Category talk:Women's cycle racing

Additional category listing
Should the riders listed under this category also be included under the cyclists category? Also should they all be listed under their country too, such as American Cyclists, Italian Cyclists?

Note on Sources
The great majority of riders listed in this category have, or will have, detailed listings of results (Palmares, or curriculum vitae) included as part of their biographical articles. For the years 2004 and 2005, the UCI has a very good database of results for individual riders. The results listings so obtained should be intelligently edited keeping in mind the nature and competition strength of the races as well as the fact that what may be a racing highlight for one rider might not be for another. Good judgement is necessary in this respect.

For results prior to the year 2004, cyclingnews.com has archived results, but to extract the results for any one rider is difficult at best. The former "Palmares of Elite Women Cycle Racers" web site (maintained for a number of years by myself) had the best rider-based results listings for the top riders. Thesse results were obtained almost exclusively from offical race web sites and other official sources. Where you see postings of results for years prior to 2003 in the Palmares section of individual riders, the source is likely the old listings of the Palmares web site. They are very accurate.

Other sources of pre-2004 data include the listings of Alfred North, formerly on the cyclebase.nl site, as well as rider's and team's official web sites, which should be listed as external links on the rider's Wikipedia page.

JFPerry 16:34, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Biographical Material
The Wikipedia pages devoted to individual riders generally contain (or should contain), in addition to a curriculum vitae (Palmares listings), a biographical sketch. But a biography is not the same as a curriculum vitae. To quote Wikipedia guidelines:

"Biography (from the Greek words bios meaning life, and graphein meaning write) is a genre of literature and other forms of media like film, based on the written accounts of individual lives. While a biography may focus on a subject of fiction or non-fiction, the term is usually in reference to non-fiction. As opposed to a profile or curriculum vitae, a biography develops complex insight and highlights different textures of personality including intimate details of experiences. A biography is more than a list of facts like birth, education, work, relationships and death. It also delves into the emotions of experiencing such events."

The biographical section, which ought to precede the Palmares listing, should be more than a prose rendition of the results listings. At present, only about 10 to 15 percent of the riders in this category have what could be termed reasonable biographical sketches (see Amber Neben and Mari Holden for examples).

When I approach the biographical section, whether as an interested reader, or as someone undertaking to create that section, I try to put myself in the position of a newspaper reporter who might be researching the subject as a means of preparing for an interview with the rider. Such a person would be looking for background information to help him prepare properly. The biographical material should answer such a hypothetical reporter's needs. In fact, I have in the past been in precisely this situation and can tell you from personal experience how difficult it is to locate this type of information.

That is a high standard, but, as I see it, this is the current challenge for Wikipedia. To obtain this type of material takes work. The work required represents a considerable investment of time - conduct an interview, ask the right questions, transcribe it, get it published (no private research), then write the article for Wikipedia. In short, this work has a very high work to edit count ratio!

If you don't mind the high work to edit count ratio, and if a prestigeous women's cycle race comes to your area, please consider helping complete the biographical sketches for some of these riders. Do your research (as much as possible). Ask the right questions! Find out about their lives, not just the current race. Remember, it isn't about the bike. A biography is about the person. What is their background in sports? How did they come to cycle racing? What is their educational background? Their aspirations/interests other than cycling? In short, the rest of their life.

JFPerry 17:00, 6 December 2005 (UTC)