Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countering systemic bias/Gender gap task force/Archive 13

Hi I have been discussing the above subject here with a member of this project, User:Stuartyeates who has been doing sterling work in closing the gap. They have created a large number of articles on NZ women in science and since the begining of this year has been starting the articles with a phrase such as "They are currently a full professor at the Lincoln University" and then used the pronoun "she" later on in the article. recently they have gone on to only using "they". As a new pages patroller I came across a few of these articles and was surprised to see this usage which as per MOS:GENDERID was not backed up by any sources used because "they" is usually reserved for specific people that do not identify with binary as per Singular_they#Contemporary_usage. Stuartyeates' argument for using "they" was that it is common in NZ but another kiwi editor contested this and even if this is true as per WP:SURPRISE we should make sure that information is easily understood by most.

My main concern over and above the grammar question is that by removing the female pronouns we are lessening the impact on closing the gap. Quite a few of the articles created by Stuartyeates are for NZ female academics that do not have easily gender-identifiable names for the majority of readers such as Sandhya Samarasinghe, Rukmani Gounder, Snejina Michailova, Toni Bruce, Gail Pacheco or Lesley McCowan etc. They have now moved to removing all pronouns. For stub articles such as Sandhya Samarasinghe this is not too shocking but for longer articles this will become problematic I think. I had a look at Wikipedia:Writing_about_women and gender neutral language is suggested for generic subjects such as job titles but nothing is mentioned about specific people. I am worried that by systematically removing gender from articles about women we are being counter-productive in closing the gender gap. Does anyone have an opinion on this? --Dom from Paris (talk) 10:26, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

I think "she" is all of more specific, more common, and shorter, so should be used where there is no risk of misgendering. That said, I also agree with Gadfium's comment on that talk page that to call it "disruptive" is going too far. It seems to be not that far from an editing style quirk; we all have those. "Removing all pronouns" could also be an acceptable solution, actually, as long as the article does clearly tell the subject's gender somewhere, it is still generally considered a rather important detail. Is Stuartyeates edit warring to keep the "they" after you have changed it to "she"? If not, then the problem seems easily solved. --GRuban (talk) 13:33, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

@GRuban: No edit warring whatsoever and they have stated twice that they will not edit war over it and maybe disruptive if too strong a word. It seems to be a personal choice on their part but as I tried to explain that when removing the gender pronouns for quite a few of the articles I have mentioned above there is no way of identifying gender in the text or in the title. Stuartyeates says that the fact they are in "women-only" categories is sufficient but I do not believe it is because most people use mobile devices to acces WP (I seem to remember a figure of 80% but I can't find that reference) and on my Android I cannot see the categories unless I switch to the desktop version. Also the fact that there are women-only categories seems contentious to me and maybe one day they will be merged. I'll be honest I really don't mind them removing pronouns so long as there is no doubt that the article is about a woman because I believe this is important to closing the gender gap. If this were just a couple of articles it wouldn't really matter but this editor is very very prolific, they have created 170 articles following this meetup Wikipedia:Meetup/Wellington/Women_in_Science. This editor has stated that "their gender is irrelevant to their notability and the topic at hand". I totally agree about the notability part but if we remove gender how can we be closing the gap. If it had been anyone that was not part of this project or WIR that had created or editied an article about a woman and had removed all gender identification from the article one could almost imagine that it was a deliberate attempt to thwart closing the gender gap by rendering the articles on women gender-free. I am not suggesting in any way that this editor is a misogynistic mole but I believe their good intentions are backfiring. --Dom from Paris (talk) 15:12, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

Aha. I see the articles in question are quite short, in fact several are in danger of being deleted for not meeting Wikipedia:Notability. That matters, because my argument against "gender is irrelevant to their notability" was going to be "yes, but it's very likely quite important to their lives, and these are supposed to be biographies, so leaving that out is like leaving out where they were born, grew up, went to school, married, etc., all things that we put in that likely don't really affect their notability but are presumably quite important to them as people." Unfortunately these articles are so short that they don't say where these women were born, grew up, went to school, etc! So that kind of falls flat. I'd support writing their gender explicitly, but the argument "we should do it for the WikiProject" isn't really policy or guideline. If we can't convince him, I think we'll have to do it. I'll come to his talk page and see if I can help. --GRuban (talk) 17:19, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

Domdeparis, thanks for pointing this out. That shouldn't be happening. I'll leave a note on his talk too. SarahSV ^(talk) 22:28, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

Let's be clear here, that I've never reverted let alone edit warred over this and only used it in articles where I am the only editor involved, either in the first edit or immediately afterwards cleaning up loose ends. A number of these articles have been tagged for notability, of these only Maryanne Garry has been taken to AfD; it currently have five independent keep votes. Stuartyeates (talk) 23:24, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

Hi Stuart, thanks for the reply. Please use female pronouns when writing about women. Calling them "they" feels like (is) an erasure of something very important to them. It's almost like refusing to use their names. SarahSV ^(talk) 01:39, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. Like I said there is no edit warring and Stuart's intentions are more than honorable but it just felt wrong that these women were having their gender hidden from readers. It made me think if it were me or anyone I knew I would not want someone taking that away unless it had specifically requested by the subject. Just because they are notable for something that has nothing to do with their gender doesn't make their gender irrelevant to them. Dom from Paris (talk) 08:07, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

As I have explained elsewhere User_talk:SlimVirgin, I've switched to avoiding pronouns several biographies ago. Stuartyeates (talk) 10:03, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

Ok. Not convinced but says he won't revert us if we do it. Looks like we have two choices: edit the articles ourselves to put in "she", or make it so he can't make more articles. To me, the choice seems obvious, his contributions are valuable. If no one else will do it, I can take a pronoun-fix pass every week or two. Thank you for your work Stuart. --GRuban (talk) 14:34, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

I "feminized" (a better short description would be welcome!) Stuart's last month of new articles. Maybe half already had "she". --GRuban (talk) 22:39, 9 September 2018 (UTC)

2018 done, again half by other people. --GRuban (talk) 11:58, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

I've looked through the second half ot 2017, through July, and almost all had "she" in Stuartyeates's original. I think we're done with the past, though I will try to look in on his their continued contributions. Thank you everyone. --GRuban (talk) 15:28, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

As a New pages patroller I'll also keep an eye on his articles now that his autopatrolled right has been revoked. This is just as well because I've come across a couple of other problems, errors in the bibliography and some editorialising and an awful lot of articles that don't ledon't leet WP:NACADEMIC. Maybe it is a case of needing to take a little more time in creating decent articles about really notable people rather than creating an article on every single full professor that is a woman. It's a shame that he hasn't taken note of the different remarks and is continuing his style of writing. Dom from Paris (talk) 18:28, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

GRuban, thanks for doing that. Domdeparis, I've wondered about the notability aspect too. They don't seem notable to me, the sourcing is poor, and it raises the question as to whether they would want a bio, given that they're entirely private individuals. SarahSV ^(talk) 19:01, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

I'm not going to be the one that nominates them for deletion! Yes, they're mostly cookie-cutter articles, many with the exact same three sentences:

"Jane Doe is a New Zealand Teapot Studies academic. She is currently a full professor at Wassamatta University.^[1] After a 1999 PhD titled ' Optimal teabags per teapot ratio ' at Haye University,^[2] she moved to Wassamatta, rising to full professor."

Then a list of publications. That shouldn't be enough for notability ... but, that said, I think looking deeper, at least half will be found to meet WP:GNG or WP:PROF. Not all full professors are notable, but many are, sufficiently so that I don't recommend a blanket nomination for deletion; maybe one or two if someone digs a bit figure out there just isn't any there there, but often there will be. Also, of course, that's kind of against the very purpose of this WikiProject. Ahem.--GRuban (talk) 20:59, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

You may be interested in looking at [], which is the page I cut and paste for every new biography. I'm happy to take constructive suggestions, since a recent twitter discussion added ~50 more female professors to my list. Please note, that I'm not doing _every_ female prof, since about 1 in 30 appears non-notable to me. Stuartyeates (talk) 00:51, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

Which notability criteria in WP:NACADEMIC are you basing the creation of these articles on? They are almost all identical in structure and most have not received a highly prestigious honour and do not have named chair positions most of those that are fellows are of societies that do not reserve that position as a highly selective honour and have not held a highest level admin post. All the other criteria need strong sources to show they meet them. I believe flooding WP with articles about non notable women is actually damaging to the idea of closing the gender gap. The aim is not just to have more articles on women but to create the articles about notable women. A good number of your creations will end up getting sent to Afd and because you have identified them as being created following a meetup this will discredit the work done by the members.

If we look at your last effort here you will have to admit that it is pretty poor. It is missing all the basic information that one would expect in an article about a notable person DOB early life place of birth etc. The lack of this kind of info shows one of 2 things a: this a quick stub article from an inexperienced or lazy editor or b: the info isn't out there because there are very few sources that have written about them because they are not notable enough.

In the lead you mix up "is" and "are", you can't remove the pronoun and leave "are". There is a single source that is affiliated and you haven't taken the time to fill it in.

The academic career section mentions her PhD thesis and the fact that she is a full professor on staff and that is it. You really can't pretend that this shows that she meets NACADEMIC can you?

I am pretty sure that if this is taken to ANI there is a very good chance that the community will decide that you have to go through AFC for all the articles that you create. This has already happened for an editor that was creating aalarge number of stub articles that were ending up at afd. Dom from Paris (talk) 05:43, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the is/are thing. Fixed in my template. Stuartyeates (talk) 08:28, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

The Anti-Harassment Tools team plans to generate baseline data to determine the effectiveness of blocks and we'd like to hear from users who interact with blocked users and participate in the blocking process to make sure these measurements will be meaningful.

The full commentary and details on how these will be measured are under § Proposed Measurements. For sake of brevity and discussion here are the seven proposed measurements for determining the effectiveness of blocks:

Sitewide blocks effect on a user

1.  Blocked user does not have their block expanded or reinstated.
2.  Blocked user returns and makes constructive edits.

Partial block’s effect on the affected users

1. Partially blocked user makes constructive edits elsewhere while being blocked.
2. Partially blocked user does not have their block expanded or reinstated.

Partial block’s success as a tool

1. Partial blocks will lead to a reduction in usage of sitewide blocks.
2. Partial blocks will lead to a reduction in usage of short-term full page protections.
3. Partial blocks will retain more constructive contributors than sitewide blocks.

In particular, I would like to learn from people familiar with the gender gap on Wikipedia their ideas about how we can measure if partial blocks will increase or decrease systemic bias in articles. How will we know if partial blocks increases of decreases the ability of women or people who identify as binary to add relevant content to Wikipedia articles? Talk to us on Meta to join the larger discussion. Or I will be monitoring comments on this page. SPoore (WMF), Trust & Safety, Community health initiative (talk) 15:53, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

Discussion WP:Articles for deletion/The NeuroGenderings Network. --The Vintage Feminist (talk) 15:15, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

In case anyone here would like to comment, there's a discussion at Wikipedia:Main Page/Errors#DYK current about a hook that was on the main page (now removed) quoting a description of Lady Angela Forbes as "an elderly gorilla afflicted with sex appeal". SarahSV ^(talk) 22:59, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

The discussion has been removed from that page, because the hook is no longer on the main page. See DYK talk here for a link. SarahSV ^(talk) 00:51, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

A remarkable song in its own way. It's been banned on a few radio stations and it looks like a national controversy. Please see the talk page there. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 18:31, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

International, even. MPS1992 (talk) 18:41, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

I have not enclosed the section title in quotation marks only because that sometimes causes problems.

I have recently been involved in a discussion at WP:BLPN about a living person who is also female. She's an actor, model, television host, author, and screenwriter.

On viewing the article, I raised some disagreements about the lede, so I have an involvement and a bias here. Anyway, another section of the lede says that she "then parlayed her Playboy fame into a television and film acting career starting as a co-host on..." -- the lede then mentions the TV show and goes on to list a series of other TV shows, numerous movies in which she was an actor, etc. From my limited understanding, there is no sourced content in the article linking her subsequent acting career as having been launched due to her initial (nude) modelling career.

I would be interested in whether those reading this noticeboard consider this wording regarding a female actor to be helpful in bridging the gender gap, how we encourage female editors and how we write about female subjects. Do male actors "parlay" fame in one field into paying jobs in related fields? Do we describe it in that way?

Since it would be tiresome of me not to mention the article name, it's Jenny McCarthy -- you may also wish to consider whether its current state merits B-class. MPS1992 (talk) 02:45, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

For anyone interested, please see Talk:Chairman#Requested move 22 March 2019. SarahSV ^(talk) 20:56, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

A Request for Comment that may be relevant to this task force is open at Talk:Jewish religious clothing § Request for Comment. Ibadibam (talk) 05:32, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

So, recently I have mostly been editing 2018 missile strikes against Syria and Tham Luang cave rescue. In the first article, the relevance and active role of women is made clear early in the article; Theresa May is one of the key players, and Nikki Haley, Permanent US Representative at the UN, soon makes an appearance to reassure the world that the United States is "locked and loaded".

But in the second article, it appears that the first forty-six individually named persons in the article are all male, with no females, transgender or non-binary persons named at all in the entire article. (Please correct me if I have mis-counted -- this does include the rescued as well as the rescuers.) This is despite Sky News having broadcast interviews with the commander of the U.S. contingent who was female, and BBC News having broadcast several segments of footage with female volunteers at the rescue logistics camp. The female volunteers were engaged in activities such as cleaning and cooking. I am certain that there was also footage of mothers, sisters, and female classmates of the trapped persons, but only reactions from male persons are included in the article. The article mentions that over ten thousand persons were involved in the rescue.

First, is this appropriate coverage?

Second, is there a wider gender gap problem in speleology and related emergency rescue procedures? If so, is there anything that we can do to fix this?

The name of the cave itself, incidentally, means "Great Cave of the Sleeping Lady". MPS1992 (talk) 03:15, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

Any thoughts on this? MPS1992 (talk) 18:03, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

Perhaps you could add a sourced quote from the commander of the U.S. contingent or information concerning which of the people involved in the rescue were transgender or non-binary. 2A01:E34:EF5E:4640:A9FA:2265:BB01:ECD (talk) 15:35, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

Thank you, this is a good idea. I will see what I can find. MPS1992 (talk) 18:14, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

To be honest, I'm not totally sure that reporting the percentage of women, men, gay, straight, lesbian or transgender volunteers is necessarily all that interesting. A sourced quote from the commander of the US contingent would certainly be good though.

Thank you for everyone's thoughts on this. I am researching further and will have some more to add soon. MPS1992 (talk) 02:48, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

Since my original post above, there has been the addition of mention of a female head of state in the article, so this is progress in the right direction. More to follow. MPS1992 (talk) 22:40, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

In case anyone is interested, see Talk:Chairman#Requested move 8 May 2019. SarahSV ^(talk) 23:17, 8 May 2019 (UTC)

Andrew Gray has been kind enough to compile some data about BLPs, using Wikidata, and has written a fascinating blog post about it: Gender and deletion on Wikipedia. He has uploaded the graphs to Commons.

There have been questions recently about whether existing BLPs about women (BLPs that have not been deleted) were more likely to have been taken to AfD at some point. Andrew thinks that used to be true, but that things have recently levelled off. He wrote: "Female BLPs created 2009-16 appear noticeably more likely than male BLPs of equivalent age to have been through a deletion discussion at some point in their lives (and, presumably, all have been kept). Since 2016, this has changed and the two groups are about even."

Andrew, thank you for putting all this together. And many thanks to RexxS too. SarahSV ^(talk) 00:39, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

Andrew Gray: Thanks for this interesting research. It looks to me as if your work on BLPs is pretty reliable, despite the minor problems you mention. The results are generally encouraging as they indicate an overall improvement over the years in the ratio of female to male BLPs. As has been suggested on the Women in Red talk page, it would be interesting to have similar data on female vs. male biographies that are not BLPs. I was also wondering to what extent biographies of sportswomen could represent a major factor in this analysis as it appears to me that the majority of BLPs are in fact about sports people. It might be interesting to run queries which exclude sports people to see whether they do in fact represent a major influence (and if not whether new BLPs on all the other categories over the years have been improving at higher or lower rates). Although it is probably not at all significant, I have also been wondering what proportion of articles originally written as BLPs are now no longer categorized as such as the individuals they cover have since died. It might be interesting to know how many articles are no longer BLPs but I don't expect it will change the stats.--Ipigott (talk) 10:33, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

@Ipigott: these are all good points. I didn't know that about sports people. Tagishsimon said that a large number of women sports bios had been deleted at some point. @Andrew Gray and RexxS: it would be very helpful to know the following:

1. How many articles on the English Wikipedia were BLPs when they were created, regardless of whether they are BLPs now, and regardless of whether they were deleted?
2. What is the sex/gender ratio of BLPs at the point of creation, i.e. how many male and how many female BLPs have ever been created, regardless of current BLP or deletion status? (I'm sticking with male and female for now because the numbers outside these values are apparently very small.)
3. What is the sex ratio of BLPs that have been nominated for deletion at least once, and how many of each were eventually kept?
4. The same information for non-living biographies.

I don't know whether the above is possible, and if so how much work it would entail. If it's a lot, perhaps we should consider paying the person who compiles the figures. I'd certainly be willing to contribute to that. SarahSV ^(talk) 19:56, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

If you're just going on "raw number of BLPs" without differentiating between categories, then expect a sudden spike in the deletions of biographies of women for the next couple of months, in the wake of the deprecation of the special notability guidelines for pornography once people realize the implications and start clearing out the stub biographies. ‑ Iridescent 20:02, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

Good point, thanks. Glad to see the back of that. SarahSV ^(talk) 20:05, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

Hi all - glad to see this was useful/interesting. Some notes:

• I think we should all be cheered by the headline figure that the proportion of [surviving] female BLPs has been systematically outperforming the long-term average since 2012. It's taking some time to move the overall ratio, but that is definitely slowly being dragged upwards.
• The conclusions are all very dependent on my assumption that Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Some Pagename can be inferred to be about Some Pagename. I believe this is reasonable, and while it's always going to be imperfect, it's fine as long as the error rates are about equal by gender. I don't see any obvious reason they wouldn't be, but this is something I'm a bit cautious over and would be keen to hear any obvious issues I may have missed.
• My planned next steps are:

a) looking at some "occupational" subgroups as Ipigott suggests - I've just pulled down data for BLPs which WD thinks are "athletes" (414k, a little under half the BLPs, 16% F) and "politicians" (96k, 24% F), and will report back if they substantially differ from the general set. I'll also investigate if we can gather comparable data for non-BLPs (for tedious technical reasons it might be trickier, but I'll try).

b) trying to gather some data on deleted pages. My thought here is to look at a sample of AFD logs - it turns out to be reasonably straightforward to get a sense of how many articles on a given day were BLPs and their gender (even if deleted, it's usually apparent). We can't get age information, so it won't perfectly line up, but it does let us get some aggregate data on relative nomination/deletion rates and will also confirm if there was really a substantive change in ~2017/18 (cf David's comments on the other page). I think it would take about ten or twenty person-hours to get some decent data on this - if people are willing to volunteer a bit of time for this, let me know and I'll set something up to gather data.

With that, we have a decent chance of answering Sarah's question #3, which I think is the key to really understanding what's going on. Andrew Gray (talk) 22:15, 8 May 2019 (UTC)

PS: on Ipigott's query as to "how many BLPs have since died"

• 7494 articles in Category:2018 deaths, 5495 created before 2018, 2268 during the year; approx 56000 current BLPs created that year
• 8451 articles in Category:2016 deaths, 5683 created before 2016, 1884 during the year; approx 61000 current BLPs created that year
• 8635 articles in Category:2014 deaths, 4923 created before 2014, 2088 during the year; approx 53000 current BLPs created that year

So on the basis of that very cursory sample, the total number of "no longer a BLP" is rising pretty steadily but is outstripped by the overall BLP growth. (I'm assuming that articles created during the year are probably mostly on a "recent obituary" basis and were not BLPs at the time of creation, but it's hard to prove) Andrew Gray (talk) 22:35, 8 May 2019 (UTC)

PPS: a second update on deleted articles. Magnus has done a followup on this looking at deleted page titles and inferring gender from the name (ie if it's called "Susan Smith", probably a man, etc). This doesn't distinguish between BLPs and "historic" biographies, and it could only infer gender for about 2/3 of people, but of the deleted gendered articles, ~23% are female. From my data, ~23% of current BLPs are female, and ~26% of those with an associated past AFD are female. A lot to chew on here, but the numbers are all broadly in the same ballpark, and it provisionally suggests deletion follows nomination at about an even rate. Andrew Gray (talk) 22:58, 8 May 2019 (UTC)

• So I've been looking at this some more, in part from this comment by @David Eppstein:. I followed up his classification and found that in his two-month sample, 35% of nominated articles were women, but only 25% of deleted pages - in other words, women are apparently more likely to survive deletion nominations, which we'd suspected from the earlier data. The actual deletion rate is still a bit higher than for men, but much closer to the overall average (assuming that recently-AFDed academics are likely to be BLPs, which seems generally plausible).
• On the BLPs-by-occupation question that @Ipigott: raised, "politicians" (10% of BLPs) are about normal (24% F). The same sort of patterns as for overall BLPs - female articles are very slightly longer, and they are slightly more likely to have survived a previous deletion nomination.

For "athletes", however (46% of BLPs!), the numbers are very different. They are more skewed male (15.6%), though the situation is improving over time, and male BLPs are noticeably more likely to have been through a previous deletion debate.

I haven't been able to generate numbers for "scientists", unfortunately - the occupation tree is a bit complex here and things start timing out Andrew Gray (talk) 22:30, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

Andrew Gray: Thanks for investigating these interesting details. Do you think you could include the results in an updated version of "Gender and deletion on Wikipedia". It would be a useful paper to draw on in further discussion of the gender problem.--Ipigott (talk) 06:48, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

Definitely - I'll keep chipping away at this and bundle it all up into a second post. Andrew Gray (talk) 18:32, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

Just stumbling on to this page (didn't know it existed), and this is such fascinating stuff to read, Andrew. Thanks to you and everyone who runs queries and helps up better understand both Wikipedia as well as the composition of the people who edit here. I wish I had taken more coursework in quantitative methods but I was an ethnographer and transcribing took precedence over algorithms. Can't wait to hear about your second post, whenever that comes. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 22:05, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

Hi all!

Are you curious about what tools are effective in reaching Women in Red’s goals? Are you interested in contributing to the building of scalable solutions for closing Wikipedia’s gender gap?

I’m with a group of researchers working on using Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools to promote gender diversity in Wikipedia contents and thus to close the gender gap. We want to make sure you, as an important member of the community, can be heard as we build and refine these AIs.

We would like to invite you to a quick interview to share your thoughts about gender gaps on Wikipedia and the current efforts, as well as potential solutions to them. It would only take about 30 minutes over phone or video chat. We will send you a $15 Amazon gift card as a way to thank you for your time.

For more details about our project, please refer to our Wikipedia page here.

If you decide to participate, your opinion could help build the future of Wikipedia. Hope to talk to you soon! Reply to this message here or send me an email at bowen-yu@umn.edu and I can share more info and plan a time to connect. Bobo.03 (talk) 19:34, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

@Bobo.03: I am glad that you consider me an important member of the community. Please could you tell me how you decided on my importance? MPS1992 (talk) 22:11, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

@MPS1992: Thank you for your response! It would be very helpful if you'd be available for an interview with us. Your suggestions will be very important for us which will guide the design of our system! Bobo.03 (talk) 01:17, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

To whom it may concern:

• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2019 July 20#Category:Manned missions to the Moon and
• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2019 July 22#"Manned" renaming. --GRuban (talk) 15:37, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

FYI

 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#"She" vs. "it" for ships. This is a perennial discussion that never seems to reach consensus. Notice of this round of discussion was sort of spammed to various ship- and military-related projects and pages (i.e., places of strong concentration of fans of using "she" for ships, and of male editors in particular), so I'm notifying some other wikiprojects and such that are apt to have wider views and demographics, for balance.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  09:32, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

An editor is nominating numerous articles about women footballers / soccer players who have played in top leagues in France and Sweden. The leagues most likely were included on WP:NFOOTY unbalanced list of notable leagues at the time of creation - and have since been removed but that's probably irrelevant here. Basically, many of the articles need improved referencing to meet WP:GNG.

If any editors have time to review and search for references that support WP:GNG and participate in deletion discussion if there is one, it is most appreciated. Here's the list:

Did you know

• 08 Sep 2026 – Ellen Wille (talk · edit · hist) was nominated for DYK by Alpha Beta Delta Lambda (t · c); see discussion

Articles for deletion

• 12 Oct 2026 – Arianna LePage (talk · edit · hist) was AfDed by Let'srun (t · c); see discussion (0 participants)
• 12 Oct 2026 – Morgan Brown (footballer, born 1995) (talk · edit · hist) was AfDed by Let'srun (t · c); see discussion (0 participants)
• 08 Oct 2026 – Natalie Oca (talk · edit · hist) was AfDed by Let'srun (t · c); see discussion (3 participants)
• 29 Jul 2026 – Aster Janssens (talk · edit · hist) AfDed by Licks-rocks (t · c) was closed as delete by Vanamonde93 (t · c) on 10 Oct 2026; see discussion (22 participants; relisted)

Proposed deletions

• 08 Oct 2026 – Nathalie Hoeltgen (talk · edit · hist) was PRODed by Kowal2701 (t · c): Presumptive removal of LLM-generated content, see Wikipedia:AI noticeboard#User:Harold9595959. Please do not remove this tag without following the procedures for disputing presumptive removal of LLM-generated content.

Files for discussion

• 04 Sep 2026 – File:FC Girondins de Bordeaux logo.svg (talk · edit · hist) (on 1, 2) was FfDed by Candidyeoman55 (t · c); see discussion

Requested moves

• 10 Oct 2026 – Noel King (talk · edit · hist) is requested to be moved to Noel King (football manager) by Sirlink2222 (t · c); see discussion

Articles to be split

• 10 May 2025 – FC Barcelona Femení (talk · edit · hist) is proposed for splitting by Crowsus (t · c); see discussion

Articles for creation

• 08 Oct 2026 – Draft:Sophine Kevorkian (talk · edit · hist) has been submitted for AfC by 24Anonymous (t · c)
• 15 Sep 2026 – Draft:Eva Gray (footballer) (talk · edit · hist) has been submitted for AfC by The231050 (t · c)
• 30 Aug 2026 – Draft:Itala Gemelli (talk · edit · hist) has been submitted for AfC by 24Anonymous (t · c)

Thank you. Hmlarson (talk) 19:49, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for posting here about it. SarahSV ^(talk) 19:51, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

Centralized discussion here: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Women in Red#Proposed deletion of women's footballer / soccer player articles. Hmlarson (talk) 23:10, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

A Wikimedia committee has posted a draft version of a Universal Code of Conduct at meta which, while it contains language about respecting the diversity of community members and condemning hate speech that appears in vandalism, does not appear to prohibit or otherwise mention racism, sexism, homophobia, or other forms of prejudice outside of vandalism and direct insults (in the English version, at least.) It does concern itself with, for example, defining repeated sarcasm as a form of harassment. In the page containing summaries of committee meetings the words "racism", "sexism", and "homophobia" also do not appear. (In the English version.)

Perhaps there is a good or practical reason for this; I'm not personally familiar with the high-level Wikimedia policy development process. But the discussion of the UCoC draft closes on October 7, after which the drafting committee will submit its recommendation to the Wikimedia Board of Trustees, so I am placing this message in this talk page in the hopes of ensuring that editors who can comment constructively on the absence of language providing guidance on non-insult, non-vandalism expressions of prejudice get a chance to comment. --▸₷truthious Ⓑandersnatch◂ 19:41, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

The draft code doesn't mention sexism, racism, or homophobia directly but these are covered in the wording as I understand it:

Insults: This includes name calling, using slurs or stereotypes, and any attacks based on personal characteristics. Insults may refer to perceived characteristics like intelligence, appearance, ethnicity, race, religion, culture, caste, sexual orientation, gender, disability, age, nationality, political affiliation, or other characteristics. In some cases, repeated mockery, sarcasm, or aggression may qualify as insults collectively, even if individual statements would not.

JezGrove (talk) 20:14, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

Hi everyone I wondered if the insertion of DOB for women may present a form of gender imbalance in that women are more likely than men to be the victims of ageism and accompanying discrimination, and may prefer not to have their ages registered on wikipedia? Is there any option for the subjects of articles to request that their age is occluded, for this reason? My apologies if this has already been debated. Many thanks and cheers, Miles Quest (talk) 19:22, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

@Miles Quest: WP:BLPDOB has some info on standard practice for when BLP subjects request their DOB be omitted from their article. GorillaWarfare (talk) 19:32, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

Many thanks for your reply GorillaWarfare - will take a look - cheers Miles Quest (talk) 19:56, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

Greta Thunberg's article starts with the Mental Health section. There is a discussion about whether it is appropriate, as the typical WP pattern for health disclosure is at the end of the article under the Health Section. Many prominent male figures had mental conditions that began to appear in childhood, but their articles do not start with the section titled Mental Health. I am yet to see another article on a well-known person (not a mental health advocate) that begins with the section titled Mental Health. However, if it exists, it doesn't appear objective. Please provide your inputs if you are interested to discuss this in her "talk" page. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greta_Thunberg — Preceding unsigned comment added by Partizan Kuzya (talk • contribs) 18:24, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. I can see both sides here - it's an important part of her early life, which is naturally the first section of the article, and it does naturally flow into the discussion of the activism, yet, yes, it does tend to throw shade at it. I think your suggestion of removing the subsection heading is a good compromise, it's otherwise a 2 paragraph section, we can live without it. --GRuban (talk) 18:57, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

→Thank you!!Partizan Kuzya (talk) 20:42, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

I agree that it's better without the heading. SarahSV ^(talk) 21:02, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

→Please discuss your thoughts on Thunberg's Talk page if you have any comments. Partizan Kuzya (talk) 23:08, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

@SlimVirgin: Thank you so much Sarah, looks like your comment and itemizing the options opened the support floodgates. When I grow up, I want to be just like you! --GRuban (talk) 16:50, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

Thank you all for the supoort in restoring neutrality! Partizan Kuzya (talk) 17:31, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

First of all, I want to apologise if this is not the right forum to write this, but I am hoping to find support and more information. I'm a longtime editor but used to focus more on old (pre-1960s) pop culture/art articles. In the recent years, I've also 'branched out' to more recent pop culture articles, especially related to domestic abuse cases, such as the Amber Heard/Johnny Depp case, and now, the Marilyn Manson case. Why I started doing this was because I noticed that whenever there's a woman who goes public with abuse allegations, the related WP articles seem to not represent the cases in a neutral way, but instead are often biased towards the person that is alleged to have been the abusive party. The line "innocent until proven guilty in a criminal court" seems to be often thrown around to prevent anything beyond a cursory mention of allegations, despite the fact that criminal convictions in domestic/intimate partner/child abuse cases are relatively rare due to multiple factors, none of which is that fake allegations would be prevalent. The same commitment to 'the truth' that makes editors block almost any mention of abuse allegations does often not go the other way, with almost any material that casts the accuser in a bad light being ok to add apparently.

Examples: the main editor of Manson's WP articles adding a section about Wood stating that Kobe Bryant was a rapist and wording it in a way that was misleading and deliberately made Wood look bad; the same user disputing Wood's statement that she was underage in an image and thus deleting this statement, and refusing to allow details of the allegations in the MM article; after Depp lost his libel case in the UK, editors seem to want to add minutiae on anti-Heard online petitions, or blatant attempts of Depp's team to smear her to the article... I can go on and give more details if you are interested. It also appears that quite a few Wikipedians seem to lose their ability to look at the big picture (e.g. the entire case from start to present day) or to have any basic source criticism when it comes to these articles. It also doesn't seem that many Wikipedians have any basic knowledge of domestic/intimate partner violence (e.g. that mutual abuse is rare but the abuser trying to frame self-defense as such is not; that fake allegations are very, very rare; that it's often difficult to take cases to court; that BDSM and abuse are different things entirely; that abusers can seem to be nice people to outsiders...), although of course this applies to the general population as well. Even in a case where there are multiple accusers making very serious allegations and politicians calling for a FBI investigation (e.g. Manson) or where the accusations have been proven in a civil court (Depp), it seems to be difficult to break through this bias.

Apologies if this is a bit rambling, but I guess I'm here to seek peer support and advice? Is there any type of Manual of Style for these types of cases? It would be great to discuss these issues with others as I often feel like the only editor trying to fight this bias in these articles, but I know I must not be alone. TrueHeartSusie3 (talk) 13:34, 11 February 2021 (UTC)TrueHeartSusie3

If any admins read this forum, please take a look at the Evan Rachel Wood article, it's currently experiencing quite a bit of vandalism from IPs, and most likely this will continue. Likewise, if anyone can advise how to get in touch with an admin/how to go about temporarily restricting edits by unregistered editors to the article, that would be wonderful! TrueHeartSusie3 (talk) 19:00, 20 February 2021 (UTC)TrueHeartSusie3

TrueHeartSusie3, the problem with Evan Rachel Wood is that it's being used as a coatrack for serious allegations against a public figure (a BLP). We're allowed to publish such allegations if there is sufficiently strong sourcing, but I wonder whether there is in this case, and at such length. SarahSV ^(talk) 20:13, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

Hmmm, are you referring to the part that the fly-by keeps removing? I'd argue that since it comes from her testimonies at the Senate and State hearings, and doesn't directly state Manson's name in that paragraph, there's grounds for keeping it. I've tried to keep it as general as possible, but why it was added in the first place was because there seemed to be confusion about what type of abuse Wood is talking about. Initially, the name of the section was 'Sexual assaults', even though the allegations that Wood makes include other violence and abuse as well. I do agree that the paragraph is getting long, but if you actually look at the content of it, not a lot of it is on the actual allegations. Hopefully with the current criminal investigation there will be even better grounds for having a long section on this (or even a separate article if there are criminal charges like in the Weinstein and Cosby cases). However, why I am concerned for the article is more because of the content that is being added repeatedly. It is unsourced and seems to have the sole purpose of making Wood seem bad. Thank you for responding! TrueHeartSusie3 (talk) 21:21, 20 February 2021 (UTC)TrueHeartSusie3

Ok, now I have to say I am confused, User:SlimVirgin. I just checked your edits, and I see you've deleted any mention of Wood naming him as her abuser? Even though that has been widely reported by top media (NYT, LAT, The Guardian, BBC...) and has excellent sources to back it up, in addition to also including Manson's take on the matter? Could you please clarify why? TrueHeartSusie3 (talk) 21:27, 20 February 2021 (UTC)TrueHeartSusie3

I've edited it down to this. Is anything important missing from that version? I've been meaning to start a discussion at WT:BLP about whether we need to add something to the policy about this kind of situation. The policy was written before Me Too. It didn't foresee so many serious allegations against public figures, some of them relatively minor public figures. We need extra guidance. SarahSV ^(talk) 21:49, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

Ok, now it looks much better! Thank you! :) I think the only thing that needs to be mentioned somehow is the fact that Wood isn't the only person making these allegations. On Feb 1, when she first named MM, four other women did so too, Wood just happens to be the only one with celebrity status. The news articles on that day seem to discuss their allegations jointly, i.e. she was one in a group of people naming MM. Since then 4 or 5 other women have also come out. So some type of mention that this is several women rather than just Wood making these allegations would I think be warranted. I think it could perhaps also be mentioned that at least three public representatives in three different states have also called for an investigation on Manson. However, I anticipate that this case may actually lead to criminal charges and at that stage may warrant its own article, so of course the state representatives' calls for investigation may be best left until that.

I agree that it may be a good idea to develop some sort of style guide etc. for how these types of allegations should be handled, they are tricky. I will be happy to contribute my thoughts if needed! TrueHeartSusie3 (talk) 22:09, 20 February 2021 (UTC)TrueHeartSusie3

The problem is when a large section of an article about person A becomes about person B. For example, that at least three public representatives in three different states have called for an investigation into Manson has nothing to do with Wood's bio. I think anything resembling a coatrack should be avoided. SarahSV ^(talk) 22:15, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

I understand that, but I think it should at least somehow be mentioned that Wood isn't the only one making these claims, she is part of a group of women making them. Now, it appears as if she alone is making them. I don't think any further detail needs to be added, just a mention that several other women also came out with similar claims at the same time. TrueHeartSusie3 (talk) 08:55, 21 February 2021 (UTC)TrueHeartSusie3

User:SlimVirgin or any other admins reading this page, please take a look at the Depp/Heard pages as well if you have time, there's persistent BLP violations taking place right now, not sure what to do as don't want to edit war. TrueHeartSusie3 (talk) 11:43, 21 February 2021 (UTC)TrueHeartSusie3

I've tightened the Wood section further, added the other women, and added a "further information" link to the abuse allegations section of the Manson article. See permalink. SarahSV ^(talk) 04:11, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Thank you! Looks much better! TrueHeartSusie3 (talk) 09:48, 22 February 2021 (UTC)TrueHeartSusie3

Thanks. I don't think I can face working on the Depp/Heard articles, but I'll take a look at them anyway. SarahSV ^(talk) 20:20, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Totally understandable, am so tired myself :( I think the Heard one is in pretty ok shape at the moment, and is now more protected, but the Depp article still has the same poorly sourced claims in there, so I would suggest focusing on that instead if/when you have time. Again, thank you! TrueHeartSusie3 (talk) 09:42, 23 February 2021 (UTC)TrueHeartSusie3

Trying to make +1 for addressing systemic bias in academia: Talk:New moon § Separating sections: Lunisolar Calendar and Lunar Calendar Today is the second new moon of spring. We don't know this, because they refuse to feature this kind of content on the main page, accusing people like me of POV promoting a lunar religion, and suggesting that I'm WP:NOTHERE. We need to find points of intersection in this struggle. Lets get the new moon on the main page next month.Jaredscribe (talk) 06:47, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

There's a requested move at Gender bias on Wikipedia, to move to Sexism on WikipediaSexism on Wikipedia. Please join the discussion. --Xurizuri (talk) 03:42, 26 February 2022 (UTC) (please ping me if you reply)

Hello, I would request input on the nomination of Template:Gender unclear for deletion. The reasons for deletion intersect with the goals of this WikiProject, with the template being claimed to embody a bias against people of certain genders. The corresponding discussion may thus be of interest to this task force.

Template:Gender unclear has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the entry on the Templates for discussion page. ExoticViolet (talk) 15:50, 19 May 2021 (UTC) ExoticViolet (talk) 15:53, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

It was deleted, after a few relistings. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 20:57, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

There is a BLPN thread concerning one of the women who has accused Donald Trump of rape, here. SPECIFICO talk 15:33, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

The controversy was about her not calling it rape, was it not? Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 20:59, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

I have just had 2 edits on snooker player Liang Wenbo reverted / watered down. Wenbo was convicted of assault on a woman (BBC News article). I gave the information its own section and added a summary to the lead section.

The other editor (an admin) has changed it to a sub-section within "personal life" on the grounds that it is a "bit crazy for a full section" and removed it from the lead as "a bit heavy handed for a lede".

I know people are going to say discuss it / start a conversation on the talk page, but I really don't want to get into it, someone else will have to pick up the banner.

This evening (1 April 2022) ITV4's coverage of the Tour Championship 7.15pm, began with presenter Jill Douglas reading out of a statement by the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association which read. "We (the WPBSA) were not aware of this incident and are very disappointed to read of such matters.

While we read that Wenbo has already been sentenced for this offence, we will now consider the position from our sport's disciplinary perspective. Again, we are extremely disappointed to read this news today." (also reported on France24).

If anyone wants to take another run at it with the extra refs then please do. The Vintage Feminist (talk) 02:39, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

Update he has now been suspended from the snooker tour. The Vintage Feminist (talk) 15:31, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

 You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Donald Trump § Multi-part proposal for content on E. Jean Carroll v. Trump. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 15:36, 15 May 2023 (UTC)