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Trans women

Hi, at the WM-CON I was told that there is a way of extracting a list of trans women from Wikidata, and that this had been used as part of Women in Red. I'm considering how to extend this into a trans related discussion in other projects. Can someone point me in the right direction? Thanks --Fæ (talk) 16:20, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

@Funcrunch: as an interested party. I have looked at Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/LBT Women, but yet to find mention of how wikidata might help mine a wider list of potential trans BLPs. --Fæ (talk) 08:13, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
I have zero clue about technology, but maybe Tagishsimon can help? SusunW (talk) 16:43, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
I have little experience with Wikidata, but if someone is able to figure out how to do this/how this was done in the past, that would be useful. I'm still planning to put together some trans-specific watchlists, even if they're just in my own userspace, since thus far my calls for a trans-specific task force for WP:WikiProject LGBT Studies have been met with little interest. Funcrunch (talk) 16:56, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
Update: Just found this list of trans women which has the description "This list is automatically generated from data in Wikidata and is periodically updated by Listeriabot". Fæ, is that what you were looking for? Funcrunch (talk) 17:04, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
Good work, Funcrunch. That list is showing all wikidata items coded as Transgender Female and which have EN wikipedia articles. There's a clear case for this project to concern itself with redlists for various of the gender classifications, amongst which and ignoring male & female, are intersex (Q1097630), transgender female (Q1052281), transgender male (Q2449503), genderqueer (Q48270). I'll be doing that, probably this evening if the bandwidth hold out. (On a train...1E26, since you ask) --Tagishsimon (talk) 18:06, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
Now Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/Minority Genders, which I hope is an acceptable page title. Not many found. --Tagishsimon (talk) 18:26, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
@Tagishsimon: Thanks for your work on this. Unfortunately I must object to the title "minority genders", which is a poor description for trans and intersex people, most of whom are simply men and women who (particularly in the case of trans people) were assigned incorrectly at birth. If the page were limited to non-binary people that might be a better description, but even then, "minority" is a rather outdated term (which is part of why we use terms like "people of color" nowadays). Also tagging Trankuility with regard to intersex designations... Funcrunch (talk) 18:30, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
I just pinged LGBT studies on this discussion. Note I'll be out for the next few hours (so sorry I don't have more suggestions to offer immediately) but will check back later today. Funcrunch (talk) 18:35, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
Object away, old chap, object away! The forum is yours. Better than that, come up with a more appropriate title, since a criticism without a better suggestion leaves us all a bit flat. I use 'minority' in the sense that people of these genders are by a long way in a minority. But I understand that this is an area in which the terminology, and raising objections, is oft-times found important. --Tagishsimon (talk) 18:41, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
Tagishsimon Thank you for all of your technological expertise. Fixing the name is a simple process, but creating the list takes skill. I truly appreciate you always responding when I shout out for help. :) I'm not going to weigh in on what the name should be. Will leave that to the project concerned. SusunW (talk) 19:00, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
Just saying, if you're trying to encourage article creation about trans people, talking about trans people as "minority genders" as if they're not really women or men, is uh, not an auspicious start. The Drover's Wife (talk) 19:08, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
Indeed. Much like naming the list of architects 'architects', as if they're not really people. ffs. It'd be great if you could do more than bellyache, and come up with a better suggestion. What is the collective term for this set of genders. --Tagishsimon (talk) 19:11, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
This edit summary is uncalled for. Also, no one is "bellyaching", they're obviously just trying to figure out the best word. freshacconci (✉) 19:20, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
Au contrere. You have - in my view - pompously 'objected', when no objection was necessary: I had already alluded the question of the title. You could have picked up on that cue, but chose not to. The Drover's Wife, whilst doubtless sincere, could have parsed their comment for snark first. But I know. There's nothing like sitting around waiting for an opportunity to dispense a kicking, whilat being unable yourself to come up with a better suggestion. Bottom line for me is, I don't have the luxury of not naming the page if it is to be published. I don't know who your "we" is, from your first response to me, but it sure as hell does not include me. I understand the concept fo the euphamism treadmill. Clearly you're on a different part of it from me. --Tagishsimon (talk) 19:33, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
Who on earth are you talking to? As for my "first response to [you]", I only made one comment to you or anyone in this thread. My issue is your "sjw" comment in the edit summary. That was uncalled for, as if you didn't know. As for the rest of that word salad, you do clearly love the sound of your own words. But I'll stress again, the other editors are just trying to figure out the best word, Funcrunch asked a valid question about whether the name could be changed. There was no need for the rest of this, other than, as I said, your love of bs. freshacconci (✉) 19:45, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
"Transgender and nonbinary people" seems like a better name if we're still looking for one, though I'm not sure how much I trust someone who's calling other editors "sjws" to curate this list. The list isn't super great as it is (it seems to be lumping crossdressers in with trans women, and some of those Wikidata descriptions could really use a rewrite), and whoever is curating it needs to be receptive to feedback from editors familiar with the subject. TheCatalyst31 Reaction•Creation 20:26, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
Tagishsimon apparently took his ball and went home. He sulkily requested the sublist be deleted because he was asked about changing the name and was asked not to call other editors "SJWs" or to not say that other editors are bellyaching for simply asking questions. freshacconci (✉) 20:39, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
Hi all, and thanks for tagging me, Funcrunch. The Wikidata on intersex is inaccurate, because intersex people are typically male or female, and so not non-binary gender. Intersex people most often identify with sex assigned at birth, and so are not transgender. Intersex is not a mutually exclusive category alongside male and female, but rather a term for being born with atypical sex characteristics. A comparison of the output of the Wikidata with List of intersex people demonstrates this. Trankuility (talk) 21:01, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

I'm delighted to see that lists can be generated and that other volunteers are interested. I suggest folks step back from the naming issue, it's something that can be happily fixed with a little consensus building and good faith. There is no special hurry, so getting the best data and ensuring we use respectful language are both good goals. --Fæ (talk) 21:06, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure how the data quality issue can be addressed, however. Trankuility (talk) 21:08, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
Let's start by exposing the quality problems, and drawing in more volunteers. I'm much encouraged by our technical capacity to create the lists and easily maintain them. --Fæ (talk) 21:13, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
I recommend that intersex be separated from gender (I think gender has been called sex), changing the data structure. Trankuility (talk) 21:58, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

A couple of pitfalls in this area I'd like to point out (a) wikidata and wikipedia can only talk about peoples' gender and orientation when there are suitable sources, meaning that there will always be people who 'should' be on such lists that can't be; so we'll always need incompleteness warnings etc. (b) please be aware that creating lists of people who don't conform to western gender norms risks drawing the bios of many non-US living people into the US-based culture wars, I've been editing quite a bit on Fa'afafine and see vandalism whenever there's a story in the US mainstream press. Stuartyeates (talk) 21:50, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

Well, I expected my comment might raise some questions or objections, but I didn't expect to come back to an editor referring to editors on the WIR page as SJWs. In any case, I'm going to ignore that unfortunate edit summary for now and expand on what I was trying to say earlier, which was rushed as I was heading out the door. This will be a somewhat lengthy comment, but it's important if we are to refer to people accurately, not just in page titles but in classifications and articles.

"Transgender" is not, by itself, a gender. Transgender people are men/boys, women/girls, or non-binary which includes a number of designations such as agender, bigender, and genderqueer. (The Wikipedia page on genderqueer currently considers that term to be an umbrella term that is synonymous with non-binary. I disagree, as do some other editors, but attempts to change the page title have not gained consensus.) For a visual explanation of why transgender is not a gender, I recommend checking out this very short blog post by intersex trans professor Cary Gabriel Costello.

As for intersex people, as Trankuility explained, intersex is not a gender either. Some intersex people are transgender or non-binary, most are not.

Now, that said, there are some trans people, such as Justin Vivian Bond, who do identify as simply "trans", without qualifiers. Likewise, there are some intersex people, such as Sarah Kelly Keenan (who achieved legal recognition as non-binary), who consider intersex to be their gender identity. But these are exceptions.

In summary, transgender is not a gender, and neither is intersex. Trans men are men, trans women are women, non-binary people are whatever gender they identify as, and intersex people generally don't belong in any of these groups by default. There is no handy shortcut to refer to all of these groups. For a title for a list generated from Wikidata (assuming the data is verified to be accurate), I would suggest simply "Transgender and non-binary people", and leave intersex out of it or make a separate list for intersex folks. Funcrunch (talk) 22:40, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for your comment, Funcrunch. I agree with all you say, except that, technically, intersex people generally also belong in intersex and female categories by default, or intersex and male categories by default, unless they change assignment to a different category such as intersex and non-binary. Some people such as Mauro Cabral Grinspan are male, transgender and intersex, i.e. assigned female at birth, with an intersex condition, and later transitioned to male. It is wrong to describe him as male and not intersex, or intersex and not male. Some people such as Sarah Gronert and Maria José Martínez-Patiño are female and intersex and have never been anything else. It is wrong to describe them as female and not intersex, or intersex and not female. Trankuility (talk) 22:51, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
Thanks Trankuility for the clarification; my choice of words was poor. I meant to say that intersex people should not be considered trans or non-binary by default, not that they should not be considered male or female (in addition to intersex). Funcrunch (talk) 22:54, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

The list

FYI, Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/Minority Genders has been restored. freshacconci (✉) 01:31, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

Could we split this to be separate pages for each gender identification please? This will avoid making up terms for collecting them together. I'm also wondering, based on an informal discussion at WMCON2017, whether we should put the list somewhere other than under Women in Red? It is great to attract the same energetic group, but lists of trans related BLPs or potential BLPs is something that may be worth driving as a separate initiative. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 07:30, 3 April 2017 (UTC)
Splitting sounds like a good idea. I have some questions about how Wikidata classifies people according to gender identity, but I'm not sure WiR is the right place to ask them. Could you or another person more familiar with Wikidata point me in the right direction?
As far as where to host the lists, WP:WikiProject LGBT Studies seems like a more appropriate location for any list that is not specifically for trans women and/or non-binary transfeminine people. I started a discussion here in January about my concerns with WiR including trans men and non-binary transmasculine people in the project. Funcrunch (talk) 17:22, 3 April 2017 (UTC)
I'd like some time to think about it and experiment a little off-wiki. We can raise questions in other places, but a few days of slow time would be useful to absorb what we have and then shape our suggestions in the most positive and potentially effective way. I'm aware of past discussion, but I have not been following this recently, so I should do the right thing and invest some volunteer time reading back over that too, before pushing a viewpoint. I'll be publishing my WMCON report at m:LGBT+ in the next day or two, you may be interested in checking it over. --Fæ (talk) 09:17, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Some more technical feedback: (a) Looking at the query, I suspect it's the wrong way around; rather than selecting "intersex" "transgender female" "transgender male" and "genderqueer" we should be taking everything that isn't a traditional one ("male" "female" etc). This means we're more likely to catch non-Western gender roles, new gender terms, data entry errors, etc. (b) the table could usefully contain a list of the wikis which have an article for this person. (c) I think that the presence of the images in the table are a distraction (physical appearance != gender identity). Stuartyeates (talk) 23:01, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

Per my earlier comments on gender and my question about how Wikidata is structured, I am concerned about classifying binary trans people as simply "transgender female" or "transgender male" without also including the categories of "female" and "male". I'm not sure if there are any guidelines for Wikidata editors on how to enter this information, as I only started using that site relatively recently. Regardless, a query that only searched on transgender terms might miss some trans women and men who are listed simply as female and male, without the additional trans qualifier. Funcrunch (talk) 23:18, 3 April 2017 (UTC)
This is exactly right: it needs to have a "female" or "male" and a "trans" qualifier. The Drover's Wife (talk) 23:52, 3 April 2017 (UTC)
Funcrunch, if I understand the issue correctly, you want to ensure that every person with the "transgender female" or "transgender male" properties also has a "male" or "female" property on wikidata? The could be achieved (and maintained) using a similar parallel query. Keeping the two goals as two separate queries seems better (less likely to lead to technical problems). Stuartyeates (talk) 00:54, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
@Stuartyeates: Yes: Binary trans people should have both "fe/male" and "transgender fe/male" classifications. Ideally, male/female should be the primary property, with transgender fe/male only as a modifier, not listed as a separate gender itself. But then things get more complicated with non-binary and non-Western "third" genders. Regardless, I'm not familiar with running Wikidata queries so I'm speaking mostly of how the data should look ideally to be most accurate and respectful. Funcrunch (talk) 01:53, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
It is helpful that multiple properties are possible for sex and gender. The accuracy of the list, and allocations to properties is unclear and this affects the use of this listing to create new pages on English Wikipedia. Stating, for example, that fr:Sony Chan is intersex may not meet the requirements for a BLP. The French page states that Chan is born male, androgynous, and with a feminine identity. This does not make Chan intersex. Trankuility (talk) 06:24, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
Thank you for mentioning third gender. I am grateful for the efforts taken to include a good variety of gender identifications on WikiData, but we should keep returning to the issues of language and culture, as what might be okay for the moment to use for English Wikipedia articles may not fit well for other projects. In particular it's great that Genderqueer exists on Wikidata, but my first reaction was to check how it was defined, as I would use other terms in real life and found it confusing. Over the next few days I'll look into the query and ponder how to make a useful cross-project live reference table, possibly maintained on meta.
I think we should also keep in mind that the energetic discussions we have had on the English Wikipedia on how to write about trans people is rare on our projects. The vast majority have no discussion, poor categorization (e.g. on nl.wp there is just nl:Categorie:Transgender_persoon) and low levels of community engagement on policy. Implicitly we have a duty to remain a leader on policy and civility for our sister projects and stay welcoming for participants, including critical voices and inexperienced users. --Fæ (talk) 08:46, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

After a pause for a week for reflection (never enough), I suggest we get on with Funcrunch's suggestion of moving the trans/nonbinary list to be a under the LGBT+ WikiProject, and in the process rename the list to account for earlier objections. I'm thinking of the long term, and it seems most relevant to attract effort from volunteers there, rather than the narrower interests of WiR; there will still be a redirect and we should all pay attention to "intersectionality". It seems sensible that that WikiProject will be more interested in future improvements or developments to the lists, such as internationalization, and any help with working out better ways of refining the currently applied nonbinary or trans terminology used. I'll get on with doing these changes unless someone raises strong views to defer or would be better at doing it than me. --Fæ (talk) 10:21, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

 Done The list has been moved to Wikipedia:WikiProject LGBT studies/Missing biographies of nonbinary, trans and intersex people, leaving a redirect on the WiR subpage, and an announcement made at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject LGBT studies#Missing biographies of nonbinary, trans and intersex people. --Fæ (talk) 11:51, 11 April 2017 (UTC)


Lana Wachowski

Looking at the list I recognised the name Lana Wachowski as someone who previously had a en.wiki article but doesn't now (it's a redirect). Setting aside the question of whether there is now enough coverage for an article independent of her membership in the duo, can we put an infobox on the redirect? That would make wikidata see that we already have a representation for this person. Stuartyeates (talk) 21:40, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

This is absurd when the reliable sources about Wachowski personally at this point would have to be in the five or six figures. The Drover's Wife (talk) 10:41, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
The same goes for Lilly Wachowski, for that matter. This seems to be some sort of a convention with filmmaking duos - the Coen brothers don't have separate articles either - but since the Wachowskis aren't only notable for their filmmaking career it doesn't make quite as much sense in their case. TheCatalyst31 Reaction•Creation 12:53, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

I agree that Lana Wachowski and Lilly Wachowski should be full articles (that decision was made several years ago before many of the current sources existed so is ripe for revisiting), but my point was about border cases in general and whether we can put gender on redirects.Stuartyeates (talk) 20:40, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

Yes, see WP:INCOMPATIBLE. Thincat (talk) 12:42, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Maria Goeppert-Mayer Award

This list has a few entries that very probably all pass WP:N with flying colours. Thought I'd mention it here. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 04:00, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Thanks Headbomb. These do indeed seem to be women who deserve articles. If you have time, perhaps you could add the red links to Wikipedia:WikiProject_Women_in_Red/Science, citing the award as a reference.--Ipigott (talk) 09:53, 28 March 2017 (UTC)
Done. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 14:33, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Librarian in Residence

Hi! I'd like to start something for our editors called "Librarian in Residence" here where editors can submit questions about references and librarians would take them, find references and provide them to editors. I was hoping that it might help newbies out, especially, though anyone could benefit.

What do you all think and how do you think I should approach it? Thanks for the input! Megalibrarygirl (talk) 16:36, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

Megalibrarygirl, what??? I have to share you? No seriously, I think this is a wonderful idea. I did not know that WP had such a thing until I was recently helping a newbie who had posted here: Wikipedia:WikiProject Resource Exchange/Resource Request. I don't know if it is what you had in mind, but you might look at it and see. SusunW (talk) 17:08, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
SusunW, that's similar, but I want it to be more user friendly and immediate--like how some university libraries have "Ask a Librarian" pages where people can make requests or even chat with a librarian. It would be cool if I could get a few more librarians roped into it. ;) Megalibrarygirl (talk) 18:08, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

Excellent idea, yup, though the "in residence" might get confusing for some people if it's a permanent job and not literally a librarian in residence. Certainly there could be a sort of service in which librarians directly help editors, though I can imagine some people abusing it!♦ Dr. Blofeld 18:51, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

I really like the idea, Megalibrarygirl; I already think of you as the "WiR LiR". Are you thinking of piloting this just within the WiR-community vs. a proposal to do something within all of en-wiki? --Rosiestep (talk) 19:16, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
I'd like it to be for WiR first. I think it would be good if people could see when the librarian was "in." Do you think it would be OK to link to from the mainpage after I set it up? @Rosiestep, SusunW, and Dr. Blofeld: Thanks for the feedback! Megalibrarygirl (talk) 23:42, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
I support whatever ideas you have, e.g. link to from the mainpage, etc. You can always change things up as time around as times goes on. Congrats, on the new job, and I look forward to working with you in your new role! --Rosiestep (talk) 00:17, 21 March 2017 (UTC)
Ditto. I don't think anyone here will have issues with you making changes on any of the project's pages to support this trial, Megalibrarygirl. We get nowhere without innovations like this, get everywhere with them. Let us know if you need help. --Tagishsimon (talk) 00:26, 21 March 2017 (UTC)
Thanks Megalibrarygirl for another excellent idea. It should certainly contribute to helping inexperienced editors in their attempts to find valid sources of information and might also be useful to those of us who are unable to benefit from local library services. It might be a good idea to make it more proactive, i.e. instead of waiting for editors to come to you, we could specifically draw attention to a new level of support by including invitations on the talk pages of recent editors or indeed as part of an initial WiR welcome. Information could also be sent automatically to all those who register as new members of WiR or as participants in our editathons. We should also promote the service during in-person editathons and include it on our editathon pages as we launch them each month. As for attracting more librarians to join the group, I think it would be useful to include something in the GLAM newsletters and perhaps also inform Europeana. You could also approach active editors from Category:Wikipedian librarians, particularly those who have shown interest in WiR. It would be good to have support not only from English-speaking librarians but from those in many of the other countries we cover. It would probably be a good idea to brainstorm a bit more before launching the service unless you feel like providing personal support to anyone obviously needing assistance in the meantime. Let me know if there's anything you would like me to do to help.--Ipigott (talk) 07:59, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

Yes Megalibrarygirl, I think a link from the main page to a sort of Library service would be good, or linked in the contact page or something. Don't we have a general resources page anywhere suggesting sources and the WikiLibrary subscriptions? ♦ Dr. Blofeld 10:44, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

Thank you all for the support and comments. I'll get started on a link, maybe a graphic and I like Ipigott's suggestion to reach out to glam and other librarians. I'll get on it right away. :) Megalibrarygirl (talk) 16:24, 21 March 2017 (UTC)
Librarian in Residence logo for Women in Red. Remixed from File:Women in Red logo.svg

I made this logo. Let me know what you think. I'll be adding a link onto the front page for editors to contact me (and other librarians who may be interested) for reference help. :) Megalibrarygirl (talk) 20:00, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

Love it! --Rosiestep (talk) 02:07, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
Love the logo and the LiR idea! SusunW (talk) 17:09, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
Very clever logo! I also think the LiR idea is wonderful! Knope7 (talk) 03:03, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
Love it, Megalibrarygirl!

Beatrice B. "BeBe" Magee

Beatrice B. "BeBe" Magee was nominated for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Beatrice B. "BeBe" Magee. She is an American born scientist with a special expertise in molecular mycology and fungal genetics and retired as a Senior Scientist from the University of Minnesota in 2007. Can anyone find sources about her? Cunard (talk) 04:03, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

Portal for Women's history

Hi all! I wanted to create a portal for women's history. There's a portal for Feminism and Portal:Women's sport, but no Women's history portal. It doesn't look like it's hard to generate, however, I was curious if anyone else would be interested in participating. :) Megalibrarygirl (talk) 16:56, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

I haven't participated in any of the portals so do you have some thoughts on what it would entail, Megalibrarygirl? P.S. But I will contribute women writers. :) --Rosiestep (talk) 17:03, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
No idea what a portal is for. I guess my question would be whether or not it requires a bunch of technical know how and skill to function and secondly, what it is intended to do. It seems already that keeping up with WiR and its posts is challenging in some ways and I am wondering if it would make things easier or not? SusunW (talk) 17:08, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
It doesn't look too technical, SusunW. It does seem like they work best if collaborative in some way, however. Thanks, Rosiestep for the writers! ;) Megalibrarygirl (talk) 17:13, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
Also... off topic, but did you know that the British Black Panthers don't have an article? And bias (of all kinds) is just in my imagination. :P Megalibrarygirl (talk) 17:14, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
Um, yes, bias, something in your imagination, Megalibrarygirl. Clearly no one else has ever experienced it. Did you invent the word too? :P And no, I did not know about the British Black Panthers, though it is unsurprising, given the independence movements of the Caribbean in the 1960s-1980s. SusunW (talk) 17:23, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
I think they may have been connected, SusunW. There is a woman who was involved who is now a professor in Jamaica. Beverley Bryan. Sad to say, I just found out about them, too from Black Twitter. ;) Megalibrarygirl (talk) 17:28, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
Megalibrarygirl I am interested. Am currently absorbed by academic job demands, but just wanted to chime in that it's a great idea to have a Women's History portal. Netherzone (talk) 02:32, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
Thanks, Netherzone! I'll keep you in the loop. :) Megalibrarygirl (talk) 17:54, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

What sort of thing are you looking to add to a women's history portal? Recurring daily events aren't that hard to add, but generally require a good idea of what things you want to run on specific dates. --LauraHale (talk) 11:35, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

@LauraHale: I think there are a lot of things that can be added, such as the woman's club movement, suffrage, women's historical roles in various careers (ie Brewing) and so on. :) Megalibrarygirl (talk) 17:54, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

Tax Day March and men getting the credit

I was reading The Guardian today and found that the idea for this weekend's Tax Day March was originally posted on Twitter by law professor and author Jennifer Taub.[1] While researching and updating the march article, I found that almost no other news source mentioned her. Nearly all gave exclusive origin credit to (the admittedly much better-known) Frank Lesser, even though he admitted in his own article (for Slate) that Taub had tweeted the idea before he did.[2] "Sad." In any case, I added Taub's name to the WiR Academics list, as she seems at least borderline notable for her writing. Funcrunch (talk) 01:28, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Update: Since the publication of The Guardian article,[3] I've seen several more news sources give credit to Taub, so that's a good thing (and should also help establish notability if someone writes an article on her). Funcrunch (talk) 15:50, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

Deleted articles in metrics

Should the deleted articles on Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/Metrics/April 2017 be removed? SL93 (talk) 00:30, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Just my opinion, but I'd say no. It gives us an idea of total production, as well as how many articles are being deleted. SusunW (talk) 17:04, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
Agree with SusunW --Rosiestep (talk) 21:10, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
It looks like the bot removed them. That is maybe not such a good thing. SL93 (talk) 21:12, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
@SL93, SusunW, Rosiestep, and Victuallers: Quite a number are removed each month by the bot. In particular, all S.v.G.'s work has been removed as it is no longer in the main space. But there are obviously problems here. Either you want to maintain valid metrics (which cannot include red links) or you want to see how many articles have been deleted. Perhaps the Project X people can handle both but I think we first need to consider seriously what we want to do.--Ipigott (talk) 10:22, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
I think it would be good to have both lists, but only if others are agreeable, and in which case, it would fall on someone with tech expertise to make it happen. Needs broader discussion? --Rosiestep (talk) 17:41, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
I have zero technical ability when it comes to making lists, etc. Majorly important, IMO that we have lists of the articles created, but I can certainly see a use for tracking the number of ones which have also been deleted. If we cannot have both, then the creations are more imperative. SusunW (talk) 19:05, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

Czech speaker needed

Is anyone able to translate cs:Olga Hudlická into English, please? I have her as a (possibly the first woman) winner of the The Physiological Society's Annual Review lecture prize. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:01, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

Andy I am in the middle of my "subject of the day", but if no one does her, I can give it a shot tomorrow. I don't speak Czech, but I use multiple translators and back translate to make sure that it is pretty accurate. Then if I get stuck, I ask various people who I know who work on specific languages. SusunW (talk) 14:48, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
I see it's still a red link, so I'll work on it. SusunW (talk) 15:37, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
Andy it's here: Olga Hudlická. Most of the sources I found were in English, as the majority of Czech ones I found were translations of the English ones. I didn't find any sources saying she was the first woman winner, but maybe you have a source to add? SusunW (talk) 20:08, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
@SusunW: Thank you so much. She's the first easily-identifiable woman listed at The Physiological Society# Annual Review Prize Lecture, but I do need to either check those listed before her, only with initials, or find a source. I'll ask the PhySoc, next time I'm in touch with them. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:46, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

Voting for Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees

Just a note to remind everyone to think about the Board of Trustees election. It's important women and minority voices are heard and represented and that individuals involved are supportive of diversity and inclusion on Wiki projects. So don't forget to look at the candidates and vote! Also if anyone is interested in being a candidate, there is still time to submit and run. [4]. Smallbones explains this better here. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 16:33, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

Upcoming "420 collaboration"

You are invited to participate in the upcoming

"420 collaboration",

which is being held from Saturday, April 15 to Sunday, April 30, and especially on April 20, 2017!

The purpose of the collaboration, which is being organized by WikiProject Cannabis, is to create and improve cannabis-related content at Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects in a variety of fields, including: culture, health, hemp, history, medicine, politics, and religion.

WikiProject Women in Red participants may be particularly interested in the following category: Category:Women in cannabis.

For more information about this campaign, and to learn how you can help improve Wikipedia, please visit the "420 collaboration" page.

---Another Believer (Talk) 21:16, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

See also: Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/Cannabis ---Another Believer (Talk) 01:07, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

Rosie's talk at WMCON 2017 about WiR and Redlists

Redlists talk at WMCON 2017

Hi all! Rosiestep gave a talk at WMCON 2017 and I recorded it. There is a little part in the middle that I missed, but I tried to edit around it. Here it is. :) Megalibrarygirl (talk) 16:17, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for this Sue! Congrats, Rosie. SusunW (talk) 16:12, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

Which editor wrote the most articles in March?

For those who are adept at sorting out our metrics, can you sort out who created the most articles in March across both of our editathons? This is for Iberocoop's "The Women Who You Have Never Met" contest. Thanks! --Rosiestep (talk) 18:42, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Are there any tools we could use for this or is it a matter of going into each listed article to see who created it?--Ipigott (talk) 11:59, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
I started twenty women's bios in March--surely someone started more, but there's one number for starters.Penny Richards (talk) 14:45, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Library resources box in women writer bios

I've been working on pre-20th century women writers and I've come across some templates which I haven't used but wonder if any of you have experience with them, and if so, would it be worthwhile for me to use them, too? Laura Jean Libbey is an example article, and I'm asking about these 4 templates (Library resources box, Gutenberg author, gutenberg, Internet Archive author): {{Library resources box|by=yes|onlinebooksby=yes|viaf=3781590}} * {{Gutenberg author |id=Libbey,+Laura+Jean | name=Laura Jean Libbey}} **{{gutenberg|no=13740|name=Mischievous Maid Faynie by Laura Jean Libbey}} * {{Internet Archive author |sname=Laura Jean Libbey |birth=1862 |death=1924}} This is in addition to Authority Control, which doesn't seem to capture everything. Thanks for your thoughts. --Rosiestep (talk) 00:57, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

As far as I can see, in regard to the library resources, the only one that is working specifically on Laura Jean Libbey is "Online books". The others are general tags on your local library and other libraries. I think it could be quite a chore to have to add any of these to biographies in addition to authority control. On the other hand, we could perhaps create a WiR page on tools and templates, including Gutenberg and Internet Archive, in order to keep an inventory of what is available.--Ipigott (talk) 07:08, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
I tend to agree with you, Ipigott, and really don't see the value of spending time on adding these to articles. I'd really need some convincing. Does anyone know why Gutenberg and Internet Archive aren't integrated into "authority control"? Same question with Findagrave. --Rosiestep (talk) 23:01, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
@Rosiestep: I think the reason Find a Grave is not integrated is because it is put together by amateurs and is not 100% realiable -- rather like Wikipedia itself.--Ipigott (talk) 08:53, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

Article alerts?

Is there a reason why this project doesn't subscribe to WP:AALERTS? Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 15:34, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

@Rosiestep and Victuallers: are the project founders. They might know. Or it may simply be that no one knows how to do that. SusunW (talk) 15:43, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
Headbomb - Good idea! But I don't know how to do it so if you or someone else can set it up, that would be great! --Rosiestep (talk) 17:09, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
I'll take care of it. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 18:48, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
@Headbomb: I use this one a lot from my user page:

I'm not sure how to add it to the main page though and make it look right. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 16:22, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

I think if we are to put this on the main page, we need to provide some proper support. Simply providing links to various pages on article alerts is probably not sufficient. We need some means (human or bot) to pick out the five or six articles on women which are AfD'd each day. It takes too long to search through all of the six links cited above. Anyone willing to help?--Ipigott (talk) 11:24, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
Headbomb: I hope the above comment did not deter you from putting forward a concrete suggestion for article alerts on our main page. It could prove to be an important feature of our project. How do you think it could be presented.--Ipigott (talk) 16:32, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
Not really sure how that could deter me. The alerts are setup and should run tomorrow. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:42, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

The alerts are up and can be found here btw.

The next few day's reports should be more useful, as the relevant categories are being populated by the new templates. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:55, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

Super!!! :D Megalibrarygirl (talk) 17:55, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

Press

Two tags on Marcia Bakry

I was wondering if anyone could help me get rid of the tags on Marcia Bakry. While the scientific illustrator meets points 1 and 4 of WP:CREATIVE, I'm having trouble finding more good sources for the article so if anyone is able to find good sources and expand the article, that would be helpful. SL93 (talk) 15:27, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

Stub templates?

Reading 2010 Tonight Show conflict I saw this: Rosen suggested they hire "perhaps the best known (and most feared) litigation lawyer in Hollywood", Patty Glaser, to help grasp the situation.

So I decided to wikilink Patty Glaser. D'oh? Red link on the best known? Well, there's a ref here so I can at least start a stub. I guessed the templates for Television stubs and Law biography stubs ({{tv-stub}} and {{lawyer-stub}}), but couldn't find woman-bio-stubs or something similar. I came to WP:WikiProject Women and then to this page and couldn't find "stub" by searching either page, even though at least the first has a template section. Other projects have stub templates available on the first page.

My real-life limitations won't do more than let me mention this, and I've used up the wherewithal I was going to use on Patty Glaser. Sorry that's all I can do now, and I rarely make it back, so thanks in advance. —Geekdiva (talk) 18:30, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

@Geekdiva: If you've got some content and a reliable source, please start the article (or add your reference here so that someone else can pick it up and do so, as you've run out of time) - you don't need to assign any stub tags to it, that'll get done by other people. The full hierarchy of stub tags can be seen at WP:STUBS, and includes {{US-law-bio-stub}} and {{US-tv-stub}}. There aren't many stub types including "women", but Category:American women lawyers would be relevant, and on the article talk page {{WP Bio}} and {{WP Women}}. PamD 22:39, 22 April 2017 (UTC)
Too late at night to start an article right now, but a quick Google found a few likely-looking refs if someone else would like to pick this up:
PamD 22:46, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

To editor PamD: Thanks for the quick reply. (Woo-hoo! I left the tab open—and in front of my other bajillion tabs—just in case, so for once I made it back for an actual conversation!) It's a minor, me-only point, and I usually just link"my real-life limitations" to my user page, but the problem at that time was I could either let you know about the lack of stub templates or create the Glaser stub, due to having an unremitting case of Still's disease. I can't be reliable, and the Still's daily fever gets worse from physical activity (typing, concentrating) or emotional stress (deadlines, obligations), so I have to bum around and do what I can in the moment, but I'm grateful to WP for having a system that lets me volunteer as I can while keeping my skills up in case I can work again (last time was 6/01).

Uh, anyway... I started saying all this to show that I thought the lack of stubs on this page was detrimental enough to this project & WP:WikiProject Women to abandon my browser for quite a while in hopes of this conversation. I know about WP:STUBS, but I like visiting projects to see which ones they follow, usually (when listed at all) listed under a Templates header.

On the one hand, a lawyer is a lawyer, and a lawyer stub is a lawyer stub. On the other hand, women are often in red and, perhaps more often, not wikilinked at all. Plus, while WProjects seem to focus on the assessment on the talk pages, readers and editors might not make it there; showing the support of a few WProjects via the stub templates says yeah, we know what this looks like, but this is ours and a stub so keep that in mind while reading it or suggesting it for deletion.

I'm sorry this post is so long, but I lacked the health to make it shorter (with apologies to Pascal). 😵 Hope this helps.

Ps. I keep meaning to suggest to the tech-making folks that they create a bot to add at least the generic stub template to any article assessed as such on the talk page without a stub template in the article itself. However, I haven't got around to figuring out where to suggest this, so adopt this idea too if you like! —Geekdiva (talk) 04:44, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks Geekdiva for opening this discussion. I think you have made an interesting proposal deserving discussion. Until now, for our editathons we have always recommended adding stubs corresponding to the occupation and/or nationality of the individual. That no doubt helps others to make improvements. Maybe we should also have a series specifically for women but if we only add a women-specific stub, it might not be as effective as adding more general stubs. So should we follow this up or not?--Ipigott (talk) 16:43, 24 April 2017 (UTC)
I used to hang out over at Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting a fair bit, so I've thought about this off and on over the years. Traditionally, the answer to this question has been no, we don't generally use gender-specific stub tags; the feeling, as I understand it, is that it's better to categorize stub articles by discipline, as that makes it easier for people to dive into a category and find articles to expand. I tend to agree with the point. There is, actually, a women's history stub tag, but it's not used consistently. And to be frank, I frequently remove it whenever I encounter it, because it's used on articles that I feel are better designated using another tag. It's often attached to articles about writers, or artists, or musicians, whose only connection to women's history is that they are, in fact women. That might work for a category tree, but it's far too nebulous for a stub tag, in my opinion.
Put it this way: I'm very much interested in generating content about hitherto uncovered women, but I don't think a stub tag will help that unless it differentiates by discipline to some extent. I'm not going to be expanding an article on a scientist or a mathematician; I want some way of knowing that I've hit upon an article about someone I want to write about. And there are tools which can allow existing stub categories to be leveraged to determine those metrics in conjunction with already-existing gender-specific categories.
We might have more luck with by-gender, by-discipline stub tags, but I'm not convinced there are enough articles around to make those viable. --Ser Amantio di NicolaoChe dicono a Signa?Lo dicono a Signa. 17:06, 24 April 2017 (UTC)
Echoing @Ser Amantio di Nicolao:, Topic differentiation for articles about women and related topics is really important. Most efforts to improve content is focused thematically. There might be ways to go about identifying this content, and then automating some processes to make it easier to discover and work on. This could involve doing Wikidata Queries to get lists of women, creating lists from existing Wikiprojects that deal with women, make better use of Wikipedia:WikiProject_Women_in_Red/Worklists/Index#By_focus_area, create a separate Wikiproject sub-list for thematic areas and work to automatically tag them on article talk pages. Then take the new easier to find thematic lists, and make them more accessible for edit-a-thons and similar events around specific themes. This would assist organizers a lot. --LauraHale (talk) 10:03, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

Amanda Burk

Amanda Burk was nominated for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Amanda Burk. The article says, "Amanda Burk is an artist from Ontario who specializes in drawing. Amanda Burk is currently an Associate Professor at Nipissing University in the Department of Fine and Performing Arts." Can anyone find more sources about her?

The creator, Klkp123 (talk · contribs), wrote, "I'm a new female editor and I'm part of a project that is trying to create Wikipedia pages for female artists. I've added a couple of media articles, please give me more time to find stronger references for this page." Cunard (talk) 06:25, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

Editing the yellow banner on the right of a WiR editathon page (or another solution?)

Hi all, some may remember the discussion here a couple of months back about adding birth, death and achievement dates of WiR articles to the relevant day pages on WP e.g. April 13. This has to be done manually at this stage. Is it a good idea to edit the yellow banner which appears on the right hand side of a WiR editathon page (it includes the templates to add to a page and its talk page when creating a new article) with information to this effect? If so, how is this done (not having edited a side bar like that before)? TIA. MurielMary (talk) 10:23, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

MurielMary - Don't want to ignore you. Hoping someone else can address this. I've got bronchitis and pink eye so can't tackle much right now. --Rosiestep (talk) 17:14, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
Sorry to hear that, Rosie, hope you have recovered! The more I look into the day pages, the messier I realise it is. I've added some articles to those pages and they have been removed by other editors because the subjects of the articles are "not notable enough" to appear on the pages, however there is no guideline over what "notable enough" means. So I can see a lot of work going into adding articles to those pages and having them removed by editors with different judgements of notability to me. I'm going to propose a different way to determine which articles can be included on those pages, and get that sorted before adding articles. On a related topic, though, must say that it's great that the recently-added "born/died this day" part of On This Day on the main page is able to showcase articles by and about women. Ipigott and SusunW, did you see the article Karen Blixen there yesterday (I think you both worked on developing that article)? The page stats on that article went from 500/day to 5,500 on the day it was featured. Great to increase the visibility of women's stories. MurielMary (talk) 08:46, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
Thanks MurielMary for all your efforts. It is indeed heartening to see that the article on Karen Blixen was viewed over 5,000 times. I believe these postings are also often used by newspapers all over the world to highlight births and deaths on the day of publication, so you are really providing an important new level of service on notable women. If there's anything specific I can do to help you along, please let me know.--Ipigott (talk) 10:54, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
Thanks MurielMary I must admit, I often forget still to add women to the day pages. Someday we will finish working Blixen up to Good Article, but it is harder than the others I have worked on, because people edit it all the time. Hard to find a stable point. But, I guess that is just how it works when you work on legends. The merely notable, are much easier to improve LOL. SusunW (talk) 15:19, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Day pages are a vexed question, with 1.5 million biography articles we would have about 12,000 people listed for every day if we assume birth, death and one event each. (Except, perhaps, the 29 February.) All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 20:32, 26 April 2017 (UTC).

Ditch the yellow boxes on the right side of a WiR editathon page?

I created the yellow banners/boxes on the right side of the WiR editathon pages a few months ago in attempt to group like things together. It was an experiment. I didn't know if it would be well-received or if it made sense to continue the practice. As we ready the May meetup pages, I wanted to bring this up again, and say that not all experiments work, and we don't have to keep the yellow boxes. Sometimes simpler is better, especially viewing on mobile. Thoughts? --Rosiestep (talk) 22:42, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

Alejandra Campoverdi

Alejandra Campoverdi is nominated for deletion here: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Alejandra Campoverdi. She was the first ever White House Deputy Director of Hispanic Media. (cc: JSFarman) --Rosiestep (talk) 17:51, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

May 2017 at Women in Red

Welcome to Women in Red's
May 2017 worldwide online editathons.
Participation is welcome in any language.

(To subscribe: Women in Red/English language list and Women in Red/international list. Unsubscribe: Women in Red/Opt-out list) --Rosiestep (talk) 19:22, 28 April 2017 (UTC) via MassMessaging

Not my first rodeo...

I'm actually the AfD nominator on this one, believe it or not. However, I think I'd like rodeo-neutral folks to look at it, as there is a discussion out there over whether NSPORTS is too inclusive... Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Stephanie Fryar (2nd nomination). I have several sportswomen articles that I think do need to be created, and this one isn't it. Montanabw(talk) 22:41, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

Florence Finch

I can't find an article for Florence Finch. She has this New York Times obituary, which mentions a Medal of Freedom and a funeral with full military honors. Here also is a Coast Guard biography, and many refs in Google Books. Overlooked?198.58.173.248 (talk) 05:48, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

AKA Florence Ebersole Smith, Florence Ebersole Smith Finch, Florence E. Smith, Florence E. Finch.198.58.173.248 (talk) 05:52, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

Milly Ristvedt up for deletion

If any editors on this project find a moment to help develop an article on a clearly notable Canadian woman painter, Milly Ristvedt, please do so. it is up for deletion HERE. Perhaps you would like to add a comment or opinion. She goes by another name, Milly Ristvedt-Hapnderek, and often women artists "fall thru the cracks" because of the discrepancy between maiden name and married name. Netherzone (talk) 00:22, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

I found a source with significant coverage just by searching her first and last name on Google Books and it was just the second result. Editors who don't bother searching for sources before considering nominating annoy the heck out of me. SL93 (talk) 05:55, 22 April 2017 (UTC)
She's a Canadian painter for sure. The AfD nomination was proper, as she has rarely been covered in independent sources. The CCCA and Onel gallery links are essentially self-published.198.58.173.248 (talk) 17:26, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

Negative comments by Sarah Baxter

In an article commenting on Wikitribune in The Sunday Times on 30 April 2017,[5] the British journalist Sarah Baxter, who is the paper's deputy editor, made a number of critical remarks on the reliability of Wikipedia, quoting in particular her own biography and that of Christina Patterson, formerly of The Independent. The specific comments on possible inaccuracies in her own biography have been promptly addressed by Philip Cross but the article itself could benefit from additional detail, updating and better presentation. Patterson was upset that her biography described her "as having written one of the 10 most notable anti-semitic slurs of 2010". Philip Cross has made appropriate edits on this one too. But perhaps the WiR community would like to assist in further work on these two biographies, demonstrating our concern for accuracy and ever higher standards?--Ipigott (talk) 10:05, 30 April 2017 (UTC)

Without even reading either article this sounds pretty much "normal" for our biographies of women, but also how we refer to women in other articles. I just found this line in an article about a film, but I can't recall ever reading anything like this concerning a male actor in any film articles before: "Though shooting her part required only four days, Julia Roberts was paid $3 million." Jane (talk) 12:12, 30 April 2017 (UTC)
I originally added the material Sarah Baxter complains about, both to her own Wikipedia article (SB makes fair points) and to the piece about Christina Patterson. I have removed the brief passage about the 1990–91 Iraq war because the way it was phrased does not make the issue appear sufficiently notable, as it is was not taken from a third-party source. The point about whether Baxter "may or may not have voted Labour" in the 2005, 2010 and 2015 elections is also valid, and I have changed the entry accordingly. The passage in Patterson's article about Charedi Jews in the area she lives in (or lived in 2010), may be too long, but the defence by Guy Walters takes up about half of the paragraph. Philip Cross (talk) 14:17, 30 April 2017 (UTC)

List of sister tennis players by nation

List of sister tennis players by nation was nominated for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of sister tennis players by nation. Can anyone find more sources about the subject to meet Wikipedia:Notability#Stand-alone lists? Cunard (talk) 18:20, 30 April 2017 (UTC)

AstroLabs

AstroLabs was nominated for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/AstroLabs. According to http://www.thenational.ae/business/the-life/astrolabs-gives-women-in-tech-start-ups-a-helping-hand, "One of AstroLabs' main aims is to increase the participation of women technology entrepreneurs by 25 per cent."

From The National's article:

AstroLabs is the brainchild of Mohammed Meki and Louis Lebbos, the founders of one of the most successful digital companies in the region – Namshi, the online retail site.

Now the two have partnered with Google for Entrepreneurs to find the best technology start-ups in the region, and they are focusing on women.

"We need to highlight more women entrepreneurs and women in executive positions," says Ms Medhat. "People need to hear success stories and achievements by women in tech to believe that we can do it and we can do it right."

Can anyone find more sources about the subject? Cunard (talk) 23:49, 30 April 2017 (UTC)

Rape in Kashmir Insurgency

Please weigh in on the discussion at Rape in Kashmir Insurgency, it's an article of interest to this project. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 00:31, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

Six women of mathematics, only one already on Wikipedia

There's a new article profiling six women mathematicians at "Women of mathematics", Plus Magazine, April 12, 2017. Of the six, only one (Anne-Christine Davis) is already on Wikipedia, and her article is just a stub. So if anyone is looking for opportunities to add more biographies, these ones seem like likely candidates. (I may get to some of them myself, if nobody beats me to them.) —David Eppstein (talk) 20:22, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for these, David Eppstein. I can understand why Anne-Christine Davis is on Wikipedia: she's a professor. Fortunately, Natalia Berloff is also a professor so there should be no problem for her either. However there's a very strong movement out there fighting to have any new article on an academic who is not yet a professor AfD'd asap. This approach has been encouraged by DGG and others who frequently work with him. Even pleas in support of interesting new researchers and lecturers have too often been successfully opposed in AfD discussions, usually on the grounds of "too soon". I think we need to make a concerted effort to overcome this approach so that we can pave the way for the inclusion of many young enterprising academics and university researchers who deserve to be covered in Wikipedia. It will be interesting to see if new articles on any of the four mathematicians still redlinked above are able to survive.--Ipigott (talk) 14:10, 21 April 2017 (UTC)


Generalizing, this has been my exact experience with creating articles for women historians, including seeing DGG pop up and advocate deletions. There are a couple of tips to share:

  1. Look out for any awards. An international or nationally recognized award for an academic, even if otherwise without being well established in their field, is often a solid argument to apply PROF.
  2. Look out for press interest, again this can be a way to meet GNG, especially for those with research profiles.
  3. Compare with non-English Wikipedias for ideas, a Wikidata search can be helpful. The German wikipedia is particularly good at having articles for all established academics; a couple of academics have spontaneously pointed this out for their field. If you can write in German, it may even be an idea to first create the article there.
  4. Consider roles on journal editorial boards and other national committees. One of the articles for a woman researcher I have created, entirely relied on their editorship for a journal which can be sufficient to meet WP:PROF.
  5. Find any administrative roles, such as being a head of school, department or roles such as being the lead for significant research projects. Not being a Professor, does not stop notability based on their role within an academic institution. This can be tricky to argue, but, say, being the University Rector or a Dean for a faculty, is an automatic win for notability and there is no particular hard rule about where to draw the line.

Don't give up, draft an article in userspace and think about setting up something like a Google alert for new publications, or just keep a watch on a Wikidata based report and the other WiR lists as other biographies may relate to the one you were trying to establish.

Lastly, we could run an RfA to amend WP:PROF, it is clearly biased against British researchers and other academics that may be significant figures in their field, but just not hold a British professorship. This is especially true for historic biographies, as academics established in the last century or earlier, sticking to just British Professors is a heavy bias against women academic biographies, it now being widely recognized that academic institutions suffered from obvious gender bias when offering chairs. --Fæ (talk) 15:10, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I agree that women academics are significantly more likely than men to get taken to AfD. On the flip side, there are a reasonable number of people looking out for this pattern and arguing to keep the articles once they are taken to AfD, but it's better not to get taken to AfD in the first place. My usual strategy for this is to look for multiple sources of notability (awards, etc as mentioned above) to make it less likely that someone looking at the article will think it's not notable and take it to AfD The new Gog article is a good example of adding much more backing for notability than the single story I linked at the start of this thread. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:07, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

  • The standards for notability are the same for women and men, though for those in earlier periods it is appropriate to make some adjustment for the lesser coverage and the far lesser opportunities. Anything else is condescending and is the exact opposite of equal treatment. Only a misogynist would think less should be expected of women than men.
However, Fae is correct about the difficulty with equating UK standards. (Most UK universities are however changing to the US system .) We have for example learned to equate positions such as senior lecturer with professor. Fortunately, the key criterion, citations to the work, is international. DGG ( talk ) 16:37, 21 April 2017 (UTC)
Right, because unlike earlier periods, women now have equal coverage and opportunities. *eyeroll* Kinda missing the point of WIR methinks... Funcrunch (talk) 16:42, 21 April 2017 (UTC)
The standards may be the same, but they are more reliably enforced against women. Many borderline-notable articles are created both about men and women in academia, but the borderline men are more likely to get a pass than the borderline women, and even the non-borderline women (the ones who are clearly notable) are more likely to attract the attention of editors who don't recognize their notability. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:44, 21 April 2017 (UTC)
It isn't that the standards have to change, and I doubt highly that they will, it is that the "ostrich phenomenon" needs to stop. It takes on average 5-10 sources to develop sufficient biographical information on a woman, as opposed to 1-2 for a comparable man, because the coverage for women is poor. Even if adequately documented, someone is going to evaluate the article using the PROF as a standard. We must continue to insist that PROF is not GNG and is not the required standard. We also have to keep refuting those who post citation indices as a standard. The guidelines themselves state h-index, g-index, etc. are flawed, but research clearly shows that they work against women. Name changes and the fact that men typically cite works by other men, while women cite works by men and women, clearly show we are no where near a place of equality.[6] We need to quit pretending that we are with such statements as "citations to the work, is international". Articles on women are harder to write and we have to do a better job of documentation them or they will continue to go to AfD and be deleted. That's the reality. SusunW (talk) 17:38, 21 April 2017 (UTC)
I have noticed that with sources for women articles. It doesn't help when those AfD editors nominate certain articles for deletion without doing even a simple few searches per WP:BEFORE. Not following the WP:BEFORE is my biggest gripe with the AfD process. SL93 (talk) 05:52, 22 April 2017 (UTC)
I have developed skills finding obscure sources for academics while trying to balance my national coverage of academics for gender and ethnicity. I'm happy to be pinged on AfD's if anyone needs help. Stuartyeates (talk) 09:47, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

@Stuartyeates: any thoughts on Jacqueline Suthren-Hirst? Any academic invited to be on the panel of In Our Time is doubtless notable in my view, based on status in their field to even be invited. However 'senior lecturer' does not literally meet PROF. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 20:58, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

@Fæ: Samkara's advaita vedanta : a way of teaching. is held by more than a 177 academic and large libraries. Playing for real : Hindu role models, religion, and gender is held by 196. Looks to me like this meets [c]riterion 4 may be satisfied, for example, if the person has authored several books that are widely used as textbooks (or as a basis for a course) at multiple institutions of higher education. Note that the articles really needs to link to http://hooke.lib.cam.ac.uk/cgi-bin/bib_seek.cgi?cat=man&bib=14313 Stuartyeates (talk) 00:46, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
Playing for real has (at least) one reliably published book review [7] [8] to count towards WP:AUTHOR, but it also implies that it is an edited volume rather than a book actually written by Suthren-Hirst, and those go quite a bit less far towards academic notability. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:10, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
Several more sources have been added, published under Jacqueline Hirst. Thanks for the investigation. --Fæ (talk) 11:00, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

Women in Red on Wikimedia Blog

Samir Elsharbaty wrote an article about Women in Red: Community digest: Women in Red’s impact on Wikipedia’s gender gap. Check it out! Rosiestep, SusunW and myself were interviewed. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 20:50, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

Glad to see both you Sue and Susun got so much well deserved recognition in the article. You've both been doing a great job.--Ipigott (talk) 11:30, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

Slack channel

Hey. Would anybody be interested in creating or interested in joining a "Women in Red" slack channel? The major advantage over IRC is that you can share media a lot more easily, offer an alternative path for collaborating on potential tool development, etc. --LauraHale (talk) 06:34, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

Interested in joining for WiR and WP:Women's sport Hmlarson (talk) 06:45, 29 April 2017 (UTC)
@LauraHale: Excuse my ignorance, but I really have no idea of what a slack channel is. Even after Googling, I was unable to find anything in connection with Wikipedia editing. Perhaps you could give us more explanations or perhaps links to existing WikiProject slack channels.--Ipigott (talk) 07:18, 29 April 2017 (UTC)
Slack is described here. It is chat, file sharing and a collaboration tool. Unlike IRC, it also allows for offline PM delivery but also real time. --LauraHale (talk) 07:30, 29 April 2017 (UTC)
I love Slack! It's a much better off-wiki social networking tool (e.g. it's not social media) than email. Lots of wiki communities use Slack for communication, e.g. Art+Feminism (and I'm on 3 other wiki Slacks). If someone else were to create a WiR Slack, I would definitely participate, but I can't volunteer to start it up as my plate is overflowing (and I'm still struggling with bronchitis). --Rosiestep (talk) 16:02, 30 April 2017 (UTC)
  • There's a proliferation of messaging channels and it's difficult to keep up with them all. For example, I tweet a little about my wiki work while I recently noticed that Jimbo was posting some updates about Wikitribune on Instagram. Then there's Facebook, WhatsApp and whatever else. Following the recent Google Docs scare, I'm inclined to limit my exposure. But one channel that seems especially attractive to women is Pinterest. I've not used it much myself but perhaps its success in sharing images is significant and so we can learn from it. Andrew D. (talk) 10:20, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

Wikimedian in Residence at the Physiological Society and at The History of Modern Biomedicine Research Group

I have two new Wikimedian in Residence roles, both related to medicine:

I'll be doing some work as a Wikimedian in Residence at The Physiological Society over the next few months. As part of that, I have added a list of prize winners to the article about the society - there are lots of red links there for folk to work on, including several clearly notable women. (Did you know that in 2015, The Physiological Society gave all of its awards to women?) Please see also Wikipedia:GLAM/PhySoc and note there any articles you create in response to this initiative.

Also, I'm now in residence at The History of Modern Biomedicine Research Group; see their announcement. In this case, there are too many notable people for a list of red links, but see items with Wikidata property History of Modern Biomedicine ID (P3885); list at [9]. Again, please note any you create at Wikipedia:GLAM/HMBRG.

I'm happy to act as a conduit for any queries you may have, regarding either organisation.

One or two editathons will be held, in London, later this year. Watch this space! Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:14, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks Pigsonthewing for these interesting details. Maybe we should start a specific list of crowd-sourced red links on women physiologists. We could also draw attention to those covered in other language versions of Wikipedia by creating a Wikidata list, providing "physiologist" is applied often enough. It could even become the focus of a WiR editathon. Perhaps we should develop similar lists for biomedicine researchers. Are the London editathons you mention connected to these fields of interest? If not, do you intend to organize other more targeted meetups?--Ipigott (talk) 09:33, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
We're still discussing details, but the editathons will be focussed on physiology and/or the topics of the HBMRG witness seminars, as detailed in the latter's free-to-read publications. This can include biographies, and medical/ technical topics (see, for example, the first two red links in Dugald Cameron). As a Wikimedian in Residence, especially during my time at the Royal Society of Chemistry, I developed this approach, so that those with a subject specialism an work on technical topics, while others can work on biographies, or things like artworks, companies and buildings. BTW, I've added some Wikidata queries to the two project pages, and plan to add more of the same, shortly. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:38, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

Babette Hughes - into pure obscurity

I have an old 1938 book from the local library titled The Best One-Act Plays of 1937 and it only includes contributions from the "best-known playwrights". I thought the writer Babette Hughes, who wrote the play "If The Shoe Pinches", would be a perfect choice for an article because she was considered one the best-known playwrights back in the 1930's. I found no sources, but then I discovered a current author named Babette Hughes who seems like she should be notable based on the amount she wrote, being a well known writer for The Huffington Post, source 1, and source 2. However, I don't think those two sources are enough to carry an article and not be nominated for AfD. My purpose of posting this section is 1) to share my experience of finding sources for two women who seem like they should be notable and 2) to see if anyone can find any sources for either Babette Hughes. SL93 (talk) 22:27, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

I think there's just the one redoubtable woman - see here which tells us the Huff Post writer is aged 90! And also the infobox which Google offers when I search on her name - I don't know its source but it says:
"Ninety-four-year-old novelist, Babette Hughes has lived a full life, and she has paid close attention along the way. Her wisdom and wit have allowed her to not only survive into her nineties but to thrive. She has penned and published a memoir and four novels and has become a regular contributor to the Huffington Post. This collection of her best essays on life, love and loss is a treasure. It is entertaining and instructive, the perfect gift to give to friends and family who may be curious about how to live a creative and remarkable life, enjoy love, overcome adversity, and finish well."
Certainly sounds as if she needs an article! Her own website is https://www.babettehughesbooks.com/. Worldcat ID: http://worldcat.org/identities/lccn-n82206435/ PamD 22:34, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
Thank you! I think just with that third article and it also mentioning the "2012 Historical Author of the Year" award is enough to support an article. I will start the article later today if no one gets to it first. SL93 (talk) 22:38, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
Interestingly she says here that her first published work was in 1963, so I don't know how the play fits in! PamD 22:41, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
I'm going to try to solve this mystery. SL93 (talk) 22:47, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

I figured I could just get as close to the source as possible to see how the plays fit in. I messaged the official Facebook page and the page owner is sending my question to Hughes' publicist. Of course that doesn't guarantee a timely response or even a response, but it's worth a shot. SL93 (talk) 00:01, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

The 1937 playwright also appears to have gone under the name "Babette Hughes Hall" and "Babette Plechner Hughes" or maybe "Babette Plechner Hughes Hall". (Yet another obstacle to creating biographies of women relative to men: their more variable names.) According to this "The author, poet, playwright, and mystery writer Babette Plechner Hughes (b. 1906), was the wife of the editor, playwright Glenn Hughes." There's a photo of her here. And according to this source she was born in Seattle and attended the University of Washington. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:18, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
Thanks. I was also about to post that I found a picture of her here. Identified; Top row, third from left: Alfred Plechner, Morton Schwabacher, Bill Prager, Hermine (with big hat), Jeanette Rosenfeld, Babette Plechner. Seated: second from left: Helen Bornstein; far right: Carolyn Stern. SL93 (talk) 00:25, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
An even better source: Columbia: The Magazine of Northwest History, Fall 2015, p.28 has an article about her and an autobiographical novel she wrote. But she's definitely different than the 94-year-old novelist etc., because she died in 1982 according to that story. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:28, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
I figured as much when you mentioned Glenn Hughes. I looked him up and he died in the 1960s. SL93 (talk) 00:33, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
Maybe she meets point 4 of WP:CREATIVE per this collection. That source you found is great too. SL93 (talk) 00:36, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

If you don't have it already, I recommend requesting access to newspapers.com through WP:TWL for writing about pre 1960s US figures. For the 1930s playwright, I find a number of notices of performances of her work ("If the Shoe Pinches" and "One Egg" in particular). Some of these might be used to give some flavor to the reception of her work and its art. If you don't have access, let me know when you have a draft and I'll see if there is anything I can contribute using that source. Smmurphy(Talk) 02:58, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

I have a draft in my sandbox at User:SL93/sandbox that you can edit if you want (I always add info in sandbox before sourcing, but you can do whatever). I'm planning on nominating it for DYK so you could get a DYK credit as well if you wanted. SL93 (talk) 03:11, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
Looks from this as if the divorce was in 1946 (not 1944). Interesting too that Babette Plechner had worked as a translator. This might not be the best place to suggest it but it looks as if Glen Hughes deserves an article too.--Ipigott (talk) 08:18, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for that. I found a 1948 review about both her novel and herself so I will add more content, source it up, and move it to mainspace. I will add a wikilink here when I'm done. SL93 (talk) 11:30, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

Babette Hughes. SL93 (talk) 12:00, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

There are at least three authors of this name http://viaf.org/viaf/search?query=local.names+all+%22Babette%20Hughes%22 Stuartyeates (talk) 20:51, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
I made sure to get the right one for the article. If I decide to create an article later for one of the others, I wonder how to title it when they are all authors. SL93 (talk) 21:12, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
The VIAF profiles in the search results linked to above include the titles of works. Searching for these titles plus "Babette Hughes" may help find sources. You may also be eligible to apply at Wikipedia:The Wikipedia Library/Databases, for free accounts to use paywalled online resources. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:34, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
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