Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Women's History/Archive 4

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Citation templates now support more identifiers

Recent changes were made to citations templates (such as {{citation}}, {{cite journal}}, {{cite web}}...). In addition to what was previously supported (bibcode, doi, jstor, isbn, ...), templates now support arXiv, ASIN, JFM, LCCN, MR, OL, OSTI, RFC, SSRN and Zbl. Before, you needed to place |id={{arxiv|0123.4567}} (or worse |url=http://arxiv.org/abs/0123.4567), now you can simply use |arxiv=0123.4567, likewise for |id={{JSTOR|0123456789}} and |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/0123456789 → |jstor=0123456789.

The full list of supported identifiers is given here (with dummy values):

{{cite journal |author=John Smith |year=2000 |title=How to Put Things into Other Things |journal=Journal of Foobar |volume=1 |issue=2 |pages=3–4 |arxiv=0123456789 |asin=0123456789 |bibcode=0123456789 |doi=0123456789 |jfm=0123456789 |jstor=0123456789 |lccn=0123456789 |isbn=0123456789 |issn=0123456789 |mr=0123456789 |oclc=0123456789 |ol=0123456789 |osti=0123456789 |rfc=0123456789 |pmc=0123456789 |pmid=0123456789 |ssrn=0123456789 |zbl=0123456789 |id={{para|id|____}} }}

Obviously not all citations needs all parameters, but this streamlines the most popular ones and gives both better metadata and better appearances when printed. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 03:31, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

I'd love to find a tool that would let me give only a standard ID (especially OCLC, ISBN, or JSTOR), and then it would automatically expand the citation (author, title, date, publisher, etc). Sounds like a task for a bot to me, but does such a thing exist? (I know that all OpenLibrary entries have a "download catalog record" link on them that will export Wikipedia-format references, but that's only for books.) ---Shane Landrum (cliotropic | talk | contribs) 16:34, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

User:Citation bot is the bot you are looking for. See in particular User:Citation bot/use and User:Citation bot/use#Adding as a widget. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 14:45, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Here's another great citation tool: http://www.ottobib.com/ - PKM (talk) 01:57, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Empress Dowager

If someone is looking for an article to work on, Empress Dowager is within our scope and could use work. The info on Victoria is incorrect and it's entirely unsourced, but would be interesting to many people as a general survey if improved. - PKM (talk) 17:41, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Check categories

I just noticed that the newish article Ann Preston had been added to seven appropriate categories, but not to Category:Women physicians and Category:19th-century women writers. We should keep an eye out for articles that have not been tagged for the appropriate "women's categories", to make sure our content on those topics can be found when readers are searching for it. - PKM (talk) 19:32, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Women's literary salons and societies in the Arab World

Hello, one of the students from The Public Policy initiative last term wrote a really good article called Women's literary salons and societies in the Arab World. It might be a good article for you all to collaborate on to make it a little more Wikipedia like and push towards at least GA or FA, Sadads (talk) 14:38, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

World War I

The members of our WWI Task Force might be interested in the WP Military History WWI Centenary effort. - PKM (talk) 20:40, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Good source for start articles

Found a nice source for those who might be interested. Search Google Books for "The biographical dictionary of women in science" Volume I and II. It has enough info to get a nice start class article on many women we have nothing for right now. --Tbennert (talk) 01:28, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Volume II also seems to be available here Dsp13 (talk) 00:37, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

I've put a list of people in Vol II at User:Dsp13/Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science. Most seem to be redlinks, though that's sometimes only because a redirect is needed from a name variant. Dsp13 (talk) 07:39, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

New article for your review

Please review 1997 Linfield vs. Willamette football game, the first college football game where a female athlete played and scored points.--Paul McDonald (talk) 05:25, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Consort list articles

I've started Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of consorts of X for some articles consisting of lists of spouses of noble title-holders. Several of these lists are tagged as coming under the scope of this WikiProject so I thought I'd better post a notfication here. Opera hat (talk) 14:45, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

References for oldest women's organizations

While trying to fix some of the references on a page, I have seen that the page claims that the organization is the oldest non-sectarian organization in the United States. However, the reference I was going to add was the meeting notes that founded two different organizations the same day with the participation of several others. I'm not familiar with this project since I don't know anything about Women's History and I usually deal with the reference fixes on pages. I hope this particular discussion belongs here -and if it does not, I hope it gets moved to its rightful place.

Here are the pages that lack reliable independent sources for their claims as being the oldest women's organization (of a specific type or not):

• National Council of Women of the United States is a new article. Their webpage says it is the "the oldest, nonsectarian organization of women in America." Not clear if America refers to the continents (Canadian women's organizations might be founded earlier) or the United States.
• Woman's Christian Temperance Union is another page says that it is the "oldest continuing non-sectarian women's organization worldwide".
• International Council of Women page says it is "first women's organization to work across national boundaries for the common cause of advocating human rights for women.
• Women's International League for Peace and Freedom page says it is "the oldest women's peace organization in the world".
• World YWCA the second oldest organization of its kind, second only to the Relief Society.
• Relief Society page says it "is often referred to by the church and others as "one of the oldest and largest women's organizations in the world." Note that this statement does not suggest it is the oldest but rather tells it is accepted as the oldest. The statement alone has references and don't need any further reference, but if there is an independent reliable source that verifies that it is the oldest women's organization of some kind, then it should be added to the page.

Here is (sadly) the only source I've found so far:

• Robbins, Lousie Barnum (1898). History and minutes of the National Council of Women of the United States, organized in Washington, D.C., March 31, 1888. Boston: E.B. Stillings & Co.

From page 22 to 26, it lists the organizations that are invited. Since these organizations are invited to the meeting, they should already be founded. Both Woman's Christian Temperance Union and Relief Society can be found at this page, listed as the members of the council in a meeting held in 1895.

I hope the discussion also helps to improve the page List of women's organizations. Nimuaq (talk) 19:01, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Women's first list?

Is there a list similar to List of African-American firsts for the first thing(s) that women achieved?--Paul McDonald (talk) 18:51, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

• I'm creating List of women firsts and hoping everyone can pitch in to build on.--Paul McDonald (talk) 16:43, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper

Can someone take a look at Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper (former American astronaut, rode on two Space Shuttle missions). Article has never been assessed or rated for importance. I'm trying to move it up the quality scale at the moment. Gamweb (talk) 19:29, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Task forces in the banner?

What do people think about adding parameters for the project's two task forces (Women in World War I and Women in technology) to the banner? This would allow them to keep track of "their" articles (as they get their own sub-category under Category:WikiProject Women's History articles) and help make clear why these particular articles are included in the main project. See Template:WikiProject Classical music and Category:WikiProject Classical music articles for an example of how this looks and works. I'd be happy to add it to the template, if people think it's a good idea. Voceditenore (talk) 05:36, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

I like task forces. How many? We could also have one for women of each continent or geographical region (south Asia, Middle East, East Asia, Europe, etc.); one for mythology and folklore; one for music; one for politics; one for royalty and nobility; task forces for cultural/legal rights issues or philosophical attitudes toward women. Boneyard90 (talk) 12:17, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

I think we should add only existing task forces, and remove them if they become inactive for a certain period of time. Before we start making up other things we might do, we need to finish defining what we are supposed to do (I refer to the discussion at the workshop). I think (if I may presume) V's question had to do with a growing consensus among project members as to what this project is about; in addition to doing what V. says above, adding these two task forces to the banner would help "advertise" immediately that the project is about history, as a leader of the technology task force has articulated the role of "historic achievement" in dealing with contemporary subject matter. Please read the discussion at the workshop carefully before proposing a task force. This kind of proliferation and lack of focus is what project members are trying to guard against. We have a long way to go before the project has a coherent identity and meaningful presence. I oppose a task force for mythology and folklore as outside the scope of the project; that's what WIkiProject Mythology is for. "Women and religion," however, might be useful in the future (after we know who we are as a project and have established a methodology), especially as a way to bring together classicists and medievalists. Cynwolfe (talk) 12:43, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Yikes! I was suggesting that we might add the existing task forces to the banner, not start a whole load of new ones. The project is too small and too much in its preliminary stages for that. Agree very much with Cynwolfe re proliferation and lack of focus. In fact, it might be worth while asking Skud, if they're still interested in taking the lead in the Women in World War I task force. Voceditenore (talk) 17:23, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

I think it would be great to add the taskforce banner. Especially for the Tech group as this will help someone understand why these women are tagged. Would anyone mind if I began a discussion with John Vandenberg, the proposer of the Women's Sport WikiProject, to see where they are, and if stalled to see if members might like to work on some of the history articles as a taskforce? --Tbennert (talk) 20:29, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

I should clarify - start the discussion with John now, but not invite members until the scope discussion is finalized. --Tbennert (talk) 20:31, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

New scope draft outcome

The final form of the new scope criteria was drafted by Cynwolfe (after lengthy discussions at the Workshop and here) and opened for comments on June 2nd. A last call for comments on the draft went out on June 10th to all Active and Supporting Members with a deadline of June 14th. Of the 15 members who participated, there was a clear consensus to adopt the draft (13 supports and 2 opposes).

This has now been implemented on the WikiProject Women's History Main Page. I did a fair amount of re-jigging of the introduction to the project as much of it wasn't really an introduction, but left over from the initial project proposal to the WikiProject Council. I also had to use a modified version on the sidebar to allow the detailed criteria to be collapsed per the Workshop discussion, and took the opportunity to clarify and expand the How you can help section. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 18:02, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Automatic stub assessment update

Background archived here

I have requested a bot run at User talk:Xenobot Mk V. It will add stub class to the WHP banner for all articles which have a stub tag on them or are rated as stubs by another project. I have the request page on my watchlist in case the bot owner has any questions. I'd suggest that at least one member also put it on their watch list. It may take some time for the bot owner to start the run, but I'll update here when it starts. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 07:28, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

• Update: The bot owner is currently inactive on Wikipedia and is looking for a replacement editor to operate the bot. Thus, our run is still pending. Voceditenore (talk) 15:28, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

• Good news! EdoDodo (using his DodoBot) is now handling the requests and tells me that he should be doing our bot run in a couple of days. This will assess any of our unassessed articles as "Stub" class which either have a stub tag on the article or have been assessed as "Stub" class by another project. The bot will also add inherited assessments of "Good Article", "Featured Article", "Featured List" (and "List") class, as these assessments are independent of projects and have their own processes. Note the bot will not add inherited assessments from other projects for the "Start", "C", "B", or "A" classes. Voceditenore (talk) 08:24, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

School and university projects

I've added a new section to the main page, School and university projects, with links to various useful resources on Wikipedia for educators using Wikipedia an assignment. The old version of How you can help had included:

• Writing and editing individual entries (also potentially a task for college-level classes under faculty guidance; see Jeremy Boggs' blog post on assigning Wikipedia writing in his US history survey. The WPWH for Educators subproject exists to help faculty members get started with such assignments.)

I thought it was best to leave this out of the new School and university projects section for the moment. Even though it's called "a sub-project of WH", it's in user space (User:Cliotropic/WPWH for Educators) and had only two Interested Editors listed, neither of whom have edited Wikipedia since early March. This can always be revisited if someone is willing to take an active and on-going role in steering and maintaining a sub-project like this (a big commitment), but then it really ought to be in WH project space, not user space. Voceditenore (talk) 11:44, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

• I've created a Wikipedia assignment for my U.S. Women's History survey (colonial to Civil War) and now realize that I should give students suggestions rather than let them try to pick one on their own. Is there one place I can find this information? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hmprescott (talk • contribs) 16:01, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Hello! We do have a page of requested articles here. But I just had a look at it, and there doesn't seem to be much there relating to the time-period of your course. Perhaps some of the other members have some suggestions? Voceditenore (talk) 16:45, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

One semi-possibility on our list of requested articles is ladies' aid societies, which began during the Civil War.[1] But too much of that probably extends forward out of your time frame, unless an article could be started just based on their origin, and then expanded later by others. I would love to see an article on women in business in Colonial America; my understanding is that women were at greater liberty to be tavern and shop keepers then than in the 1800s (a Wikipedia glimpse of this at Tavern#Business, without citations), and that there are laws pertaining to this. I've always wondered why women's activities became more restricted. To my surprise Colonial history of the United States actually incorporates women's history throughout; we don't even have it bannered, but you may be able to generate some topics yourself based on what's there. Another possibility (not as convenient as a pre-existing list) would be to look over History of women in the United States for figures or topics that don't have an article. However, I'm finding that the article appears not to link to some existing articles, such as Sarah Grimke, and so may give a misleading impression. Names like Elizabeth/Elisabeth or Sara/Sarah can be problematic to research since spelling wasn't regularized then. I'll try to spend some time linking to see whether I can find any to add to our requested articles list from that. Cynwolfe (talk) 21:50, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

I've had a quick look through History of women in the United States up to 1700 (all I have time for at the moment) and seem to have found several women on the Mayflower who lack their own article (see redlinks at History of women in the United States#The Mayflower, as do Jamestown colonists Anne Forrest (Anne/Ann or Forest/Forrest) and Virginia Laydon, the first English child born there. Not saying there's enough info on each to generate an article for each, because I haven't looked. But one peach of a topic I turned up there is tobacco brides; see some sources here. Cynwolfe (talk) 21:59, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Debannering and unassessed articles

I've just gone through all 500 Women's History Popular pages debannering articles that are out of scope acccording to the project's re-drafted guidelines. I figured that until we get only "in scope" articles on there it will be utterly useless as a tool for prioritising etc. The next pass of the bot is June 30/July 1. So the results won't show until then. Of the 500 artcles on that page, between 1/3 and 1/2 of them were out of scope.

The bot to automatically assess "Stub" articles (and inherit assessments of "Good Article", "Featured Article", and "Featured List") has now finished the run.

We are now down to 2,871 unassessed articles from 5000+ we had last week.

I think we should probably continue de-bannering over the next two weeks, and then start working on something fun! Any suggestions about how to tackle the "next wave" of debannering? One possibility is getting that list of all the BLPs with the project's banner. Has anyone figured out how to do it with Wikipedia:CatScan. I confess, it completely defeated me. :-( Voceditenore (talk) 16:40, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

I reviewed the Popular pages list to look over deities and mythological figures. I ended up keeping the banner on almost all of these, because I'm interested in a possible task force on History of Religion from the perspective of women's history. (I recently did some work on the Antiquity section of Ordination of women.) As a classicist, I would be particularly interested in working under the aegis of this project with medievalists and others on the role of women in religion in the Near East, Mediterranean, and Europe from the earliest times through the Reformation. (The task force itself, of course, would be more capacious; this is what I am interested in working on as an individual.) The figures who showed up on the Most Popular list are, as might be expected, major, so most didn't need to be debannered. I also try to assess when I'm working with bannering, since I'm looking at only a limited number of articles in this go-through; most of these figures I assessed as of low importance. Major deities I assessed as "mid", and Goddess as high (though I would feel a certain amount of trepidation working on that article, as the concept is susceptible to a lot of non-scholarly emotion), on the assumption that the more narrow the article, the less overall importance it has. (Not always true, though.) Along those lines, I rated Women in Islam as of top importance to the project, because it's a major umbrella article that is of great contemporary importance but demanding an historical perspective: to me that's a fundamental mission of this project. My concern has been the number of minor mythological figures who were bannered only because of their gender; those will mostly show up on other lists. Cynwolfe (talk) 14:22, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! I had deliberately not tried to decide on the scope for these as it's not my area at all. I like the idea for a "History of Religion from the perspective of women's history" task force. Today as I was plowing through the the unassessed category looking for articles that should possibly be de-bannered, I found this interesting one (although it needs a lot of work and was originally unsourced) – Community of the Sisters of Melanesia. WP never ceases to amaze me. I kept the banner since it has historical continuity with earlier Anglican women's orders. Voceditenore (talk) 14:35, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

• CATSCAN directions - Type en in the first box, Unassessed Women's History articles in the second box and Biography articles of living people in the third box. Click scan and wait, and wait a bit longer because it takes a while. Sometimes you have to click scan a few times because it will report a snafu. --Tbennert (talk) 03:16, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

When I re-ran the scan it went much quicker, so must have been an issue on my end. --Tbennert (talk) 05:11, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! I managed to get the list finally and have kept a copy of it. It seems like you have to ask the CatScan for only one assessment category at a time. I'll work my way through the unassessed WH BLPs over the next week or so, although probably at a leisurely pace to begin with, as I'm currently working on a couple of new opera articles. Voceditenore (talk) 12:21, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

History of feminism

Was doing some de-bannering and assessment, and noticed that History of feminism hadn't been assessed. I rated it as of top importance; it already has a strong historical frame. The talk page has a to-do list that is several years old. I did give a quality rating, but didn't examine the article closely enough to know whether the to-do list itself needed updated, or whether some of the tasks remained undone. This is one of the places where our project overlaps WikiProject Feminism squarely, so I thought I'd mention it as an example. Cynwolfe (talk) 23:03, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Women in the Victorian Era

I've made several improvements to "Women in the Victorian Era" over the past couple days. It has become apparent that this article is really about "Gender Discrimination in the Victorian Era." Considering proposing a move. Any suggestions? Roger6r (talk) 23:37, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

I've place a move request for this page. If you're interested in the discussion, please join in at Talk:Women_in_the_Victorian_era#Requested_move Roger6r (talk) 00:58, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Timeline of Jane Austen

There is a new weekly section on the main page called "Today's featured list" and I have nominated Timeline of Jane Austen to have a spot here. There has been some opposition to the nomination and it looks like the list could become a removal candidate very soon unless the quality of the list is improved. If you are interested in maintaining the list's featured status and seeing a summary of it up on the main page, your help in improving the article would be greatly appreciated. Neelix (talk) 21:04, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Cheerleading

I have bumped the importance of cheerleading from low to mid. I think it should be at high but won't bump it up further without support.

The article contained misleading statements that are historical inaccuracies. Before, it said this: "Cheerleading started out as an all-male activity, but females began participating in 1923, due to limited availability of female collegiate sports and men being drafted for war."

I replaced it with the more accurate NPOV: "In 1923, women joined joined cheerleading and began to dominate the sport in World War II when few men were involved in organized sports. At this time, there were no collegiate sports for women but women were allowed to participate in cheering squads. At this time, gymnastics, tumbling, and megaphones were incorporated into popular cheers, and are still used." Which comes from this source: http://cheerleading.isport.com/cheerleading-guides/history-of-cheerleading/

The history section of this article merits a high importance rating because of the current battle for cheerleading to be accepted as a title IX sport. The historical inaccuracies supported the politically-charged notion that cheerleading should be accepted at the collegiate level as an all-female collegiate sport. More info on the subject can be found at: http://www.now.org/news/blogs/index.php/sayit/2010/08/02/why-don-t-we-recognize-cheerleading-as-a-sport Roger6r (talk) 17:26, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Roger6r, I'm unclear what you're asking project members. It sounds as if you're arguing for Cheerleading as a topic of Women's Sports, which is uncontroversial as far as I'm concerned; at one time, there was some talk about a pending Women's Sports project. Do you have any information on that? That would be a good place to get knowledgable support too. Cheerleading might be of higher importance for that project than for women's history in general, since unlike issues such as rights and health, cheerleading is a part of the life of only a relatively few women. I'm also ignorant of whether this is primarily an American thing, or whether cheerleading is an international activity. Cynwolfe (talk) 22:41, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Cynwolfe - you may find my comment informative. It's just below this one. Boneyard90 (talk) 23:34, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

• Support - In addition to the above reasons, it has become an international activity with organizations on three continents, plus countries of Oceania. Boneyard90 (talk) 17:44, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
• Mid importance - Cheerleading is not of fundamental importance to understanding women's history. I believe most other sports are rated as mid importance if they have global participation. Cheerleading should follow the same criteria. --Tbennert (talk) 20:06, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
• Mid importance, per Tbennert's reasoning. Cynwolfe (talk) 20:14, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

I added the WH banner to History of ballet with a "mid" importance rating, in keeping with the reasoning here. Hope that's OK. Cynwolfe (talk) 22:20, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

I would have thought "High". Without the participation of women, what is ballet? Boneyard90 (talk) 00:12, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Because according to the importance criteria drafted above, "high" means of globally pervasive importance, or of primary importance to most or all women in a given culture. Only a relatively few women participate in ballet, and it isn't a part of everyday life for most people. Ballet is not fundamental to understanding women's history as a whole (as Tbennert argues above in regard to cheerleading). It could be argued, however, that of all art forms, it's the one to which women historically have been most important. Still, its limited effect on women as a whole means it's only of mid importance to this project. Cynwolfe (talk) 12:12, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

• I tend to agree with mid-importance for both cheerleading and ballet according to the above criteria. Cheerleading might conceivably be of high importance to a Women's Sport or Women in Sport (or whatever they wanted to call it) but not to this one. By the way, do people want me to transfer the newly formulated importance criteria above to Wikipedia:WikiProject Women's History/Assessment? Voceditenore (talk) 15:04, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

We kinda got distracted on a different topic the day we were discussing Wiki-Importance. I'm sure we'll want to do some tweaking before it's ready. Boneyard90 (talk) 15:21, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Okey-doke. Just give a shout when they're suffciently tweak-ified. Once they go on the assessment page, they're not writ in stone and always be adjusted. Voceditenore (talk) 15:25, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Christine Lagarde

Here's a test case for our recent scope criteria. Is Christine Lagarde (b. 1956) within the scope of our project? Cynwolfe (talk) 19:14, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

I would say no, because of the time of her career. She is still current and making history. The BLPs I have been keeping generally have the bulk of their career/reason for notability in mid-century. Just my reasoning, and I would be happy to hear other opinions. --Tbennert (talk) 04:39, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

I would say yes because of "Lagarde was the first woman ever to become minister of Economic Affairs of a G8 economy, and is the first woman to ever head the IMF" and her being designated the 17th most power women in the world by Forbes. I think that any significant female first to are of historical interest and are best monitored by this Wikiproject to make sure that they are well written in this regard. FloNight♥♥♥♥ 08:38, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm neutral on this one. I can see good arguments for both sides, although I personally hate dealing with BLPs, especially ones who are at the height of their careers. They can be a real time sink. Voceditenore (talk) 15:07, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

I've been thinking about this one, because I don't like the idea of having helped draft guidelines and then turning around and arguing for an exception. I just watched Christiane Amanpour interview Lagarde on her Sunday morning news show. The interview was introduced with a clip of Lagarde making, as she often does, explicit statements pertaining to the historical underrepresentation of women in finance and monetary policy, and exhorting young women not to accept limits. Lagarde is also persistently pro-woman; she goes so far as to say that women in their personal conduct have shown themselves to be superior in holding public office to men, who are more inclined to sex scandals. This perhaps has more to do with feminism than women's history, but it's coupled with the breaking of a pretty big glass ceiling for women—something that isn't (arguably) just a "first," but opens up the role of women in one of the few fields in which they're still almost absent at the top. Note how few figures in the financial meltdown are women, if any. The IMF appointment may be like winning a Nobel Prize; it isn't the prize/appointment that's the "lasting contribution," it's the career that led to it. I suppose what I'm suggesting is that if we're going to deal with any BLPs, this seems like a really worthwhile one to me. In looking at the historical significance of Lagarde, we might also learn more about women in finance/monetary policy/economics/banking historically. This could be an interesting area in which to carry out our "mission" of incorporating women's history into overview or "big picture" articles that currently lack this perspective. Cynwolfe (talk) 14:42, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Mamata Banerjee

Similarly is Mamata Banerjee within scope? I de-bannered and another user reverted (originally bannered by an IP). My reasoning, as above, she is a current figure with a career from 1990 forward. In addition these articles are already well tended and our focus is not bringing another viewpoint. I would rather see our banner and time on articles that are not getting as much attention, or whose attention is missing the viewpoint of women's history. --Tbennert (talk) 18:54, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

I agree that although she's interesting and important in India, she probably doesn't meet the "lasting contribution" criterion for BLPs. An article on the history of women in Indian politics, however, would be a wonderful thing to have, and could conclude with a section on the present that would likely include her. See comment below. Cynwolfe (talk) 14:42, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Biographies in general

These questions point to something I've observed about Wikipedia in general, which is a tendency to focus on biographies and narrow topics, but to have gaps in "mid" topics such as "Women in Indian politics," India being a country in which women have a particularly compelling history in modern politics. We're overwhelmed by how to deal with biographies, but for the most part, biographies have little to do with why this project was formed. It's an interesting challenge. I'm looking forward to our choosing and working on a set of non-biographical articles, in order to figure out what we can do toward fulfilling our core purpose. Cynwolfe (talk) 14:42, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Women's History/Popular pages

Grrrrr. Despite the fact that I had debannered nearly 200 articles on that page, the latest bot run (two weeks after the pages were debannered) is still showing them. Hence it's not at all useful to us at the moment. I've left a query on the bot owner's page. Probably has to do with data dumps and such-like. Voceditenore (talk) 15:30, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Update: According to the bot owner, the July 1st update to the page was based on the list as at June 1st. Presumably next month's list will reflect the debannering we did in mid-June. Voceditenore (talk) 12:28, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Looking forward to that. Cynwolfe (talk) 14:26, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

AfDs of interest to this project

• Pearl and rind at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Pearl and rind
• Association "Woman and Society" at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Association "Woman and Society"

– Voceditenore (talk) 12:24, 4 July 2011 (UTC)