Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Women scientists/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Formatting

Congratulations on your new WikiProject! The main page doesn't look like a Wikipedia page, though. If there is interest, I could redo it using Wiki markup - I designed the WikiProject Geology layout. RockMagnetist (talk) 16:11, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

I think that would be cool, but Keilana might have different feelings. What I'd like to see is the participants section to be editable without having to go through the whole page (makes it easier for newbies!). SarahStierch (talk) 21:21, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

In the early stages, it might be best to format the page using {{WikiProject}} and add a section for participants. RockMagnetist (talk) 21:37, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Now I see where the format comes from - WikiProject Biography uses it. It might be appropriate to follow their style. RockMagnetist (talk) 01:54, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

A minimal change I would recommend: the second edit of this page ("prettify") broke the navigation links. Sections like "Members" and "Categories" should be normal Wikipedia sections, as in Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography/Science and academia. RockMagnetist (talk) 16:45, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Ahh, my bad. Could you fix it? I'm not sure what exactly I did to break it. Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 16:46, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Done. It still looks good. — Preceding unsigned comment added by RockMagnetist (talk • contribs) 17:21, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Awesome, thanks! :) Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 17:53, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Wouldn't {{anchor}} have worked here (while keeping the aesthetic)? czar · · 20:46, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

I suppose it would. I was imitating the style of Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography/Science and academia, which has a box at the top and then some ordinary Wikipedia sections. I think that it's easier to use Wikipedia markup on sections that may change frequently. RockMagnetist (talk) 21:15, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Although I would still prefer a fully Wikipedia-style page. RockMagnetist (talk) 21:37, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

How many pages?

How many articles is this project likely to cover? The the WikiProject Guide recommends that WikiProjects cover several hundred or a few thousand articles; otherwise there is a good chance the project will fall into inactivity. Task forces are recommended for a few dozen to a few hundred pages. RockMagnetist (talk) 01:38, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Note that this project would cover a subset of Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography/Science and academia, a task force with over 46,000 articles. RockMagnetist (talk) 01:57, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Just from some back-of-the-envelope math, it should cover well over a thousand articles, which seems enough to me. Plus, there are hundreds more to be created; we're dealing with a pretty significant bias here. I'm personally not worried about there being enough to work on! :) Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 05:09, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm beginning to see why my initial estimate was so low - some articles are in categories like L’Oréal-UNESCO Awards for Women in Science laureates. RockMagnetist (talk) 19:34, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Yep, some are hard to find. One tool I'm finding useful is going through biographical dictionaries, and while looking for coverage gaps, checking out the categories for the articles that do exist. I'm sure it'll be awhile before we get everything tagged! Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 19:39, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

I have added articles from the FA- and GA-class Category:Biography (science and academia) articles by quality. That didn't take long - but I don't think I'll have time to do the other 46,000 articles in that category! Of course, your approach is more useful because it identifies the articles that WP doesn't have. RockMagnetist (talk) 20:40, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Hah, that's quite the effort! I'm sure we'll get the vast majority of it eventually... Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 22:41, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Keilana, you were dead right about the number of articles. It is up to 1279! When it was about 900, the rate of growth slowed and I thought it was time to create Index of women scientists articles; but now the index is way out of date. RockMagnetist (talk) 00:56, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Oh wow, is there an automated way to update the index? Doing it manually sounds tedious. Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 01:06, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

WikiProject Mathematics developed one for their project, but I don't know what it would take to adapt it. I used some regular expression editing tricks to streamline the process, but it was still tedious. RockMagnetist (talk) 01:29, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I'm not a bot person. Do you know anyone who'd be willing to help us out? Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 01:45, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

I left a question at Mathbot. RockMagnetist (talk) 02:55, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Promoting the project

Two things that should be done to promote this project:

• Add it to the WikiProject Directory
• Announce it at the WikiProject desk of The Signpost.

RockMagnetist (talk) 01:08, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

I have listed the project under Biography as the main listing and Science as a secondary listing. RockMagnetist (talk) 15:56, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

I have added an announcement at the Signpost WikiProject desk. It's much like the announcements you have been posting on project talk pages. Feel free to edit it. RockMagnetist (talk) 16:49, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Awesome, thank you! Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 17:43, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

women engineers and architects

Hi, I am happy to see this wikiproject and its clear focus on women in science. Rachel Carson is one of my heroes! I don't want to suggest blurring the focus, but i wonder if the wikiproject page could identify how women engineers and architects are related topics, although not part of this project itself. Not sure what you could link to. Category:Women architects is a category that I have been contributing to, though, and Category:Women in engineering exists too. Maybe you could link to those, as related? By the way, the Ada Lovelace Day event included development of some women architect articles. I think architects and engineers are not scientists, but are important, too. Nice work starting this project! :) --doncram 15:59, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

I figure this will be a catalyst to starting other "Women [whatever]" projects here. Or task forces would probably be a better idea. I'm going to start a women artists one eventually! Or "WP:Creative women," or something, where architects would surely fall into it. But, architects aren't necessarily scientists (most of them) so..I can't really see it falling under the scope of this project. I do think it's probably a better idea have this be a task force of WP:Biography, making it easier to have task forces for other bio themes, ya know? SarahStierch (talk) 16:08, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Hmm, I'd actually argue for us including engineers, but that's not really up to me to decide. I do hope that other "Woman fill-in-the-blank" projects get started as well! Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 02:43, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Before the 19th century, the distinction wasn't clear. Now I would say that, to qualify as a scientist, an engineer should do some published research. Designers of commercial products would not qualify. RockMagnetist (talk) 19:13, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, that seems fair. Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 20:34, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Here is an interesting test case: Elizabeth Garrett Anderson. Certainly a very notable physician, dean of a medical school, feminist, etc., and the article is well developed; so it's tempting to include her in the project - but was she a scientist? I don't see any evidence that she did any research. RockMagnetist (talk) 05:38, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Astronauts like Shannon Walker are another question mark. RockMagnetist (talk) 05:39, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

alert

Hey everyone, I just noticed something that wasn't picked up by the article alerts bot: Barbara McClintock is currently at FAR. I would very much like to save it! Anyone up for the challenge? Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 05:25, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Well, I can at least ask the Article Alerts people why we're not seeing it. RockMagnetist (talk) 06:05, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

That problem seems to be fixed now. RockMagnetist (talk) 15:55, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Yep, saw that this morning. :) Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 16:23, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

I was actually going to bring this up here. I'd like to help. OakRunner (talk) 15:53, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Ditto, I'm going to start work on it today. I think I have access to at least some of the sources cited in the article, so I can start to verify and add inline cites. Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 16:23, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

• This webpage at the National Library of Medicine has a collection of some of her influential papers for free.OakRunner (talk) 02:25, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Todo list

I have added a todo list at the top of this page. My main reason for doing so is to draw attention to the articles in the verify row. These are articles that have been tagged with {{BLP unsourced}} or {{BLP sources}}, which are very high-priority tags. RockMagnetist (talk) 19:04, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Now that I have the cleanup list, I have changed the todo list above to include only top- and high-priority articles (mostly top, except in the BLP list where there aren't any). RockMagnetist (talk) 18:01, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

We have cleanup listings!

The cleanup listings for this project are now active. You can access them using the little box with the broom on the front page. I find the second link, "the list by category", more useful because some cleanup issues are more important than others. Even better, once you're on the page you can click on the "Importance" header in any of the cleanup tables, and all of the tables will be sorted by importance.

It's quite a long list! 67.7% of all articles have at least one cleanup tag (compare Geology, which has 27.3%, and Physics, which has 36.3%). There are 73 articles in "BLP articles lacking sources" alone. RockMagnetist (talk) 16:33, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Oh wow. I'll try to tackle some of the BLPs this weekend. Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 17:37, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Our 15 minutes

There's an abbreviated version of our notice in the current Signpost. RockMagnetist (talk) 06:02, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Recognized content

The Recognized content page is now working correctly (there is also a link to it on the main project page). Looks like there are quite a few DYK's we missed! RockMagnetist (talk) 20:20, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Awesome, thanks for getting that sorted! That's so much easier than doing it all by hand. =] Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 00:36, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

You're welcome. The question now is whether to include all 46 DYK's on the front page. RockMagnetist (talk) 05:27, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm ambivalent, sorry that's not much help! It'd be nice to show how far we have come already but on the other hand it's quite unwieldy. Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 05:35, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Recent changes

We now have a Recent changes page, which is really useful for keeping an eye on vandalism. It is based on Index of women scientists articles, which I created for the purpose; so this index should be kept up to date. RockMagnetist (talk) 18:03, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

That should probably say Index of women scientists articles. KTC (talk) 18:10, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Right. Thanks. RockMagnetist (talk) 18:29, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Frances Hugle

Frances Hugle could use some TLC if people here may have better access to specialty sources that are not online. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 22:50, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

It looks like there is also a COI-related conflict that could use some neutral input. RockMagnetist (talk) 22:58, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Project scope

I notice you've added this project banner to several articles I have been involved with, and wondered what your scope is. Another suggestion from articles I've created is Eleanor Davies-Colley, the first woman to be elected to the Royal College of Surgeons of England. Also her friend and fellow surgeon, Maud Chadburn. Espresso Addict (talk) 08:19, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

I would say the title provide a fair description. They have to be a woman, and they have to be a scientist. Personally, someone who conduct medical research should be included, but not say someone who's simply a family doctor. -- KTC (talk) 13:48, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. Do you think we need to explicitly say something about medical research on the project page or just leave as is? Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 20:46, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Something should probably be said because there are several articles in this category that have been tagged. I mentioned one above: Elizabeth Garrett Anderson. Also several astronauts like Shannon Walker have been tagged but appear to have done no science. RockMagnetist (talk) 21:41, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Erm... Walker's article lede say "is an American scientist ...". Not the traditional sense of academic positions with publish papers, but her various positions in NASA involve doing lots of science. KTC (talk) 21:49, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

There is nothing at all about her scientific work in the body of the article. We could give her the benefit of the doubt and assume there is some information out there on it. I don't think, though, that we can assume all astronauts do science. RockMagnetist (talk) 22:02, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

The civilians usually do, at the very least when they did their PhD, but normally during their jobs as well. The military pilots are those that are less likely to be scientist. KTC (talk) 22:09, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Shannon Walker's PhD thesis is here; that's enough for me to want to include her here. You're right though, the pilots don't always do science. Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 22:36, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

That's good enough for inclusion in a WikiProject. I think the job of this project will be to find independent sources on her scientific work. RockMagnetist (talk) 22:39, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Indeed, there are some sources at Loyola's library I'll try to get to at some point before I leave for the holidays; they may have something. I also found this and this, but that's not terribly much to go on. I'll add her to my to-do list and try to get into the stacks, probably this weekend. Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 22:50, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

In rating the importance of an article to this project, my view is that we should rate it based on the importance of the subject's scientific contributions, not her overall importance to society. So most of the astronauts, if they are kept, should be rated low importance because not much can be said about their scientific work. RockMagnetist (talk) 20:00, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

An interesting one

Here's a subject that deserves more: Karen Uhlenbeck. She has won some of the really big awards, but the article is still a stub with little more than a description of awards and subjects she worked on. RockMagnetist (talk) 05:28, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

Been a bit busy lately...

But I've been writing articles about women scientists - winemakers to be exact!:

• Lane Tanner
• Mia Klein
• Cathy Corison
• Carol Shelton

Feel free to improve and expand! SarahStierch (talk) 22:23, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Notable Women in the Life Sciences

Hi folks! I saw the blog post highlighting your work, and it reminded me of a book in my library I always walk past. So to help you all, I typed up the list of names from Notable Women in the Life Sciences: A Biographical Dictionary. I didn't know the best way to incorporate it into the work you all do, so I left it on my Sandbox. Have a look and incorporate the names/resource in whatever way you find helpful! Thanks, and keep up your noble work! Phoenixred (talk) 18:08, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Hey Phoenixred! I'm so glad you did that, it's so helpful. Thank you very much! If you want to help out more, we'd love to have you collaborating on an article. :) Thanks again! Best, Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 18:45, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

That looks great Phoenixred, thanks! -- KTC (talk) 19:05, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, Phoenixred! Probably the best place to put the names is Wikipedia:WikiProject_Women_scientists/Worklist#Articles_to_be_created. But this page should probably be easier to find! RockMagnetist (talk) 19:30, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Alert (2)

Any idea why an article that's still at AfD have been removed by the Article Alert bot, and to do so without archiving? KTC (talk) 15:09, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Clarification: By "removed", I presume you mean removed from the article alerts. The article is still there. RockMagnetist (talk) 17:55, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes. :) KTC (talk) 18:06, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Beats me. You'd probably better ask at Wikipedia talk:Article alerts. RockMagnetist (talk) 18:15, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Bots are weird? Maybe ask the botop. Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 19:01, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

What happened to the creator of Harvard Computers?

Just wondering why the creator of this article stopped contributing to wikipedia? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ottawahightech (talk • contribs) 16:31, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

We have no way of knowing. Their last contribution was in March 2008 and this WikiProject started in November 2012. I notice, though, that this editor only contributed to the one article and did so over the course of two days; so maybe it was a school project. RockMagnetist (talk) 05:35, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Project userbox

I created a proposed userbox as a subpage. Use it with {{Wikipedia:WikiProject Women scientists/Userbox}}. Comments? OK for the project page? DocTree (ʞlɐʇ·cont) Join WER 05:01, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

This user is a member of
WikiProject Women scientists.

Looks fine to me, except that there should be a period at the end of the sentence. The image looks a lot like the images for the physics and science wikiprojects. But maybe that is a good thing. RockMagnetist (talk) 05:38, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

The image actually is the same as used for other science wikiprojects with a transparent File:Symbol venus.svg superimposed over it. My intent was to link women and science. Added the period, as you suggested. DocTree (ʞlɐʇ·cont) Join WER 05:54, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

I like it! Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 12:47, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Looks so good to me that I've added to my userpage already! :) KTC (talk) 13:13, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

I think it is more common to characterize a userbox as a template, so I have created a redirect for Template:User WikiProject Women scientists. Also, I have created Category:WikiProject Women scientists members for the members, as a subcat of Category:WikiProject Women scientists. RockMagnetist (talk) 23:24, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedian in Residence: Natural History Museum, London

Hi all,

A little tangential, but hopefully of interest! The Natural History Museum in London is advertising for a Wikipedian in Residence, working jointly there and at the Science Museum next door; it's a paid post for four months, and applications are open until 10th February. I've worked with Ed Baker at the NHM to define the scope of the program, and it looks really promising - there's some real opportunities for interesting projects here. Details are available on the National Museums site, and there's some details about other upcoming UK residency programs here.

Please pass this on to anyone who might be interested, and feel free to get in touch with me if you've any questions. Thanks, Andrew Gray (talk) 11:46, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Women scietists born in or before the 19-th century

Just to let those interested know that there are now thirty seven entries in Category:19th-century women scientists. Ottawahitech (talk) 02:37, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Edit-a-thon Invitation

Please join the Chemical Heritage Foundation Edit-a-Thon, June 20, 2013. Build content relating to women in science, chemistry and the history of science. Use the hashtag #GlamCHF and write your favorite scientist or chemist into Wikipedian history!

Please join us! The Chemical Heritage Foundation has lots of wonderful resources about women in science, which we hope to share on Wikipedia. Mary Mark Ockerbloom (talk) 20:32, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks so much for the invitation! I'll definitely be joining you via the internet. :) Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 20:49, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

50 images from the Science Museum collection

Hi

I'm the Wikimedian in Residence for the Natural History Museum and Science Museum in London. The Science Museum have agreed to release 50 of it's images (at a medium resolution) under a Wikimedia compatible license. The 2 websites that the images would be available from are:

• http://collectionsonline.nmsi.ac.uk/
• http://www.scienceandsociety.co.uk/ (has to say copyright Science Museum)

I'm hoping this is the start of something larger but could just be a one off so am trying to come up with a most wanted list.

I've started a list of images to release on my talk page, please feel free to add to it, I'd like to get over 50 so if there are any problems we still have a good list.

--Mrjohncummings (talk) 10:39, 18 June 2013 (UTC)