Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Women in Red/Essays/Primer for creating women's biographies

title?

It may be me, but "biographies on women" sounds odd. Like say, "stories on sheep". Surely "biographies of women" or "biographies about women" is better? Victuallers (talk) 14:39, 6 August 2017 (UTC)

Victuallers Matters not to me, I was just trying to get it to mainspace and out of my sandbox ;) Of or about work fine, though I am not sure I can move it again. Is that allowed? @Rosiestep, Ipigott, and Megalibrarygirl: want to weigh in? SusunW (talk) 19:49, 6 August 2017 (UTC)

Hey I forgot to say "good work" here as well. Good Work. My bit about the title isn't a biggie - I'm just finessing, but I'm not 100% sure myself. Changing the title should be possible and you can point redirects from the old title. Victuallers (talk) 23:02, 6 August 2017 (UTC)

How about "creating women's biographies"? BTW, a page can be renamed/moved any number of times. --Rosiestep (talk) 00:21, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

I think the current title is fine as it is although "biographies of women" is probably more grammatically correct.--Ipigott (talk) 06:37, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

Try and get "strong" references early in the reference list

This very worthwhile guide has just been drawn to my attention. I have a tactical suggestion. Some articles only have rather few references that are strong for establishing "notability" and many less substantial mentions that are only there to support lesser claims. This can lead to potential AfD nominators seeing the weak references and then assuming this is the same throughout. It helps to get the strong references early in the text (and reference list) to reduce the risk of notability not being recognised. One trick is to include the best references in the lead even while generally omitting references there. In the unusual situation where the best references are not relevant to anything in the lead, sneak them in there anyway. Thincat (talk) 22:25, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

Thincat You've given me food for thought. I never, ever put references in the lede. I was taught that it is supposed to be a summary of cited materials in the text. I guess we all do it differently, but I never worry about the order of the references, they fall where they are needed to verify the text. I agree that the lede needs to be beefed up on most articles and we have a lot of them with really poor ledes, but I still am not comfortable with citing anything there unless it is a direct quote, which I would probably not put in the lede anyway. Vive la différence! ;) SusunW (talk) 00:16, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Sure, neither do I put references in the lead unless I feel the article is potentially vulnerable. Once the article has been in main space for a while (a month or two) they can be removed. My suggestion is a tactic, not a recommended style. I wouldn't recommend it for beginners. Thincat (talk) 06:49, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Librarian in residence

Why is it necessary for the logo to be named as the above? I removed the caption, believing the image to be much stronger without it. WP:Bold, revert, discuss. BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 06:28, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

Redirects

I've expanded the section on redirects and hope it isn't "over the top". Having spent some time lately going through lists of WiR Editathon outputs and adding missing redirects (done 59, 58 and 57, bottled out of the Olympians as not interesting and the Hispanics as too complicatedly-named, now having a go at some of the 1day1woman list), I've created missing redirects for pen-names, for "Better known as ..." informal names, for "firstname lastname" default article titles, for full formal names which turn out to be redlinked from lists of award-winners, etc. I think I'm beginning to get slightly obsessed with redirects, but they are just so useful in helping readers to find articles, and in avoiding accidental creation of duplicates! PamD 14:47, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

I think it's great PamD, will you look at my instructions on how to do hatnotes and disambig pages and see if they are simple enough to follow? SusunW (talk) 15:52, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

@SusunW: Happy to help, but where are they? I'd suggest that there should be a "disambiguation" subsection within "Choosing a title", to show what to do when the ideal title is already taken, and that section would then be a good place to talk dab pages and hatnotes. PamD 16:45, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

PamD I put them directly under your recommendation to utilize them—in Create redirects for alternate names, but it makes perfect sense to discuss them in the naming the article section. Let me add a brief note to your comment there. SusunW (talk) 16:54, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

@SusunW: Ah yes, found them! Sorry not to get back sooner. I've spent all evening trying to get away from Wikipedia and get on with some important rela life stuff still not done.

I'm not very happy with the whole "Article title" section, as I suspect it conflicts with the general Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people). The basic rules are "The "<First Name> <Last Name>" format applies to the majority of biographical articles on Wikipedia" and to use "the name by which the person is best known". A lot of our WiR articles seem to use multi-component names, perhaps because of the US (I think) prevalence of using birth surname as well as married surname, with some names represented by initials. There's often no clear indication that it's the form most commonly used. The section at present veers from discussing choice of article title to choice of name to use within the article, in a rather confusing way. I think we should be advising our editors to aim for a "<First Name> <Last Name>" title in most cases, with redirects from all plausible variations.

Creating a dab page isn't usually going to be necessary - adding a dab page entry or a hatnote is far more common. In every case where a bracketed disambiguation is used, there needs to be an access route from the Base name. I've tentatively added a whole new section about that. PamD 23:26, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

Notability of nursing leaders

I am considering starting biographical articles for some of the many women who were prominent in the Voluntary Aid Detachment or VAD hospitals in World War I. I've added auxiliary hospital to my list of articles to create one day. I also noticed how many leaders (often county ladies) got gongs (see eg 1918 Birthday Honours and 1918 New Year Honours). My question is, does being the commandant of a VAD hospital, and receiving an honour for that service, make someone notable enough for an article? Carbon Caryatid (talk) 17:19, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

Carbon Caryatid my personal thinking is that if you can obtain sufficient reliable sources to write a comprehensive biography without doing original research, you will be fine. Someone in charge of a hospital is certainly likely to be notable if it can be documented. You may want to put this question on the WiR talk page, as it has nothing to do with the actual essay on writing biographies. ;) SusunW (talk) 01:27, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

Surname pages

I usually add women to the lists on the corresponding surname pages, so people who remember only the surname but not the first name can find them. Is there a reason this was not included the 'Finishing the article' section? Alafarge (talk) 00:38, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

That's a great idea Alafarge. It wasn't added because it isn't something I ever do, but probably should. Please feel free to change the document. SusunW (talk) 01:24, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

Will do. Alafarge (talk) 01:25, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

"Lede" is confusing

I found the use of the word "lede" very confusing. The page began "Developing a strong lede (or lead) is one of the most important things you can do," but the link to WP:LEAD is about lead sections and specifically says, "It is not a news-style lead or "lede" paragraph." This leads to the second point of confusion, it isn't clear whether lede refers to a lead section, a lead paragraph, or a lead sentence. Finally, even if it were clearly defined, there doesn't seem to be any benefit in requiring editors to learn a new word before creating an article.

I decided the intent was for it to mean "lead sentence", since all the examples were sentences, and I've changed the uses to "lead sentence".

Requested move 30 April 2019

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Not moved. Nomination rationale is sheer ILIKEIT/IDONOTLIKEIT territory + it's snowing + the nom's recent affection for WIR which is brewing troubles over multiple venues. ∯WBG^converse 14:37, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

---

Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/Essays/Primer for creating women's biographies → Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography/Primer for creating biographies – This essay doesn't provide very much information which is particularly limited to women, and would be much better as a general resource in the creation of all biographies with minimal alterations to generalize the advice. There is a section called "Sources for women" but in reality none of that is specific. -- Netoholic @ 13:14, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

Oppose. This essay and other essays in this section were made by Women in Red members for Women in Red members and other enthusiasts of our work. As this essay is in our project space, we can make changes to it as we see fit. In mid-May, Victuallers and I (we are the co-founders of Women in Red) will be using this material to create Women in Red-branded videos as part of our commitment to continue with the work that was shortlisted by ITU/UN Women for the 2016 GEM-TECH award in the category, "Apply Technology for Women’s Empowerment and Digital Inclusion". --Rosiestep (talk) 15:01, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

For clarity, adding definition of "our work", which can also be referred to as the scope of Women in Red: creating new articles about women, especially but not limited to their biographies; their works, such as the paintings they painted, the books they published, the conferences they convened; and their issues, such as women's health, women's suffrage, and so forth. --Rosiestep (talk) 14:59, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

This is about the clearest admission of WP:Ownership of content I've ever seen. -- Netoholic @ 20:10, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

You're welcome to fork the essay and put another copy anywhere you choose, @Netoholic:. Quite why you think that a wikiproject maintaining its own resources is the clearest case of WP:OWN you've ever seen is baffling, other than in the context of your campaign of AfDs against women biogs generally and Jess Wade's work specifically. You might want to consider recusing yourself from this whole area. The community is large enough that if there are genuine notability issues attaching to women's biographies, they'll be picked up without your assiduous policing. --Tagishsimon (talk) 13:35, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

WP:OWN talks almost entirely about articles, with a brief interlude about user pages. It's entirely beside the point here. There might be some situation in principle where it is relevant for WikiProject resources, but this isn't it. XOR'easter (talk) 16:04, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Oppose As Rosie says these guides were written for project members. Anyone who finds them helpful can "watchlist" them. (Comment: Can the proposer explain the timeline of this falling on the heels of a conflict with one of our founders?) SusunW (talk) 15:23, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

Comment See my talk page, isn't this a coincidence, same user who has just had his/her bad Afd nomination re-set. I just told him/her to re-read policy. Victuallers (talk) 15:16, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose: There are specific issues involved in writing about people in under-represented groups. These are valuable guidelines that are not generic to "all" biographies. Montanabw^(talk) 16:37, 30 April 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose It's in WikiProject space and should stay there. Anyone can find a link to the essay here in "Category:Wikipedia_essays_on_notability" so it's already accessible to everyone anyway. If you'd like to use this essay to build your own, Netoholic, I encourage you to do so! Megalibrarygirl (talk) 16:59, 30 April 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose for the reasons mentioned above. It's a WIR resource and should remain so. --Nonmodernist (talk) 17:05, 30 April 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose This is even more project-specific than the other one. XOR'easter (talk) 17:12, 30 April 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose: Not appropriate. Please refer to WikiProject Council Guide - Advice pages. WikiProjects are designed for inclusion of project-specific guidelines/essays to help editors of any specific project. All projects have these. If you have an objection to that, then your objection is on the structure of WikiProjects. Please direct your concerns to WikiProject Council. — Maile (talk) 17:13, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

---

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

tweet

@SusunW: New tweet. Referred to (correctly) as "brilliant" Victuallers (talk) 08:25, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

Thanks Victuallers for spreading the word that anyone can edit. SusunW (talk) 14:26, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

AfC question

This essay says, in the Creating the article section, "It is not recommended that you submit drafts to Wikipedia:Articles for creation." I don't know if that's the essay author's personal view (it does appear already in the first version) or of the Project's more widely, but either way I'm curious as to the rationale behind this – anyone know? ( Courtesy ping: SusunW) TIA, -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 09:36, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

DoubleGrazing it is my personal view, but when drafting the primer other editors were consulted and consensus was that articles for creation is not a vehicle to assist people in creating articles, but instead designed to determine if an article can withstand a deletion discussion. Since writing articles on historical women is difficult, specifically because of academic/media inattention, Matilda effect, etc. people needing actual help to find sources and evaluate notability are encouraged to ask the project members, as they have more experience in digging out sources for women. SusunW (talk) 13:50, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Thanks @SusunW, that's very helpful, and thanks for such a quick response.

You're right, at AfC we mainly look at drafts from the point of view of "does this violate any of our core policies" and "will this survive an AfD", rather than "how can we help make this draft the best it can be".

Of course, we would argue that in so doing we are also helping to improve the draft, by ensuring that when it is published it is much less likely to be sent back to drafts, or even deleted, by New Page Patrol, because we've already done the pre-vetting. But presumably, within the WiR project you do the same pre-vetting, and more? (I say 'presumably', because although I've made 70+ women "blue", I've never collaborated within the project, just created them independently myself.)

If at any point I can help in any way, eg. looking at a draft with my AfC/NPP hat on, do let me know.

Thanks again, -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 14:49, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

DoubleGrazing Thanks for your offer. May I ask what is your expertise with women's history? It's a real question, because it's more than "how can we help make this draft the best it can be". The bigger problem is that there is a huge discrepancy in the knowledge most people have of history and women's history. It isn't necessarily as clear cut to define notability. For example, WP:Politician doesn't take into account that women were mostly forbidden anywhere to hold public office until the late 19th to early 20th centuries. That means that their political activism must be judged within the scope of women's history rather than general history. National and international women's groups focused on helping women increase their political power by breaking barriers to being elected at local levels, say on a school board. If one is able to find sufficient reliable sources to write a biography and confirm that a woman broke through the barriers to holding even a local office, she might be notable not as a politician, but as an activist. Similarly, many of the scholars who introduced women's and gender studies in the 1970s were written off by academics and may not meet Wikipedia:Academic, but may well be notable as an activist. IMO, it takes some expertise and experience with women's history to be able to evaluate notability of many biographies. Often editors come to the project for help after AfC has turned down an article. Quite a few of these indicate that the AfC reviewer did not have sufficient knowledge of women's history. Project members can often recommend sources that make notability clearer by pointing out the limited roles women were allowed in their eras. SusunW (talk) 15:33, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

@SusunW: okay, receiving you loud and clear. I have no expertise in this subject matter, so you should probably just ignore my earlier comments.

I've so far contributed to this project by selecting Finnish women from the WP:WIRINDEX list and translating their fi.wiki (and in some cases sv.wiki) articles into English, adjusting the content and referencing to meet en.wiki's requirements. This is clearly all very pedestrian compared to the sort of deliberations you describe. -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 17:56, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

DoubleGrazing truly, all contributions that help to expand the knowledge of women's history are helpful and I genuinely appreciate that you are adding women to expand our knowledge. (Scribbles down name to contact for when I need help with Finnish/Swedish.) SusunW (talk) 18:07, 5 August 2024 (UTC)