Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Women in Red/Archive 45

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

Archive 40

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Archive 43

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Halina Rubinsztein-Dunlop

Rubinsztein-Dunlop has an article on the Simple English Wikipedia - Halina Rubinsztein-Dunlop. I'd like to see her in the main encyclopedia. Is there a particular way to do this? Or is it simply a matter of creating a new article as usual? I have added her to the WiR CS Physics list so there is a redlink available.--Oronsay (talk) 21:27, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

Oronsay one just has to create it. If you use the information from the other file, you must cite it, same as any other source. I am not sure how you do that if the language is the same. If you were translating, you would use {{translated page|(2-digit language code)|article name= (on source article)|version=(number from the source article as it appeared when you translated from it)|insertversion=(number from the target article you created)}} You obtain these numbers by going to the talk page and clicking on the edit to open that version. At the top of your search bar will be the number. (for example the version of Halina Rubinsztein-Dunlop right now is 6178123).[1] SusunW (talk) 21:42, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

Thank you, SusunW. I've learnt something new. It may take a few days to get to act on this, but I'm glad I checked.--Oronsay (talk) 21:46, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

A minor correction: the Simple English version that you take the material from cannot be cited "same as any other source". Other Wikipedias are not considered acceptably reliable sources to use as references here on the English Wikipedia. However, if you copy material from the Simple version (as you are allowed to do), you must credit Simple as the source for the text, for instance, in your edit summary. It would also be good form (although I think not strictly required) to do so on the talk page of the new article. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:58, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

David Eppstein Thanks for your clarification of my clumsily worded phrasing. What I meant is you must credit it to the other WP article. Even if translating, I review sourcing and add my own citations. SusunW (talk) 22:02, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

I think it can basically be copied as is. Who knew that phrases like "nonlinear high resolution spectroscopy" and "dynamical tunnelling in the Bose Einstein Condensate (BEC) Laboratory in a modulated standing wave" were considered simple English! – Joe (talk) 22:09, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

Joe Roe I so wanted a ROFLOL icon ;) SusunW (talk) 22:12, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

Comment. This WP:BLP would clearly pass WP:Prof, so there are no problems about deletion. Xxanthippe (talk) 23:34, 2 July 2018 (UTC).

I was bold. :-) --Ser Amantio di Nicolao^{Che dicono a Signa?}_{Lo dicono a Signa.} 00:30, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Thank you, Ser Amantio di Nicolao, for your boldness! That's one off my list. Oronsay (talk) 00:38, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

@Oronsay: My pleasure. Please feel free to do likewise with any others you might find on the Simple English Wikipedia. --Ser Amantio di Nicolao^{Che dicono a Signa?}_{Lo dicono a Signa.} 04:26, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Giving the Simple English as the source of the article in the first edit appears to be a simple and practical way of overcoming difficulties.--Ipigott (talk) 08:15, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

I know I've asked this before: is there some way of finding articles on the Simple English Wikipedia that have no equivalents on the English-language Wikipedia? Transcluding them should be a fairly simple matter. --Ser Amantio di Nicolao^{Che dicono a Signa?}_{Lo dicono a Signa.} 02:13, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Viewpoint from a non-Wikipedian

On her blog, Juliet E. McKenna muses about the experience of having the Wikipedia article about her nominated for deletion. “What can SFF fandom do about the inherent bias of Wikipedia?” brings up the difficulties of proving notability for women and minorities. (Note: she assumes that the citations need to be found online, but a commenter corrects that notion.) Her idea of bringing what we would call “edit-a-thons” to SFF conventions and meetings is intriguing. – NotARabbit (talk) 22:13, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

Totally agree that it would be an interesting prospect. Of course, she makes the same points many on these pages have, that systemic media discrimination toward women and minorities is one of the biggest problems. But, that being said, I love her attitude, let's figure out a way to add verifiability and address the unintentional discrimination. SusunW (talk) 22:35, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

Really like the idea of bringing “edit-a-thons” to SFF conventions, and other conventions, too. How can we make this happen? --Rosiestep (talk) 23:44, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

I have just discovered SFF means Science Fiction and Fantasy. New to me! On Wikipedia it is Sf&f which redirects to Speculative fiction. Maybe the way to join them is to write a speculative short story of how Dame Rosie's red-clad hoards are slowly overthrown by the finely documented blues and greens, sourced in the archives of past generations. Succeeding in their fight for "Liberality, Equanimity, Sorority", they now thrive in their cyan castles.--Ipigott (talk) 08:34, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

I agree, I love the idea of fixing the issue rather than grumbling about it. I agree with Rosiestep (talk · contribs) - how can we make this happen? Something for Wikimania, perhaps, or one of the Wikiconferences, as a point of discussion? --Ser Amantio di Nicolao^{Che dicono a Signa?}_{Lo dicono a Signa.} 02:16, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Auto-patrol issue

If all of a sudden your new articles are being auto-patrolled, and you've had auto-patrol rights for some time, this explains what happened, and more importantly, that it is (theoretically) fixed as of two days ago. If you are still having a problem, follow my link and post there. --Rosiestep (talk) 18:45, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

The actors' birthday book

Briscoe, Johnson (1907–1909). The actors' birthday book. [First]-third series. An authoritative insight into the lives of the men and women of the stage born between January first and December thirty-first. Moffat, Yard and Company – via HathiTrust.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date format (link)

I just added this to the resources. It might be particularly helpful during the current month's editathon. Three volumes, full-view free access. — Maile (talk) 14:21, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

Maile66: Thanks very much. Lots of interesting detail. And it all seems to be public domain.--Ipigott (talk) 14:45, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

Portuguese wiki now over one million articles

I see that the Portuguese version of Wikipedia has now exceeded 1,000,000 articles, becoming the 15th language version to do so. Our Wikidata redlink lists on Brazil and Portugal provide long lists of women who have not yet been included in the English Wikipedia. Plenty of opportunities for new articles.--Ipigott (talk) 12:43, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

Don't forget the rest of the Lussophone countries too. In Africa they are Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, Equatorial Guinea, São Tomé and Príncipe, Guinea-Bissau; and in Asia, East Timor. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 20:48, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

What has happened to our membership box???

Our membership box on the main WiR page is no longer accessible. As a result, all those we are encouraging to become members can no longer do so. I cannot see any trace of edits to the page but someone must have implemented changes. We need to restore the page as soon as possible. I was going to invite Bobo to prepare his next recruitment list but there's not much point if no one can register. Can anyone help? Rosiestep, Victuallers, Megalibrarygirl.--Ipigott (talk) 07:36, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

I now see that the clickable links which used to be at the foot of the membership box have been moved to the centre of the page where they make no sense. The page is still suffering from code written by Project X which are not able to edit. Could Harej or Isarra please try to fix the problem quickly. Or perhaps Headbomb can step in and try to restore the former layout. If no action is taken today, then we could possibly find a way of replacing "View Full List" with "View Full List of Members" which would at least make more sense. Several users have commented on the attractive way of inviting new members to register. It would therefore be great if we could restore everything to the way it was until yesterday.--Ipigott (talk) 16:01, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, I have no idea how this happened, or how to fix this. A friendly FYI, in the US, today is Independence Day, and many of us are heading off to festivities. --Rosiestep (talk) 17:34, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

@Ipigott: (ec) I’ve tried a fix, but it still looks wrong. Please, check what you see on your screen. If you can see the “view full list” and the “join” buttons, try each one out. On my screen, I can see both of them, and they both work. I suspect that this change may be due to a rollout of some new or changed feature for the whole Wikipedia since, like you, I can find nothing that has been edited (including all the embedded templates). NotARabbit (talk) 17:57, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

I have no idea either, but it seems to be part of a bigger set of issues. I have lost rollback and my new articles are being reviewed by patrollers. Something screwy is going on, but what IDK. SusunW (talk) 17:48, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

I just posted a question at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#What just got implemented? NotARabbit (talk) 18:07, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

My new articles are being reviewed by patrollers, too, and this has been going on for about a week. --Rosiestep (talk) 18:11, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

@SusunW, Rosiestep, and Ipigott: Could you go to the VPT and maybe respond to the people there? Or at least read what they’re saying. Thanks. NotARabbit (talk) 18:31, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for trying to help NotARabbit. I think I have worn them out with my ineptness on technical things. I do not understand what they want and now feel as if I am a 2-year-old child who can neither speak nor tie my own shoes. I'll just find a way to work around the issues I am having as fixing them is out of the question for me. I despise dealing with technology problems. They did say that they think they fixed the membership box issues. SusunW (talk) 20:05, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

@Rosiestep: There was a bug over the weekend that broke autopatrolled. It should have been fixed on Monday. – Joe (talk) 20:12, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

I was still getting notices 5 hours ago. Whether it is fixed or not, I cannot say. I am in melt down mode at present with technology issues. I just want to write :s and relax. Technology is way too stressful for me to deal with. SusunW (talk) 20:21, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Odd. What page was it? – Joe (talk) 20:43, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Women's Reserve Camouflage Corps SusunW (talk) 21:23, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

I'm glad to see the membership box issue has been fixed. Thanks for chipping in, even on Independence Day.--Ipigott (talk) 06:01, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
- Cripes, I'm glad that got fixed quickly. Hell of a time for such a breakage, too, since it sounds like this specific issue was likely triggered by the wider upstream problem. -— Isarra ༆ 16:26, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

Sandhya Jane

Hi, I think that as an Indian businesswoman, she is notable. Please see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sandhya Jane. Regards, Yann (talk) 16:49, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

DYK - Eveline Crone

Hi, I just wrote Eveline Crone yesterday, and she's done so much cool stuff that I think she'd be a good addition to DYK. However, I'm still a pretty new editor and don't know what would be the best hook/am not familiar with the DYK process, even though I've read the nom/review instructions. I'd appreciate any feedback on possible hooks/advice on the process outside of what's been said! (Just do it? haha) Thanks, originalmess^{how u doin that busta rhyme?} 14:42, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

Originalmess Not sure what specifics you need, but let's start with a hook. It has to be stated in the article, be a maximum of 200 characters, and sourced at the end of the sentence where it's stated. How about:

... that Eveline Crone's (pictured) research in adolescence brain development has led to the Netherlands modifying its Youth Detention Act to extend the age limits for juvenile prisons from 18 to 23?

That hook is about 195 characters. You might want to gauge it with the Javascript character count, which is part of the DYK Toolbox. You need to submit the nomination within 7 days of the article creation. The images are licensed on Commons, so that's good. Every paragraph is already sourced. So, fill out the DYK form by following the instructions at DYK, which creates a template. You then transclude the template on the nominations page. It's fairly simple, just daunting if you've never done it before. Ping me/us here if you need help. — Maile (talk) 16:49, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

Hey Maile66, I just wanna say thanks for the encouragement/choice of fact! My first DYK was passed and I've submitted my second :D This is fun. I wish I'd known about this/how easy it is earlier! (Oh well, there's always bringing articles up to GA.) Yay, originalmess^{how u doin that busta rhyme?} 04:29, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

Help?

I have just created an article on Bridget Jones (academic) and while I know how to create a disamb page for Bridget Jones, i.e.:

 Bridget Jones may refer to:
* Bridget Jones (academic)  a British and Caribbean scholar
* Bridget Jones (fictional character) a character created by Helen Fielding
* Bridget Jones Nelson and American screenwriter
* Bridgette Jones, a bandmember of the London group Fluffy.

I am reluctant to do it because the extant article on the fictional character, Bridget Jones, would need to be renamed and if that is renamed how does that impact all the other articles that are tied in to that page. Bottom line is that I do not want to screw it up and I am not technically adept enough to do it. Can someone help? SusunW (talk) 21:19, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

The correct way to create the dab for this one is Bridget Jones (disambiguation). The fictional character article doesn't need to be changed, — Maile (talk) 21:34, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

Thanks Maile66. SusunW (talk) 21:40, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

SusunW Are you about to create an article on the band member from Fluffy? Usually, dabs serve to redirect the reader to an existing article. — Maile (talk) 21:50, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

Maile66 I'm not, but the hat note above the fictional character refers to her, because apparently there is a redirect under Bridgette Jones to the fictional character. It seemed to me that the hat note on the fictional character's article should be changed to state "This is an article about the fictional character, for other people with this name see Bridget Jones (disambiguation)". If I did that, the hat note information would be lost without a reference on the disamb page. SusunW (talk) 21:53, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

SusunW I removed it from the dab, as it's not appropriate without an article of its own. — Maile (talk) 21:59, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

Maile66 and SusunW, a red-linked entry on a dab page is fine, as long as there’s a (blue-linked) article that also has the term (or name) linked in red. See MOS:DABRED. NotARabbit (talk) 02:05, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

NotARabbit thank you. I am probably still going to always ask, because I think we are all aware of my technical limitations. Would that the fictional character did not come up so frequently and quash the ability to research the notability of the cookbook author. But, though she has written 50+ books, I cannot wade through the chaff to find sufficient information on her. SusunW (talk) 17:06, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

July 2018 at Women in Red

Hello again from Women in Red!

July 2018 worldwide online editathons:
New: Sub-Saharan Africa Film + stage 20th-century Women Rock
Continuing: Notable women, broadly-construed!

Latest headlines, news, and views on the Women in Red talkpage (Join the conversation!):

(To subscribe: Women in Red/English language mailing list and Women in Red/international list. Unsubscribe: Women in Red/Opt-out list) --Rosiestep (talk) 14:04, 28 June 2018 (UTC) via MassMessaging

Pagestalkers: What do you think of the new monthly invite format, which now includes, "Latest headlines, news, and views on the Women in Red talkpage (Join the conversation!)"? We're hoping that people who might not regularly visit the Women in Red talkpage, will click on the links, read the latest conversations, and decide to add their voices. --Rosiestep (talk) 17:04, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

Rosiestep I like the "latest headlines and news feature!" Megalibrarygirl (talk) 18:59, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

Yay, Megalibrarygirl! --Rosiestep (talk) 19:12, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

Hi! It's great, I wouldn't have read this page without it, so it's worked for at least one person. I think it might help editors feel more connected to the project, which could lead to more involvement. Maybe a link to article alerts would also be beneficial. originalmess^{how u doin that busta rhyme?} 19:01, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

So glad you're here now, Originalmess! And I like your idea of linking to the article alerts, so we'll include that in the August mailing. --Rosiestep (talk) 19:12, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

I was initially taken aback by the "Notable women, broadly construed!" heading until I clicked through and found my familiar #1Day1Woman. But surely the link should be to the 2018 page? Or the Contents list should be changed so that "January 2018" takes one straight to the 2018 project page. Also, I'd be happy to leave the title #1Day1Woman alone. It's a good slogan. Just my thoughts.Oronsay (talk) 22:56, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

I fixed the link (Imagine that, me doing a technical thing ;) Thanks for the headsup Oronsay SusunW (talk) 15:00, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Hi, Oronsay - Thank you for bringing this up!! Yes, it should have pointed to the 2018 page; pointing to 2017 one was a mistake. :( As hundreds of peopele have received the monthly message, and I can't resend it, I've added a link on the top of the #1day1woman 2017 page for the #1day1woman 2018 page. Also, thank you for your comment regarding "leave the title #1Day1Woman alone. It's a good slogan." Really didn't know what folks thought about it. :) --Rosiestep (talk) 15:08, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

Adding the additional content links was a GREAT idea. I usually just read the notices on my page and make a quick decision if I know any women in the category or can contribute to whatever campaign, but having the highlights on this page piqued my interest to get involved with the discussions. I'm sure more people will, too. LovelyLillith (talk) 17:43, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

Losing Momentum? Part II

I am very late to this discussion, so I am starting a new conversation. In reply to to Ipigott's question "Any suggestions on how we can revive interest in creating new articles in our effort to reduce the gender gap? I have a few observations and suggestions.

I don't know if we can revive interest with existing editors who write one or a few articles and then stop contributing. I think we need additional editors, and we need to find editors who are interested in volunteering for Wikipedia for the long haul. Most people who choose to volunteer in their community usually become short term volunteers. Fewer volunteers stay and continue for the long term. (my observation as a long time volunteer). We need to find editors who will enjoy contributing, are passionate about the project, and are interested in contributing regularly for many years.

I think we should view this as a political campaign, with WP:Women as our candidate. For a political campaign to be successful, you need funding, leadership, staff, volunteers, a good strategy to introduce your candidate to your target audience, and implementation of that strategy as quickly, cheaply and efficiently as possible.

We need a new plan to get the word out about WP:Women to the world of potential volunteer editors. No one who I have ever talked to about Wikipedia has ever heard of this project. I have discussed our goals and accomplishments with many people, and the responses are always very positive, but when I ask those people if they would like to contribute as an editor, I always get zero interest. Does that discourage me? No. I assume there are plenty of potential editors out there who would be interested, I just have have not connected with any of them.

I recommend a new editor recruitment campaign. One idea is to advertise for new editors on non-profit volunteer recruitment sites like volunteermatch.org. in the U.S. ("Women" is one of the categories potential volunteers can choose from on the website) . Another idea is to see if we can discuss our project and to ask for volunteers thru our local libraries (every town has one). Many libraries have online newsletters or at the least a bulletin board to post information. I see library book group members as a good source of people who might be interested in becoming Wikipedia editors.

The more people we reach out to, the more volunteers we could potentially get, and out of those volunteers, we should get a good number of people, like myself, who are planning to contribute to Wikipedia on a regular basis for many years. MauraWen (talk) 14:01, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Do you know anyone who might be interested to lead this, MauraWen, e.g. a campaign manager? --Rosiestep (talk) 14:26, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Additional ideas: (a) a .org website and someone to manage it; (b) apply and become a Wikimedia User Group; (c) regular planning meetups, e.g. via Google Hangouts. --Rosiestep (talk) 14:26, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

I like the idea of associating local libraries with recruitment. In the United States, it might be useful to sound out the ALA. We already have many librarians here: see Category:Wikipedian_librarians.--Ipigott (talk) 14:44, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

@Rosiestep and Ipigott:. I don't know of anyone, myself. Do you, other founding members of the project, or senior editors know any regularly contributing editors who would enjoy taking on a new project like this? It requires someone with a certain skill set and interest level: someone who is passionate about our goals, who enjoys outreach, writing pr, speaking to groups (if that is needed), calling people on the phone. Someone who is self-directed, is knowledgeable of the social media tools and sites. Wikipedia would need someone to do this on a volunteer basis, and that may make it more difficult to find someone to take on this role. MauraWen (talk) 15:08, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

@MauraWen and Ipigott, regarding US libraries, I'll be speaking at the OCLC Distinguished Seminar Series (in November in Ohio) and will be pitching Women in Red. Aside from libraries, I'll also be speaking about WiR at Wikimania (this month in Cape Town) and at WikiConference North America (in October at Ohio State Univ). As for taking on a new project such as you describe, I don't have the bandwidth. BUT... After Art+Feminism became a User Group, it applied for a WMF grant to hire a part-time employee who does all/most the things you mention; ditto with Whose Knowledge, who has multiple employees. This is why I recommend that we become a User Group. I co-founded WikiWomen's UG and WikiConference North America UG; I'm the v-p of WMDC; I'm the secretary of AffCom; so I have experience with Wikimedia Affiliates. But at least a few other Women in Red members will need to want to go in this direction in order for us to make it happen, e.g. become a User Group, apply for a grant, hire a part-time employee/"campaign manager". --Rosiestep (talk) 15:48, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

@Rosiestep and Ipigott, I was thinking of someone like you Rosie, I know your plate is full. What you mentioned above is a great idea. And yes, you would need many members of the group on board to continue in this direction. It would require a big commitment of time and energy. MauraWen (talk) 16:12, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

@Rosiestep, Ipigott, and MauraWen: We have discussed this before and I am in support of creating a user group and hiring a staff person. Ideally, someone who is motivated, understands our goals, is knowledgeable about social media and diversity, also about creating press and recruitment drives. We have discussed a graduate student and I think if we could tie into universities that would be beneficial. I am not into leadership, but will definitely support it and participate actively. SusunW (talk) 17:24, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

@Rosiestep, Ipigott, and SusunW: A graduate student tied into a university is a great idea! I'm with Susun, I'm not into leadership roles, but happy to support and help, if you need my help. MauraWen (talk) 19:27, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

You are right, SusunW, we have discussed this before but because no one created the application, I didn't know if there was any traction to the idea. I am also willing to help but I don't have the bandwidth to take the lead in creating the UG, applying for a grant, etc. --Rosiestep (talk) 20:12, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Rosiestep I truly love the idea, think it would move along many of our other ideas, library, newsletter, etc. But, I have zero experience in grant writing, no idea of the costs associated with hiring someone, and am not technically gifted. I will gladly help in any way that I can, but my participation is somewhat limited by the distance between me and other English-speaking editors. Hopefully one of our other members will be willing to take the lead and I can lend a hand in various capacities. SusunW (talk) 20:39, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

I would also be happy to support moves in this direction but do not want to become involved in any financial matters or administrative responsibilities. When I retired, I decided I would not return to any tasks involving management or leadership. I agree that what we need is a natural leader who is dedicated to the cause. Maybe you, Rosie, could at least express our hopes and intentions in your forthcoming speaking assignments. Someone might just respond to your pleas. Thanks MauraWen for contributing so positively to our discussion. You might be interested in putting together a summary for a short item in Signpost.--Ipigott (talk) 07:24, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

@Rosiestep, Ipigott, and SusunW, On second thought, I should take on more of a leadership role in this project because I am passionate about our goals. I am not a natural leader, but I have taken on leadership roles occasionally and I do fine, I just find its not the most comfortable spot for me. I have never written a grant, but I have turned down the opportunity many times, because I have never written a grant. With my past experience (1990's) of being a systems analyst and software developer, technical stuff does not worry me at all. Creating a user group--I have no idea how to do that, but if you want me to work on that, I can. I have worked for large companies, so finding good people, hiring people and managing them is very easy for me. It's the writing that I find challenging. I like a well written biography and article and do struggle with writing well, but I know that gets better with practice. I can work on a summary for Signpost, but will need guidance on what you are looking for in the summary and how long the summary should be, etc. Please let me know what you think. MauraWen (talk) 11:11, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

MauraWen The writing and research part is easy for me, so I will gladly help you, if you take on the role. I worked in banking for 30 years, so managing finances/weighing risk part isn't an issue, but grant writing I would need assistance with. I am not a natural leader either; I excelled at it, though I hated it and like Ian, when I retired I swore would never do it again. So, Rosiestep, how many people do we need to form a UserGroup? Maybe Megalibrarygirl and others will jump on board too? SusunW (talk) 13:38, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

@MauraWen and SusunW:, let's do it! It takes 3 names on the application (the leadership -- that'll be the 3 of us), plus at least 10 member names on our Meta page. Let's all start by reading about User Groups here. And simultaneously, let's decide on our name, e.g. Women in Red User Group (ala m:Art+Feminism User Group) or more simply, Women in Red (ala m:Whose Knowledge?. And Maura, congrats on the grandchild! --Rosiestep (talk) 16:23, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

@Rosiestep and MauraWen: 300 edits per person, good standing? no problem. Name I like KISS Women in Red. clear scope, yes. "two primary contacts willing to identify themselves with the Wikimedia Foundation?" OK as long as they don't broadcast in any wider scope private information about us. Accept new members/no limits? yes, and we are all about diversity, so why would we limit it? Code of conduct seems pretty straight forward to me. SusunW (talk) 16:44, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

@Rosiestep and SusunW: I agree with Susun. I like Women in Red. Simple is always best. You can use me for a primary contact, or it could be Rosie or someone with more editing experience, maybe an administrator. I also would not be comfortable with any personal information broadcast online. MauraWen (talk) 17:06, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

@MauraWen and SusunW: the personal information is only provided to and accessible by the WMF. I am fine with being one of the 2 names (and they have my info already). --Rosiestep (talk) 17:38, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

@MauraWen: I'm happy to help with the User Group, too. I have grant-writing and grant management experience from work. :) Megalibrarygirl (talk) 18:55, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

Yay! the application says we need 3-10. I love that we all have different skills to bring to bear. SusunW (talk) 19:06, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

SusunW, my background is mostly LGBTQ history (especially relationships) and I have a bit of social media presence. What would imply to be part of the group? sorry my ignorance, but I didn't catch the difference between being an editor and being part of a user group... Elisa.rolle (talk) 19:37, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

Elisa.rolle as I understand it, the WikiProject is part of English WP and as a project, our focus is on creating new articles. We can obtain limited funds to help us facilitate article creation, but everything is done by volunteers. As a User Group, we can apply for grants to expand our outreach, i.e. development of a newsletter, the library, etc., which gives us more flexibility if we need to pay for programmers and other support. SusunW (talk) 20:32, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

Glad to see this resurrected - I've had a couple of thoughts I've been meaning to contribute, but I haven't really had much time to sit down and work them out. Still don't - I'm on vacation and will be completely without internet access for a couple of days - but I wanted to at least put an oar in before disappearing for a bit.

Briefly: I think MauraWen (talk · contribs) is absolutely on the right track. We need to recruit more editors. To do so, we need to push our off-wiki publicity engines a good bit more. We have, I think, a golden opportunity to show the world some of the work we're doing. I know some things pop up on the Twitter feed now and again...what about Facebook? I know we have a Facebook page; if it began producing shareable content, I'm sure we could start sharing it around and driving some interest. We need to craft a narrative - we need to show people, off-wiki, that we've actually moved the needle in closing the gender gap, even if we have a long way to go. And I'd love to see us seek out more partnerships - sci-fi conventions (as mentioned above), for instance. Embassies and consulates - I've long thought there's untapped potential there. I loved the way the American Woman edit-a-thon came together; I would love it if we could continue that sort of partnership, with large-scale entertainment organizations or the like.

What we need is recognition. I realize it's slow in coming, but I think that is where we will begin to pick up momentum again. I like the idea of a usergroup, especially if it can unlock funds. Which we can then use to develop publicity.

Eck. Still more disorganized than I'd like, but it's the best I can do for right now. Perhaps I'll refine it a bit when I get back from my island getaway next week. --Ser Amantio di Nicolao^{Che dicono a Signa?}_{Lo dicono a Signa.} 05:34, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

As far as getting more editors, AND welcoming newbies, how about someone with template skills add some Welcome Committee project templates to post, that we can use to perhaps funnel new people our way? Something with the WiR logo and saying something like "Welcome to Wikipedia and thank you for your constructive edits. I see you are interested in [female scientists, actresses, architects, etc.] or [people from specific country]. Perhaps you would be interested in helping out at the Women In Red project? Articles about women comprise (current %) of the composition of Wikipedia and we could always use a hand with everything from punctuation, grammar and spelling cleanup to full articles. Here are some tips on using Wikipedia, for whichever articles interest you. [more details] Cheers, X." That way, we are both visible to newbies, as well as trying to be helpful and positive. If you need template ideas, see this. LovelyLillith (talk) 17:55, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

Just lobbing my 2c into this ..... I was motivated to look at WiR because in the past I have done a lot of work assessing speedy deletion candidates, and found as a general heuristic, biographies of women tended to be the class of article most likely to be incorrectly tagged for deletion. Since the requirement to be autoconfirmed to create articles has been switched on, the number of speedies has dropped; I used to be able to challenge 2-3 biographies a week, and rewrite / rescue one a month (this is why I raved about Megalibrarygirl for RfA, because her "success rate" is orders of magnitude higher than mine), whereas now I struggle to find anything worth salvaging. So, circumstances mean my contribution to this project has kind of fallen by the wayside. On the other hand, it must logically mean more woman biographies are being created and retained without going near CSD. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 18:12, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

I am late to this discussion also and have a few related thoughts.

I am one of the WiR editors whose contributions have dropped off lately, but it’s not due to lack of interest or commitment. Rather, I started a side project that spins out of my Wikipedia work, aimed at (eventually) publishing or helping to make public more materials from archives about women. Right now, Wikipedia can’t use most of this stuff as sourcing because it’s firsthand and/or unpublished. I’ll say more about this project another time, but the ultimate goal is to help build visibility for women on Wikipedia indirectly, by bolstering sourcing. I doubt I am the only one trying to leverage Wikipedia in other ways than page-writing.
W/r/t the page trolling that frustrates contributors who are new to Wikipedia even when they are not new to editing: I believe we should take every opportunity to urge our solid WiR contributors to go for Autopatrolled status as soon as possible. There is no reason to waste experienced writers’ time by putting everything through the Articles for Review queue.
As things stand, Wikipedia has a high sticks-to-carrots ratio for its editors, and in my opinion that has to be part of why it’s so hard to retain editors. Short of actually <gasp> paying editors, I don’t see the problem ever going away or even getting much better. There’s only so much you can do with barnstars and a sense of mission, even when you supercharge those by mixing in the wonderful community that is WiR. Alafarge (talk) 23:46, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

Alafarge, so glad to read this. I can't stress enough that our biggest problem is reliable sources. I know that it would be problematic if you went outside Wikipedia, published something, and then wrote about it on Wikipedia. In theory that would be a conflict of interest. That said, one of our most important contributors to women's articles on the Dutch Wikipedia went on to create encyclopedic books about Dutch women and now other people can re-use her work on Wikipedia. It does mean that she hasn't contributed to any of the projects for years, but I think her indirect contribution is way bigger than her wiki contributions could ever be as one person. Articles about some of the women's biographies she helped resurrect from various archives are now in over 4 Wikipedia languages, and she has also contributed to our knowledge about important works by women as well. So good luck with your endeavors and I wish there was some way that a user group could help people like you trying to do what you are doing with valuabble insider knowledge (you get what we need). Jane (talk) 10:17, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Are we losing momentum?

June has never been a particularly good month for Women in Red but this June is turning out to be the worst on record. With only five days to go until the end of the month, we've clocked up only 718 articles about women, of which less than 600 are biographies. At this rate, the total for June 2018 is likely to be below 1,000 new articles, well below our monthly average of over 2,000. The trend in reflected in this week's Gender by Language results which show that with only 179 new women's biographies, we are down to just 15.9% of all 1,126 new biographies. Can anyone explain why we are losing momentum on the English wiki while other language versions continue to progress? Any suggestions on how we can revive interest in creating new articles in our effort to reduce the gender gap? With all those who have joined the project over the past six months, we should be progressing even faster than we were a year ago. Perhaps we should reintroduce some of our favourite topics such as writers and artists, or come up with more attractive ways of inciting editors to create new articles (competitions, barnstars, editors' names in lists of new articles, national flags...). It would be interesting to see if there are any interesting ideas on how we can re-establish enthusiasm. We certainly need to come up with something really effective, and the sooner the better. Our enterprising coordinators Rosiestep and Victuallers may once again come up with workable solutions.--Ipigott (talk) 10:20, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

I tend not to think in hierarchical terms, if we are adding articles we are making progress. For me, it is always a balance, trying to find a place between quality and quantity that is comfortable. I am never going to produce as many articles as those who go for quantity, but I am usually happy with the completeness of the articles I do create. My personal opinion, I like the variety of broad topics. I made a proposal some weeks ago that we do an alphabetical geofocus, all the countries that start with A in one month, with B in another, etc. I think it would give people a really broad base from which to create articles. If one is creative, and is only interested in writing about say artists or writers, one can still write about them in any topic. For example, in Women of the Sea, we had articles created on women who painted the sea, for Pride Month we had articles on writers, etc. But for those who are generalists like me, it is harder to keep interest if we repeatedly do artists and writers. I can do it, but I must start looking for scientific writers, archaeologic illustrators, architects, something to break up the monotony. SusunW (talk) 14:18, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

I found this month's topics a bit more challenging than sometimes: not easy to find interesting women to write about where I could find sources I could use. I came up with rather stubby pieces on Lidiya Shulaykina (Russia), Marie Conmee (lgbt), Giuseppina Cobelli (singer) and Kate Hall (curator) (GLAM) (hmm, meant to go back and expand that one: anyone like to help, from the sources I've found? Not really got time right now), but it was harder work than usual - so perhaps other editors just tried, explored the redlink lists, and gave up? PamD 14:47, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

When I was contributing, I had my list organized in alphabetical order and I did always a round of the alphabet, A, B, C... if I found a connected profile, I did it immediately. In this way, what I was doing was always different, and picked my interest (cause I tend to get bored always writing the same things... So I agreed with SusunW, something that would allow people to be free to pick the profiles... Maybe alphabetical is too generic, but quarter of century? Maybe picking a recent quarter (like 1965-2000) and an old one (like 1800-1825) to allow more variety? Elisa.rolle (talk) 14:55, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

I agree that the more focused our events are, the fewer articles we'll get, and we stand the chance of losing members as some people just want to create biogs about women without concentrating on this, that, or the other. Yes, we do offer the #1day1woman initiative which allows for any new article on any subject, but think we see that it isn't enough. (a) I think alternating between the large occupations (art, music, science, and writing, broadly-construed), we'd hit each of these occupations three times per year. (b) Geographically, alternating between continents (Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Europe, and Australia+Oceania), we'd hit each of these twice per year. (c) For eras, maybe rotating through pre-XX-c, XX-c, and XXI-c, we'd be working on each four times per year. (d) We could continue offering a couple of special events each month, e.g. Pride in June, etc. (e) We could also rotate through languages (English-speaking, non-English-speaking) each month. (f) Perhaps add monthly offering by religion, though that might be tricky. --Rosiestep (talk) 16:01, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

Rosiestep I would suggest that if we limit ourselves to 4 topics, those 4 leave out a whole bunch of activists, entrepreneurs, politicians, lawyers and social work icons. Maybe a) includes artistic endeavors (which would include art, entertainment, dance, music, photography, architecture, etc.), science, writing, and socio-politico-economic movers. SusunW (talk) 16:11, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

SusunW, oops... sorry... no, I didn't mean to suggest limiting it to the four topics. Rather, I was suggesting that the four would be a constant, plus 1 or 2 others would be more specialized, as is our current practice (e.g. activists, entrepreneurs, politicians, lawyers, social work icons, Pride, and so forth). --Rosiestep (talk) 16:29, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

@PamD: To your point: I think the topics by profession have become more targeted, and thus more difficult to fill. It doesn't make a whole lot of difference for me - I tend to write what I want to write, rather than follow any particular pattern - but I can see that it makes it more difficult to fill any sort of monthly quota, as it were. The idea of expanding our geographical focus intrigues me. Another question, too - what sort of on-wiki publicity are we developing? I'd be curious to know how many new editors we've been pulling in over the past few months. --Ser Amantio di Nicolao^{Che dicono a Signa?}_{Lo dicono a Signa.} 01:10, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

Ser Amantio di Nicolao: Believe it or not, our membership has rocketed up over the past six months with over 200 new participants on our mailing list (which now totals 430). Over the previous six months, we had only 50 additions. Unfortunately many recent new members joined using John Cummings UNESCO pages and never did anything more than join WiR. That partly explains why we now have a huge list of inactive members. We have also been attracting new members from Bobo.03's monthly recruitment initiative but many of these are primarily documenting women's sporting events rather than adding biographies. I agree we should be investigating new ways of attracting active editors to WiR. Perhaps in this connection, we could make more use of the social media. Did you know, for instance, that in all the developed countries, women are more active on Facebook than men? Perhaps we can persuade some of them to join WiR.--Ipigott (talk) 07:41, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

Also, we could be doing a lot more off-wiki promotion of our events via Twitter, FB, MailChimp list, etc. Do we have a Pagestalker who is adept at Comms? --Rosiestep (talk) 01:19, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

I've been thinking about this and I surmise that we do better than we think. It used to be said that the reason why there was so few entries about women was because we did not have enough women editors. I think we burst that bubble.... and that's important! as that theory made it a problem that most editors could ignore. I think we have moved two needles. One needle is the move from 14% to 17+% and that gives me a warm glow - that has been achieved thro measure of progress, editathons, red lists, wikidata queries and focussed work. The other needle I surmise is as a result of work done outside the WiR project. Most Wiki editors have a focus, maybe its Ireland or Football or the 12th century or architects. ~100,000 of them are deciding how they can contribute and I believe that they are choosing to pick a random woman's article when they could just pick a random person. (Ian may be able to burst my balloon) but I'm seeing people like the Mayor of London saying that the gender gap needs fixing on Wikipedia. He probably isn't signing up for our on-line editathons but he is flying our flag. Someone put that message in his hands and as he acknowledges it is "Women in Red" who created the idea. Membership is up! These editors may not be adding #Jane Doe to one of our lists but I'm sure that they are now giving a positive bias to their editting. I'm not sure I can offer evidence that this is true and someone may be able to show that I'm mistaken ..... but I do hope that I'm right. (I think I have not addressed Ian's point directly -I'll comeback to this) Victuallers (talk) 17:25, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

Yes, yes, yes Victuallers. I learned when writing the article that Women's liberationists did not set out to change laws, they set out to change the way people thought. That in many ways is far more significant as it takes people out of their comfort zones and makes them think in different ways. We have expanded people's views and many now recognize that there are notable women who fit almost every field and anyone can write about them. One of the reasons I suggested an alphabetical approach to countries is that some people are uncomfortable when they see a subject in which they may not have expertise. If you have very little knowledge of Asia or Africa, when we focus on those geographic regions there are people who do not contribute because they don't understand the culture(s). If instead we have a list of all countries beginning with say A, you will have a broad range from throughout the globe, where someone may find more kinship. I tend to focus on what we have done, we are indeed creating new articles and changing the way people think. Bravo to us! SusunW (talk) 17:50, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

Given the very low rate of retention across Wikipedia I think that it is reasonable to assume that some people who want to contribute get lost in Wikipedia's vast array or varying quality instructions, writing biographies (especially about women) is hard.... I'm sure there are lots of ways of addressing this. One way would be a page on WiR which gives people a journey to follow to learn how to contribute, with some smaller, easier tasks for beginners. This could be coupled with some work to improve the standard instructions for learning to contribute, I'm often amazed at how unconnected and long winded soem of the basic guidance is.John Cummings (talk) 09:01, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

One thing about WiR... we have a keen eye for a new view on things. Maybe it's time that we start addressing the points made in this section and other sections in a monthly WiR newsletter, delivered via MassMessage with the monthly events invite, or separately. We could start by addressing just this (Are we losing momentum?), and/or include 2 or 3 other subjects. Our Librarian in Residence was a novel idea. Perhaps someone wants to be the Editor-in-chief of WiR monthly newsletter, and others might want to be on the Editorial Board? Most of the content of the newsletter wouldn't have to be brand new... we could link to what is already here, on our talkpage, conversations already in progress, and urge editors to add their points of view. --Rosiestep (talk) 11:33, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

One point John makes is the relative difficulty crafting an article about a woman vs man, which is very true and also a recurring problem. There are also difficulties in general crafting articles about live vs dead people, people of different nationalities, or people of different occupations. We could start sorting the redlists by "bio type" somehow, maybe splitting live from dead, splitting sports from science, etc. Jane (talk) 11:50, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

But let's not forget that with the right incentives we can create over 4,000 articles about women in one month. Just look at what Dr. Blofeld's contest did for us last November. It's a real pity he's no longer active on Wikipedia. Perhaps we can adapt some of his ideas to provide future impetus. Combining Susun's alphabetical approach to country coverage with some of the other features of the World Contest may be an effective way forward. Combining quantity with quality, maybe we can put something together for August?--Ipigott (talk) 14:59, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

@Rosiestep:, I agree it would be helpful to have more communication between WiRs, I don't know what that would look like (I'm not sure how WiRs newsletter and This Month in GLAM would interact). We have a meet up of WiRs at Wikimania on Thursday evening which will include a discussion about setting up a thematic organisation. John Cummings (talk) 09:26, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

John Cummings - A friendly FYI... On this talkpage, when we write the acronym "WiR", we are referring to Women in Red. I believe your use of the acronym in the above post was referring to Wikipedians-in-Residence. (But let me know if I misunderstood?) Also, (another friendly FYI, but putting on my AffCom hat) before the Wikipedians-in-Residence can become a Thematic Organization, they'll have to meet the criteria for a User Group. (cc: Pharos) --Rosiestep (talk) 13:34, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

I think the 'we' here is here deeply ambiguous; WiR's real goal is not to write those articles, but to influence the wikipedia community so to correct imbalances: it doesn't matter whether that's done by WiR members doing WiR stuff, or general editors just doing their thing. For example, I've built a spreadsheet of every female professor in New Zealand and am working my way through it. Is that a WiR project? Is that a WP:WPNZ project? Is it a personal project? Does it matter if the articles are getting written? Stuartyeates (talk) 11:07, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

We have these discussions repeatedly in the Dutch gendergap group. I have come to realize that there are so many reasons for people not wanting to post on a talkpage like this one (or indeed go to meetups or particpate in any of the other communication channels) that I think the answer is now yes, yes, yes, and yes. Jane (talk) 12:25, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

As someone who joined WiR last year, I find that my interests and expertise don't usually fit any of the monthly projects, with a few exceptions - writers, military. As a result, most of my contributions are to the #1day1woman project. I keep a folder of docs containing research on Australian women I'd like to write about on my laptop, look down the list of files and select one. I feel my output is improving with practice, and I even created two articles in one day last week! I value the WiR environment and support. Do you think people forget or don't bother to add their contributions to the relevant projects?Oronsay (talk) 13:03, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

Editors may just be busy IRL. I love Wikipedia with all my heart, but as a WikiOgress my article creation and editing time is limited. During the workweek I can do references, pictures or some cleanup here or there (which is why I jumped in at Women in Green), but writing full articles of any flavor has to wait for an unoccupied weekend or vacation time, which doesn't come around very often, particularly if the weather is good. I can't imagine I'm the only one with a full schedule. I have a couple of things in my sandbox I hope to finish someday. On the other hand, I'm quite active on Twitter and have been trying to get more exposure for WiR whenever possible, targeting feminist/history/knowledge buffs. Whether any of that has borne fruit, I can't say, but I'm giving it a solid push, and I definitely think more media exposure (and interviews with the press?) could be useful. I concur with the idea that any positive growth and contributions are good, and I highly encourage being part of the Welcoming Committee for productive newbies because a number of people get reverted so much that they just give up trying, and we certainly don't want their first experiences on Wikipedia to be discouraging. LovelyLillith (talk) 15:23, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

Thank you all for these thoughtful responses; it's given me a lot to think about. In addition to others' suggestions and comments, I think that any project that starts with momentum reaches a point where limitations of the medium lead to frustration. I've sensed a growing discontent on Twitter, for instance, with Wikipedia and gender. It's always interesting to suss out viral tweets like this one: ("Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez didn't have a Wikipedia page until an hour ago. Last August, moderator shut down someone creating her page, then killed the entry. Not enough "reliable sources discuss(ed) her in depth." Tonight, she beat the 4th ranked Dem in the House in a primary." -@oneunderscore__). We can recognize that three things are true: 1. This was probably a good-faith deletion following standard Wikipedia principles that would have also been applied to men; 2. Justified or not, this is not a "good look" and adds to the perception that work is useless because it will be reverted and that Wikipedia is fundamentally stacked against women; and 3. It doesn't help anything that many of the foundations of Wikipedia notability/references are stacked against women, because women are more likely to be ignored by "reliable sources," but ideally Wikipedia shouldn't be entirely beholden to what big media outlets do or do not cover. I don't have an answer; just thinking out loud. Sweet kate (talk) 16:42, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

Sweet kate, as it happens, the editor who originally deleted Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's page on 5 Aug 2017, citing "Unambiguous advertising or promotion," is a woman Wikipedian named Deb, who four months later became a member of (wait for it now) WikiProject Women in Red. You'll have to excuse me now; I'm off to read the Wikipedia page on Irony. KalHolmann (talk) 05:38, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

I will be frank. It makes me really cross that the media pick up on things like this without bothering to find out the facts. It makes me doubly annoyed that some of these media comments are made by women, and that those women have never taken the trouble to get themselves a Wikipedia ID and contribute to the project. In Dec 2016 I participated in an editathon at BBC Wales. I had been specially asked to join this because I was the only regular female editor that they could find in the local area. A female reporter came around to talk to those involved. She talked to the minor celebrities and the students who were learning how to edit. Then she talked to the good-looking male wikipedian who was present. Then she left without speaking to me. After I'd kicked up a fuss, someone eventually arrived with recording equipment and a short recording was broadcast that evening. I didn't go there wanting personal publicity, but I was truly shocked that she didn't even wonder who I was and why I was there, let alone take the trouble to speak to me. With friends like that, who needs enemies? Deb (talk) 07:36, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

@Deb: Oh how frustrating for you! I definitely observe that most non-Wikipedians get things so very wrong, reading bad intent when there is none and confusing many of the aspects of any interchange. It makes us look bad for the wrong reasons. In my opinion there are real issues with Wikipedia and its standards for women biographies, and they need to be fixed, but the un-informed chatter does not help us get there and does not encourage new editors to get involved. Viral tweets like this just add to the "the system is broken and biased and I shouldn't bother to dive in" mentality. Sweet kate (talk) 01:53, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for adding this thread to the July banner. As someone how doesn't create biographies or articles often, I have really been looking forward the 1% Contest. I even started a list of biographies I'm thinking about creating, and I think that the World Contest last year gave a lot of exposure to the project. However, I can understand that a contest this big requires preparation and it isn't feasible to start it each month. I'm really attracted to the idea of giving barnstars; the new reviewers and new pages project has done an excellent working in attracting users, and I think in part it is because of several barnstars as well as a limited time period. --Jamez42 (talk) 01:16, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

@Ipigott: Thank you for posting this thread (and many thanks to everyone who shared their thoughts). I like the idea of barnstars and/or a contest of some type to help generate enthusiasm, but understand that the latter may require more work than admins can handle. Also, as someone who is relatively new to WIR (just signed on in April for the joint backlog elimination drive with the Milhist WikiProject after having been a Wikipedian since 2015), I'm hoping my perspective will be useful. My enthusiasm was initially high when I started, and remained fairly high throughout the month of April, but faded somewhat in May due to the multiple times I had to "defend" the articles I was writing from actions by other editors. (Even though I was working from WIR lists, turning redlinks blue, I still had to explain why female members of the military, Dutch and French Resistance, women of the sea, etc. were notable. In addition, even though my articles were being independently assessed as B or C-class by various WikiProject members, I was on the receiving end of disruptive editing and/or bullying on several occasions. As an example of the latter issue, within 3 minutes of posting one particular article, one long-time editor performed 9 rapid-fire edits while I was still trying to put a few finishing touches on the article. Another created a page redirect with an incorrect version of a different article subject's name, and changed dates to non-English Wikipedia formatting. And when I reverted an unnecessary edit by a third long-time editor, he/she responded by posting a warning filled with "bureaucratese" on my talk page.) After interacting with each of these individuals, it was clear that they had all had made the mistake of thinking that, because I hadn't built a list of five zillion edits on Wikipedia, that I was an inexperienced editor. (In addition to my having managed distance learning and government affairs programs for two major universities, I coordinated a monograph peer review process for one of those institutions, and have also earned a living as a reporter for a respected newspaper. So, I'm confident that I'm a competent writer-editor.) After all of that, I felt like I needed a break, and so I did less work for WIR in May and most of June. Based on these experiences, I would like to suggest that there be some sort of "help desk" provided to WIR participants (maybe an assigned "mentor" to whom one can turn for "How do I?" advice, or some sort of a confidential, automated "form" that would enable WIR participants to report problems/harassment and receive rapid intervention?). And again, many thanks to everyone involved in the coordinating/planning for WIR. Your efforts are appreciated more than mere words can convey. 47thPennVols (talk) 07:42, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

As I recognize 47thPennVols as an user who is "assessing" pages I created (thank you), I would like to share that it appears their experience is the same I had and the reason why I retired. I'm not able to face hostile confrontation, and I prefer to leave the battlefield. I was doing around 100 new articles by months (2/3 articles by days, more on the weekend), and if other prolific users like me decided to retire due to their inability to enter into a wikipedian-mode, then you have at least a partial answer to the reduced numbers. Elisa.rolle (talk) 07:59, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

47thPennVols: Thanks for these detailed comments. I am really sorry you have experienced so much difficulty with the articles you have contributed to Women in Red. We are well aware that a number of page reviewers are too hasty in assessing new articles, frequently even calling for the deletion of worthwhile additions. Your suggestion of a help page is interesting but maybe the most effective way is to post your concerns on this page where they are more likely to be seen. Alternatively you can let me know on my own talk page and I'll try to liaise with those who could help to sort things out. As for the back office work in connection with a more competitive environment, I am in the process of designing a proposal which could be put to the test in August. As I want to avoid additional tasks for admins, I am working on a rather simple approach which will simplify assessment work and leave some aspects to the article contributors themselves. I hope to post something together for pre-trialling in the next week or two. I'll make an announcement on this page when I've made sufficient progress.--Ipigott (talk) 08:21, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I'm sorry to say this, 47thPennVols, but I think it's your mindset that was the problem there. To take one of your examples: it's completely normal and acceptable for articles to be edited shortly after they're created. There are lots of editors who do helpful, "gnomish" tasks from the new page feed, in this case adding categories. Edit conflicts are annoying but they happen to all of us and they're nobody's fault. Despite this, Ser Amantio apologised for the disruption and offered you a solution, the {{inuse}} template, created for exactly this situation, to which you responded with even more hostility, after having already wrongly accused him of vandalism. Whatever the context, it's absurd to describe adding relevant categories to an article you created as "disruptive editing" or "bullying". That you feel the need to "defend" articles from this kind of editing suggests a feeling of ownership and a battleground mentality that has long been identified as incompatible with this project.

To pull this back to a discussion about WIR: if these kind of experiences are losing us editors, perhaps we need to do more to emphasise that Wikipedia is a collaborative project. No matter what prior experience they have, everybody has to make an effort to understand and follow our community norms if they want to contribute effectively. For example, we could add a section to WP:WMN summarising the new page review process and letting new editors know what kind of things are likely to happen to an article after it's created. Stressing, of course, that having a pool of thousands of other editors ready to build on your contributions is what makes Wikipedia great, not something to be "defended" against. – Joe (talk) 08:41, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

Ipigott and Elisa.rolle Thank you for your thoughtful responses. I am sorry to hear, Elisa.rolle, that you're retiring because you've done some really wonderful work, but I do understand because we do appear to have had similar responses. I do look forward to seeing your proposal, Ipigott, because I suspect it will be a genuinely helpful one. My seeing it, however, assumes that I am still around in August. Quite honestly, the response above from Joe Roe was so disheartening that I'm now also seriously questioning whether or not to continue. (The tone of the response, combined with the incorrect assumptions/mis-characterizations? I just don't have the heart or energy to refute at this juncture.) 47thPennVols (talk) 10:19, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

47thPennVols, above you made serious accusations (disruptive editing, bullying, harassment) against three experienced editors without anything to substantiate them, or even the courtesy of pinging/naming them to give them the opportunity to respond. After figuring out what incidents you're referring to and looking into it, those accusations seem to me to be wholly based on incorrect assumptions and mischaracterisations. So I'm sorry if you found my response to that disheartening, but collegiality goes both ways. This project won't be stable in the long term if it doesn't challenge this kind of "us against them" mentality with regard to the wider community. – Joe (talk) 10:46, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

47thPennVols I will tell you the same thing I said to Elisa, we would hate to lose your contributions. You write in a niche that is often missed, as did she. Elisa's case, though was different, in that she did have an editor who was targeting her articles. Ser Amantio di Nicolao would never do that. You'll have to take my word for it, but he is honestly one of the most helpful editors on here and someone I know I can count on for help. A bit of communication with him and you will find he is truly supportive and will work with you to help, especially if you cannot find categories for your person. I actually adore the gnomers who follow along behind me and fix my mistakes (especially the one who fixes the fact that my "l" key sticks and often leaves me with some very public mistakes ;) )

For the most part, the editors on this page are always here. If you cannot solve an issue with a person by direct communication, pop a message here and eventually, someone will respond and try to help. I do agree with Joe that we need to stay focused on our task. The environment we work in isn't always friendly and the requirements we have to deal with make our task more difficult, but those aren't things we can actually change "right now". I have hope, that over time, they will be addressed. Instead, I focus on what I can do. The goal for me is always to learn something and share that knowledge. I avoid conflict like the plague, thus for me, it is always the path to step back and ask, is this a battle I need to fight? Will it forward the encyclopedia? If the answer is likely to lead to more conflict, I just let it rest, though in a day or so, I might go back and undo an edit or make changes. SusunW (talk) 14:40, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

WiR isn't losing momentum with me :) I appreciate all the guidance and help I have received from the dedicated editors. Once I publish an article it is no longer "mine". I like collaboration. I have two suggestions for WiR. Here goes: One month have an "independent study". Under the sign-up section the users could name what they are working on and like-minded users could connect over that topic. It could produce some quality starter pages with plenty of room to grow with additional pages. Another suggestion would be to have a gnome month. We could patrol some abandoned lists and have a spring cleaning. For example, last month I worked on the Wikipedia:Meetup/ArtAndFeminism/Stubs page, removing over 1,000 article that were no longer stubs. The removed names are archived on the talk page (minus wikilinks). Now, if a newbie lands on that page, there is an up-to-date list. Neither of these suggestions are going to move any needles, but could help community-building, which I think is a positive step. Thanks for the opportunity to put in my 2 cents.WomenArtistUpdates (talk) 18:36, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

I started out editing writing bull biographies in October 2016. If livestock or rodeo performers win championships, they are notable. It's in WP:NRODEO. I got a mentor almost right away, montanabw. Last summer, after expanding an article on a barrel racing horse, she persuaded me to write an article on the greatest barrel rider ever, Charmayne James. She helped, we got another editor involved and took the article to GA class. No one ever mentioned doing it for Women in Red, which I regret. We could have at least put it under the #1day1woman. That was my first human biography. I didn't do another biography until this past January when I did one of a bull rider. So I didn't really pay much attention to the Women in Red newsletters on montanabw's talk page. Then I became aware of Mary Burger who had become the oldest rodeo champion at 68 in 2016. Well, i thought this untapped area I could use in Women in Red. The fact that Women in Red had listed the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame as one of their themes did not necessarily make a barrel racer notable enough for an article. They also had to have won a world championship. I had already done that research. So Burger had won one world champion title and she fit into the Sports theme in May. Also, to clarify, only a few women in rodeo had made the hall of fame. There are many more notable barrel racers who have won championships to be written about that have are not in any hall of fame. And then I researched another barrel racer that I had in my todo list and wrote another article in June and placed that under the #1day1woman tag. I'm starting another right now for July. But my point is, I'm sure there must be other untapped areas like rodeo just waiting to be discovered. Why has no one considered rodeo? I am actual fan and subject matter expert. These women have assured notability, plenty of sources, and little to no controversy from other editors. Perhaps there is a learning curve regarding the statistical components of rodeo though. At any event, there must be other pockets of life that have the same type of candidates; it is just how do we find them? For example, has Wikipedia really covered all notable sports? I could do some searching if I knew what all we had already covered. Also, would getting subjects covered in the same place as NRODEO help with notability issues? dawnleelynn^(talk) 19:07, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for sharing your story, dawnleelynn. It's inspiring! And a big shout-out to Montanabw for being your mentor. Our expert for creating lists is Megalibrarygirl. Perhaps you might liaise with her on how we might put together a list of missing notable rodeo women? --Rosiestep (talk) 08:17, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

Rosiestep Thank you for your comments, it's very encouraging. I was also trying to point out that other subject areas could possibly benefit from creating a notability guideline such as was done for rodeo (WP:NRODEO) in Wikipedia:Notability (sports). There are also women who competed in rodeo in the early days who competed in other events besides barrel racing who need discovered; we do have some covered. Montanabw is familiar with this early history too. I will also casually try to discover any other areas that are notable and missing coverage. dawnleelynn^(talk) 16:24, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

dawnleelynn I'm happy to help work on a redlist. :) Megalibrarygirl (talk) 21:22, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

Megalibrarygirl Thanks for your message. I was going to contact you as well. You'll have to let me know how it works. One part of it should be easy as we can just take the names from the Women's Professional Rodeo Association's list of rodeo champions. Some will be crosslisted on the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame. The earlier ones will have to be researched out, I will see if montanabw has any ideas for that. Anyway, you tell me know how it works, and I will do what you say. dawnleelynn^(talk) 23:46, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

@Dawnleelynn: I just usually create the page, adding templates and any relevant names as needed for the crowdsourced lists. I don't do any Wikidata lists. The good thing about a crowdsourced list is that it collects names missed by Wikidata. I just created the bare bones page here so you can add to it. I'll try adding to it, too, since I know where there are a few names floating around on other lists. It's ok to have names on multiple lists since that provides multiple points for discovery. :) Megalibrarygirl (talk) 19:34, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

@Megalibrarygirl: I just added the redlinks for the barrel racing world champions. Can you take a quick look to see if they are formatted correctly, etc.? Thanks... dawnleelynn^(talk) 19:00, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

Christina Lewis

This journalist / philanthropist is up for deletion. She’s got a notable dad, so I think at least we can get a redirect, and I can find a couple of news sources - I’m just wondering if y’all can do better? Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 14:35, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

Resolved This was closed as "Keep" on July 9, — Maile (talk) 20:30, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

new woman, new source

I was advised here that this page is the correct one to draw your attention to:

"The Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women From The Earliest Times to 2004", edited by Elizabeth Ewan, Sue Innes, Sian Reynolds and Rose Pipes [2]

which bills itself as scholarly but accessible. And one woman in particular, Elizabeth (Betsy) Miller (1792 - 1864), "a pioneering woman sea captain" [3]. Please could you add these where appropriate. Thank you. Carbon Caryatid (talk) 17:57, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

What a great resource. Would that it were accessible on line. We can add it to our wishlist. Megalibrarygirl SusunW (talk) 18:03, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

I own this one (helped a friend with an entry, he gave me a copy in return). It's a really good resource, happy to recommend it if you ever have a gift card or some extra credit at Amazon. Penny Richards (talk) 18:27, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

Thanks Penny Richards for the endorsement. We have funds, we just have to determine a delivery mechanism. SusunW (talk) 18:31, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

@Penny Richards: What we're looking for is allowing ebooks to be checked out like how the Internet Archive handles it. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 18:34, 14 July 2018 (UTC)