Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Women in Red

Woman of the day: a new one each day from our women's biographies

Victuallers, the Goal Setter

Dear Victuallers, your post earlier this month inspired me: you reached your goal of 365 women's biographies in 365 days. So I've decided to set one for myself, though admittedly, it's a bit less taxing than yours: by 31 Dec 2024, I'll have created a grand total of at least 2,500 women's biographies. I'll track my progress here, which shows that as of today, I'm at 2,177 (so I'll only need to create another 323). Anyone else have personal goals for 2024? Also, can someone with design skills please create a Victuallers, the Goal Setter Barnstar that we can award to Roger, and subsequently, to anyone else who publicly shares their WiR-inspired goal and reaches it? Thank you! -- Rosiestep (talk) 21:13, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

I think my count is also somewhere around 2500, but I don't know of a good way of counting it exactly. Is there a way of doing this without manually logging each one? (I've also been creating roughly one biography per day for the last few years but not on a strict basis: if I miss a day and fill in another one on another day, it balances out.) —David Eppstein (talk) 22:42, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

oh this sounds like fun, particularly if there is a way of working out how many women's biogs we've written automatically. I think mine is between 1,000 and 2,000 .... but I don't really know. Is there a tool? One every day is a higher target. I actually did quite a few more to achieve one start a day. Victuallers (talk) 23:32, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

David Eppstein: Under About on the main WIR page you'll find a link to this tool. I must say I've never managed to get it to run. Perhaps someone can help. As for goals, I've never tried to create an article about women every day but I see there have been years in which I've managed to create well over 200. As far as I can see, I'm now at just over 1,900 women articles. I hope to reach 2,000 fairly soon. My main goal for 2024 is to encourage more contributors to become members of women in red. Many of this year's new members are the result of my efforts. I hope I will be able to attract even more next year.--Ipigott (talk) 12:01, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

I couldn't get that tool to work either, but backing out anything that wasn't a woman (I did not count women's organizations, women's schools, or women's works) of the 1510 articles I've created 1177 of them were women's biographies. My goal for the last few years has been to take at least 1 article a month to GA status. This year I thought I'd try 2 per month, and with the help of many collaborators, I managed 29 nominations. Sometimes it takes me more than a month to create an article, so I doubt I could write even 100 in a year. Since I often find my "next victim" from the article I am presently writing, I am thinking I am going to see how long of a chain I can make. Not sure how exactly to explain that but write an article on a woman that has a redlink for another woman, write that redlink and pick up another from her article. I am wondering if I can make a chain longer than 5. We'll see. SusunW (talk) 15:39, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Recalculation. So RosiestepDavid EppsteinIpigott - the tool didn't work (damn) so I thought Id check my own figures. I thought I had written somewhere between 1,000 and 2,000 women's biogs. I downloaded the lot to a spreadsheet and over some hours sorted them into piles. Seems I have written 2,400 articles about women. I ignored the articles about books written by women, women's societies and girl's schools as they were included in the remainder. The total number of articles that are not women biogs is about 900. I was surprised. I think we should encourage a coder to create a list of the top 1,000 wikipedia editors with their number of articles AND summarised for a) gender bias and b) US/UK v. the rest bias. The researchers below could take that as a suggested action to encourage greater diversity on Wikipedia. Oh and Rosie - a nice sounding stretch goal would be "2025 by 2025" :-) Roger aka Victuallers (talk) 16:30, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

Victuallers Love "2025 by 2025". At least a barnstar. Would someone who is handy be willing to create it? Where could we keep track of those who reach the goal? --Rosiestep (talk) 20:18, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

I might do another century challenge for 2024, this time with death years (which are sometimes more reliably established than birth years). As for counting my WIR bios... I might be in the same ballpark. Lemme check....Okay, just did a quick scan through, but I believe I've started 2353 biographical articles about women. I've apparently started 44 articles about men, companies, organizations, names, places, and awards--so it was easier just to count those and subtract. On Sunday I should start my 2400th new article (by my count, not Wikipedia's--we seem to count slightly differently and I've given up trying to make it match). I think that works out to about 200 per year. Once I took off a month from starting new articles, and only did destubs; that's also a good thing to do, and I should do it more often. I also want to do more integrating with WikiQuote in the new year; it's not difficult and it's good to add to the stock of sourced quotes by women.Penny Richards (talk) 17:57, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

What a great idea for a tool! Hope someone is inspired to make that! Lijil (talk) 17:30, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Redirect on Louise C. Purington

Regarding "2025 by 2025"... Last night, I started an article on Louise C. Purington. As the page "Louise C. Purington" was created as a redirect in 2022 by Penny Richards, the article will be "credited" as started by Penny. No worries! Why I'm bringing it up is for the sake of understanding the technology better. Does anyone know how to change the credit in cases like this from the person who created a redirect to the person who created the article? I know of no way of doing it other than to have deleted the redirect first, which I could have done as an admin, but didn't. --Rosiestep (talk) 20:18, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

I run into this issue all the time, because when the redirect is deleted (often happens to make way to move a draft), that counts “against” the person who made the redirect. My articles created tally says almost 2% of the pages I’ve created have been deleted but it’s almost all cases like this. (And then two failed attempts to set up archives before I understood namespaces, ha.) Innisfree987 (talk) 20:43, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

I like 2025 by 2025 too but why wait so long? Couldn't we start with 2024 by 2024? We need to introduce additional incentives sooner rather than later and I'm pretty sure I could hit the 2024 target over the next few months. As for existing redirects, these are a real problem. Many of the articles I have created have been on the basis of women involved in various organizations or who have been married to men already covered. I've not worried too much about it but I realize the credit goes to whoever created the redirect. Maybe we could propose some "official" means of having a redirect deleted in order to pave the way for a real new article. I have a feeling many contributors might avoid creating articles on the basis of existing redirects and that many deserving women may simply remain as redirects for years to come. Perhaps one of our future monthly priorities could deal specifically with redirects. In advance, we could prepare lists of those deserving their own biograpies, etc., etc. As for the tool which continues to malfunction, as it's based on Wikidata, maybe Maximilianklein, Tagishsimon, Edgars2007 or The Earwig could help. It seems to me it would also be helpful if the two current submits could be reduced to just one. For reminders, the tool is here.--Ipigott (talk) 14:39, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

I was wondering about the problem of the redirects @Ipigott @Innisfree987@Rosiestep - if you created a page under a different name first (as if you didn't know the redirect existed) - e.g. Louise Purington, rather than Louise C. Purington, you'd get page creation credit. And then redirect the redirect, as it were? Maybe that's breaking some rules, or isn't possible, I'm not an admin so am a bit hazy on that? DrThneed (talk) 05:00, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

• DrThneed: If you're really concerned about inappropriate redirects, especially if you intend to create new articles, you can always ask an administrator to delete them. While I'm here, I would like to let you knoe how much I appreciate your many solid biographies of New Zealand women, including all those academics since the beginning of the year. Impressive work!--Ipigott (talk) 07:12, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

  Aw thanks for the kind words @Ipigott! Right back at you - I see all the tidying up and rating and other work that you and others put into pages other people (including me) made, and much appreciate it! I don't think I'll be able to keep the current pace up (about to get family visiting for a few months) but motivation is high! Good point about getting redirects deleted instead. DrThneed (talk) 18:48, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

• DrThneed: Creating the redirects either before or after creating the actual article is something I try to remember to do with each biography, but I admit to being lax about it. I am ever so grateful when another editor comes along and creates those redirects. Yes, the person who creates the redirect gets the credit for it, and that is absolutely as it should be. --Rosiestep (talk) 19:07, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

ETA: And you are absolutely right, existing redirects do put some people off creating pages, because it certainly does me (it also annoys me immensely when I click on a blue link in an article and find myself at a husband's page instead, because if I didn't click I wouldn't know she was a Woman in Red). DrThneed (talk) 05:02, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

If I am understanding the proposal correctly, I think the difficulty would be running afoul of WP:COMMONNAME. I.e. the alternate page title should only be kept if it is in fact the right title for the page—I imagine that often the redirect occupies the correct title. Innisfree987 (talk) 05:08, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

@DrThneed There is a gadget or script you can use whereby all redirects show up in green (and pages proposed for deletion in pink, and various others). I can't at the moment remember what it's called, but it means I always know whether something is a redirect. Of course it won't distinguish between a redirect from another version of someone's name (not a red link), and a redirect to an article on her husband / school / book etc (a sort of red link).

The whole issue of redirects and the credit for the replacement article is interesting. I create vast numbers of redirects, and sometimes find I'm getting notifications as the "creator" of an article which someone else created years ago over-riding a redirect I'd created, either for the same person/topic or for someone/thing quite different (which is fine by me as long as they add a hatnote to replace the original redirect, which they don't always do).

There was a discussion elsewhere on this talk page at #Simple guide sought, about creating a dab page over a redirect and doing it in an elaborate way in order to get the credit as creator.

It would be sensible if Wikipedia's systems could work out a way to recognise the person who converts a redirect to an article (or even a dab page) as the true creator of that resulting article, both for credit and for the purpose of sending notifications of AfDs etc. Perhaps we should suggest it.

But of course if you create an article over-writing a redirect, you can include it in your own records of "articles created" and list it in WiR editathon listings and anywhere else, and you know you started it, which is what is important. I keep a manual record of the articles I create, so I can annotate it with why I created them ("Heard about this on news this morning", "Found a red link in xyz", etc), and am very glad I got into that habit from the start. PamD 10:32, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

@DrThneed Found it: the way to colour redirects green is a Userscript called "linkclassifier". See User:Anomie/linkclassifier. PamD 10:39, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks @PamD! Useful script. It's not a huge issue for me, I've only created one page over a redirect so far (which was a redirect to a disambiguation page for....a different name!) so my manually created list versus the tool-created list only differs by one. But I agree it would be great if the systems were set up to make it easy to get the page credit. DrThneed (talk) 18:46, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

I am absolutely inspired by the achievements in this thread! My own goal for 2024 is very modest compared to the rest of you - I want to ensure all current women professors in NZ have pages by December. The list is currently 144 (although some of those have now become emeritus or left NZ) but will likely grow a bit in the next month or two as more promotions are announced. Mostly I'll be working on Wikidata though, as I only have about 5000ish advisors left to disambiguate in the NZThesisProject and want to get them done by year's end. And along the way there'll be some new women Fellows of the RSNZ. DrThneed (talk) 07:37, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

@DrThneed I'd help out with a couple of NZ professors! If you have a list that is? Lajmmoore (talk) 11:34, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

That's very kind Lucy! Of course I have a list, and a template that I generally start with. I have conflicts of interest with a few on the list (Louise Parr-Brownlie, Tammy Steeves, Hazel Chapman, Emma Wyeth, Dorothy Oorschot) but pick whoever you fancy, there's plenty to choose from! Some are easier than others but you don't generally know that til you start. DrThneed (talk) 18:41, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

Women in Red January 2024

Women in Red | January 2024, Volume 10, Issue 1, Numbers 291, 293, 294, 295, 296 Online events: New: Education (year-long initiative) | Alphabet run M & N | Temperance women Continuing: #1day1woman | Women who died in 2023 Announcement In 2024 Women in Red also has a one biography a week challenge as part of the #1day1woman initiative! Tip of the month: Check out the new navigation on our Women in Red Project home page. Other ways to participate: Become a member. You can always opt-out of notifications. Join the conversations on our talkpage. Help us plan future events and add any general ideas on developing the project. Follow us on social media: Facebook | Instagram | Pinterest | Twitter

Template:WIR (Women in Red talkpage banner discussion)

Good day to you all. I am here to try and find a way to resolve issues previously identified with having multiple instances of your banner template on some talk pages (example: Talk:Zarifa Ghafari). This was previously discussed at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2023 June 23#Template:WIR but without consensus. A suggestion made by some at that discussion, was to discuss with the project to find the best way forward. And so here I am.

Firstly, can I emphasise that there is no intention to make any change which will disrupt the workflow of any editor or bot. However there are definitely improvements we can make. Can I draw your attention to the system currently used by Women in Green, which seems to be working very successfully. The details of all their events are held in one central page (see here) and their editors can type {{WIG|1}} or {{WIG|2}}, etc. depending on the event number.

My suggestion for Zarifa Ghafari would be typing something like {{WIR|108|140|150|246}}. Then the template could display all events in an inline style, e.g.

or perhaps a list of events would be clearer, e.g.

We could even switch between the styles automatically depending on how many events are included. In fact, for the majority of uses where only one event is used, there would be no change in appearance at all.

None of the categories would change, so all the currently used tools would continue to work as normal (contrary to what was claimed by some in the TfD). And all changes will be carefully tested before deploying, in close consulation with any interested editors from your project. Look forward to hearing your opinions — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 23:08, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Hi MSGJ, My recollection, which I feel is confirmed by reading through the 2023 thread, is that as one of the most active working groups on Wikipedia, the majority of those responding lean towards wanting all the banners on the talk pages and do not see an overall advantage in space saving or aesthetics on trying to reformulate the templates. The "downside" of multiple banners is mainly your aesthetic preference for the use of talk page space. We'd just like to keep the banners as they are please. Thanks. --WomenArtistUpdates (talk) 01:46, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

I am aware of the preference of some members of this project. But I would just ask you to review the discussion and take on board the significant concerns from the community expressed there. I think if there is no compromise then this issue will keep coming up. May I ask what you don't like about the combined banner? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:48, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Apologies for not being clearer in my response MSGJ. I should have linked back to the discussion that the group had on this talk page about 6 months ago. This issue was discussed by the group. And the majority of those responding lean towards wanting all the banners on the talk pages.

The closer of the template discussion summed up my opinion correctly: Proponents of keeping the status quo argued that changing these banners would disrupt the workflow of the WikiProject, that it would result in a template with lots of code which would be difficult to maintain, and that it is rare for a WiR article to have more than one template.

Reading through both threads (the merger request and the one from this talk page) does not indicate any technical reason to merge the templates and do not adequately establish any harm created by multiple banners. I think multiple banner tell their own story. I was just working on a page Talk:Mary Maher (journalist) and it is interesting to me to see the evolution of the page. Best, --WomenArtistUpdates (talk) 16:08, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

The changes to {{WikiProject banner shell}}, which happened not long after the 2023 TfD, has made the banner blindness issue much less of an issue I think (example). Curbon7 (talk) 08:44, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Actually the recent changes to WPBS only affect class rating which this project does not use anyway. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:48, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

That is incorrect. The changes also made the collapsed version of the Wikiproject banners in the shell significantly more compact, as shown above. Curbon7 (talk) 21:11, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

I like the version with the list of events. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 10:03, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps it should only use the list version when there is more than one event? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:49, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Why have two versions when one will do? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 13:06, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Either works! (And certainly easier to code that way.) — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:19, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

@MSGJ I would be happy to see a change which resulted in that neater display, and perhaps even a reduction to a one-line display in the compact banner shell display as long as it listed all the different editathons, BUT only if the revised version of any banner templates continued to provide the functionality needed by some of the WIR project members who use the banners to analyse, track, list, articles. The previous discussion raised a lot of acrimony because proposals were made which ignored these needs.

Note that the example given at the start of this post, Talk:Zarifa Ghafari, looks like this, quite clunky if the WiR banners are outside the banner shell, but like this, much more compact if they are moved inside the shell. I've just moved them inside, though I now see that they've already been moved in and out again for the purposes of this discussion. I think we can agree that the former version was problematic. It's more questionable whether the second, more compact format (ie inside the banner shell) is also problematic.

I don't know whether we have statistics as to how many of the WiR articles are tagged with more than one editathon banner: I know I contribute a fair number of 2- or 3-editathon articles but I think I'm in a small minority, and the vast majority of our articles only get one WiR banner. There may be many much more important things in Wikipedia to worry about that duplicate WiR banners. PamD 10:05, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

only if the revised version of any banner templates continued to provide the functionality needed by some of the WIR project members - yes this is an absolute commitment.

I don't know whether we have statistics - Yes we do, please see Category:Pages with multiple WikiProject Women in Red banners — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:51, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. So that looks like roughly 1 in 20 of our WiR articles having 2 or more banners. Useful to know. (I took 44k as our total no of WiR articles after a rough adding-up of the numbers in the subcats at Category:WikiProject Women in Red articles - I'm sure there's a better number somewhere). PamD 08:50, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

My view is I strongly believe all WIR (talkpage) templates should be inside the banner shell (which is also less clunky, as Pam says). Ideally they'd be next to each other, rather than scattered randomly, but that's not an issue and RATER seems to do that anyway if I recall correctly. However, I don't believe it's a big issue whether once inside the shell if they are combined or not as above. Though if they were combined my preference would be list option (i.e. 2nd option), as I find that easier to read. -Kj cheetham (talk) 10:30, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

No other WikiProject uses multiple banners, and pages which do are being tracked via Category:Pages using WikiProject banner shell with duplicate banner templates and fixed. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:52, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Four things:

• If I had to choose between Options #1 and #2 (noted above), I prefer #2 (bullet point list that includes event date).
• I would be happy to see a change which resulted in that neater display, and perhaps even a reduction to a one-line display in the compact banner shell display as long as it listed all the different editathons, BUT only if the revised version of any banner templates continued to provide the functionality needed by some of the WIR project members who use the banners to analyse, track, list, articles. The previous discussion raised a lot of acrimony because proposals were made which ignored these needs.
• I strongly believe all WIR (talkpage) templates should be inside the banner shell. Ditto all other WikiProject talkpage templates.
• But/And, MSGJ, let us acknowledge that Women in Red is one of the most active WikiProjects that has existed on any language Wikipedia, ever, and that this is due at least in part because we tend to make our own path in how to do things, vs. following along with what others are doing. Truly, our ... multiple banner(s) tell their own story; no one else does that. For example, sometimes, our banner includes a unique logo (see Talk:Uri Ruiz Bikandi), ergo, is there a way to retain unique logos if we were to shift to Option #2 (bulletpoints that include event link+date+unique logo)? --Rosiestep (talk) 19:17, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Good point about the unique logos, I hadn't thought of that! -Kj cheetham (talk) 19:21, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

I strongly support Rosiestep's point in regard to WIR paving the way for improvements to wikiprojects. I personally see no need to introduce changes simply because no other projects follow our approach. What we have developed serves the needs of our project and our participants have never complained about how we have developed individual coverage of our events. On the contrary, the extent to which our features are used demonstrates interest and support. In addition, Headbomb has introduced automatic listings of DYKs, etc., based on our event templates. This is, I believe, something of an innovation and deserves support. Rather than suppressing these progressive developments, it might be more sensible to encourage other wikiprojects to adopt what we have developed for WIR. In this connection, I believe Women in Green is beginning to follow our approach.--Ipigott (talk) 08:36, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

@Ipigott I suggest that @MSGJ talks to @Headbomb to see whether a multi-project template could be engineered to provide all the facilities Headbomb needs for their automation.

I'm sympathetic to the view that we currently sometimes take more than our share of the screen space by displaying muultiple banners. Although our logos are very pretty, I'm not sure that we can justify taking several different lines: perhaps when an article is in multiple projects, the first-named editathon should take priority and have its logo used: in most cases, there's a key "occupation" editathon which is more important than the A-Z or death-date one; geo topics might be a second claimant for top place / logo use, but leave that to the choice of the creating editor. PamD 08:55, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

I think we should leave it up to our contributors. Those who feel it is important to mention more than one event should be permitted to do so, just as contributors in other areas sometimes add long lists of wikiprojects even for short stubs. I'm not sure I can agree that "occupation" events should have priority over A-Z or death-dates. Victuallers frequently uses A-Z for his British or Australian biographies while many non-contributors may be interested in reviewing biographies of people who have died recently. The above statistic of one in twenty displaying more than one event is no doubt partly a result of all the discussions on the matter here. About a year ago I think the proportion was about one in a hundred or so but now quite a few participants seem to enjoy the challenge of adding as many events as possible. Such positive interest in targeting more than one event may serve as an added attraction for creating biographies. Those really concerned about the amount of space taken up by multiple event listings can always use the "collapsed" banner shell parameter (see Template:WikiProject banner shell) but I would suggest this should only be used on talk pages presenting discussions in addition to wikiproject templates -- otherwise there's hardly a need to save space.--Ipigott (talk) 10:37, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

WiR Tidy Talk Pages (please view with sense of humor) --WomenArtistUpdates (talk) 18:01, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

I remember that when we started we were critisised for not including as assessment of class and importance in our templates. We were not following the accepted way that templates were meant to be. Now I notice that the standard has changed and class and importance are not being classed by every wikiproject but defined in the banner. So it seems that all projects are now moving to the standard that we were criticised for. Wikimedia has created a style of working. The style of working did not create Wikipedia.... (but it may ensure that we have tidy memorial). Now I write a biography every day full of grammar and typos and I'm moved to do so by several WIR editathons. After I have done my work and I am brilliantly assisted by more fussy editors then I see that there are lots of templates recording one, two or even three Women in Red templates. It also includes templates for WP Women, WP Women's History, WP Women Writer's, WP Women artists, WP Education etc etc. I don't mind. But the two or three templates Women in Red templates are the reason that the article exists. They may be the untidy bit but they are the reason that the article exists. The article exists because someone was inspired to add to Wikipedia. We can polish the talk pages and if someone wants to start WikiProject Tidy Talk Pages then thats OK with me. You can even add that WikiProject's template to all the new WIR articles ... but lets not forget that we are trying to create a free (diverse and balanced?) encyclopedia. Talk pages and Wikiprojects are a devise for inspiring volunteers to help. They are not the objective. If our WIR template designs are unsuccessful then it will be quickly fixed as we will lose our volunteers and there will be not more untidy WIR talk pages (we add our templates to stuff we work on). By all means, work on this, but please let style emerge from our activity. Activity will not emerge from style. Victuallers (talk) 11:36, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

My 2 cents which is worth absolutely nothing is that this feels like badgering. Revisiting this discussion every six months takes us away from our primary task of writing articles. MSGJ says "the significant concerns from the community expressed there" which is somewhat misleading and instead is actually concerns from the few members of the community who were working on a project to redesign talk page templates. I don't typically use multiple templates, even if I list an article I create on multiple event pages, but that is my style. I see no need to police other people's preferences. Simply because we don't conform to what other projects do is not a valid argument. If we did, we, like them, would probably lose participants. We encourage participation and if adding multiple banners encourages people to write articles, we have been effective. We have always marched to a different drummer, and that is perfectly fine. Absolutely, we can discuss changes and may even accept some proposals, but with that comes the caveat that we can reject them too. Like PamD, I think overall, "there may be many much more important things in Wikipedia to worry about that duplicate WiR banners". For starters, a functional search engine that doesn't require searching on google to find a WP article, an easier way for full citations to be generated without having to be a coding expert, etc. SusunW (talk) 14:12, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

I also hope we can resolve this issue so we can stop troubling you with the technical aspects and let you all get on with your article writing which you are so good at. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:38, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

I fully agree that the unique and fantastic images should be included. For a possible design that retains them (based on Talk:Uri Ruiz Bikandi) please see below:

And this could be presented in collapsed form like this

Notice the names of the events display when you hover your mouse over the icons. A text-based idea can also be used. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 23:48, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

I support either one of these suggestions. No other group uses multiple separate banners when they could be collapsed into one (and there are numerous projects that could do so). MSGJ has gone above and beyond accommodating the technical aspects here. JoelleJay (talk) 00:39, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

MSGJ: The "show" version of this looks good. Would it not be possible to make show the default? That would no doubt satisfy most contributors but there could be a "hide" option for those interested in saving space.--Ipigott (talk) 13:46, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

All banners behave in the same way. The uncollapsed version if put outside a banner shell and the collapsed version if inside the shell. The purpose of putting them inside a shell is to take up less space, but we can still indicate a summary of the information in the collapsed version. Sorry if I didn't understand your point. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:15, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

I think that looks really rather good: Within the banner shell a WiR line with row of our icons (or, usually, just the one), with the option of "Show" to get more detail. As long as it still satisfies the needs of @Headbomb: etc who use our templates for other purposes of recordkeeping etc. PamD 12:10, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

Thank you everyone for your comments. While there is some apprehension and skepticism, I see enough support to explore this further. I will follow up on Template talk:WIR in due course with more mock-ups and proposals. If you are interested, then see you over there — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:30, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Some editors commented in this section but aren't pinged at Template talk:WIR#Version which will accept multiple events, so here's your ping (cc: @Curbon7, SusunW, Victuallers, and WomenArtistUpdates). --Rosiestep (talk) 23:05, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks Rosie, I see above that if we agree with this (small) group then they will stop asking for our approval and allow us to get on with our work... I like the last bit - Let us get on with our work. Now lets imagine that we did agree and I want to start "Men in Purple"... do I need their permission to have a template that doesnt conform to mundanity? Do I think that directing our time to template design could result in some very consistently designed talk pages .... of course. There are 5.5 million talk pages on the en:wiki... why are we getting so much attention? Is it because people disproportionally see our new talk pages? Great! With an extra splash of uniformity they wont notice them at all. Please can I request less help. I want to get back to writing and improving articles .... which is actually the prime objective. Let us get on with our work. Victuallers (talk) 08:27, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

Of course, you are free to gather input anywhere you wish, MSGJ, but please don't make decisions about Women in Red "over there" until consensus is reached "over here". Thank you. --Rosiestep (talk) 12:35, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

Call for final comments on the banner conversion

Looking for any last comments on the banner conversion. The banner will look identical in 95% of cases, and only look different when multiple events are used. Editors seem to like it and we are just double-checking that all the technical processes will still work as normal. Thanks — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:10, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

• I cannot agree that most editors like your proposals. From the above comments, including those from the two founders of Women in Red, the consensus seems to be that no further changes are needed. The current displays also seem satisfactory for me. So let's just leave things as they are without any more changes. At least it now seems in order for us to add multiple WIR events to the talk pages of our articles.--Ipigott (talk) 17:55, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

  Can I suggest you come to the template talk and look at the proposals in detail. Have you even looked at the mockups presented there? I have bent over backwards to ensure that editors' views are accommodated. At the end of the day, a compromise a needed which meets all the needs of the project and of the wider community. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:53, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

  And to clarify, yes it is absolutely possible to add multiple events to talk pages. That was the whole point. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:55, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

• I realize, Martin, that you have been working in good faith on this matter for the past four years and that it must be frustrating for you that your recent proposals have not been welcomed with open arms. I will leave it to others to look at your work/proposals on the template and the extensive discussions on its talk page but as I have said, I think the way things are working at present is what most WIR contributors would like to see continuing. The space-saving aspects you have addressed unfortunately seem to have little appeal. I have also noticed that the possibility of adding more than one pertinent WIR event to women-related talk pages appears to be gaining increasing popularity and attracting new interest in the project. Membership has been increasing and opportunities for multiple events has significantly risen since the beginning of the year as related contests have emerged (whether or not they actually lead to multiple listing on talk pages). That seems to me to be a very positive outcome. I therefore see no need for further changes.

I should perhaps point out here that I have also spent a considerable amount of time trying to help you along with the recent adaptations of the Banner Shell environment in connection with women, not only for new articles but also for a significant number of older articles. I think it would help us all along if we could call an end to further discussion and spend more time on creating new articles and improving and re-assessing older ones.--Ipigott (talk) 17:01, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

I agree with this perspective on the banners: "I think the way things are working at present is what most WIR contributors would like to see continuing. The space-saving aspects you have addressed unfortunately seem to have little appeal." Innisfree987 (talk) 17:25, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

I think the space saving is very necessary, and would prefer the information about WiR events that happened several years ago to be hidden completely (I find it difficult to imagine this being of any use to anyone). The goals of WiR are important, but the WiR banners are not several times more important than all other project banners. Martin's proposal is probably a good compromise overall. —Kusma (talk) 18:11, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

Sorry your imagination does not allow you to understand why multiple banners are important to this project, but then again, I cannot understand why you won't just leave our banners alone when they are not causing any demonstrable harm. I agree that "I think the way things are working at present is what most WIR contributors would like to see continuing. The space-saving aspects you have addressed unfortunately seem to have little appeal." Best, --WomenArtistUpdates (talk) 18:56, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

I have not touched any of the banners. I just do not think being informed four times that Victuallers may be a new editor (as on Talk:Mary Corkling) is a good use of space. An overabundance of banners like this just leads to banner blindness and makes it more difficult to see the actual talk page. Of course on a page like Talk:Mary Corkling that has essentially no page views the harm and the use are both close to zero (the banners are even hidden by default in the mobile version). On talk pages with actual content and actual page views, we should try not to have so many banners that it gets difficult to see the discussions, and in order to get to that point, all WikiProjects have to be considerate of the amount of space that their banners are taking. —Kusma (talk) 22:56, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

WomenArtistUpdates In what way does having multiple separate banners have benefits over what MSGJ is proposing? Other than being more visible by using more screenspace, and the project already being familar with the current system. Given the proposal can easily handle multiple events/editathons/etc. with custom images and names, tracking seemingly as before, etc. Thanks. I should note I have no strong feelings on this, beyond ensuring all project banners are within the shell, but agree consensus here is required for changing the banners. -Kj cheetham (talk) 10:44, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Hi Kj cheetham, My concern is the unintended consequences of changing the use of templates. We are creating a very robust dataset of WiR editathon activity. It is a given in data collection and analysis that you don't want to lose any granularity in a dataset, even if you don't know exactly how that will be used in the future. any [one] can turn an aquarium into fish soup, but no one has yet figured out how to reverse the process. Therefore, because it does no harm to have multiple banners, it makes the most sense, for posterity, to keep the banners. We don't know what a data analyst might do with this information to research closing the gender gap on Wikipedia, but please, let's preserve it as we have it right now. Thanks for asking and thinking about this. Best, --WomenArtistUpdates (talk) 17:45, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

I agree unintended consequences is a concern, as it's a non-trivial system. I also 100% agree don't want to lose any granularity in the dataset (I'm reminded of the similar saying you can't unbake a cake), but in this case I don't think any would be lost? I'm just making sure I understand what's happening really, rather than trying to push anything. -Kj cheetham (talk) 18:37, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

I don't understand how granularity would be lost either? Or really how this would impact future hypothetical "Wikipedia researchers"? JoelleJay (talk) 19:40, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

{{WIR-123}}{{WIR-234}} does not lose any information when you convert it to {{WIR|123|234}}. You still have the same two numbers — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:44, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

I see that now despite the strongly expressed opposition above and lack of consensus for this change, MSGJ is going ahead and doing it (e.g. Special:Diff/1197668850) causing the bots to run around replacing all these templates, in violation of Wikipedia:Fait accompli. Is it time to bring this WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT behavior to the drama boards? —David Eppstein (talk) 19:18, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps you have misunderstood but the changes are the result of detailed discussion on the template talk page. The only part which attracted opposition was the merging of separate banners into one, and I am not doing this. In fact the only page which has merged banners is Talk:Josette Bruce because this was used as a demonstration while testing. I am not planning to merge any others at this time — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:00, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

A detailed discussion recorded in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying "Beware of the Leopard"? —David Eppstein (talk) 22:07, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

There has been detailed discussion here. I’m glad to hear you’re not moving forward since obviously it would be unacceptable if someone chose to disregard discussion where they didn’t get the response they wanted. I hope I have not misunderstood you on this. Innisfree987 (talk) 22:37, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

• David Eppstein: As far as I can see no meaningful changes have been made to the way in which multiple events are displayed on our talk pages. The change you refer to above was in connection with the template for WIR #9 and has no lasting effects.--Ipigott (talk) 09:48, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

DE-WP edit history pages

I came across the EN-WP article on Daniela Stoffel, while doing WP:NPP. In doing my review of it, I also looked at the DE-WP version, and the edit history of the DE-WP version. What caught my attention was that edits before 8 May 2020 have no highlights while subsequent ones are all blue highlighted. Does anyone know what this signifies? -- Rosiestep (talk) 17:02, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Rosiestep is it something like Pending Changes protection being enabled then? -Kj cheetham (talk) 17:05, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Kj cheetham... maybe?

For another example -now that I'm going down this rabbit hole- here's the edit history for the DE-WP article on Berlin, with blue highlight edits and no highlight edits scattered all about. --Rosiestep (talk) 17:13, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Pending changes or semi-protection? talks about highlighting on EN-WP at least, and an example I've seen today: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Characters_of_the_Mortal_Kombat_series&action=history -Kj cheetham (talk) 17:18, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

I believe that Pending Changes protection is applied to all articles on de Wikipedia. The blue coloured edits have been reviewed by a pending changes reviewer and the white ones have not, but the reviewer who approves an edit to an article is expected to check that edits since the last approved edit are acceptable. TSventon (talk) 17:23, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

That makes sense. --Rosiestep (talk) 18:12, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

For completeness, unreviewed edits are coloured pink. If you want to get an edit reviewed you can ask at de:Wikipedia:Gesichtete Versionen/Anfragen when the edit is 24 hours old. TSventon (talk) 19:36, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

I suppose it all boils down to "andere Länder, andere Sitten". Even so, at 93 German "depth" has a long way to go before it reaches English at 1219.--Ipigott (talk) 14:00, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

A lot of this difference is explained by policy differences, and not so much a measure of English Wikipedia's superiority. The German Wikipedia does not have metadata on talk pages, so most articles do not have talk pages. And they do not have nearly as many redirects as we do (and almost no unprintworthy redirects). Basically, "depth" isn't a very good measure because the ratio of non-articles to articles (which is squared in the formula) is not necessarily a good proxy for quality. If the German Wikipedia were to create empty talk pages for every article, their "depth" would increase a lot. —Kusma (talk) 19:56, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

• Kusma: Thank you for these useful explanations. I had not realized the German wiki made such little use of article talk pages. You are certainly right that as a result the "depth" value is misleading. It might be useful to provide further explanations at Wikipedia article depth. There ought to be a more reliable way of providing an overview of the quality of articles in different languages. I frequently consult articles on the German wiki and often find them to be better presented than those covering the same topic in other languages. See, for example, the excellent work in German on Lucy Hicks Anderson.--Ipigott (talk) 10:20, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

  There is a lot of excellent content in dewiki (unfortunately there are also lots of articles with only general references and lacking inline citations, which is one of the reasons why I have stopped translating and just rewrite articles from the same sources instead). Credit for de:Lucy Hicks Anderson should go to the original author of the French version fr:Lucy Hicks Anderson, though, Victoire F. —Kusma (talk) 13:25, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

Stuff I learned recently

I'm putting this here because I think it may be helpful for others and particularly for anyone interested in our February focus on Black History Month. I discovered that our ProQuest search tab (not the search bar at the top of the collections) in the WP library now includes AllAfrica in its collections. Sam Walton has been working on including it for years and I applaud his success!

Also I noted that the category Category:United Nations people says it should be empty and instead one should use United Nations officials. But, the big problem with that, IMO is that many women, for example wives of the Secretary Generals, serve in "unofficial" capacities. Just as First Ladies of countries aren't typically aren't official roles, the first lady of the UN and diplomatic wives of UN personnel have an undefined role but are expected to serve as hostesses and spokespersons when called upon and are often designated as chair or honorary chair of various committees. Seems weird to not have them included in this category. Ideas anyone? SusunW (talk) 19:54, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

Tough hill to climb on UN first ladies, but I believe this project can pull off anything it sets its collective minds to achieve. I have been spending a lot of time over at Category:AfD debates. On a Wikipedia issue that embassies are not inherently notable, many get deleted. Seems like everyday lately. So, if they will do that for the embassies, it could also be done to wives of the ambassadors. On the other hand ... this project is just made to pull off the difficult tasks. Good luck, and more steam ahead. — Maile (talk) 21:01, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

• SusunW: We have the rather wishy-washy Category:United Nations experts which includes a few women. Perhaps you could use it for first ladies and wives too. But it might be better to create Category:United Nations unofficial associates. Any opinions on this? Maile66: Thanks for your encouragement. The explanations on Wikipedia:Diplomatic notability may need to be expanded and clarified. It would be useful to have a set of clearly defined rules with examples. I see that under WP:Notability (politics) "Ambassadors are not considered inherently notable." and that "The spouse of the head of state or government is usually regarded as notable." It would be useful to include spouses of UN Secretaries General here.--Ipigott (talk) 10:57, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

  Thanks Ipigott and Maile. I appreciate the discussion and yes, that's why I brought it here. To be honest, I didn't have a clue what the First Lady (and that means there is the possibility of First Gentleman or whatever) of the UN was called, but I have 2 sources, one from the UN, that actually state that is the title and that it is an unofficial position but requires them to be hostess for official functions and to take care of the spouses of visiting diplomats and heads of state. The description from the UN is clearly the same as that held by the spouse of a head of state. Does that make them an expert? I don't know. I was surprised that there was no specific category or that even United Nations people could not be used. Of course the problem is that the people who discuss category deletions don't have to advise projects that might be effected, so I also wanted to bring it up here to see what position we might be able to come up with, if we created a category. It's confusing. SusunW (talk) 13:41, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

• SusunW, as a belated response to this, there is a straightforward process for renaming en Wikipedia categories, which means that mistakes will be made and that they are relatively easy to correct. If there is enough information in reliable sources to create a category it could go into Category:United Nations to start with. TSventon (talk) 14:18, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

  Thanks TSventon I note that we don't even have any women's categories in the whole UN section. In my recent work on Africa, I have found women who work for (not with but for) various UN Agencies, but with no where to put them. Quite frankly, it's really inconsistent, but I do not have the skills to research whether there are enough people to create categories. For example, there is no UNDP people category, but there is a UNICEF people, and there is nothing at all for UN Women, so if someone worked for UNIFEM, UN Women, etc. no where to include them. SusunW (talk) 17:04, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Susun: I think we need to progress with this. How about creating Category:United Nations people as a category in its own right, attaching Category:United Nations experts and Category:United Nations officials to it and then going on to create Category United Nations agency people, Category:United Nations associates and Category:United Nations women. Are any more needed? If no one objects, I could create these tomorrow but I'll need help to populate them.--Ipigott (talk) 17:38, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

There are enough articles linked to UN Women to justify some categories, so I have created Category:UN Women, Category:UN Women people, Category:Executive Directors of UN Women and Category:UN Women Goodwill Ambassadors. I still need to do some tidying up. TSventon (talk) 18:32, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks to you both @Ipigott and TSventon:. I truly appreciate y'all's help because I truly don't know enough about making categories or populating them, but it seems so odd. For example my next victim (I'm still researching her and no where near ready to publish) was employed by the UNDP for 30 years and I cannot link her to any UN Category. Surely Marcela Pérez de Cuéllar, who drug me first into this discussion is not the only notable first lady of the UN. But, I can at least now add Pérez and Phoebe Asiyo to that Goodwill ambassador's category since they were the very first two women ever to serve in that position when it was still UNIFEM. SusunW (talk) 22:20, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

@SusunW:, can't the woman employed by the UNDP for 30 years go into Category:United Nations Development Programme officials? As for first ladies, you could start with a list like List of spouses and partners of Icelandic presidents.

@Ipigott:, I would advise against recreating Category:United Nations people as it was redirected as the result of a CfD discussion and it could be speedily redirected again. For what it's worth,Category:Women by organization does not have any subcategories like Category:United Nations women. TSventon (talk) 23:19, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

@TSventon: Don't worry. Now that you are making such useful progress on this yourself, I'll leave things up to you. Thanks for your effprts.--Ipigott (talk) 06:27, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

TSventon I will put her in that UNDP officials category, because possibly that works for an area representative. Thanks. Categories are really confusing to me. That Women by organization category doesn't have any categories for International Council of Women people, International Alliance of Women/International Woman Suffrage Alliance people, nor does Category:Women's International League for Peace and Freedom people‎ show up there. That said, I typically find categories by going to someone else's profile and copying the category from there. Searching on WP for an article is horrible (searching google and backing in is far easier), and is even worse when trying to find categories, IMO. I truly appreciate your help. SusunW (talk) 14:59, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

SusunW, I have added Category:Women's International League for Peace and Freedom people and Category:International Alliance of Women people to Women by organisation. Category:International Council of Women people does not yet exist, I can put it onto my to do list. I normally create categoriesb by copying and adapting an existing category, so for the UN Women categories I followed the already existing UNICEF ones. Generally categories have to follow writing the articles they contain: are you thinking of writing something like Women and the United Nations?

I use HotCat to speed up adding and removing categories. It can be activated via preferences, see Wikipedia:HotCat. TSventon (talk) 15:52, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

TSventon yay! Thank you for the categories (scribbles name on network of specialists who can help with tasks that are out of my league). "Copying and adapting" - Isn't that the way one must work in WP? . While a list of UN first ladies and an article like Women in the United Nations would both be useful for the encyclopedia, my goal for the year is to see how many articles I can write in a straight chain from one red link to another without doubling back in a daisy chain. So far I've managed 11 and to make it harder, I started in Africa, where a lot of women work in development, thus have ties to the UN. It does take a village to write articles and I appreciate your expertise. SusunW (talk) 16:18, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

SusunW, I am happy to help, I have left some notes about how far I got at Category talk:Women by organization. I hope you will report on your chain building in due course. TSventon (talk) 15:39, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

TSventon Very much appreciate your efforts. Since it's a year-long goal will give an update at the end of the year, but if you are interested now, I'm keeping track on my Welcome to my user page. SusunW (talk) 15:44, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

Candidate for new article: Mitsuko Tottori (Alphabet Run: M to N)

Please see: Japan Airlines appoints ex-flight attendant as first female president. There seems to be enough coverage of the appointment of Mitsuko Tottori to justify an article (assuming we want C-Suite business executives of major corporations).

From the same article and also possibly of interest: "A survey by the aviation specialist website FlightGlobal found that, at the end of 2022 there were 12 women leading the top 100 airlines, up from six a year earlier." A quick search shows that we have some, though not all of these: Marjan Rintel (KLM), Annette Mann (Austrian Airlines), Yvonne Makolo (RwandAir and IATA), as well as Lynne Embleton (Aer Lingus), Joanna Geraghty (JetBlue), Stephanie Tully (Jetstar), and Vanessa Hudson (Qantas).

As a start, I've added a few WIR redlinks to relevant airline articles. -- Cl3phact0 (talk) 12:40, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

@Cl3phact0, thanks for these interesting ideas. You might consider adding these to the relevant WiR redlists, like the one for business women. Putting them there means anyone looking for article ideas can find them now and in the future. Here on talk they will soon be archived and would be unlikely to be found again. Innisfree987 (talk) 12:51, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks Innisfree987! I'll try to add them to the relevant redlists too (I knew I was meant to do that – it's just not always obvious where exactly one is meant add them). Cheers, Cl3phact0 (talk) 13:21, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

You can add them any and all relevant topic lists that are tagged “(CS)” which stands for crowd-sourced. Happy editing, Innisfree987 (talk) 13:32, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

• We already have Mitsuko Tottori in Spanish and she has been widely covered in the world's leading newspapers over the past two or three days.--Ipigott (talk) 16:54, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

  Well spotted! I missed that (and this too: wikidata:Q124321858). -- Cl3phact0 (talk) 22:28, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Mars Storm Rucker

Accepted at AfC by myself, but pretty flawed in its current state (some uncited info, and informal prose). A fun cleanup/expansion candidate for anyone interested in musicals and/or trans people of color. Mach61 (talk) 21:34, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

I've tweaked the article a bit, moved it to what seems their commonly used name of Mars Rucker, and added them to Rucker (surname). PamD 08:52, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Unreferenced articles February 2024 backlog drive

WikiProject Unreferenced articles | February 2024 Backlog Drive
It's not enough to turn red to blue. These articles must also be supported by sources to prevent being deleted by PROD or AFD. So join our efforts today and secure these articles' existence! Barnstars will be awarded based on the number of articles cited. Remember to tag your edit summary with [[WP:FEB24]], both to advertise the event and tally the points later using Edit Summary Search. Interested in taking part? Sign up here.
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CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 15:31, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

P.S.: I haven't found a reliable way to use WP:PetScan for detecting uncited woman articles because I couldn't find a category that's more precise than Category:Woman. Do you have any other way to detect uncited woman bio articles? CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 15:34, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

• CactiStaccingCrane: It's easy to find articles relating to women for each category. Just click on "Women" when you open the category. For example, all women-related articles are accessible here.--Ipigott (talk) 16:08, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

  Such a simple solution... and I couldn't even think of it! Let me add that to the "tips and tricks" section for the drive. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 16:09, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Paper on women economists

A recent paper titled "The Representation of Female Economists on Wikipedia" by Nicole Venus of the University of Lugano, informs us that despite the overall poor representation of women economists on Wikipedia, initiatives such as Women in Red and WikiEdu have led to significant improvements in recent years. "Despite the seemingly low absolute number of contributions, initiatives promoting gender equality appear to be very effective in the attenuation of the under-representation of female economists on the platform." The paper introduces the concept of activist editors: "I identify three initiatives which specify closing Wikipedia’s gender gap as their main goal: ”Women in red”, ”Gender gap task force”, and ”Women scientists”. I label all users belonging to at least one of those groups as 'activist editors' ”.--Ipigott (talk) 15:33, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

20% woman articles by the end of the year

That elusive goal is finally in sight. What should we do to celebrate/accelerate the trends? CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 13:36, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

Send 50 male athelete stubs to AfD every day. Make a big celebration party for 400k women bios like we had for 6 million articles? —Kusma (talk) 15:42, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

(edit conflict) This is likely to attract media attention, so I would suggest some kind of competition like Wikipedia:Six million articles. The maths is more complex as biography articles and female biography articles need to be counted, rather than just any articles, so a winner could be chosen rather than calculated. TSventon (talk) 15:44, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

From the get-go, while Roger and I were developing plans to announce the establishment of Women in Red at Wikimania 2015, we talked about "moving the needle". Adamant that 15.5%, the newly announced percentage, was abysmal, we agreed that improving on it was to be the goal, without the need for an illusory number, e.g., 20%, 25%, 33%, 49%, 50%, 51%. With 20% in sight, I am so happy to visualize that needle moving through time and space, headed to who knows where. --Rosiestep (talk) 00:39, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

It is probably better to celebrate 400k women than reaching 20%. —Kusma (talk) 07:27, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

Unless we find some way of encouraging more biographies of women each month (maybe along the lines of our highly successful World Contest), it looks as if it will take quite some time to reach 20%. Over the past couple of years the increases have slowed considerably. From around 15.5% in July 2015, for each following July we reached 16.35% in 2016, 17.02% in 2017, 17.67% in 2018, 17.89% in 2019, 18.51% in 2020, 18.98% in 2021, 19.30% in 2022, 19,61% in 2023 and today, six months later we're at 19.73%. If we continue increases of around 0.2% per year, we might expect to reach 20% by mid-2025. Part of the slowdown is a result of the general reduction in the rate of Wikipedia growth but for some reason enthusiasm for creating biographies of women does not appear to be as great as that for men. It would help if we could find new initiatives for attracting new contributors and for encouraging existing participants to create more biographies. At present, each month we create around 1,500 biographies. Can we aim for 2,000 a month as in previous years?. Any ideas?--Ipigott (talk) 07:39, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

If "enthusiasm for creating biographies of women does not appear to be as great as that for men" the % would be slowly declining, surely? Instead it's very slowly rising. I think we can probably say that the famous low-hanging fruit are now only to be found in small pockets. Johnbod (talk) 14:39, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

Yup, that's very true. IMO it might be more efficient for us to translate women bio articles from other languages. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 14:41, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

• Johnbod: Good to have your comments on this. You are of course correct that the proportion of women's biographies is still slowly increasing. But if you look at the actual numbers of new biographies, between our most recent counts on 11 and 18 January, there were only 325 new biographies of women out of a total of 1,163, or about 28%. As there are approximately the same number of women as men in the world, then editors appear to be more enthusiastic about writing biographies of men rather than women. See also our metrics page for higher percentages of biographies of women born in recent years, especially if athletes are excluded. As for low-hanging fruit, there are increasing numbers of women in politics and business who deserve to be covered, not to mention all those who have received significant awards. I'm no expert in sports, but I wonder if women are covered as systematically as men.--Ipigott (talk) 15:38, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

  For interest, with my NPP hat on, we're coming to the final week of an intensive drive to deal with the backlog so the numbers will be skewed, but as of right now for the new unpatrolled (i.e. made by people without the autopatrolled flag) according to User:SDZeroBot/NPP sorting there are massively more entries under "Biography" generally than "Women". -Kj cheetham (talk) 16:13, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

• Kj cheetham I think that the numbers in the backlog under "Biography" generally (2964) and "Women" (99) are probably skewed by volunteers patrolling articles on women first, leaving a backlog of mainly male biographies. Also the "Biography" category includes some women not included as "Women" and articles not about individual people. TSventon (talk) 16:53, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

• Kj cheetham: A few of us have been working specifically (skewing???) on the Women articles. From around 400 not long ago, on NPP Women we're now averaging less than 100 a day. I think you'll also find that the assessment of these articles has significantly progressed.---Ipigott (talk) 16:58, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
• I completely agree, given I'm one of those volunteers! I assumed "Biography" included both men and women, but it does certainly include some extra articles too (e.g. about events rather than individuals) and the automated identification of categories isn't perfect. I wish I'd paid more attention to it a month ago, though the previous backlog drive probably also skewed it as it didn't get to zero to fully reset it. -Kj cheetham (talk) 17:02, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
  • P.S. By skewed I just meant those NPP stats are not really a good metric for considering the ratio of new biographical articles, especially given the backlog drive, rather than actual skewness, but I still thought they were interesting. -Kj cheetham (talk) 17:10, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

I think part of the reason here is because it has been almost 9 years since this project first started and new editors just don't know this project exists. Old editors would assume that it's this WikiProject's job to write woman biography articles, in other words, they have defaulted back to the thought that Wikipedia has achieved gender equality 'in some way'. Of course, we know that this is not true. I'm thinking that we should organize the 2nd World Contest this year. If 4000 redlinks turn blue in this contest, aka a similar result to the 1st World Contest, we would have a 0.2% increase of woman bio (19.73% + 0.2% = 19.93%, very close to the goal). I don't know whether we should have a money prize in this contest, but I think that the submission procedures of the first contest needs to be further simplified somehow, perhaps by using an edit summary like in the drive that I'm organizing. Onboarding procedures should also be simplified a bit and the reviewing process should be incentivized in some way. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 08:33, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

Also, the original World Contest assumes that participants are well-versed on creating new articles. We should teach new participants how to use Google Translate image translation features (to assist in source access), how to cite and give them topic suggestions based on their interest. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 08:39, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

Identifying articles with meetup (Women in Red talkpage banner discussion)

There are 43 articles from 2016 which have not been identified with any particular meetup. Would it be helpful to work out which meetup they were created/improved under and tag them as such? Or no benefit in this? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:43, 22 January 2024 (UTC)7

They should be in {{WIR 2016}}, the precursor to #1day1woman which began in 2017. So, if they are identified as 2016 that is fine (I think). Thanks. --WomenArtistUpdates (talk) 21:27, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

Okay, no problem — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:30, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

There are a number of articles which are not associated with a meetup or even a particular year. Would it be useful to at least add the year that they became tagged with WIR? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:02, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

• Many contributors simply add Women in Red as one of several wikiprojects on an article's talk page. If they prefer not to include additional details, I think they should be allowed to do so. In some cases the tag is added years after the article was created as a result of expansion or later recognition that it is pertinent. Some talk pages even have a combination of a tag without details together with more specific tags added in connection with later events. One thing I have noticed in the banner shell environment is that tags for #1day1women which actually point to the year to which they apply now appear without the year. See, for example, Talk:Jane T. H. Cross (2020) and Talk:Kateryna Boloshkevich (2022). You can of course identify the year (and sometimes the month) by clicking on Show. The same is true of other topics repeated from year to year, for example in connection with writers, Talk:Bernice Love Wiggins (2016) and Talk:Julie Marstrand (2020). This can of course be avoided by placing WiR tags outside the banner shell but the consensus seems to be that they should be placed inside. I don't think it's worth doing anything about this. I just thought I should point it out.--Ipigott (talk) 09:05, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

  Would you prefer the year to be included on the nested display? If so, just for some events or for all events? I agree it makes sense for the #1day1women initiative because this happens each year — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:09, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

  For #1day1woman initiative specifically, I agree adding the year to the end of it would be a good idea in the nest view. E.g. "#1day1woman initiative 2022". -Kj cheetham (talk) 09:35, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

  Or in front of it? 2022 #1day1woman initiative, which is better? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:41, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

  I'd be happy with either. My only reasoning for after was it was a shorter version of the expanded text, i.e. "#1day1woman initiative hosted by the Women in Red project in 2022". -Kj cheetham (talk) 09:45, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

  How does it look on Talk:Annie Adams? Now the full name is expanded to "#1day1woman 2017 initiative" which might not be the best order — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:51, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

  Some talk pages even have a combination of a tag without details together with more specific tags added That seems particularly useless, as the one without details does not provide any new information. Shall we find and remove these redundant banners? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:11, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure it's a good idea to remove them. There are a number of highly experienced editors who consistently tag talk pages with a simple WiR tag. If someone comes along years later and adds a more specific tag in connection with a new event, I don't think it would be correct to delete the original tag. Such tags have been used to compile statistics on the number of WiR-related articles per year. I therefore think they should be maintained.--Ipigott (talk) 10:09, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

Sorry but I disagree completely, and this is exactly what would be regarded as talk page clutter, as the additional banner adds no further information. For example, if you look at Talk:Katharina Paulus you will see one WIR banner inside the shell (unconnected to any event) and one outside the shell (connected to #1day1woman). What should happen, in my opinion, is that the #1day1woman banner replaces the unconnected banner inside the shell. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:45, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

• MSGJ: I am coming around to your point of view but let's say for example that the basic WiR tag was added when a music specialist was writing an article about an opera singer and then two or three years later someone added a tag in connection with a writers event because it was discovered she had written an autobiography. Would it matter that the original tag disappeared? Maybe not. As talk pages are constantly updated it might be a good idea to reduce clutter. Thanks for all the additional time and effort you are putting into Women in Red matters.--Ipigott (talk) 11:51, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
  • I don't see how the original tag would add any value at all. I guess ideally someone might convert the original one to one more linked to music, or at least the original year, but if not then removing it is tidier with no loss of information (it's still in the revision history if someone really wanted to dig it out!). -Kj cheetham (talk) 20:20, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

  I trust that edits like this are entirely uncontroversial and to be encouraged? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:15, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

  That depends somewhat on what's agreed re: questions like the "inside/outside banner shell" conundrum (see below); the various tracking uses of these banners (and if/how these may be negatively impacted by the changes that are apparently taking place); etc.

  Is the goal here to supress functionality of the event connected and other specific banners incrementally such that Women in Red is ultimately left with one primary WIR banner? (The technical part of all this is a tad above my head.)

  I might also add that I don't really mind one way or the other (as long as nobody's workflow is being ignored or useful information lost), I'd just like clear guidance on how the templates should be used going forward so we can get-on with other matters. -- Cl3phact0 (talk) 17:11, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

  It's not a conundrum; WikiProject banners go inside the shell. The tracking is being handled. There is no (intentional) suppression of functionality. Nobody's workflow is being ignored. Plus, documentation is being made more clear I believe. -Kj cheetham (talk) 18:43, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

MSGJ, your observation (and this thread) may help illustrate an underlying question of mine—which is: Is there a fundamental difference between the main WikiProject {{WIR}} banner (which simply states that an article is "of interest to the following WikiProjects"), and the "meet-up" or event-specific banners (which transmit additional information)? If they are different, should they be subject to the same rules (e.g., is there a justification for placing the latter outside of the banner shell as per other event-specific banners and informational tags such as {{WPEUR10k}} or {{DYK talk}})? I realise that this question may also impact the broader ongoing discussion about WIR banner usage, "banner blindness", theoretical future research projects, project tracking, etc. -- Cl3phact0 (talk) 10:47, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

There is no fundamental difference. They are produced by the same template, just one adds a bit more detail. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:54, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

If we focus less on the technical aspects of how they are produced (details which are invisible to an average reader, and probably of little interest to most editors), and think more about what their intended purpose is, then there may actually be a difference. (Bear with me...)

The "basic" WIR tag is like most other WikiProject banners—whereas, the event connected banners give specific information about initiatives that led to the creation of the article. These banners can be cumulative if more than one event generates specific article development activity (e.g., article created in the context of "#1day1woman"; significantly expanded and improved during "Alphabet Run: X, Y, & Z edit-a-thon"; and further refined during some other edit-a-thon). As such, we probably want to keep the iterations somewhere handy—both for the tracking activity that seems to be important to some editors, as well as for the link back to the specific events for general reference.

(For what it's worth, this seems to relate closely to the discussion immediately above too.) -- Cl3phact0 (talk) 22:11, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

I agree with your point that these banners are "cumulative", and an article can be tagged with multiple events. Where we differ perhaps, is that I think these are best displayed all together in a single banner rather than scattered across the talk page in different locations. This can now be achieved without losing any data or functionality. (But I have decided to let this matter rest for now and let the project come to that conclusion in its own time.) — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:29, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

WiR@Skábmagovat 2024

Tiõrv pukid! The Inari Sámi Language Association, the Giellagas Institute at the University of Oulu, and Wikimedia Finland are organizing a workshop this Saturday and Sunday in conjunction with the 2024 edition of the Skábmagovat indigenous film festival starting tomorrow in Inari and worldwide online January 29–February 6. So I ofc started my usual table of WiR based on the producers, screenwriters, etc. for films in the festival and noticed just how many of these women are missing in enwp and in wd. Anyone up for a challenge of getting these women into enwp by the end of the festival in a couple of weeks? :) I will continue to flesh out the table as I get more info and as I create items for the women and their films in wd. And I will try to get an article up about the film festival on enwp so it can be linked to by the end of Friday. - Yupik (talk) 21:52, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

I've started a draft for one of the participants at Draft:Evelyn Lorena, additions from others are welcome :) ForsythiaJo (talk) 22:32, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

Adding to this, I've also started Draft:Eva Thomas. ForsythiaJo (talk) 05:21, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

BBC Women in 2023

When I was creating the table for Skábmagovat 2024 mentioned above, I noticed that editors on the Catalan Wikipedia have created an article for all but one woman on the BBC Women in 2023 list. Moltes gràcies a totes i tots! <3 - Yupik (talk) 22:00, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

Impressive work by the Catalans. I see some of their biographies are extensively sourced and could form the basis for EN equivalents.--Ipigott (talk) 12:10, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

"Learn Wikidata"

This might interest some of you, "Learn Wikidata", created by the folks at Vanderbilt University. -- Rosiestep (talk) 21:36, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

There's also a good introduction to Wikidata from the University of Edinburgh (which is not just for professionals such as librarians).--Ipigott (talk) 13:59, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

Invitation to Organize Feminism and Folklore 2024 WIR Writing Competition

Please help translate to other languages.

Dear Members of WikiProject Women in Red,

Hope you are doing well.

We extend a heartfelt invitation to you to organize the Feminism and Folklore 2024 writing competition, which is scheduled to take place from February 1, 2024, to March 31, 2024. This year's edition of Feminism and Folklore will concentrate on feminism, women's issues, and gender-focused topics, aligning with a Wiki Loves Folklore gender gap focus and featuring a folk culture theme on Wikipedia. We would like the members of Women in Red Wikiproject to add folklore to their February/March events.

This year we have created two new Tools for the Feminism and Folklore project. The tool is called Campwiz. This tool is created by the international Tech team of Wiki Loves Folkore especially crafted for Feminism and Folklore project. The tool works as same as fountain or dashboard but has extra abilities required for jury and submission of articles.

To create a new campaign on Campwiz, organizers to follow these steps:

1. Go to the tool link: https://tools.wikilovesfolklore.org/
2. Select your wiki on which you want to organize the campaign (enter the name or short code, such as "en" for English Wikipedia).
3. Give your campaign a name example "Feminism and Folklore 2024 WIR on English Wikipedia)".
4. Select the start and end dates (note: keep your start date as Feb 1 and end date as March 31).
5. Provide a description for your campaign (you can briefly describe the campaign in this section).
6. Make sure to keep the checkboxes ticked for "Allow users to submit articles that were not created but expanded." if you want to use the campaign for expanded articles also.
7. Keep minimum added bytes as 4000 and minimum added words as 400 and click next.
8. In the jury section, keep the checkboxes ticked for "Allow jury members to participate in the campaign" and "Prevent jury members from seeing each other's votes." As per your preference.
9. Under the jury search box, type the username of your jury and click on the "+" button to add; you can add multiple jury members.
10. Click next to review and then click on save.

This tool is now available for public use during the Feminism and Folklore campaign. You can find more information about these tools here: https://tools.wikilovesfolklore.org/

There are also some changes in the rules and criteria's. Please go through the rules below.

1. Minimum Length: The expanded or new article should have a minimum of 4000 bytes or 400 words, ensuring sufficient depth and coverage of the chosen topic. The local organizers are free to choose the minimum length criteria as per needs of their local Wikipedia and must be clearly mention on local project page.
2. Language Quality: Articles should not be poorly machine-translated, ensuring that language quality and readability are maintained at a high standard.
3. Timeline of Creation or Expansion: The article should be created or expanded between 1 February and 31 March, aligning with the specified contest timeline.
4. Theme Relevance: Articles should directly address the theme of feminism and folklore, exploring connections between gender, cultural traditions, and intangible heritage.
5. No Orphaned Articles: Articles must not be orphaned, meaning they should be linked from at least one other article to ensure visibility within the Wikipedia ecosystem.
6. No Copyright violations: There should be no copyright violations, and articles should adhere to local Wikipedia policies on notability, ensuring that the content meets the standards for notability.
7. Adequate references and Citations: Each article should include proper references and citations following local Wikipedia policies, ensuring the reliability and credibility of the information presented.

Learn more about the contest details and prizes on our project page here. Should you require any assistance, please feel free to contact us on our meta talk page or via email.

We eagerly anticipate your enthusiastic coordination and participation in Feminism and Folklore 2024.

Thank you and Best wishes,

Feminism and Folklore 2024 International Team

✝iѵɛɳ२२४०^{†ลℓк †๏ мэ} 08:07, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Jill Jerold

Good morning.

I am writing in the discussion of this Wikiproject because I have recently created an article on the Spanish Wikipedia about Jill Jerold, the first black woman ever to appear in a Marvel Comics title.

I know that this is not the appropriate place to request the translation of an article, but I do so through this medium in the hope that it can be translated and expanded with more sources and information in the English version, since I have not I found as many sources as I would have liked.

Peridotito (talk) 08:21, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

Peridotito, I agree that the article would need more sources for en Wikipedia, but unfortunately I can't find any. Hopefully someone else has more specialist expertise on Marvel Comics than I do. There is an article on Millie the Model, so it would be possible to mention Jill Jerold there. TSventon (talk) 15:27, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

Question on image copyright

I'm working on a draft for Mary Lake Polan and one of the sources for it are this NIH profile. There are two images used in the profile and I can't see any copyright notice. Since the NIH and NLM are governmental organizations, would these two images fall under public domain due to being a publication of the US government? Silverseren^C 19:53, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

Per NLM's copyright policy, they host copyrighted images as well. Also, not all copyrighted images have a copyright notice on their website. Therefore, I don't think the pictures are usable as the copyright statuses are unclear. MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 21:42, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

Annoying. Why are they allowed to use copyrighted images without notice? Isn't that a violation of copyright law as well? Does it change anything, MrLinkinPark333, that the top image there can also be found here in a journal publication about Polan. And unlike all the other images used in the article, which do have copyright to their relevant publications included or "Photo courtesy of Dr. Mary Lake Polan", that first image of Polan does not. Silverseren^C 21:48, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

As the article is copyrighted by Elsevier, it's probably not usable. It is odd that is the only picture without a notice. You can always email NIH to figure out what is the copyright status of the image. MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 21:59, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

Wouldn't that imply the image is PD, since the Elsevier journal article was published 6 years after the latest updated version of the NLM/NIH profile? It's not like Elsevier can just claim copyright of the photo after the fact from another publication. Not including a copyright notice on it, when they did for all the other photos in the article, would seem to mean it's PD and didn't need such a notice. Silverseren^C 22:03, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

A specific year of when the photo was published and if there was a copyright notice would be needed. The NIH itself says the website was first published in 2003. Any 2022 American publications would automatically be copyrighted per Hirtle. There are two possible ways this could be PD: 1) published between 1929 to 1977 without a copyright notice 2) published between 1978 to February 1989 without notice and wasn't registered within 5 years. However, as neither NIH nor Elsevier has a year for the photo, its unclear on whether it can be used. As this person is alive, you might also have luck finding a usable Creative Commons licensed photo. MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 22:16, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

Women in Red February 2024

Women in Red | February 2024, Volume 10, Issue 2, Numbers 293, 294, 297, 298 Online events: New: Alphabet run O & P | Black women Continuing: #1day1woman | Education (year-long initiative) Announcement Please let other wikiprojects know about our February Black women event. Tip of the month: AllAfrica can now be searched on the ProQuest tab at the WP Library. Other ways to participate: Become a member. You can always opt-out of notifications. Join the conversations on our talkpage. Help us plan future events and add any general ideas on developing the project. Follow us on social media: Instagram | Pinterest | Twitter

--Lajmmoore (talk 20:07, 28 January 2024 (UTC) via MassMessaging

CfD

Please see Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2024 January 26#Category:Women in Red edit-a-thons. I believe it is uncontroversial. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:58, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

Question mark on talk pages listing Women in Red (Women in Red talkpage banner discussion)

I have just come across a red question mark on the talk page of Judith Stanmay triggered by "WikiProject Women in Red". I have checked other similar talk pages and they all display the question mark. Placing the cursor over the question mark reveals a prompt saying "This article has not been connected to a particular event". While there has been extensive discussion of WiR articles in the banner shell environment, to the best of my knowledge this change has not been discussed here. In my opinion, contributors should feel free to add the basic Women in Red template without being encouraged to add an event. Many contributors are aware of our general goals but do not have intricate knowledge of our priorities. We should not introduce changes liable to discourage their support. Let's keep things simple for them. Furthermore, the presence of a question mark may encourage other contributors to assign an event which was not originally intended by those who created or improved the article. But maybe others think the question mark is a step in the right direction?--Ipigott (talk) 12:25, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing this out, Ipigott. IMO, it is not a step in the right direction. (a) Some editors add the WiR talkpage template without assigning a specific year, event, etc., and that is just as okay as adding a specific one. For example, newbies learn about WikiProject Women in Red, WikiProject MILHIST, WikiProject Biography, etc. at in-person events without a deep dive into WikiProject talkpage template schema. (b) I don't recall seeing discussion about adding a question mark to our talkpage template. If it did occur, would someone please provide a link? In any case, the question mark needs to be removed as this phrase (which I found on the talkpage template) This article has not been connected with a particular event. is accurate, and does not require follow-up such as a question mark would imply. --Rosiestep (talk) 13:54, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

For those interested, MSGJ has made a series of revisions to Template:WikiProject Women in Red since 12 January. I don't know whether any other talk page displays have been changed as a result.--Ipigott (talk) 14:45, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

I'd agree that @MSGJ: should be asked to remove the questionmark. And perhaps we should also encourage our members to add a specific editathon, even if it's just the #onewomanoneday project for the year, rather than the generic template. PamD 14:51, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Just to clarify, are you asking for the whole message to disappear or just the question mark? By the way, these articles are also tracked in Category:WikiProject Women in Red articles not associated with a meetup. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:13, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

My vote would be to remove the question mark both in summary form and in expanded form. The message "This article has not been connected with a particular event" is harmless but not particularly useful, so could be cut out to save space. The category may be useful for some analyses. Other editors may have different views! PamD 15:38, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

That's done now. You said we should encourage members to add a specific edit-a-thon, but perhaps this visual encouragement was a bit too strong? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:52, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

It's certainly a help to see in what connection a WiR template has been added but many contributors add a non-specific banner because they think an article fits into the general goals of the project, just as they add basic banners for other wikiprojects such as Biography, Film or United States. In some cases they can easily be made more specific, for example when articles about women writers are created in connection with a monthly focus, but they are often not connected to anything more specific. When reviewing articles from new members of the project, I frequently discover that some have been using the general WiR banner for quite some time before they actually join. Indeed some think they are members just because they add the WiR banner. That all helps the project along. I'm all in favour of flexibility.--Ipigott (talk) 16:50, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

I think the question mark being red made it look too much like an error. -Kj cheetham (talk) 19:29, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

A friendly reminder that an editor of WiR content may not be a WiR member and may not want to be associated with a particular WiR event... and that is absolutely okay for a number of reasons including the potential harassment an editor might face off-wiki. I attended 2 in-person Wikipedia Day events this month, so I'm acutely aware of potential unpleasant situations some editors encounter. The option ... "This article has not been connected with a particular event" ... is both meaningful and appropriate, so please, let's keep it, let's not require appending it (beyond -maybe- the year), and let's allow for the tracking of metrics for articles not connected with a particular WiR event. --Rosiestep (talk) 16:13, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks Rosie. I can't imagine how these unpleasant situations arise, but you don't need to elaborate. Based on comments above I removed the message "This article has not been connected with a particular event" so now it just displays the generic "This article was created or improved as part of the Women in Red project". Is this okay? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 18:36, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Yes, that is okay. Thanks for understanding, MSGJ. --Rosiestep (talk) 17:30, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Women in Science Editathon on February 16, 2024

Hi everyone, A few instructors from University of Southern California and Boston University are having an editathon on February 16, 2024 to commemorate International Day of Women and Girls in Science. If you'd like to participate - the program dashboard is here: https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/courses/Boston_University/Women_in_Science_Edit-a-thon/home Thank you! 1namesake1 (talk) 18:30, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Upvoting nominations at Wikipedia Library

Hello! There's a suite of potential partners that are nominated for inclusion in the Wikipedia Library - I think they need 50 upvotes before consideration, and there's many there that could be really useful. I use British Archaeological Reports often, so would be thankful to see afew votes land there too! Lajmmoore (talk) 22:08, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Category:Women and education

Category:Women and education has been proposed to be renamed to Category:Women's education. The discussion has been relisted twice after not much participation. Please add your opinion to Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2024 January 30#Category:Women and education if you have one (I haven't formulated one yet, myself). —David Eppstein (talk) 08:28, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Maths

I was contacted years ago (likely 2017 as WiR facilitated a women mathematicians & statisticians editathon in Feb 2018) by a woman mathematician, whose name escapes me, who talked about Wikipedia's poor representation of women mathematicians. Wonder if the phenomenon addressed in this Science article was already being felt in the math world back then. I know we facilitate an annual STEM event each October, in honor of Ada Lovelace Day, which includes mathematicians so I'm hesitant to suggest that we facilitate a maths editathon before then but I do think that citation bias is worthy of discussion. --Rosiestep (talk) 17:54, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

In general, citation counts are not very useful in identifying notable mathematicians (unlike many other fields), because mathematical citation counts tend to be low. Presumably it is for the same reason that the citation cartels in your link find it easier to manipulate the counts in this field. Anyway, because the citation counts don't work, it tends to mean that we can only identify mathematicians as notable when they have more advanced forms of recognition like named professorships, society fellowships, or major awards. I don't know whether this disproportionately affects women relative to the male mathematicians, but it does probably cause our coverage of women in mathematics to lag behind our coverage of women in other fields. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:06, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

I'd support a Maths-focussed event (or a strong nudge at Ada Lovelace day) - whenever STEM is a theme I always revert to biologists, so would welcome encouragement to step outside my comfort zone! Lajmmoore (talk) 10:54, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Online Biographical Dictionary of the Woman Suffrage Movement in the United States

I just stumbled across this resource while looking for someone I found referred to over on Commons (long story, half of which I've already forgotten); I see that it's been brought up before in these precincts, and that it is the subject of an article. Might it be useful to create a list of redlinks out of it? It doesn't seem as if we have one, unless I've managed to miss something. --Ser Amantio di Nicolao^{Che dicono a Signa?}_{Lo dicono a Signa.} 23:27, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

In general the biographies are pretty detailed and list sources. As far as I can see the work is still being expanded and now runs to about 3,700. It would certainly be interesting to see how many of them we have already covered. From relevant categories, it looks as if we do not have many more than a thousand or so. I think Megalibrarygirl and SusunW might be interested in this.--Ipigott (talk) 12:45, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Several years ago I added all the people from this dictionary to Wikidata. I haven't updated it to add the new additions, but there are still several thousand names in Wikidata. It should be easy to generate a redlist if it hasn't been done already. Gamaliel (talk) 14:34, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Gamaliel: That no doubt explains why this redlist runs to over a thousand American suffragists. I see many are indeed referenced to the Online Biographical Dictionary.--Ipigott (talk) 14:56, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Statistics at your fingertips

The WiR template clean-up project has had the interesting (and exciting) improvement of a table on the page of each years' catagory.

• 2023
• 2022
• 2021
• 2020
• 2019
• 2018
• 2017

There are also stats on our alphabet runs at Category:WikiProject Women in Red Alphabet run articles

Thanks to MSGJ!. --WomenArtistUpdates (talk) 00:04, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

WiR categories 2023

• These provide a good basis for seeing which topics attract most articles. The alphabet runs seem pretty popular as do writers. I should nevertheless point out that many contributors follow our priorities but do not necessarily include the appropriate WiR tag on article talk pages. Indeed many never create talk pages, leaving their creation to reviewers and other contributors. Years back, I started adding missing tags myself but only for a few months. I therefore think it is also important to take account of all the new articles about women created month-by-month and year-by-year as shown in our metrics. Biographies are particularly important as they provide data on how we have been increasing the overall proportion of women's biographies. Perhaps our tip for March should specifically address the importance of creating article talk pages and adding appropriate WiR tags.--Ipigott (talk) 14:40, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

We could perhaps engage a bot to tag appropriate pages. For example if an article is listed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/Meetup/296 then the bot could automatically tag the talk page with {{WIR|296}} (if it wasn't already). But a tip sounds like a good idea too — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:59, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

@MSGJ: I think most of the contributors who list their creations on a WiR event page also take the trouble to create a talk page. But some of the most prolific creators of biographies of women (or biographies in general) never create talk pages for their articles or comment on WiR pages. They do nevertheless back their articles with appropriate categories which in turn lead to entries on Wikidata. From the Wikidata stats, we are able to monitor overall progress on the proportion of women's biographies. When I create talk pages for new creations on women, I don't normally add WiR tags either unless I am assisting a newbie or a new member of Women in Red. That's because I know many contributors consistently develop articles in connection with, for example, book titles, political appointments or sports. As I'm pretty sure many of them are not even aware of the project, I think it would be unfair to pretend they are contributing to WiR even if their articles happen to coincide with an appropriate event. But while we are addressing bots, there has been interest in fixing the bot mentioned on the WiR main page under "About: additional details", i.e. this tool. If you can't fix it yourself, perhaps you know someone who can. If we could get it to work, I think it would help to encourage contributors to spend more time on developing articles about women if they could see what proportion of their articles are women's biographies. I've tried it out a few times myself but it has never provided results. Maybe the time lag is too long.--Ipigott (talk) 12:07, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

Sarah Meiklejohn, Bitcoin researcher

I recently created a draft for Sarah Meiklejohn. She lead a team which demonstrated that Bitcoin was not anonymous, the subject of a story in Wired last month:[1]. Thriley (talk) 00:11, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

A redlist of potential interest: Women Film Pioneers Project

Hello folks, I was looking at the Women Film Pioneers Project, a scholarly resource about women in early film, and wondered how many of the women have wiki articles. I made all the names into a list here: turns out, most of them do have articles, but there are still a good number of red names! To my eye the WFPP has assembled enough sourcing for all of these women to have wiki articles, so it just takes some enterprising editors to come write them. I thought I'd share the list here! ~ L 🌸 (talk) 07:27, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, LEvalyn, for bringing this to our attention. We have the article Women Film Pioneers Project and a Wikidata entry on this but it certainly looks as if we have yet to cover many of them. Just to take the As, Isabel Acuña, Muriel Alleyne, Audrie Alspaugh, Teresita Arce and Alicia Armstrong de Vicuña have not yet been covered. (They are also missing from Wikipedia:WikiProject Women of the silent film era.) Some of them might not be sufficiently notable for Wikipedia but as the WFPP biographies are well sourced, there should not be too many problems. Perhaps contributors more familiar with film could take a closer look. In any case, next time we cover women actresses or those in stage and screen, these biographies would be a useful source to mention.--Ipigott (talk) 10:34, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

I have been through User:LEvalyn's WFPP redlist and updated a number of links. As well as actresses, there are many film directors, editors, critics, who would fit our Behind the Scenes: Stage & Screen event in August. Oronsay (talk) 17:21, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

Wayback

I noticed an unexpected issue in Wayback, which is pretty difficult to explain, but which is noted here. Basically the wayback link being saved comes up with a totally different article. I reported it to info@archive.org and got a reply the very next day. Passing along the contact information, because it wasn't easy to find who to report a problem to, in the event that anyone else is seeing weird archiving results that need to be reported. SusunW (talk) 18:01, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

SusunW: I suggest you report to issue to Help talk:Using the Wayback Machine.--Ipigott (talk) 08:16, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks Ipigott. On it. Appreciate your help, I had no clue that even existed. SusunW (talk) 14:21, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

Cyberfeminism Index by Mindy Seu

I just created a draft for the Cyberfeminism Index put together by Mindy Seu that was published as a book last year. It has hundreds of entries that may be very helpful in identifying subject matter that isn’t on Wikipedia just yet. Seu’s article currently is tagged for notability. I think she meets GNG but would appreciate others to have a look. Thriley (talk) 22:58, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

The tag on Seu was outdated and has now been deleted. Maybe it would be useful to include the index and book in the article on Cyberfeminism.--Ipigott (talk) 08:07, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

Definitely! It would be an excellent resource for that article. Thriley (talk) 18:17, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

Wrapper templates

I suggest to replace templates like {{WIR-00-2018}} with {{WikiProject Women in Red|2018}}. The reasons are:

• Clearer name when reading the wikicode.
• Not many editors outside this project may be familiar with the acronym WIR. This may give the project more exposure.
• Conform to more standard naming for WikiProject templates.
• Don't need to maintain a separate "wrapper" template for each event - can just use one template with the meetup number.

There would be no effect on the display of the template — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:03, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

• Fine by me. I've noticed quite a few similar transformations along these lines are happening "automatically".--Ipigott (talk) 15:37, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

Mania Akbari

There is a request on my talkpage regarding the Mania Akbari article. The subject has asked for a number of corrections and expansions, described at User talk:Womanfeminist2024. I know we are planning to facilitate an event later this year on Film+Stage, but I'm wondering if someone has time/inclination to support/improve/strength this BLP now. -- Rosiestep (talk) 17:30, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

I've had a quick look at this. It seems to me there is a serious COI problem here. I would not be too happy about including the changes requested and find the discussion on User talk:Womanfeminist2024 pretty confused. The normal procedure for changes requested by the subject of an article or others with COI concerns is to make specific requests for changes on the article's talk page, justifying them with reliable sources. It should be explained that Wf2024 cannot use her own website and her Facebook account to replace the sources previously used. It seems to me that Dreamyshade who has contributed to the article and has been involved in her talk page discussions is well placed to make further adjustments if these are warranted and backed by reliable sources. It would be useful to document the reason for recent changes on the article's talk page.--Ipigott (talk) 11:15, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

I've just noticed that it was in fact Dreamyshade who asked for assistance. I still think she is probably more familiar with the case than anyone else but it would be useful if others could lend a hand.--Ipigott (talk) 14:25, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I've asked the person to make specific suggestions and provide sources when possible, so that a non-COI editor (like me) can integrate appropriate corrections and additions into the article (and finding additional sources when needed). Most of the person's requests can be fulfilled in reasonable ways to improve the accuracy of the article. I just don't have the capacity to go very deep into it at the moment, so I'd like some help from another editor or two in sorting through the requests and making updates. I believe it's ok to be flexible about where the requests are made (on the user talk page vs article talk page) as long as they are visible/public, but I'll document this on the article talk page so that it's easier for a future editor to figure out. Dreamyshade (talk) 17:45, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Unreferenced women in February

As a slight distraction from creating new articles on women, can I encourage you to join in improving the quality of existing articles, just for this one month, by helping the #Unreferenced articles February 2024 backlog drive described above?

I always thought PetScan was something terribly technical, but have discovered how amazingly simple it is to use: just go to https://petscan.wmflabs.org/ and add the categories you're interested in, with a "depth" figure to include subcategories, and click "Do it" to get a list. Look at one of those articles, find and add a WP:RS, remove {{unreferenced}} (or replace it with {{refimprove}}), add References section and {{reflist}} if lacking, and there you are. (Optional extra: fall down various rabbit holes of finding multiple references, disentangling confusions, improving articles, creating the article with which it got confused, ...).

If you input the two categories "All articles lacking sources" and "Women", to a depth of 10 subcategories, you see 4186 hits (with some very odd inclusions). Add in a category of interest, say "France" and you get 2012, or "Dance" gets 272. Using "17th-century women" gets 27 hits. I've taken time away from WiR and spent far too many happy hours with unreferenced articles of "Category:Mountains and hills of the United Kingdom" and its subcategories (which found one rugby player because his birth village was on Dartmoor or in the Peak District, I forget which!) I've redirected one or two, sent a couple to AfD, disentangled a couple of muddles. Very satisfying, and improving the overall quality of the representation of women in our beloved encyclopedia - and the articles are less likely to be quietly proposed for PROD or AfD by drive-by deletionists once they have at least one WP:RS. PamD 11:46, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Brittany Spanos AfD

There is an article on Brittany Spanos that may be of interest to participants in this group. I have done some work on the article in order to help improve it's AfD survival odds. I lack the expertise (and time) to add more than I have. [NB: I have also just read the section on canvassing and believe that this note falls within the definition of WP:APPNOTE. Apologies in advance if I have misunderstood the policy.] -- Cl3phact0 (talk) 14:02, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football § List of footballers who achieved hat-trick records and women

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football § List of footballers who achieved hat-trick records and women. Kingsif (talk) 00:32, 9 February 2024 (UTC) – Request at the discussion for broader input and for the discussion to also ask if there should be a universal standard. As it is about content gender disparity, notifying here.

Women in chess

I should perhaps have gone to WT:WOMEN but this page appears more active, so... I made this edit yesterday after seeing it raised on one of the social media. The image is hosted on Commons so I thought nothing more is to be done. But today, I am thinking I should let y'all know in case you know better. Should that image or others of similar origin be used? If no, can/should they be removed from Commons or from the history of our article/s? Thanks! Usedtobecool ☎️ 02:20, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

CfD nomination of "Women foos"

CfD nomination at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2024 February 9 § Women foos

This just appeared on my talkpage. I think we've had a conversation here before regarding categories that contain the the word woman/female, but it may be worthwhile to revisit the discussion now that so many categories are being considered for a shift. -- Rosiestep (talk) 05:21, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

I've already replied at length calling for existing categories containing "women" and "female" (used for most sports) to be maintained. As far as I can see, the nominator has little experience in writing about women. Although the list of categories nominated for change looks pretty long, there are in fact hundreds more, for example all those under Category:Women writers by nationality, and similar listings for artists, photographers, etc., etc. Just imagine the havoc changing them would cause.--Ipigott (talk) 12:28, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

m:Celebrate Women

The m:Celebrate Women page on Meta is the central noticeboard for all women-focused wiki events happening in March in celebration of Women's History Month. All language Wikipedias and all wiki Affiliates are able to post details about their editathons, etc. If you're interested in learning more about it, or have suggestions you'd like to share, there's an upcoming meeting on Monday, 19 Feb 2024 at 16:30 UTC. Interpretation will be available: English, Spanish, Portuguese and French. Registration required. (I've registered.)-- Rosiestep (talk) 17:31, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Promoting diversity on Wikipedia with the Equity Portal

Some of you might be interested in WikiEdu's new Equity Portal. I think it's a great approach to helping editors recognize missing content. Will (Wiki Ed) writes that the approach to it was inspired by Women in Red and that put such a big smile on my face. Thank you, Will! Let's continue to collaborate! -- Rosiestep (talk) 19:21, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

@Rosiestep Thanks Rosie! I helped build this tool - feel free to reach out to me if anyone has any questions. We also have a training module that explains how to tie any of these equity lists to a Dashboard. Will (Wiki Ed) (talk) 19:46, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

@Will (Wiki Ed): It certainly looks like an interesting new approach but I was unable to find links to the "equity lists" or other indications of how the tool works in practice. It is not clear to me whether it is designed for general use or just for the WikiEdu environment. If the latter, it would be useful to find out where it is being used and which instructors and students (with Wikipedia user names) are using it. One of the problems with WikiEdu is that while many students gain considerable competence in editing and in creating new articles about women, very few continue participating at the end of their course. I hope the new tool will provide additional incentives for them to continue contributing to Wikipedia.--Ipigott (talk) 09:55, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

@Ipigott and Will (Wiki Ed): - I don't have any qualms about students who stop editing when they finish a course. Hopefully it's a long life and they start up again when they feel inclined to do so at another point in their life. I think some of them might have forgotten their usernames, or want to leave that experience behind, and they pick a new one, so who returns is not easy to track. They key, IMO, is that they had a good experience. --Rosiestep (talk) 15:11, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

That's an interesting perspective, Rosie, but some of them produce such good work that I think it's a pity they give up so soon. Quite a number of their first articles are up to B class from the start. (Maybe they just have good instructors.) That said, I'm happy to say that I have been able to encourage quite a few to become keen contributors even after they leave university and some of them are now successful contributors to Women in Red. If they don't receive much encouragement from outside the classroom and the WikiEdu environment, it's not surprising many don't continue. The reason I'm interested in their user names is simply to let them know I am ready to help them along. As much of the WikiEdu support is off-wiki, it's not always easy to find out what's going on. But, Rosie, if you feel that my interest is out of order, I can simply stop liaising with WikiEdu students and concentrate on other new contributors. As you can see from my user page, requests for assistance keep coming in.--Ipigott (talk) 18:13, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

Newbie hoping to "turn a red link blue" - advice appreciated

Hello all! I'm working on a class project that involves making a significant contribution to Wikipedia. I decided to pick a red link off of one of WiR's lists and create an article. I think I'm making pretty good progress so far and I do feel that the woman I have selected is notable. However, I am having kind of a hard time finding sources which clearly align with Wikipedia's policies about third-party sources. I have found (and was planning to use) a bunch of interviews, but it seems those don't necessarily qualify as reliable sources; publishers' websites don't often qualify; etc. I'm worried that my article won't be well-supported enough to get accepted. Any thoughts on how to go about this?

I picked my red link from here: Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/Science Fiction and Fantasy

It's pretty obvious that this person has a very extensive career and has worked with a lot of major companies/on large projects, but then if all the sources are either a) from her or b) from her employers, what do I do? Can I even proceed? Or - am I overthinking things re: my sources? E.g. is a publishing house website a valid source for a list of publications? I'm so confused!

Sorry this is a little rambly! I just really want to do a good job :$ KRKwrites (talk) 20:59, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

@KRKwrites: Hello! If you have a draft on Wikipedia, could you share it with us? Or give us the name of the author? It will be easier to help if we have some specifics to work with. A lot of these sources are okay to use in certain circumstances, like non-controversial information such as the names of books, etc. Gamaliel (talk) 21:13, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Right duh! Sorry about that. I was avoiding mentioning the name because I was worried about being seen as cheating on my assignment LOL, but in hindsight that makes this post too vague. :')

I've been working on it in my sandbox. I'm going to post it as a proper draft/submit it for consideration before I submit my assignment (i.e. within the next few days) but since I need to be able to prove/document that I made "significant contributions" it seemed easiest to get it together in my sandbox first so I could copy all the content over to a new article in one block.

Other people can see my sandbox though, right? It's here if so: User:KRKwrites/sandbox

If not, her name is Abigail Larson, she's an illustrator.

Right now the draft in my sandbox is pretty thin because I got derailed looking for style guides/templates/etc. and trying to figure out markup :') But yeah, you can see there that my sources so far might not meet Wikipedia's requirements. KRKwrites (talk) 21:24, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

@KRKwrites Hallo and welcome, and thanks for joining us. You say in the first line "Hugo award-winning": so go and find a source for that, either the Hugos official website or news coverage of the awards that year, or both. That will help demonstrate her notability. (And note that section headings don't use caps except for first letter and proper nouns!) PamD 21:45, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

By the way, @KRKwrites, I'd found your draft by simply looking at your contributions list! Nothing much is hidden in the encyclopedia. PamD 21:46, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

I'm picking up on that! It's a little overwhelming tbh! And I thought the Wikipedia rabbithole ran deep on the reader side... :') KRKwrites (talk) 21:56, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

The Hugo Award is a major award, so that should be a strong demonstration of notability - add as much as you can find @KRKwrites and reviews of their work Lajmmoore (talk) 21:48, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Oh reviews are a great idea! I wouldn't have thought of that. Thank you! KRKwrites (talk) 21:55, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

I guess where I was a little confused was around whether the Hugo's official site counts as a "third party" site in this instance (since they're the granters of the award) - because I need to have at least some acceptable "third party" sources and right now I'm not sure I have any? But I will also try to find news stories! Thank you! And thanks for the tip about the headers. KRKwrites (talk) 21:58, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

@KRKwrites The official Hugos site is independent of Larson (in the way that her own website or her employer's or agent's is not) and the most reliable source imaginable for her having won an award- you need to specify which award, which year. It wouldn't be an independent site for a statement such as "The Hugos are the world's leading scifi awards", but it has no particular bias towards Larson or any other winner. PamD 23:21, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

That makes sense! Thank you for explaining it like this, that has really clarified the policy for me :) KRKwrites (talk) 03:39, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Trying for 4th time... the Hugo Award is confirmed in The Guardian and can be linked to Hugo Award for Best Professional Artist, which gives another source. SusunW (talk) 22:00, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

@SusunW I found the Guardian piece but was leaving it to the student editor to find that for themself as part of the educational exercise, now we've pointed them in the right direction! PamD 23:23, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

I love how working on here gives us better insight, PamD. My thoughts were that if I gave an example of a RS it might give the editor a boost. Then of course, that peaked my interest and I had to see what else was out there. It's the way my brain works, I gotta know. Next time, I'll wait to see if they're stuck. SusunW (talk) 13:22, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

SusunW, I think that in this case it was quite difficult to find sufficient sources to meet WP:GNG, so it was helpful to share what you found. I looked and didn't find anything, but possibly I didn't try hard enough. TSventon (talk) 14:38, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

Interesting, TSventon. Thank you. Good to know the search issues weren't just mine. I never know if a lack of sources found is because I am in Mexico and my search results are different. But in general, I find that sources on living people are much, much harder to locate. It often requires "creative searching", i.e. with some other term, like "X from Timbucktoo", "X, draws", "X, illustrated", etc. SusunW (talk) 14:47, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

Another piece here is that "Illustrator" is in and of itself an occupation that doesn't seem to lend itself to getting a lot of media coverage, or inspiring academic analysis. Inherently, most illustrators are working on other people's projects, drawing other people's characters, etc. So my thinking was kind of along the lines of: is any illustrator "notable"? Are any illustrators worthy of inclusion on Wikipedia? If no, then why is "Illustrator" a category on this redlist?

To answer my questions, I took a look through Category:Illustrators and decided that yes, clearly illustrators can be notable. In my view, winning a Hugo makes one pretty notable in a field where the vast majority of people go unrecognized for their work. I also looked at GNG before selecting Ms. Larson as my topic for my assignment, and left GNG under the mistaken impression that I had more than enough sources based on the number of interviews I had discovered to clear the GNG bar. It was only after I dived deeper into Wikipedia's criteria/standards for sources that I realized interviews were not adequate sources.

Anyway, based on the way that reference lists seem to look for other illustrators who already have Wikipedia pages, I believe I should be okay to move forward. It's not necessarily that Abigail Larson herself is being discussed in great detail by multiple independent secondary sources, but the work she's majorly contributed to is being written about and she is often mentioned by name in those pieces. So hopefully I will clear the bar. KRKwrites (talk) 16:17, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

KRKwrites Writing on WP is truly not simple! But, yes, I think you are fine. You might also try searching with her name followed by "artist", "art", "drew" "sketched", etc. in quotes. Perhaps you can wade through articles on archive.org for additional clues. Bottom line is that no, significant coverage does not need to be established in a single article, it can be a conglomerate of statements in multiple sources, but with the RVA magazine piece and the book from Universidad de La Laguna, you have enough to meet the GNG bar, IMO. Any other sources just build on that. (A note on inclusion in a redlist: Someone may verify that there is a claim of notability, as in this case and add them to a redlist. That does not mean that that someone confirmed that there are enough reliable sources to write a bio.) Good luck. SusunW (talk) 16:46, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

P. S. take out the .MX that sometimes appears in my searches if you cannot access links I gave you. SusunW (talk) 16:49, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

Thank you both for your help! I actually had already found the Guardian article about a week ago when I started identifying sources, but since it mentions Ms. Larson only in passing, it didn't really alleviate my concerns about sourcing everything besides the Hugo. I'm feeling better about sources now though since everyone here has given me great advice :) KRKwrites (talk) 16:00, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Generally it is a good idea to find sources which establish notability before starting to write the article, as advised in Help:Your first article. A major award indicates that a subject is "likely" to be notable, per WP:ANYBIO, but it does not guarantee notability. TSventon (talk) 22:02, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

KRKwrites This from RVA Magazine, which my websearch confirms has an editorial staff (Jeremy Parker (publisher) R. Anthony Harris (vice president) John Reinhold (editor-in-chief), Andrew Necci (creative director)), this in Spanish, and this book might be helpful as RS to build notability in RS. SusunW (talk) 22:48, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

That makes sense. I'll admit that I got pretty overwhelmed trying to sort through all the intro stuff and get my head around the different policies and rules. I also kind of assumed that someone being on the redlist in the first place meant they'd been sort of "vetted" for appropriate notability before being put there, but I guess it is a crowd sourced list so I shouldn't have assumed that. I also (when I started writing) was under the mistaken impression that interviews counted as adequately secondary sources.

Anyway, this artist has actually won a few different pretty big awards and has done work on some major productions, so I think she's pretty notable - I feel less confused now about how to identify good sources thanks to the help of all the comments :) KRKwrites (talk) 03:38, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

So glad to have you join us, @KRKwrites. If it’s ok I would love to have some advice from your POV as a new editor. The red link list you used actually has a box at the top that mentions, "All new articles must satisfy Wikipedia's notability criteria; red links on this list may or may not qualify." But obviously that warning is not prominent enough, you’re def not the first person who didn’t see it. Do you have any ideas for how we could change it to be more noticeable? Thanks for any thoughts you may have. Innisfree987 (talk) 15:18, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

Hi @Innisfree987! I think it would be really helpful to have that sentence as a separate point in the header (and maybe bolded). I think it's kind of easy to pass over right now especially if you're kind of skimming, and the rest of the box contains kinda non-vital intro information, if that makes sense. It doesn't jump out as being a warning.

Also, for new editors such as myself, it might be helpful to include links to Wikipedia's pages outlining notability requirements - in theory these are things people can familiarize themselves with without being directly linked, but in reality there are dozens upon dozens of pages for new editors to try to parse, so pointing right at the most relevant ones might be useful. KRKwrites (talk) 15:55, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

@KRKwrites: I went ahead and made a Wikidata item with her various authority IDs. If the article does get moved into mainspace, you can link it by clicking the "edit" link next to "Wikipedia" toward the bottom of the item's page. Nick Number (talk) 23:48, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Thank you! :) KRKwrites (talk) 03:33, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

• Hi there, KRKwrites. I'm coming in on this rather late but I have looked at the latest version of your draft and it seems to be coming along quite well. I see you intend to provide more details and will no doubt want to follow up on some of the suggestions made above. Please let me know when you are happy with the draft and I will try to help with moving it to main space. Abigail Larson is certainly notable enough for inclusion. It's good to see you found Women in Red and I'm glad we have been able to help you out. If you would like to become a member of the project, you can sign up under "New registrations" on Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/New members. Happy editing!--Ipigott (talk) 10:26, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

  Oh, thank you! I was actually trying to figure out if there was some way I was supposed to register for the project haha. I swear I'm normally better at navigating websites than this LOL, turns out there's so much more going on behind the scenes on Wikipedia than I ever could have imagined! There's many many many pages to shift through as a new editor so direct links to important things like this are super helpful to me (and my ADHD haha). KRKwrites (talk) 15:49, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

fyi, KRKwrites, Larson has an entry at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database, and according to the database, has also won Locus Awards in 2021 and 2022. Beccaynr (talk) 20:22, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

Oh my gosh, thank you! I have no idea how I missed this! This is actually a huge help; even aside from the awards, a bunch of these titles aren't listed on Larson's own website. I owe you one! KRKwrites (talk) 20:54, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

I wonder if it would be helpful if the redlist pages also provided some topic-specific tips. As Beccanyr points out, in science fiction and fantasy, the first place I would look for potential sources is ISFDB (where we find out that she sometimes used the pen name Abital I. Larson). I'd also try Locus Magazine, where we can see that she was nominated for a Prix Imaginales (fr). If she were an author, I'd also check the usual sources for book reviews: e.g., Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, and School Library Journal. pburka (talk) 20:56, 10 February 2024 (UTC)