasm of the Australians, we have learnt a great deal about the history of women explorers, scientists and adventurers, especially those in Antarctica. In regard to the developing world, I think we should do our best to support initiatives which are still in their infancy. Most of the editors involved have very little experience of the scale of contributions which can be achieved. (Remember how surprised we were here at the early responses to our first editathons.) We should be careful not to frighten them away by explaining how much more could be achieved if only they let us handle everything for them. Just as we try to encourage new editors, I think we should do everything possible to help them along step by step during the early stages of their involvement, especially when they start to launch contests and editathons on women. Initially, this might be limited to helping them publicize their objectives and offering assistance in developing lists of red links. With time, they will gain from our collaboration and will no doubt also want to contribute to enhancing our WiR work. At that stage, we can launch wider initiatives on the basis of evolving experience. In the case of WiR23, in retrospect, I think it might have been preferable simply to include information about their event in our annoucements. But I certainly agree that these comparatively small events should not take up too much of our time and attention. We need to concentrate above all on the global appeal of larger spheres of interest with a view to increasing the overall coverage of women on Wikipedia, especially the proportion of women's biographies on the EN wiki.--Ipigott (talk) 12:04, 18 September 2016 (UTC)
If you mean the Nigerian contests by the "comparatively small events" then in an ideal world it wouldn't and shouldn't be a small event. National contests for any country, whether it's Nigerian women or whatever deserve to be really notable events in the wiki calendar. And if people in the countries themselves like Shola and Jamie are making a big effort to organize them then they deserve to have larger funding and contributors involved. But given the size of the world, obviously this can't support and be involved in everything. What I think we need is more contributors and support within Africa, and wikimedia funding to make their events larger scale and eventually have their own Women in Red regional branch etc. Perhaps this is where Wiki Loves Women is headed, and in the next few years will have a few different areas of focus. I hope so. I'd like to see Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/Africa set up (by people within Africa themselves) and Wiki Loves Women and that going hand in hand. I hope Wikipedia evolves eventually to have an Ambassador for each country, responsible for promoting growth in each country with their own organized editathons and contests. This is where I was hoping to be of use, to set something up which people can copy and then invent their own contests based on it, completely independently from within African countries themselves, which inspire others to replicate it and spread it once they see the results. I need to have the responsibility to run something first though to test it out and see what can be done. But for some reason I probably came across as a 19th century colonialist in trying to help and I think Rosie herself is annoyed with me on this. Every region of the world should have their own women in red, operating across different language wikipedias, right Rosie? This is a very difficult situation, I see it more as showing people what can be achieved with a certain mechanism and publicity, rather than wanting to dominate people, but it is an area which we will need to be very careful. It's frustrating because you genuinely want to help produce optimum results, but also don't want to smother their own efforts or imply that they can't run anything without help. ♦ Dr. Blofeld14:42, 18 September 2016 (UTC)
"My Opinion" was not focused on anyone in particular. It was not specific to any campaign; remember, we've had 22 since last September. WiR has been in existence for 14 months and these are thoughts about the way forward. You're probably hearing a lot of buzz about strategic planning movement-wide (m:Strategy/2016-2017), and WiR needs to work on that as well. So, Page Stalkers, what are your opinions, thoughts, ideas regarding: --Rosiestep (talk) 15:50, 18 September 2016 (UTC)
our first year (July 2015 - July 2016)
Year 2 (July 2016 - July 2017)
@Rosiestep: Personally, I've been amazed at how many articles we've produced. The Architecture editathon really seemed to fill a significant gap in coverage and we have that pretty well documented. I have enjoyed having different topics covered each month (often with several different ones going on per month). That keeps me interested and also makes me look at different parts of the world or different areas of life I wouldn't have thought about otherwise. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 16:17, 19 September 2016 (UTC)
Sometimes I think we are too concerned with statistics. Is the number of new articles produced our real measure of success or is it not more important to aim for at least start or C-class articles describing the women we cover in some detail? I seriously wonder whether all those mini-stubs on sports and entertainment really serve our cause well. I realize of course that the majority of those who specifically participate in our editathons generally write good, in-depth articles, fully in line with our objectives. I also agree with Megalibrarygirl that two or more editathon topics a month maintain the interest of our members. Why don't we formalize that approach: perhaps one really new topic each month, together with one of the more traditional areas which have proved so successful? Architects and archaeologists is a good example. We should also continue to look for sponsors and supporters and should assist all those around the globe who are working towards better coverage of women on Wikipedia.--Ipigott (talk) 07:28, 21 September 2016 (UTC)
@Rosiestep: I, like Megalibrarygirl, enjoy writing as a means of learning about people I might not have otherwise encountered. What I like specifically about topic based editathons, is that we can choose various locations to cover the same topic and thus gain a perspective that our world really is more similar than dissimilar. I have a much harder time on editathons that are location specific, as resources are not always available and I tend to make sure that I have sufficient resources to write a start/C article before I even begin writing. There are so many topics that we can cover, as women have been left out of all aspects of history, that I think we should have sufficient new materials for years to come. SusunW (talk) 15:48, 21 September 2016 (UTC)
@Ipigott: I agree about sports stubs. But those seem to be a problem in general on Wiki where it seems incredibly easy to have a sports related article just because of the notability standards for that area. I'm not always able to write a C-class article, but hopefully having a stub will encourage others to contribute. When I first started editing wikipedia, I felt confident adding to other articles and less confident about starting new ones. But I do see your point about creating better articles about women. That's really important too. I agree with SusunW that doing geographic based topics can be hard. For example, I find working on some African countries to be a pain in the ass because it is harder to evaluate sources... also I suspect I run into language issues with francophone countries. But that's another kettle of fishies. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 16:40, 21 September 2016 (UTC)
Megalibrarygirl Si, pescado, difficile en français. LOL Thank heavens we have Ipigott to assist us with our language challenges. But the sourcing issue is indeed a challenge, everywhere. I find myself banging my head on the wall looking for Caribbean sourcing when there isn't even a language barrier. SusunW (talk) 16:58, 21 September 2016 (UTC)
I have suggested on our ideas page that for November, in addition to Women in Food and Drink, we should once again renew our focus on Women Writers, possibly supported by a contest. Please read my proposal on the ideas page and let me have your reactions there.--Ipigott (talk) 10:18, 23 September 2016 (UTC)
Ottawahitech I'd say pick a month, put a posting for the month you would like to do it on the ideas calendar page [3], gather redlinks lists that would be included and post them there and go for it. SusunW (talk) 17:31, 25 September 2016 (UTC)
Not too long ago, I suggested we should extend Women in Nursing to include Women in Medicine but it was finally decided nursing was important enough in its own right. So I'm 100% in favour. We already have a list of red links and could add another list with the help of Wikidata. Of course medicine has also formed part of the 2016 Wikipedia World of Science in which we have also been participating.--Ipigott (talk) 07:37, 26 September 2016 (UTC)
2016 Women in Science Wikipedia Editathon
We would love to have members of the Women in Red community participate in this event!
It will be taking place like in New York City at the New York Academy of Sciences on Saturday, November 12, 2016, 12:00 pm - 4:00 pm (Register here so you can get into the building). You can also take part in the event virtually on that day or throughout the month of November (make sure to tell us you're participating on the Meetup page).
In addition to having materials on hand, and the chance to meet other Wikipedians, we'll have coffee, tea, and cookies available.|}
Smallbones recently ran a scan and came up with quality assessment scores by major topic. User:Smallbones/core prelims. No idea how the scores are calculated or if it's an accurate judgement of actual quality, but according to a sample of 1000 random articles (I think), non sports female BLPs were rated among the lowest quality. @Smallbones: If you found a way to use that quality score to assess male and female biographies by occupation, do you think you could come up with a general comparison by occupation? Now there is only 16% biographies, so not easy to measure fairly, but if you could find out something like that and then provide an overall quality score of men vs women on wikipedia that for me could form the basis of sub project of women which aims at upping the quality notch too. And that's something where realistically we could fully catch up with men ;-)!♦ Dr. Blofeld20:48, 26 September 2016 (UTC)
What I would suggest is starting a long term 1000 QI Challenge for Women, aimed at quality improvements rather than new articles. Not a contest but ongoing editathon to improve 1000 women biographies. Could be done under Women in Green, build a list of 1000 core women articles perhaps, and also get a bot to create a list of women articles, and find the oldest entries with low quality and get people to work on them. But there would have to be support and interest for it first to work.♦ Dr. Blofeld06:49, 27 September 2016 (UTC)
There are, nut in looking it's a small sample, only about 15 biographies which aren't sportswomen. It would be interesting to see what a full assessment would look like of every article. It would be good to know what the weakest area of women bios is on here!♦ Dr. Blofeld11:17, 27 September 2016 (UTC)
WiR options for November
On our ideas page (see here), we have been discussing the editathons to be launched by WiR for November. The current discussion has revolved around two basic options, given our interest in supporting the 2016 Wikipedia Asia Month which is also scheduled for November.
Option 1: Two full online editathons, one on Women in Food and Drink, the other on Women Writers, with encouragement for editors to include biographies/works of Asian women in each of these.
Option 2: Three full online editathons, one on Women in Food and Drink, one on Women Writers and one on Women in Asia.
In November we will also be continuing to support the Women in Science editathon and the drive on Women in Philosophy.
Whichever option we choose, we will of course include an announcement on Wikipedia Asia Month in the hope that, as last year, some of our participants will contribute directly to the event and/or to the related Meetup on Contemporary Chinese Art at the Guggenheim on 2 November.
Preferences and comments welcome asap as Women in Asia will require careful preparation, including lists of redlinks for at least the major Asian countries.--Ipigott (talk) 09:53, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
Trying to get this up to GA status. Difficult to find decent sources and information. Would anybody be interested in helping me promote a Nigerian woman in entertainment to GA and make the article as good as we can?♦ Dr. Blofeld16:04, 23 September 2016 (UTC)
I'll also see if I can help a bit with this. I'm all in favour of spending a bit more time on quality improvement whether it's Women in Red, Women in Green or even those Rainbow Women who increasingly seem to come out way.--Ipigott (talk) 10:37, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
Thankyou both. Yes, it could use some sourcing reinforcement, I couldn't find enough quality sources to improve it much.♦ Dr. Blofeld11:14, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
I'm going on a narrowboat for a week which will be fun but I suspect that my access to the internet will be intermittent. Thats OK except that every day around midnight in UK time I load a new banner onto #wikiwomeninred on Twitter. I wonder if anyone would volunteer to load them for me for a week?. You may want to try it and check that its possible... So I have created an image which is very similar to the one that is already there. This way you can change stuff but not confuse viewers. (both of them?)
Contact me/@SusunW:/Rosie via email if you want the twitter password
Look at the image above and save it on your computer
Go to Twitter and login as "wikiwomeninred" with password from above
Find the #wikiwomeninred page and press "Edit Profile" just below the pic of Ms Pankhurst
Then press "Change your header photo"
Find the image you stored on your computer
Confirm you want to change it. Do it.
Well done or ask here for help
Look at the image above and find where it is stored on commons. You will find that it is stored in "Sept 2016 banners" and there is a banner already made for every day this month.
Leave a message here to say that you'll do your best to do this for the next week
@Victuallers: I'm amazed at the amount of time and effort you've been putting into WiR coverage on Twitter. Although I am in fact one of the very first to become a member of Twitter (I knew one of the designers), I have made very little use of it as I simply have no time available for the social networks. I rely on the rest of the family to keep me up to date. I would also prefer someone else to stand in for you during your holiday as I have heaps of stuff lined up for the remainder of the month. A week on a narrowboat sounds great. Enjoy yourself!--Ipigott (talk) 09:38, 22 September 2016 (UTC)
Thanks Ian, my purpose is to gain some recognition for our editors and to gain them some kudos. I know youre busy, well done - Im hoping that someone is curious about this and fancies sending out some tweets as well maybe. Cheers Victuallers (talk) 10:01, 22 September 2016 (UTC)
@Victuallers: I am not particularly technically inclined, as you are aware. Should you fail to get anyone who is more technical to assist, however, I will do my best to take on this task, for all the myriad times you have come to my aid. I am seriously hoping that someone volunteers. ;) SusunW (talk) 22:04, 22 September 2016 (UTC)
Victuallers don't know if you are gone yet. Yesterday I had no problem loading the test image. Today, it will not allow me to load the image marked Sept 23rd. It just says there is a problem. What that problem is, I have no idea. SusunW (talk) 14:29, 23 September 2016 (UTC)
@Victuallers: There isn't a banner for today? I don't know how to make one, so I just tweeted a born on this day for Australian author Jessica Anderson, along with some of our editathon articles. All will be fine, I'll go back to the banners tomorrow. SusunW (talk) 16:13, 25 September 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for both stepping into the breech. No banner for 25th as 24th banner was the anniversary of a 2 day event. I loaded up Winnie for the 26th as I found wifi in Talybont-on-Usk with our narrowboat parked alongside on the audacious Monmouthshire and Brecon Canal. I say audacious as its built half way up the side of the Brecon Beacons. I went straight to Google and it might be my imagination but I think there was a teardrop on the letter "g" .... do you think its missing me? Thx again 13:24, 26 September 2016 (UTC)
I cannot hold a candle to your ability to word them for interest. I'm sort of a "just the facts" kind of girl, you manage to make a headline that grabs the reader. But, I will continue to tweet periodically and help if you need it. Wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it was going to be. SusunW (talk) 18:46, 30 September 2016 (UTC)
Comment. I am disturbed to find that extensive password-protected off-Wikipedia discussion is going on about this topic. This appears to be WP:STEALTH. Another accusation about Facebook has been made on my talk page [4]. I do not know if the claim there is justified. Xxanthippe (talk) 00:00, 4 October 2016 (UTC).
Image help?
Hi all, new WiR member, newish editor here! I'm wondering if there's a picture whiz who might be willing to help me get the hang of adding images to illustrate some bios I've started for women. For a few, I've managed to add pictures that were already at the Commons, and I understand (I think?) from the instructions over there that with the correct license, some Flickr images can be ok to use too, but I'm wondering--well first, have I understood the copyright question properly, and if yes how to proceed from there? What information do I need to leave for the Flickr user who took the picture? Etc.
For instance, I think some of these images could be used at Meredith Graves (punk musician, feminist poet, MTV host!), I just want to be sure I do everything right in terms of verifying license and handling the upload properly:
I am the last person to offer help with commons licenses. Don't understand them at all. Maybe @Megalibrarygirl and Victuallers: can help. On dead people, you can upload fair use images, but you must justify their use. I use a variant of the language found here [5] on every fair use image I upload. On the left under tools, is a link that says upload file. After you have snipped an image, press that link and follow the wizard. Type in your reasoning for using the image. Save it and once you get a link to the photo, load it to your article. Fair use can only be used on a single article. SusunW (talk) 19:11, 2 October 2016 (UTC)
I just posted the photographer at two of those pictures, which might, or might not lead to something productive. Einar aka Carptrash (talk) 19:23, 2 October 2016 (UTC)
(edit conflict)There is a convenient way of transferring images directly from Flickr to Commons COM:Flickr2Commons. However first you need to make sure that the image has been licensed suitably. When searching on Flickr select "commercial use and mods allowed" or "no known copyright restrictions". When you have a potential image it should have been tagged "no known copyright restrictions" or "some rights reserved" and, in the latter case, when you click there look for " (CC BY 2.0)" or maybe there are other CC licences. Bottom right of image under the date taken. So far as I can see the three images you list are all OK. Anyway, once on Commons, a category is put on each image so someone experienced comes along to check the licence is all right. Hope this helps a bit. Thincat (talk) 19:31, 2 October 2016 (UTC)
Wow, thank you all SO much! This is amazing--the entry looks so, so much better and I am learning SO much about the photo process. Super appreciate the guidance and assists! Innisfree987 (talk) 13:39, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
Hi Innisfree987, late to the table, but what everyone wrote above is very good information. I find a lot of photos on Flickr as well with the correct copyright. Don't worry too much about making mistakes. I did make quite a few when I started uploading to Commons. There are people over there watching out for us Newbies and if something violates copyright, it will just get deleted. I don't think there's any sanctions for screwing up as long as you learn from your mistakes. ;) Megalibrarygirl (talk) 22:37, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
@Innisfree987: In addition to all the advice you have received above, you might also be interested to know that the Creative Commons Search site allows you to enter the search term and look at various sites for images that can be uploaded to Commons. In addition to Flickr, you may find Google Images and Europeana quite useful. Or you might just happen to find that the search on Wikimedia Commons turns something useful up. I use it quite a lot. Give it a try! I see by the way that you have become a keen and competent contributor to Wikipedia with some 55 new articles since the beginning of the year, many of them biographies of women. Keep up the good work. If you ever need any assistance with anything, just drop me a line.--Ipigott (talk) 09:39, 4 October 2016 (UTC)
Oh, thank you both Megalibrarygirl and Ipigott, that's an incredibly useful way to be sure I'm picking out properly licensed images--and incredibly reassuring to hear it's not the end of the world if I get one wrong, I was pretty worried about that. Very appreciated, I am much emboldened to give it a shot! Innisfree987 (talk) 22:30, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
I know how you feel, Innisfree987... I was super worried at first, too. Another thing that helped me get the hang of things was uploading some of my own photos that I took of buildings and flowers in my area. :) Megalibrarygirl (talk) 22:39, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
Ooh that's a great idea. Maybe I will make a Flickr account so I can practice without worrying about infringing on anyone else's copyright! Innisfree987 (talk) 22:41, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
Some good ideas here. Ipigott's cc search is a good one. My best ones after Google image search using choice of license is. 1. Search on Flickr and then leave "begging letters" - I left about 16 to get the image above and one other. The other 14 I guess were not seen although I did get one well mannered refusal. 2. My latest "cunning plan" is to use YouTube. If you search for your person and then use Filter and choose "Creative Commons". Once you have the video then you can play it full screen and take a screen shot. I have done this recently for the Nigerian Entertainment Editathon - some examples here. Victuallers (talk) 07:36, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
Ah, that's really good to know about the rate of return on requests--I might've given up after a few non-responses. Good to know putting out the call broadly can succeed. And that truly is cunning about YouTube--I have several people for whom the only properly licensed work I can locate is a video. Screenshot's brilliant! Thanks again Victuallers and all, this has been incredibly instructive! So much appreciated. Innisfree987 (talk) 15:21, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
Hi. This is starting on October 15. Given the shockingly low number of women bios I'm going to allow for min. 1.5 kb start class articles on African women too. If anybody feels like fleshing out a few women bios or creating new articles from the African women list of around 800 and a chance to potentially win $200 in Amazon vouchers/books about women for doing the most women articles and up to $1000 odd in total for doing the most for each country. I reckon for some countries the notch is not even 10% women and probably more 5%. So if anybody would like to improve that and get some free books for contributing women articles on their choice sign up! It is being held from Oct 15 to November 27 to allow time for people to work on what they want and also Good Articles.♦ Dr. Blofeld19:26, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
I welcome the change in the rules in order to include recognition of new articles about women of at least start class. That should attract all those more interested in creation than in improvement to participate. But maybe the destubathon approach will also encourage some of us to devote at least some of our time to quality improvement rather than creation from scratch. It's good to see that the List of Core Stubs contains a section on women for each of the African countries. So there'll be an opportunity to work on African women at least for the last two weeks of October before Wikipedia Asian Month begins in November. WiR is really taking on a global dimension.--Ipigott (talk) 10:24, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
Thanks Ipigott. I wish I had known about Asia month earlier because we could have planned it to also target Asia at the same time!! ♦ Dr. Blofeld10:43, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
At Rosiestep's request, I started to create lists of missing articles on women for each of the pertinent Asian countries. She thought this would help with work on Wikipedia Asian Month which will be coming up in November. But as I noticed many of the European countries were without lists, I decided to add these too. I think we now have lists for all the world's major countries, providing access to basic details from Wikidata as well as to articles in at least one Wikipedia language other than English. All the Wikidata country lists can be seen here but for convenience I have also included them on the main WiR page under Redlink lists and in the main Women in Red Template. I would like to thank Emijrp for creating the basic format which I have used as a basis for the new lists on each country. Let me know if there are any errors and I'll try to sort them out. If anyone thinks it would be useful to have lists on any other countries, please let me know.--Ipigott (talk) 12:17, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
@Ipigott: You are welcome. There are a lot of countries in the world, and I stopped after a while. Now we are closer to have the full list. :-) --emijrp (talk) 12:28, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
Amazing list! I've been browsing bio stub categories and the amount of women stubs vs men is absolutely appalling I reckon it's under 10%. A big country like Congo only has a few stubs on women! So I'm going to allow 1.5 kb new entries on women too as we won't have a contest if there's only a couple for some countries! ♦ Dr. Blofeld13:03, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
Every time I speak about Women in Red -this year alone in Berlin, Esino Lario, New York City, Washington DC, San Francisco- I say that I expect Women in Red will be as well known for our "reslists" as for the articles we create. Thank you, @Megalibrarygirl, Ipigott, Emijrp, and Harej: and others for your work on redlists. --Rosiestep (talk) 17:16, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
@Rosiestep: You've certainly been doing a lot of speaking recently! Maybe for WiR, you could put together a list of your presentations, together with links to the videos, PowerPoints, etc. It would be good to introduce a more orderly approach. I always have difficulty in trying to remember where you spoke and how you presented our work. One added advantage of the redlists is that when people search for a name, even if there isn't an article in English, they might well hit one of the Wikidata lists with at least some basic info. But I hope that with time, the redlinks will diminish, giving way to an ever longer list of blue links.--Ipigott (talk) 17:43, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
I just thought I should let WiR participants know that I have been trying to update the main WiR page in order to add Wikidata-based redlink occupation listings along the attractive lines developed by emijrp for countries. I have adapted the approach for occupations/professions in order to obtain listings of the type Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/Missing articles by occupation/Scientists which I think are more attractive than the simple name-by-name listings of redlinks we currently have under "From Wikidata". Unfortunately once again I find the page cannot be edited. As I have alerted Harej on his talk page, I hope things will be sorted out soon. In the interim, I'll update the WiR template and also include links from the corresponding crowd-sourced redlinked pages.--13:11, 8 October 2016 (UTC)Ipigott (talk)
Megalibrarygirl: Sorry to hear you are seeing technical issues! If you have a moment, I'd love to see a screenshot and short description of the problem you are seeing. You can email it ssen@macalester.edu. Shilad (talk)
Shilad: Works fine for me on Firefox. When I answered you questions, I had not had time to experiment properly with your display. I now realize it is necessary to zoom into various areas of interest. One major problem though: as far as I can see you cannot search for any specific item. Interesting development. Probably can be significantly enhanced. Maybe different shades of red and blue could be used to show proportion of links to men and women.--Ipigott (talk) 16:17, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
Ipigott: Thanks for the clarification! You should be able to search using the search box in the upper left. Did you give that a try? Maybe it was too hidden.... Shilad (talk) 22:59, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
Shilad: Found the search box now and it works. But I usually search pages by using Ctrl + F and adding the search term to the box on the bottom LH corner of the Firefox page. That does not work. I think I was also confused by your calling the page a "map". I expect a map to be geographical. This is not.--Ipigott (talk) 10:12, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
Shilad I found that it works on Firefox on a Windows PC. It seems to be a Linux thing. I'll try to email you a screenshot, but basically, I can't see the map on the Linux computer, only the framework. I did get it to work on the Windows PC though and so I'll look through it on that computer. :) Megalibrarygirl (talk) 17:38, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
A very good general introduction to the problem with encouragement for new participants. In this connection, today's Financial Times carried a very interesting article by the author John Thornhill[6] titled "Wikipedia is a saviour in the post-truth world". It focused on the objectiveness of WP's articles on Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in comparison with articles and reports in the media but it also raised the problem of the gender gap: "Wikipedia does, though, possess some glaring flaws. Its contributor base is 85% male, leading to some skewed subject selection and other biases. Entries on male authors tend to be longer than those on female authors, for example." (This link still seems to be working but might soon be broken.) Like Rosie, I think we should all be trying to do more to attract new women contributors to Wikipedia. Perhaps we should start brainstorming on how our editathons can be promoted along these lines.--Ipigott (talk) 16:52, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
As everyone can see from this month's metrics and DYKs, we are not progressing as well as could be expected. That is why I have been preparing our editathon pages for November on two topics which I hope will attract much wider attention: Women in Food and Drink and once again Women Writers which has been one of our most popular topics under Wikipedia:WikiProject Women writers as well as under Women in Red. In connection with Women in Food and Drink, Rosiestep had expressed interest in widening our scope to other Wikipedia languages. I hope it is not too late for this level of cooperation. I have set up a Wikidate-based redlink list which will immediately reflect any new articles in other languages so that anyone interested can create English equivalents for new articles in other languages. On the basis of the present list, it looks as if there is considerable scope for collaboration on Argentina, France, Germany, Norway and Spain. I can bring this to the attention of the EN-based WikiProjects but perhaps we could also encourage article creation in Spanish, French, German and perhaps even Norwegian through our mutual contacts. As for writers, there are a huge number of well written articles in other languages which deserve to be developed for the EN-Wiki. Any other suggestions for stepping up participation in November would be warmly welcomed. Let's hope November will be one of our most successful months. As usual, we'll be sending out invitations to our members and other potentially interested participants.--Ipigott (talk) 19:01, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
Slight correction, I've expressed interest in including other Wikipedia languages for "Asian women". This was further discussed over the weekend at WikiConference North America. --Rosiestep (talk) 19:56, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
@Rosiestep: With strong support from you in particular, the international dimension of food and drink was in fact discussed and agreed on our ideas page in June:
@Ipigott and Megalibrarygirl: I am really looking forward to doing a food+drink editathon. I think we should promote it heavily in October across all the country WikiProjects (WikiProject Mexico, etc.) as, of course, there are notable food+drink women in every country. The timing, November, is very good because of harvest festivals and Thanksgiving#Observance being in the fall. I will mention it in my talks this month in Wash DC and Italy. @Pharos: do you think any of your connections would be interested in this? --Rosiestep (talk) 14:35, 5 June 2016 (UTC)
@Pharos: Good idea. @Rosiestep and Megalibrarygirl: I don't want to push things too far but how about encouraging participation of some of the other language Wikipedias in contributing in their own languages (French, German, Spanish and Italian come to mind). With the collaboration of Wikidata, we might be able to transform it into a truly international event. Rosie, why don't you sound them out at your meetings?--Ipigott (talk) 06:21, 6 June 2016 (UTC)
Yes, I will do that. --Rosiestep (talk) 14:27, 6 June 2016 (UTC)
At this late stage, all I think we can do is to send out invitations to some of the more active country WikiProjects on the EN wiki, perhaps suggesting they could also coordinate coverage in their own languages too. I will prepare a separate invitation on Food and Drink for the country WikiProjects and send it out over the next few days.
As for Wikipedia Asian Month, I see there is now at least a sample page for the event on Wikimedia although the logo is still 2015! I am not too keen to use this as the basis for an announcement until it has been properly adapted at least for English and preferably for several of the other languages. There also seems to be a discrepancy in the rules as the sample page states four new articles are required whereas the rules here state "at least five articles". I'll keep looking at these sites for progress. We can then make an announcement and encourage all the Asian countries to draw on our Wikidata lists of missing articles on women in English. Hope we can go forward along these lines.--Ipigott (talk) 06:57, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
Hi, would anybody be interested in putting up a prize for whoever creates the most articles on African women during the contest? A prize for that might spur on a lot more articles than normal, and it badly needs it, some countries it's under 5% women bios. Prize could be some books about African women of the person's choice or something, needn't be hundreds of dollars, but just something which might benefit the cause at a later date. If somebody thinks they can donate $25-100 dollars or whatever to chip in something together to reward somebody with books about African women to further contribute to WIR let me know. Even if it was a $15 book bought on Amazon on African/African American women to give as a prize that would really help.♦ Dr. Blofeld13:38, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
@Ipigott: Yep, that's the Wikipedia way all right, Be bold.
Er, I'm not disagreeing or trying to be snide, just feeling "D'ohh, I should've expected that or known it from the start." I'm glad you think it's a good idea, and I'll go w it, but not tonight. Probably not tonight. --Thnidu (talk) 03:02, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
Thanks. I'll see if I have time to help you along. It might also be useful to add a link to a useful source for each one. That will encourage people to write articles.--Ipigott (talk) 07:02, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
@Thindu: Looks really good. That was quick work. Now all you have to do is write their biographies! As we have so many red links, we should aim at a WiR editathon on women in technology fairly soon.--Ipigott (talk) 06:30, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
Let me know if you start the Women in Tech editathon, I will contribute to women astronaut biographies. I realize I can do that without the editathon, but I happen to be working in chronological order, and that would give myself an excuse to get away from that. Kees08 (talk) 21:19, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
Help with a move
I created a file on Anna Maria Niemeyer from Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/Missing articles by occupation/Architects red link list, but now I cannot move my file. Apparently someone had created a redirect to Oscar Niemeyer back in 2012. Thus, the "move" function will not work and requires an admin for moving it. I asked an admin I know to help me move the file, but apparently they are busy with real world stuff right now. Can anyone move my file from User:SusunW/Anna Maria Niemeyer (Q9616311) to Anna Maria Niemeyer? Just ping me if you can, as I need to add her fair use photo and the talk page banners. Thanks! SusunW (talk) 18:57, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
We are getting lots of retweets about an award from the ITU (The ICT bit of the UN) which this project is a finalist in. I can't find the word "award" on this page so I'm guessing this is news. We appear to be one of 14 finalists for an award about UN Women and ICT. Does anyone know who nominated us? What the prize is? and how we get UN Women and the ITU to write "cc by sa" on all their stuff:-) Anyway details that I know are below.
ITU @ITU 11h11 hours ago
GEMtechAwards finalists announced! add http to ://ow.ly/f8s9305fnaf
14 outstanding projects to advance #womenintech + #girlsinICT pic.twitter.com/Ufe7nG6B5b
Great initiative, Rosie! So I gather we'll now have to wait for the final awards on 15 November at the ITU event in Bangkok. In the meantime, it's not too bad for WiR to be one of the 16 finalists out of over 300 nominations.--Ipigott (talk) 07:36, 19 October 2016 (UTC)
Spent a while chatting about this as we would be good to win. I was amused to see that the page that announces the winners is copyright!!! However the video isnt so it could be moved to commons (volunteer?). It might make a nice poiint to recognise our competitors. There are 14 in the video Im told and we are in a category of five. I have also added our finalist badge to our twitter page - its "Russian day" today. I will move the image to commons if I can convince them we are allowed to use it!! Victuallers (talk) 10:17, 19 October 2016 (UTC)
I don't know that social media will be the reason why one group has an advantage over another, but blasting the universe with social media would be a great way to promote that WiR is shortlisted! Suggestions/recommendations: --Rosiestep (talk) 22:02, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
Remember to use the hashtags #GEMtechAwards and #wikiwomeninred
We could tweet how many articles were created for each event/meetup/virtual editathon we've held since our founding.
We should tweet that everything we've done has been on a budget of US$0 as I'm guessing none of the other shortlisters can say the same.
Tweet links to our Pinterest boards
Tweet links to every redlist
Tweet links to our Commons category/subcategories
What else?
Kenya: Please advise me
Hello, friends, for Onejiru in Kenya, I posted a question (actually two). Can you please help me, or I am still translating a topic as draft. --Omotecho (talk) 02:05, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
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Thank you, I had an excellent suggestion at Kenya mentioned above. Afc-ed, waiting for the result. --Omotecho (talk) 15:54, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
![[5]](https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/File:Muriel_Tuteur.jpg){kind=link}
