Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Women scientists/Archive 2

Diversity Conference
On the 9th and 10th of November 2013 Wikimedia Deutschland, together with Wikimedia UK, Nederlands and the Foundation, is organizing a Conference to discuss Diversity in Wikipedia and its sister projects. You find more information on this meta page: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Diversity_Conference We are looking forward to your input! --MerleWMDE (talk) 11:18, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the heads-up! :) Keilana&#124;Parlez ici 14:22, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

The registration process and the Call for Papers is now open. We are looking forward to your registration! You will find the registration form here: wmde.org/diversity_registration --Merle von Wittich (WMDE) (talk) 14:32, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Rosalind Franklin
Hi everybody! I have been combing through our tagged articles for a good collaboration target, and I think Rosalind Franklin is ripe for a push to GA and FA. There are 4 major biographies of her life that I can find, which I plan to acquire in the next couple of weeks. Is anyone interested in a collaboration? :) Keilana&#124;Parlez ici 01:37, 15 August 2013 (UTC)


 * I'd be happy to help out with this. Out of curiosity, what are the four biographies you've found?  I'm only familiar with Maddox and Sayre (and perhaps Glynn, although that's somewhat of a special case). Kirill [talk] 03:23, 15 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Worldcat says Sayre, Maddox, and Glynn; I think I accidentally got a juvenile one in the mix there. Oops. I'd love to have you on board! Yay! Women scientists! Keilana&#124;Parlez ici 03:57, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Linda Katehi: Involvement in STEM
Hello, I hope that this discussion page is an okay place to ask for help. I am an employee of UC Davis and I am looking for someone to help with part of the article for UC Davis' chancellor Linda Katehi. I left a message on the article's discussion page, but it was the first message left there since December of 2011 so I think that no one is likely to find it on their own.

Right now the information under the "Involvement in STEM" heading in Linda Katehi's article isn't about her at all, but about STEM in California in general. I am aware, as an editor with a conflict of interest, that I shouldn't fix up this information myself so I have shared on the article's discussion page a few paragraphs that I think would be a good replacement. Here is my earlier message. Can someone here take a look at this and maybe help me out?

Also, someone very recently made an edit to Linda Katehi's name in the introduction and now almost the whole first paragraph is bold. If you take a look at this could you also help fix this mistake?

Thank you for looking at this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by LindaF UC Davis (talk • contribs) 21:52, 29 August 2013 (UTC)
 * This issue was addressed and taken care of via various user talk pages and the talk page of the article in question. Girona7 (talk) 02:50, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Women in Science Oxford Editathon: Ada Lovelace Day 2013
Hello all. Among the crop of upcoming Women in Science events is this one in Oxford, UK, happening with the support of the Bodleian libraries, some departments and units of Oxford University, and the Wikimedia UK/Jisc collaboration. As with similar events, both in-person and online participation are encouraged. This follows from an Ada Lovelace Day event last year which was very popular: see the event page for more details.

This is being posted to a few Wikiprojects, so apologies if you see it multiple times. MartinPoulter Jisc (talk) 14:52, 19 September 2013 (UTC)
 * It was great fun and in a short time there was a lot done and, it seems, some lasting enthusiasm created. Outcomes here. MartinPoulter Jisc (talk) 11:26, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Wikimedian-in-Residence at the Royal Society
The Royal Society, the UK's science academy, is recruiting a Wikimedian-in-Residence to help them work more closely with Wikipedia. One of the main aims is to improve access to information about scientists frmo underrepresented groups.

The position is part-time (one day per week) for a fixed term of 6 months. See here for more information and details of how to apply. For additional information please contact me at francis.bacon [AT] royalsociety.org Andeggs (talk) 14:14, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Proposal
Hi all, I just wanted to let you know about a proposal I've put up on Meta. I'm currently piloting a project at my university, Loyola University Chicago, to increase participation among women students and improve content on women scientists. I want to learn from this model and create a template that can be used at other institutions and conduct outreach and testing in the Chicago area. I've put in an IEG proposal here and I would love to have some feedback from other members of the project! (And my apologies if you've already seen this message.) Keilana&#124;Parlez ici 03:19, 29 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Excellent work; added an endorsement and will get in touch with more on the talk page... Girona7 (talk) 01:52, 8 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks much for the endorsement - I saw on Meta that you were interested in running a similar event in Boston and I'd be happy to help you with that in any way I can. Keilana&#124;Parlez ici 02:05, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, I definitely would, Keilana. I'll get in touch next week, after our local edit-a-thon has passed. Happy Ada Lovelace Day! cheers, Girona7 (talk) 04:52, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Question about the notability of a source used in an article from the work list
Hi, my name is Shelly and I have contributed four articles to WPWS. I am a paid editor, but I was not paid for and have no conflict of interest with the articles that I have created for WPWS. One of the people that I created an article for, Nancy M. Dowdy, has very limited information online so I had to rely on this source (http://cwp.library.ucla.edu/Phase2/Dowdy,_Nancy_M._O'Fallon@941234567.html) very heavily for biographical information about her. Recently, in a post on 28bytes talk page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:28bytes#Paid_editors_working_transparently_on_Wikipedia), I Am One of Many commented that this source was not reliable, even though it is posted on a UCLA page. One of my collaborators, Jason (HPR), posted on that page explaining why he and I think that the source in question is reliable. we have not received a response from I Am One of Man] yet, so I was hoping to get some thoughts from someone working on this project, who probably has a better idea about whether this source is indeed reliable. Thanks in advance, Shelly. Shelly (HPR) (talk) 03:39, 16 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Looks straightforward to me, and here is the staff. Unless I'm missing something, the site deserves a modicum of trust. The 90s-era web formatting does throw off the scent. Reading the editor's comment—proving an article topic's notability is different than using reliable sources within an article. (Notability for inclusion is judged by the GNG and its associated guidelines, which have specific criteria for link quality. In a sentence, articles require significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject. This is explained at WP:42.) The editor would seem to be arguing that Dowdry as a topic needs more secondary coverage to even be included in the encyclopedia. czar  ♔  04:03, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

List of female Fellows of the Royal Society
Just noting that at some point in the past 48 hours, the last redlinks in this list of prominent scientists went blue, no doubt due to the many Ada Lovelace Day activities. Of course more can be done with those articles and that list, but this is a very satisfying milestone given how just a few weeks ago there seemed a lot of redlinks. Well done to all involved! MartinPoulter Jisc (talk) 09:45, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Ada Lovelace Day articles at Did You Know
Many of the articles created at the Ada Lovelace Day edit-a-thons at Oxford and Brown are good candidates to appear on the main page in the Did You Know... section. Most articles were started on the 15th and today is the last day they can be nominated (until 6:00 pm EST). Some of the articles that were created only need a small amount of work to become eligible. A number of articles that have already been nominated could use reviewers or editors who can address issues. Gobōnobō + c 11:38, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Ada Lovelace Day 2013 DYK nominations

 * Nora Lilian Alcock (DYK) ✓
 * Audrey Arnott (DYK) ✓
 * Grace Bates (DYK) ✓
 * Kay Behrensmeyer (DYK) ✓
 * Gladys Anderson Emerson (DYK) ✓
 * Mabel Purefoy FitzGerald (DYK) ✓
 * Susan Gerbi (DYK) ✓
 * Cecilia Glaisher (DYK) ✓
 * Ingeborg Hochmair (DYK) ✓
 * Sidney Kennon (DYK) ✓
 * Eleanora Knopf (DYK) ✓
 * Elizabeth Laird (physicist) (DYK) ✓
 * Martha L. Ludwig (DYK) ✓
 * Bertha Parker Pallan (DYK) ✓
 * Antoinette Pirie (DYK) ✓
 * Sibyl M. Rock (DYK) ✓
 * Blanche Wheeler Williams (DYK) ✓

List of published DYKs?
Hey all. On our main project page, I added a while back a new section listing DYK articles in the same fashion as we show GAs and FAs. It appears to have been deleted by a bot. Is there any reason we know of that we can't list accepted relevant DYKs as part of our efforts on our project page? Seems like a solid way to highlight the work that everyone has done to get more articles in good shape beyond this talk page. Girona7 (talk) 14:57, 23 October 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't see any reason why we can't, especially since we don't have thousands of DYKs like a bigger project might. Keilana&#124;Parlez ici 16:58, 23 October 2013 (UTC)
 * I can fix that, but before I do you might want to look at WikiProject Women scientists/Recognized content and consider where all those DYK's would fit on the project page. RockMagnetist (talk) 17:21, 23 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Fair point, RockMagnetist. Would it be possible to make it a table instead of a list so it doesn't get too long to scroll? Alternately, maybe we could add a DYK icon with something like "List of DYK's associated with this WikiProject" redirecting to that section of the recognized content page? Just thinking out loud... Girona7 (talk) 21:39, 23 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Both of those things are certainly possible - it depends on what people want. I have tried an experiment: I have removed All articles, which is redundant right beside an assessment table, and added Other articles with a link to the DYK section. I also increased the font size to 100%. RockMagnetist (talk) 23:39, 23 October 2013 (UTC)
 * If scrolling is a concern, the automated list can be generated in a more compact layout with several columns (like WikiProject Military history/Fortifications task force, for example) instead of the current single-column version. Kirill [talk] 13:29, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
 * As an experiment, I have inserted a four-column list by hand. If you like it, I could replace it by a bot request. RockMagnetist (talk) 15:27, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
 * The layout looks good to me; I think we can go ahead and have the bot update it. Do we still need the separate recognized content subpage now that we have the full list here? Kirill [talk] 14:37, 26 October 2013 (UTC)
 * The recognized content page has some more categories like Former featured articles and Good article nominees (the latter duplicated by our Announcements). Each has a whole section heading for itself. There are also some searches like featured lists that will show some results on the next update. I suppose I could tack them on below DYK's and see how it looks. RockMagnetist (talk) 14:49, 26 October 2013 (UTC)
 * I added the bot request. I don't know whether multiple templates on a single page work. If they do, it will look a bit strange after the next update because the DYK info will be duplicated. As for deleting the recognized content page, I don't think it will do any harm to leave it there. RockMagnetist (talk) 14:54, 26 October 2013 (UTC)
 * The result: Multiple templates don't work. I have set up another bot request that I think will work. Stay tuned! RockMagnetist (talk) 06:38, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
 * This is looking great - thanks! Any reason why I shouldn't move some missing bios (such as those listed above from the ALD edit-a-thons) into this new space? Girona7 (talk) 04:13, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Actually, it's too soon to say because the bot hasn't run since my last edit. What space do you mean? RockMagnetist (talk) 04:30, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Okay. By "space" I just meant the area on the front of our WikiProject page where the DYKs now appear. Let us know when it's safe to add names! Thanks. Girona7 (talk) 14:53, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Dumb question: is the list bot-generated? Or was someone just very thorough? It looks like a number of relevant DYK's I've written have already been added. Gamaliel ( talk ) 22:17, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I copied them over from Recognized Content on Oct 24. The next bot update should put all recognized content on that page. RockMagnetist (talk) 23:16, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
 * The bot update has occurred and it worked just fine. I have removed the now redundant manual list. RockMagnetist (talk) 07:07, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Featured pictures
There are a total of two featured pictures of women scientists: Ada Lovelace, and Riin Tamm, an Estonian geneticist whose notability is contested. I added Ada's picture to our project page. Although that is not much, there are only 24 featured pictures of people in science and engineering, including group portraits and a picture of an anonymous mechanic working on a steam pump. Maybe there are some more pictures that could be considered for promotion? At the moment few pictures are tagged by our wikiproject. RockMagnetist (talk) 18:16, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

I'm no expert on what constitutes a featured image, but this one seems like a possibility: File:Barbara McClintock (1902-1992).jpg. RockMagnetist (talk) 18:20, 23 October 2013 (UTC)
 * On second thought, it probably doesn't qualify because her right hand is out of focus. RockMagnetist (talk) 18:36, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Disambiguation
Hi everyone. I just finished up using DAB solver to disambiguate some links for the project. There are still some articles that need help for subjects I did not know about. You can help using this savvy tool here. DAB is a fun, easy way to kill time and contribute to Wikipedia :) SarahStierch (talk) 01:56, 9 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the note! I know how I'm going to procrastinate today... :) Keilana&#124;Parlez ici 06:05, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Prof Jean Golding OBE
There's an article I'd like to create but I have a conflict of interest since the scientist concerned is a work colleague in a project where I have a comms role. I'm depositing some sources here in case someone else wants to start the article about this highly significant British woman scientist. Jean Golding is the founder and former director (until her retirement at the end of 2005) of the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children. She is one of the women profiled in the e-book "A Passion for Science", released to celebrate Ada Lovelace Day. She has been recognised for her contributions to science in the Queen's New Year Honours. She was also the founder and editor-in-chief of the journal Paediatric and Perinatal Epidemiology. There are many other hits for her in standard search engines or citation databases.

A lot of Prof Golding's work has been funded by the Medical Research Council, so she would be in scope of the MRC's editathons.

MartinPoulter (talk) 15:47, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Tagging an article for this project
Hello! I've been editing in WP:Med for a while, but I started my first article (which has been through review), on a (living) woman scientist: Judith M. Lumley. She's not on the list here, and I'm not sure how to add the project label to the talk page. I looked at a few examples, but I couldn't find a simple one that was only tagged to this project. Can anyone point me to an example please? My other problem is that the page is an orphan, and virtually everything that would be good to link her with doesn't exist - because so many key institutions in perinatal epidemiology don't have Wikipedia articles either. I'll deal with it by trying to add some of those, but I'd be pleased to hear of any ideas for how others have overcome this problem. Hildabast (talk) 02:58, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Hildabast, welcome to the project. Have a look at WikiProject Women scientists for instructions on how to add the template. You might want to add a Med tag too. As for the article linking - if she really was that important to the Cochrane Collaboration, perhaps you could mention her there. RockMagnetist (talk) 03:26, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Wonder Women of Natural History: Wikipedia editathon at London Zoo, January 18th
Hi All

I'm organising a Wikipedia editathon at London Zoo on January the 18th, please have a look and come or join in online if you'd like. More info here.

Thanks

Mrjohncummings (talk) 10:57, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Help with new article
I have been working on a page for British conchologist Stella Turk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stella_Turk

Having received the following feedback I have sought to improve the article. And seek help via the talk page.


 * This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page.
 * This article uses bare URLs for citations, which may be threatened by link rot. (December 2013)
 * The topic of this article may not meet Wikipedia's notability guideline for academics. (December 2013)
 * This article is an orphan, as no other articles link to it. (December 2013)

I have already completed an edit on the citations and the article was never an orphan, perhaps I could get more pages linked to Stella's.

I am also probably not qualified to properly defend Stella's notability. She is certainly held in very high regard in Cornwall. How can this be contested. Craig.chamberlain11 (talk) 09:50, 6 January 2014 (UTC)


 * I have helped fix the problems that the article was tagged for. However the article could still use some improvement from someone who is more used to biographies than I am. I would be grateful if someone else would take a look at it. Best, Invertzoo (talk) 14:47, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Spruced up the lede a bit. Looks good. First two ¶s could use references after their final punctuation. czar  ♔  15:08, 6 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Thanks Czar for your kind and generous help -- all in all, the article is looking a great deal better than it did a few days ago! Invertzoo (talk) 21:13, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

WP Countering Systemic Bias in the Signpost
Comment below is reposted. Djembayz (talk) 22:58, 8 February 2014 (UTC)
 * The WikiProject Report would like to focus on WikiProject Countering Systemic Bias for a Signpost article. This is an excellent opportunity to draw attention to your efforts and attract new members to the project. Would you be willing to participate in an interview? If so, here are the questions for the interview. Just add your response below each question and feel free to skip any questions that you don't feel comfortable answering. Multiple editors will have an opportunity to respond to the interview questions, so be sure to sign your answers. If you know anyone else who would like to participate in the interview, please share this with them. Have a great day. –Mabeenot (talk) 00:52, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Dagna O. Constenla
I'm a big believer in increasing representation of women scientists in Wikipedia, but I just proposed Dagna O. Constenla for deletion. I'm hoping someone here has access to sources to support her notability or can otherwise make the article meet the criteria for inclusion. Thanks, SchreiberBike talk 21:23, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Why are there no Categories specified in the assessment table?
I am just curious to find out why there are no Categories specified in the assessment table? Is it intentional or an oversight? Thanks in advance, XOttawahitech (talk) 03:41, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
 * What do you mean? Keilana&#124;Parlez ici 16:36, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Hi Keilana If you look at the assessment table for this WikiProject you will see that it lacks a line for Categories. Am I making sense? XOttawahitech (talk) 01:48, 18 February 2014 (UTC)
 * The project banner is currently set up to place categories into the generic Category:NA-Class Women scientists articles, so they show up under the "NA" line in the assessment table. It wouldn't be difficult to change the banner to place them under a separate category instead, but I'm not sure whether it would make any practical difference, considering how small the current NA-Class category is. Kirill [talk] 02:03, 18 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Ooh yeah, I don't know if that's a thing we can fix. Also, the categorization system for women scientists is a total mess...perhaps we could have a drive to sort that out and create some cats and sort scientists properly instead of totally haphazardly. Keilana&#124;Parlez ici 06:12, 18 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I would say that the categorization system for scientists is a total mess, not only for women. Actually the whole categorization system is a mess. It is, in my opinion, impossible to fix only one small portion of this mess. So what can we do? XOttawahitech (talk) 15:53, 18 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks for dropping by and explaining how assessment tables work. It appears that another editor has read your comment and added a category-class + others to the assessment table. This other editor has also populated some of the existing categories. If everyone pitches in those categories will not be sparse anymore. XOttawahitech (talk) 16:01, 18 February 2014 (UTC)


 * I fixed this so now the women scientist category-class articles are classified separately, as well as files. Feel free to edit all of the remaining cats in the NA-class bucket, or a bot will eventually fix it, depending on the backlog, it may take a few days or weeks.
 * Note that in looking at women scientists categorization, my general finding has been that a significant portion of articles I've looked at have been ghettoized in some way. Please be very careful in adding a "Women X" category to an article, as this can ghettoize them. The better path rather than gender-tagging is to first say "Ok, ignoring gender, ethnicity, sexuality, and religion, what are all categories this person should be in" - and THEN go back and say "Ok, now taking into account gender, what cats should this person be in" and "Taking into account sexuality, what cats should this person be in" and "Ok, taking into account ethnicity, what cats should this person be in". I've developed a full algorithm for this which can be found here Unfortunately, people usually take the opposite track, starting out by tagging the lesbian african american social scientists and leaving them ghettoized separately from their straight white counterparts, which is the opposite of the result we want, because it makes them out to be a special kind of scientist, instead of scientist, tout court, who happens to be a woman.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 15:58, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Merger of two projects
I have started a discussion on merger of two wikiprojects - WikiProject Women scientists and WikiProject Women of psychology. Your input is welcome here. Djembayz (talk) 20:38, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Just spent some time looking at the history of WikiProject Women of psychology -- what a sad and, unfortnately typical, wikipedia tale. It appears that the editor who started this Wikiproject, who appears to be exactly the type of editor we should be grateful to have here, was bombarded with a deletion tag moments after she tried to start this wikiproject. Instead of help she got arguments, it appears, sigh... XOttawahitech (talk) 01:33, 18 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Gosh, I'm sorry to hear she ran into such difficulty. What's been done so far looks like useful resource material for WikiProject Women scientists. How do we build on our editor's work so far? Can we turn it into a subpage on the new WikiProject Women scientists for now, and then link it into the WikiProject Psychology resource pages perhaps? The editor isn't very active these days to ask her what she'd prefer. Djembayz (talk) 02:52, 18 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I guess the question is what do you hope to gain from a merger. Are you hoping that there are active members who can be "acquired" with a merger? Or are you interested in any of the structures/ideas (which can be "lifted")? Articles, of course can belong to any number of projects, so this is not an issue. XOttawahitech (talk) 09:38, 19 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Ottawahitech, I don't see a large group of editors gathered around this project yet. What I see is useful content that could be added to the active WikiProject Women scientists and/or WikiProject Psychology somehow. Whether it's by a merger, by adding it to a subpage, by spinning it into a WP Psychology task force, or something else, as long as we make this information usable for other editors it's fine with me. I brought this here rather than simply userfying, deleting, or lifting the material for a new page, because I know that you folks who have been watching WikiProjects get up and running have more experience with the various options here. (And, I'd like our original editor to know that we appreciate her attempt to get a project going.) Djembayz (talk) 23:43, 19 February 2014 (UTC)
 * you say you don't see a large group of editors gathered around this project. I just wonder how you arrive at this conclusion (number of participants in discussions, number of "official" project members, other)? XOttawahitech (talk) 11:57, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Ottawa, please explain your line of questioning. If you oppose the merge, just say so here, rather than fracturing the discussion here. Otherwise your question seems to be strange, and it would make much more sense to turn the question on its head, i.e. "Why do you believe this project, with one listed member and one talk page conversation since 2011, no banner or project categories (thus no tagged articles), and no other evidence of activity, has a large number of editors gathered around it?" Per WP:SPADE, if it looks like an inactive project, it probably is.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 15:56, 21 February 2014 (UTC)


 * comment i don't think it's as bad as you're making it out to be Ottawa. The project was a stub created in the wrong spot with the wrong name, so a passing editor speedied it, and the admin simply moved it to the proper draft space. The bigger question is, did the editor in question listen to the advice given that the scope of the project was duplicative? I'm not sure, and, you can see the result. While I appreciate the energy of someone who wants to start a new WikiProject, ultimately that energy needs to be channeled because a one person WikiProject is not a WikiProject...--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 03:11, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Women's categories survive many deletions?
I am in the habit of checking histories of pages on Wikpedia (click View history on the top right-hand side), and noticed that some articles and categories belonging to (am I allowed to use this term?) this wiki-project have survived several nomnations for deletion. Take for example Category:Women physicists which had two old CfD notices on its talkpage, but when I checked its history I discovered another undocumented CfD (I think?). XOttawahitech (talk) 14:56, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
 * If you read the discussions, you will note that two of the discussions are not about deletion, but simply a set of broad-based discussions that have been had at least twice about all women-x and female-x categories, purpose being to rename them for some consistency. So, it's not fair to say it has "survived many deletions" - there was only one attempt I found at deletion of the physicists category, in 2005.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 15:12, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
 * In my experience wp:CfD "discussions" are unpredicatable. When categories are nominated for renaming they may instead be deleted, along with categories which were not originally included in the nomination. There is no consistency whatsoever, so, for me at least, reading the contents of each discussion is a waste of time. Your Miles May Vary. XOttawahitech (talk) 11:49, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
 * It's true, sometimes categories brought before CFD for renaming or merging are just deleted instead; that's just the way the cookie crumbles; but I still think it's an unfair characterization to say "Women's categories survive many deletions", at least for the one you pointed to, as there was little call for deletion of these categories within those massive group nominations. I still find it very strange that you spend so much time creating categories but are completely dismissive of the CFD process. It may not be pretty but it's the only thing standing between what we have right now and category chaos - many of the cats deleted there are unworkable, or duplicative of other categories; the result is a much cleaner category tree - but it's a neverending job.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 16:01, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Obi-Wan has more experience putting Women's categories of every type up for deletion than any editor I've encountered, so maybe it's worth hearing their reasons. But in any case a category talk page should have links to all CfDs were the categories were discussed. It might save a discussion if a potential nominator sees a link to a discussion that covers their concern. Categories for discussion also shows that closure of all CfDs should be documented this way, whether it's for merging, deletion, splitting, or re-naming. __ E L A Q U E A T E  23:28, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Obiwan, who has done a lot of deghettoization work, feels that deletion of a non (or borderline)-notable gendered category is better than the alternative, which is in many cases entropy, non-maintenance, and ghettoization. I rarely find gendered categories that have been around a year or so that aren't currently ghettoizing in one sense or another, especially in more forgotten corners of the wiki - I'm not sure when the next WP:CategoryGate will strike, but when it does we will be woefully unprepared - we still have, in my estimation, tens or maybe hundreds of thousands of bios that are still ghettoized - there was a lot of focus on novelists and writers but many other cats were mostly forgotten. Furthermore, as the number of women+job categories grows, this can serve to reinforce notions that women are a special type of people, so we have to be careful with such categories and their proliferation, especially as we get to finer and finer grained categories like, where the parent cat itself is tiny.
 * Today, Category:Men_by_occupation has 20 top-level cats, whereas Category:Women_by_occupation has 113; is it really the case that women+job is written about and studied as a group in ~90 more job types than men? We should also be careful of not perpetuating a reverse gender bias in our categorization scheme. More and more, gender studies approaches are looking at gender+job (so men and women), but there are two potential responses (1) Create equivalent (men + job) cats (like Category:Men sociologists) (2) revert to gender-neutral cats in many cases. Personally I think proliferation of men+job cats to match the women+job cats isn't necessarily a good idea either, as these dual-gender-categorization schemes require an enormous amount of maintenance and I've yet to see a single one that is filled out fully or well, with the exception of the actors/actresses (in that case, everyone is divided and no-one remains in the parent, so it's easier to track).
 * In many such cases, the "male" category is much less filled in, which either signals a reverse gender bias in filling it in (pro-woman), or a laziness on the part of categorizers, who perhaps think the "men" category isn't worth filling out (see the pitiful state of for example, compared to ) - and this is in a way a form of "normalization" of the non-gendered categories as being "sufficient" for the men, while still signaling that women need a "room of their own."
 * I agree with EQ that most CFDs should be listed on the cat talk pages, but the value of "This category was part of a group nom of hundreds of cats to normalize female vs woman" is pretty low, but if someone wants to do the work to tag the pages go for it.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 19:39, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Another way to think about this - during CategoryGate, a great number of outside commenters, who don't understand how wikipedia categories work, found it ridiculous that we had gendered categories at all (e.g. What, are women a special type of novelist? ex etc). Now, we won't be able to undo that perception nor get rid of gendered categories, but I do think that if we can't reliably fill up a category, AND if we can't keep it de-ghettoized, if the contents are not the subject of ongoing study and scholarship and a significant head article could not be written on same, and we cannot commit to maintaining this gendered split over time, we should not have it at all - because the impression these forlorn cats leave to the outside world is rather bad. For example, someone wandering by Category:Women_social_scientists might be surprised to find few entries, even though we have articles on likely thousands of women in this profession (and the cat has existed since 2007). During CategoryGate, it was often quoted that we had fewer articles on female poets than on female pornstars, but this turned out to be false - it was simply the fact that (1) the article writer didn't look at subcategories and (2) hundreds of female poets weren't even categorized as such. So it wasn't that wikipedia was shirking in its duty to write about female poets - we were writing hundreds of articles about women poets - we just weren't CATEGORIZING them as such. If we can't reliably maintain female poets, which is one of the most written about and studied gender-splits that I can think of, our chances of maintaining hundreds of other gender+job categories in a sustainable fashion is debateable. Another example - during the female novelists debacle, it was widely quoted that wikipedia only had 500 or so articles about American women novelists; however after some deep work by JohnPackLambert and others, we actually turned out to have over 1900 (see Category:American women novelists, but filling this category up was a sustained effort and requires constant vigilance - even now some of those novelists are ghettoized.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 20:22, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I think you forgot to mention that User:Johnpacklambert was responsible for ghettoizing scores of women novelists (and actresses) on April 16&17 2013?
 * Ottawa, I didn't neglect to mention it as it's irrelevant. JPL has publicly said he was mistaken (see his homepage) and he did more to deghettoize the tree than the rest of Wikipedia combined - he broke a Few dozen, and fixed a few thousand. I could point to dozens of other editors who have ghettoized women or minorities or Jews or disabled people, by the thousands, including yourself, but it doesn't matter, there no need to point fingers. It's complex to not ghettoize, and many people have ghettoized with the best of intentions -yourself included. --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 14:37, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Since you imply above that I (together with dozens of others) "have ghettoized women or minorities or Jews or disabled people, by the thousands", would you please provide 2-3 diffs that demonstrate that I have removed a general category and replaced it with a non-diffusing category as user:Johnpacklambert has done in April of last year? Thanks in advance, XOttawahitech (talk) 06:48, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
 * not really interested to troll through your contributions Ottawa and find diffs, but I've seen it and in some cases fixed it on articles I watch. It's not an accusation, it's a simple statement of fact, it's not a crime. Ghettoization is not only active (eg remove from a good cat and put in a non-diffusing cat), it's also passive - eg adding to a non-diffusing cat and neglecting to add to the proper and full set of parent or sibling cats. The result is the same. When I did a ghettoization test on a single woman, no-one passed, so it's non-trivial to do correctly given the complexity of the tree, and your constant creation of mezzanine container categories for women only serves to complicate the issue, which is why consensus has been to delete a number of them - as has been argued a number of times, many of the categories you create actually make it more likely that people will ghettoize due to violation of the final rung rule.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 13:17, 15 March 2014 (UTC)


 * I was not the person who stated Category:American women novelists, nor was I the person who ghettoized the leading novelist (that was done by another editor). All I did was start a systematic building of the category. I am also the person who brought Category:American women poets to be bigger than the "porn star" category. A much harder feat was bringing Cateogry:American women judges to be bigger than the porn star category. It required me to actually create some articles, not just categorize ones that already existed, and still had to wait until AfD had removed several articles on non-notable porn stars. My guess is though that at least 10-20 more articles could be created on American women judges. Category:American female lawyers is still smaller than the porn star category, but that is mainly from under building. The poet attack was one of the most uniformed I saw during categorygate, although the whole debacle was built around ignoring the lowest-rung rule. As I said, I didn't create Category:American women novelists, although I created many of its sister cats like Category:Scottish women novelists.John Pack Lambert (talk) 14:22, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
 * On the issue of putting notice up about all the CfDs to move women to female cats or vice versa, last spring some of these categories had two nominations running simultaneously, the massive rename motion and an simultaneous nomination to delete. It should also be noted that there are many editors who support the idea that some gendered categories are justified, but that does not mean they support every gendered category that could be created.John Pack Lambert (talk) 14:28, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
 * As I have been expanding Category:American women photographers, I have noticed that many of these people are also writers but not in the writer category. This tells me that even Category:American women writers is not being maintained at the level it should be.John Pack Lambert (talk) 18:31, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
 * If you are not the editor who ghettoized Amanda Filipacchi then who made the following edit on April 4, 2013:
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Amanda_Filipacchi&diff=prev&oldid=548587911 ?  XOttawahitech (talk) 12:31, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Ottawa please make the intent of your line of questioning explicit here. Is this a trial, are you seeking a conviction? Yes JPL ghettoized some novelists, from his perspective he was simply diffusing and many other editors have made the same mistake, he has apologized and made up for it by deghettoizing several thousands. What's the purpose in pestering him, no less on this noticeboard? What exactly do you hope to gain?Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 14:59, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
 * pot, meet kettle. Jehan Sadat was added by you to, a category you created. However, you failed to place her in the neutral version and even failed to parent that women's category appropriately - this ghettoizing her and ghettoizing the whole category in a manner of speaking through omission. I've see a number of other ones like this from you. Before you go throwing around diffs and accusing people of ghettoizing through what were good faith efforts, look in the mirror. I also think you should apologize to JPL for dragging his name through the mud again, when you are just as guilty.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 18:26, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
 * more pot, more kettle. You asked for it, so here it is- the first was a crime of omission, but these are pure-blooded ghettoization a straight out of the Amanda filipacchi ghettoization-how-to-get-a-NY-Times-oped school of categorization. I present to the ladies and gentlemen of the jury the following evidence:
 * exhibit A: Julia Hamari - poor Julie ceased to be an academic and just became a female academic with this edit by Ottawa: edit
 * Exhibit B: this studied Malian scholar was ghettoized by Ottawa in a series of two edits: here and here. She remains ghettoized to this day. But she's not alone - Ottawa was on a bit if a rampage in 2012, leading to this gem,
 * exhibit C: another female academic, another pair of edits that pulls her out of the main cat and shunts her into the ladies room zing and zam (she also is still in a ghetto to this day)
 * now, that was about 10 minutes of searching through one category tree, which is about the maximum amount of time I'm willing to spend to demonstrate that you too have ghettoized, and I'd simply point out that - 1) we all have done it - yes even me I bet 2) it's quite hard to avoid doing it - when editing hundreds of articles, if you don't understand the full tree you're dealing with its trivial to ghettoize 3) again, stop busting Lambert's chops about this, he already got pilloried in the media and doesn't need your pointy zingers. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone, I think that's a good mantra here, we should stick together, work to avoid ghettoization, and not beat each other up when it happens - just fix it and move on.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 22:11, 30 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Anyway, why does it matter that I did an edit on Filipacci when she was a minor novelist who had not gotten major attention as a critic of wikipedia? Of course, it would help more if the NYT and other newspapers actually bothered to report on Wikipedia in unbiased ways, instead of using it for sensationalism, and as a method of attack. What they clearly ignored is there has for a long time been drawn out debates over whether or not to split categories by gender, and these collide at times with another set of philosophies. A big question that the NYT never addressed was, what is the maximum reasonable number of categories for a person. When we have over 50 categories on some articles, it seems excessive. At one point some of us thought that intersect categories were a solution to this problem, but we have come to see that even without the ghettoization rules they are unlikely to help. Erika Harold is probably the best example of this. Unless we create Category:Female American politicians of English, African and German descent or some truly indepth hybrid like that, she will be in lots of categories. Same with Mia Love, who to avoid being in several categories needs something like Category:Female American Latter Day Saint politicians of Haitian descent. The intersect categories work, but they need to meet all the requirements of the ERGS rules. Too many of them meet none of those requirements. I just do not see us ever having an article Women in immunology for example.John Pack Lambert (talk) 21:52, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
 * As it is, Love is in 17 categories. I am not 100% convinced she is notable enough, or even worked long enough as, a flight attendant, to fit in Category:Flight attendants. I also am not really sure she fits in Category:People from Brooklyn since she seems to have been primarily raised in Connecticut. On the other hand, it is quite possible that in a year she will fit in several more categories. Still, this is not an unreasonably high number. In my experience the people who tend to be in the most number of categories, outside of royalty who get insane numbers of international awards, are musicians.John Pack Lambert (talk) 22:00, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
 * More emblematic of crazy categorization is Alicia Keys who is in 50 categories.John Pack Lambert (talk) 20:58, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Table of contents for this wikiproject
I was just wondering why there is no table of contents here: wp:WikiProject Women scientists. I find it is very long and difficult to navigate without one. Am I the only one who thinks a TOC would be beneficial? XOttawahitech (talk) 11:42, 21 February 2014 (UTC)


 * I see a table of contents in the top right corner of the page. Does it not display for you? Kirill [talk] 12:44, 21 February 2014 (UTC)


 * It is a little confusing because of the two-part structure of the page. The stuff in the box does not have a TOC; the one in the top right corner is only for contents below the box. RockMagnetist (talk) 16:45, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Maybe because it is a stagnant wikiproject that isn't maintained well? Mrfrobinson (talk) 23:27, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
 * What a thing to say! Have you looked at the edit histories? You'd have to ask why she chose this design, but it may have been inspired by WikiProject Biography/Science and academia. RockMagnetist (talk) 00:14, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
 * nailed it! It was a bit of a late-night design job and it was indeed inspired by the Biography/science project. Unfortunately, I'm god-awful at any type of coding and thought the content was more important, and haven't really taken the time to come up with and implement a better design. Our focus on content over organization seems to have continued, what with two worklists and everything... I need to sit down and figure out some organization things but frankly haven't had time in the stream of exams and practicals and clinicals., I agree that it's a little difficult to navigate without a TOC, feel free to implement one where you think it would be useful! And please, if anyone has any thoughts on restructuring the page, be bold and try something out! Keilana&#124;Parlez ici 05:46, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I prefer the tabbed style like WikiProject Geology. Not surprising, I guess, since I designed that one. It's a lot of work, though. RockMagnetist (talk) 07:07, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I Like your approach! In my opinion it is good to have all members participate in page design. This way they feel like they are actually part of things, rather than bystanders (or backseat drivers :-) XOttawahitech (talk) 20:03, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Hmm, so what do people think of 's tabbed approach? Perhaps we could implement it as a team so no one editor has to shoulder the whole burden. :) Keilana&#124;Parlez ici 20:17, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I've fixed so that the TOC now works. If someone wants to go for a tabbed approach that could work too. I think for now we should consider reorganizing the sections, there are perhaps too many of them and the order doesn't make a ton of sense.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 15:24, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
 * You're right about that. I did some reorganizing and added an infobox. RockMagnetist (talk) 22:01, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

March 4 2014 women in science editathon
Article in today's Observer about March 4's WikiProject Royal Society/Women in Science Wikipedia Edit-a-thon at the Royal Society. I just read that there are places at the London event still available, and remote participation is also invited. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 11:03, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the heads-up! Keilana&#124;Parlez ici 21:49, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

pic
The current pic was rather generic, so I've replaced it with Marie Curie in her lab, arguably one of the most well known women scientists. I just learned she had won two Nobel prizes, and her daughter won one as well - making her the only woman to win two, and the only mother/daughter pair to win Nobels - what a family! I'm not that happy with her pic for the banner; suggestions welcome, perhaps just a profile pic of her? Or other ideas on a better image for this project than Venus symbol?--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 18:48, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I have added some of the best pictures that I could find to List of female scientists before the 21st century. I think File:Barbara McClintock (1902-1992).jpg might be a good alternative - almost high enough quality to be featured, and clearly scientific. RockMagnetist (talk) 18:57, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Yup, that one's not bad either. Very science-y as well, and a nobel winner to boot.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 19:04, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm a little biased to Barbara McClintock but Marie Curie is lovely too. Thank you for taking the initiative to replace it! :) Keilana&#124;Parlez ici 03:52, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Assessment scheme
I took the bold step of adding the standard templates to WikiProject Women scientists/Assessment --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 08:27, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

Kelle Cruz‎
Kelle Cruz‎ has a notability tag. Anyone able to match up her work with WP:ACADEMIC please? --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 19:44, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
 * This is a great example of ghettoization in action. As of this rev, this person was added to two categories, both of them gendered. People who create such often don't even realize they are ghettoizing. This is something we need to watch out for. Can I propose that this project take on the task of deghettoizing and perhaps cleaning out/deleting some of the lesser-used women+scientist categories, especially for finer grained scientific sub-specialties that are likely to have very few members?--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 20:02, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I found a couple of 'first author' papers in Google Scholar, which says they are cited 78 and 158 times. Are these sufficient citations (along with the APS profile) to speak to notability for including Cruz's bio in English Wikipedia? Please answer at Talk:Kelle Cruz. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 08:27, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

Total free access to Royal Society History of Science journals for 2 days on March 4th and 5th !!!
As Wikipedian in Residence at the Royal Society, the National Academy for the sciences of the UK, I am pleased to say that the two Royal Society History of Science journals will be fully accessible for free for 2 days on March 4th and 5th. This is in conjunction with the Women in Science Edit-a-thon on 4 March, slightly in advance of International Women's Day, on Saturday March 8th. The event is held by the Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering, and is fully booked, but online participation is very welcome, and suggestions for articles relevant to the theme of "Women in Science" that need work, and topics that need coverage.

The journals will have full and free online access to all from 1am (GMT/UTC) on 4th March 2014 until 11pm (GMT/UTC) on 5th March 2014. Normally they are only free online for issues between 1 and 10 years old. They are:
 * Notes and Records: the Royal Society journal of the history of science
 * Biographical Memoirs of the Fellows of the Royal Society

The RS position is a "pilot" excercise, running between January and early July 2014. Please let me know on my talk page or the project page if you want to get involved or have suggestions. There will be further public events, as well as many for the RS's diverse audiences in the scientific community; these will be advertised first to the RS's emailing lists and Twitter feeds.

I am keen to get feedback on my personal Conflict of Interest statement for the position, and want to work out a general one for Royal Society staff in consultation with the community. Wiki at Royal Society John (talk) 17:50, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

Article alerts section added to the project page
See WikiProject_Women_scientists -- I hope this is OK? XOttawahitech (talk) 00:10, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Yep. I changed Announcements to Article alerts - that's what it should have been called in the first place. RockMagnetist (talk) 03:20, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Are physicians scientists - Guardian article
According to the existing category tree physicians are not scientists. But apparently there are editors over at wp:MED who think other wise. I saw this: http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/feb/23/stop-female-scientists-written-out-wikipedia-history-royal-society-edit-athon posted on their talkpage. XOttawahitech (talk) 20:19, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Some but not all physicians are scientists (i.e., being a medical doctor does not automatically make one a scientist). But, I'm confused about what this has to do with the Guardian article.  --JBL (talk) 20:32, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree with JBL. Not all physicians are properly termed scientists; for me a scientist is someone who advances the state of scientific knowledge through research - and many physicians do not undertake such research. We do have a category of Category:Medical_researchers which is under the umbrella. That said I also don't know what link that article has with anything.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 20:44, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
 * How about engineers? XOttawahitech (talk) 14:22, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Ditto. --JBL (talk) 14:24, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
 * ...and astronauts? XOttawahitech (talk) 14:31, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Is there some point to this? --JBL (talk) 15:01, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I'm not sure I understand the line of questioning. Astronauts are not "scientists" or "engineers" - they are people who have gone to space. Many of them are ALSO scientists, or some are ALSO engineers, or some are ALSO pilots, and some are many of these things combined, but it doesn't mean we should parent that category of Astronauts as scientists + engineers + pilots. It's never going to be perfect, there are always overlaps between fields, so we have to go with rough brush strokes, and by that token, I wouldn't call an average Engineer a scientist - I thought this diagram was useful . And here is an impassioned plea published in the IEEE titled "Engineering Is Not Science: And confusing the two keeps us from solving the problems of the world" --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 15:08, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

...and Biomedical scientists for which there appears to be no category? XOttawahitech (talk) 15:20, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
 * We have many subcategories in Category:Biologists_by_field_of_research, Category:Physicists_by_field_of_research and Category:Medical_doctors_by_specialty which can capture most biomedical scientists (which is itself a broad-scale grouping). I don't think we should start another tree of because it will be cross-cutting with so many existing trees and will only add clutter - rather just tag people with the specific scientific pursuits they undertake.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 15:48, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
 * It might be worth adding a small discussion of this to the project page. I think a lot of people are uncertain about who counts as a scientist. Early in the history of this project, there were several astronauts who someone had put in the top importance category for this project, yet they had not done little or no science. RockMagnetist (talk) 16:50, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I think we're dealing with two different questions. 1) How should and  be parented in the category tree and 2) What articles should be considered under the scope of this particular wiki project. I think it would be perfectly reasonable for this project to say "Ok, we are called WP:Women scientists, but we are actually interested in women engineers, women astronauts, women technologists, women programmers, etc" - but that has nothing to do with how the categories are structured. Does that make sense?--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 16:58, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, it makes sense. Concerning the scope of this project, the early view can be seen in this discussion. Of course, consensus can change, but I share 's hope that this project will inspire the creation of others, instead of broadening its own scope. RockMagnetist (talk) 17:16, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
 * As for categories, I share your point of view. The categories of scientist, astronaut, engineer and physician are overlapping but independent. RockMagnetist (talk) 17:20, 6 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Of the three names that I recognize in WikiProject_Women_scientists one is Margaret Thatcher. Thatcher has a chemistry degree and briefly worked as a research chemist before moving into politics. Is it this WikiProject's intention to include every notable woman who incidentally has a science degree? Axl  ¤  [Talk]  01:38, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

The UK Science Council takes a very different view from those above. In 2012 it published a list of 100 leading UK practising scientists, divided by type of activity, and only the first 20, plus a few who moved on to other areas, were really included on the basis of their research. Wiki at Royal Society John (talk) 04:50, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
 * With all due respect, the UK science council is trying to make a point: "It is vital that this narrow vision is challenged urgently because it is inhibiting education policy, the career ambitions of young people and investment in developing the skills we need to deliver a world class economy." - we on the other hand are trying to build and maintain a reasonable category structure. If we followed the UK Science council's vision, all heads of biotech companies and policy makers and marketers and teachers and enterpreneuer categories would be stuck under . It's just impractical. In any case, because of multiple parenting, our problems are nonetheless solved; the biomechanics entrepreneur will be listed as an entrepreneur and a biomechanical researcher, and is thus in the "science" tree nonetheless.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 06:46, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
 * This doesn't work in practice, and in fact those not still in academic research tend not to have articles in the first place. This became very clear when I worked through all the women on that list checking, to compile the suggestions at WikiProject Royal Society/Women in Science Wikipedia Edit-a-thon at the Royal Society, March 2014. In particular the regulatory sector was very under-represented. Oddly, also the "communicators". Relatively few scientific entrepreneurs will be listed also in a scientific category in my experience. Wiki at Royal Society John (talk) 12:40, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
 * there are two separate issues - 1) is the person notable enough to have an article at all. Even mention by the UK science council is not sufficient - we have standards for when scientists and business people merit an article - so not all working scientists even those in top 100 lists may qualify. 2) as for categories, the standard is WP:defining - eg do sources regularly call that person a biochemist. If they don't, and the person has not done any notable biochemistry work, and they are mostly known as a savvy entrepreneur, it's possible they won't be in the scientist cat but that's just because we have to follow sources... The UK science council is making the point that most sources may not call these ppl scientists, but I'm not sure we should be trying to correct that mistake ourselves.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 12:56, 7 March 2014 (UTC)


 * John, to clarify your position: are you saying that Margaret Thatcher falls under the remit of this WikiProject because she is/was a woman scientist? Axl  ¤  [Talk]  15:59, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
 * From a practical point of view, I think we have nothing to offer the article on Margaret Thatcher. I doubt there is anything interesting to say about her science career, and devoting much space to it might give it undue weight. I'd be inclined to remove it from this project. RockMagnetist (talk) 16:52, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
 * She is rightly categorized as a British and Woman chemist, so yes. Most Wikiprojects have nothing much to offer to most articles under their banner, but there's no real point to start picking. Of course she had much more influence on the funding etc of science than the vast majority of scientists. Wiki at Royal Society John (talk) 19:24, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

What is a scientist?
If there really is consensus about who is and who is not a Scientist - shouldn't this article be updated to reflect this consensus? XOttawahitech (talk) 21:19, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Ottawa, is this another one of your rhetorical questions? Are you suggesting changes to the Scientist article? If so, this is the wrong place to discuss it. FWIW, in the discussion above, we were not talking about "Wikipedia consensus definition on who is a scientist" - we were talking about how category structures should be parented, which is NOT the same thing.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 21:22, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Are you implying that trying to eliminate inconsistencies in Wikipedia is a negative pursuit? XOttawahitech (talk) 14:35, 8 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Is there some reason to engage in this oblique way? It's frustrating.  Instead, perhaps you could make a clear statement of what you're hoping to accomplish through this discussion.  --JBL (talk) 17:43, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

I've only just looked at Scientist, which gets about 400k views pa, & seems pretty terrible in almost every way. But indeed this is not the place to discuss it. It will be going on my list for future Royal Society editathons. Wiki at Royal Society John (talk) 12:46, 7 March 2014 (U
 * ...and in the meantime user:Obiwankenobi has already removed engineers from scientists without any discussion... XOttawahitech (talk) 13:58, 9 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm not active in this project, but it is appropriate for this project to discuss whether a woman engineer is in the scope of the project. That is a separate issue from all the other places  has spammed this request.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 21:15, 9 March 2014 (UTC)
 * user: Arthur Rubin Are you implying that this wikiproject should discuss only women scientists, but not scientists in general? Just asking. XOttawahitech (talk) 13:37, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
 * , can you please make your purpose clear here? Do you want to discuss the category structure of and, the article Scientist and contents thereof, or the scope of this project? This seems to be a very important issue to you, given you've spammed no less than 4 projects with notifications of this discussion (and then re-notified them of a one-line change to Scientists, but I'm still not quite sure what you're trying to accomplish. I agree with Arthur, that the scope of this project and whether women engineers should be covered by it is a perfectly reasonable topic, but that's quite different than discussing what the Scientist article says, nor how categories should be parented, and I think those discussions should ideally be held elsewhere.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 17:33, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I am curious to find out why you reverted my edit at Scientists yet you have chosen not to justify your action or answer my question above? XOttawahitech (talk) 07:42, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
 * This is not an appropriate forum for discussing edits on Scientist which do not involve women. As for an explanation, I removed "Engineer".  The burden is on those who want to retain it.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 16:49, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Wikidata will settle this
Category intersections have always been a problem on Wikipedia but someday they will come to an end. Anyone who likes these talks on English Wikipedia should enjoy them here, but I expect that within 3-4 years maximum all these categories will be gone. These complicated trees need not only have groups at the end of one branch, and with the ability to search multiple categories at once a lot of these discussions will not happen anymore. Wikidata should settle a lot of this.


 * The Reason For It All by user:Magnus Manske for inspiration

For those interested in talking about these things, Wikidata could use more participants. They only do category sorting there.  Blue Rasberry  (talk)  21:56, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Sorry for a dumb question, but are you saying that Categories will be replaced by Wikidata? XOttawahitech (talk) 14:03, 9 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes. This has a lot of implications, with one of the major ones being a major simplification of categories so that people can tag articles so as to remove most of the branching and hierarchy. Most of the changes will be a result from being able to search categories and their intersections. Email me if you want to chat about it by voice sometime.  Blue Rasberry   (talk)  16:52, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

List of female scientists before the 21st century
There is a proposal to merge Index of women scientists articles into List of female scientists before the 21st century (see the discussion). I have proposed combining the merger with a split of the list into List of women scientists from the 19th century and before and List of women scientists from the 20th and 21st centuries (of course, the latter would be an expansion of the original list). RockMagnetist (talk) 22:09, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

A wikiproject list
I have used catscan2 to automatically generate a list of women scientists from the 19th century and earlier who are not yet in List of female scientists before the 21st century (see WikiProject Women scientists/missing from main list). It's quite long! It can provide a source for anyone who is interested in expanding List ... 21st century. I have started working on it from the bottom. RockMagnetist (talk) 22:15, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

I have also generated an index of all the articles in this project: WikiProject Women scientists/index. It's easier to maintain than the Index of women scientists articles because it doesn't have to look good. Someone just has to run the search every once in a while. RockMagnetist (talk) 22:18, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

Total free access to Royal Society History of Science journals for 2 days on March 25th and 26th !!!
As Wikipedian in Residence at the Royal Society, the National Academy for the sciences of the UK, I am again pleased to say that the two Royal Society History of Science journals will be fully accessible for free for 2 days on March 25th and 26th. This is in conjunction with the Diversity in Science Edit-a-thon on 25 March. The event is held by the Royal Society and there are currently a couple of places available, as well as online participation which is very welcome, as are suggestions for articles relevant to the theme of "Diversity in Science" that need work, and topics that need coverage.

The journals will have full and free online access to all from 1am (GMT/UTC) on 25th March 2014 until 11pm (GMT/UTC) on 26th March 2014. Normally they are only free online for issues between 1 and 10 years old. They are:
 * Notes and Records: the Royal Society journal of the history of science
 * Biographical Memoirs of the Fellows of the Royal Society

The RS position is a "pilot" excercise, running between January and early July 2014. Please let me know on my talk page or the project page if you want to get involved or have suggestions. There will be further public events in May, as well as many for the RS's diverse audiences in the scientific community; these will be advertised first to the RS's emailing lists and Twitter feeds. Wiki at Royal Society John (talk) 17:33, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Locating existing articles about women scientists
Just wondering how important it is for this project to be able to locate more existing articles about women scientists? There are still a whole lot of women scientists tucked under the various categories of Category:Scientists which have not been added to the corresponding category in Category: Women scientists and which have not been tagged with this project's banner. For example Mary Anne Warren who is currently included in Category:Bioethicists but not in Category:Women bioethicists. XOttawahitech (talk) 14:34, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I'd say it's important - it's hard to gauge the current status of articles without having them all in a single place. I don't know how best to do this though, via persondata maybe? Sam Walton (talk) 16:20, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes I agree – we should have an easy way to locate and classify women scientists – hopefully we can do this using the appropriate categories. I don’t understand what persondata is – would you please elaborate? XOttawahitech (talk) 00:51, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Persondata is metadata which should be added to the bottom of every biography. It's apparently easy to extract using tools, though I have no experience with that. Sam Walton (talk) 00:58, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Nah, we've got over 2000 - let's not get greedy. (Just kidding.) Your question inspired me to use catscan2 to find articles that are in both Category:Scientists and Category:Women but not tagged by this wikiproject. I quickly learned that, in a search like that, it's a bad idea to choose a high category depth! Even at a depth of 4, the list has plenty of strange stuff in it. Maybe there are some insights here for the category builders. RockMagnetist (talk) 17:52, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Relying on women being in the Category:Women is problematic. In my experience Category: Scientists contains many entries for women scientists that do not identify them as women through ANY category. The only sure way to find them all that I am aware of is to methodically go through all scientists  categories one by one to locate articles about women and when finding a woman add her article  to Category: Women scientists (and add the project banner to her talk page). Once we have done that we can move to find women who are not in Categoy:Scientists to start with:-) By the way, what is  "catscan2"? XOttawahitech (talk) 00:43, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm getting some surprising reactions to this list. It's a simple way of digging up some more candidates for this project, nothing more. Catscan2 is a nice tool for finding articles - see WP:catscan. RockMagnetist (talk) 03:18, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
 * The list looks a lot more useful after fictional women scientists are removed. RockMagnetist (talk) 20:53, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I think the banner tagging system and associated talk-space categories should be used to manage scope of this project as they are with every project. I think using cat intersection like the above is a good way to find un-tagged articles and perhaps Awb could be used to tag them en-masse, but I don't think one should use the mainspace cat system to delineate the scope of this project, namely because not all women+scientist categories are valid intersections per WP:EGRS, and because the scope of this project may extend beyond scientists into doctors and engineers for example, or articles that aren't biographies but rather topic-based.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 21:18, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't think anyone is saying anything different. Someone must look at each of the articles in the list before adding them to this project. Still, I have already discovered that Sofia Kovalevskaya was not tagged. RockMagnetist (talk) 21:42, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Alerts archive
Does this wikiproject have an archive of article alerts? WikiProject Feminism preserves their archive here: WikiProject Feminism/Article alerts/Archive. XOttawahitech (talk) 18:48, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Here: WikiProject Women scientists/Article alerts/Archive czar ♔  10:32, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Thank you. I have added this archive to Category:WikiProject Women scientists. XOttawahitech (talk) 00:15, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Does this WikiProject want to recruit more editors?
If so, here is an idea of where to find potential members:

Let’s say it is determined that the project could use more help in the area of say, German women scientists. You can easily see who is currently active updating this area of Wikipedia by clicking the Related changes link in Category:German women scientists. Am I making sense? By the way I just noticed this project is down to 103 categories. XOttawahitech (talk) 14:23, 13 April 2014 (UTC)
 * How many categories were there before? RockMagnetist (talk) 15:10, 13 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I believe there were 112-113 categories at one point. You can look at WikiProject_Women_scientists/Article_alerts/Archive to see how many have been deleted.This is  assuming that no categories were lost simply because someone removed the project  banner from the talk page (yes this has happened before, see for example Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Council, but only if you have spare time :-). XOttawahitech (talk) 14:37, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Opportunity to recruit new members at Talk:Karen_Spärck_Jones
There is fairly active discussion at: Talk:Karen_Spärck_Jones -- and since I personally would rather step out of it, I wonder if someone from the project is interested? XOttawahitech (talk) 14:23, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Invitation to User Study
Would you be interested in participating in a user study? We are a team at University of Washington studying methods for finding collaborators within a Wikipedia community. We are looking for volunteers to evaluate a new visualization tool. All you need to do is to prepare for your laptop/desktop, web camera, and speaker for video communication with Google Hangout. We will provide you with a Amazon gift card in appreciation of your time and participation. For more information about this study, please visit our wiki page (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Finding_a_Collaborator). If you would like to participate in our user study, please send me a message at Wkmaster (talk) 23:03, 25 April 2014 (UTC).

New Dictionary list
See here for a list I have just been working on today. The reference work is probably not so well known, and it is worth remarking that the definition of "scientist" it uses is fairly broad. There are something over 50 redlinks on the list. Charles Matthews (talk) 20:48, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
 * A bit fewer now, I make it 45 redlinks; I've knocked off 6 or so that had articles, usually by searching without middle names etc. I think a few more are lurking there. Many close relatives have articles, and a bit of addition would justify a redirect to those. Not all were cutting edge researchers, I think it's fair to say. Wiki at Royal Society John (talk) 15:03, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

Issues with WikiProject main page
Can we move the "To Do" list to the main page, or copy it to the main page? I may be wrong, but I think the main page gets more views than the talk page. I searched around the page for a bit before it struck me that the to do list might be on the talk page. Increasing visibility can help increase the project's focus on new articles or articles that need help.

Also, none of the links in the "Women scientists articles by quality and importance" box work. Does anyone know how to fix this? I'd like to figure out which high importance articles need improvement. -Iamozy (talk) 14:24, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
 * In answer to your second question, the broken links seem to be a cross-wiki problem, yet I can find very little discussion of it. Very frustrating! I left a message at the WP 1.0 bot project talk page. RockMagnetist (talk) 14:44, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
 * In answer to your first question: todo is designed to go on a talk page. I have added a link to it at the top of How you can help - is that better? RockMagnetist (talk) 15:13, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

The links in the assessment table work now. RockMagnetist (talk) 21:21, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

Low-hanging fruit
Sometimes when I am tagging articles for this project, I come across an article that is a pitiful little stub, but there are good sources for the subject. I don't have time to expand all of them, so I thought it might be nice to have a "Low hanging fruit" section on the project page. I have started it, and I encourage other people to add to it. RockMagnetist (talk) 17:28, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

Not really wiki-related, but...
Lego to launch female scientists series after online campaign Women in science are taking one tiny, plastic step forward after Lego announced on Tuesday it will launch a series of female scientists and their lab tools.

The series – notably devoid of pink – includes an astronomer with a telescope, a paleontologist with a dinosaur skeleton and a chemist in a lab.

The toy company has been criticised in the past for its gender-based marketing tactics, and in particular, over a line of building blocks geared for girls called Lego Friends, featuring slim female figurines that lock into pastel-painted settings such as a beauty salon and bakery.

The debate even prompted a seven-year-old girl to write a letter to Lego asking why there are "more Lego boy people and barely any Lego girls".

In her letter, Charlotte Benjamin lamented how "all the girls did was sit at home, go to the beach, and shop, and had no jobs," while the boy figures went "on adventures, worked, saved people and had jobs". -- Brainy J  ~ ✿ ~ ( talk ) 18:18, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

Wiki Loves Pride 2014
You are invited to participate in Wiki Loves Pride 2014, a campaign to create and improve LGBT-related content at Wikipedia and its sister projects. The campaign will take place throughout the month of June, culminating with a multinational edit-a-thon on June 21. Meetups are being held in some cities, or you can participate remotely. All constructive edits are welcome in order to contribute to Wikipedia's mission of providing quality, accurate information. Articles related to LGBT scientists may be of particular interest. You can also upload LGBT-related images by participating in Wikimedia Commons' LGBT-related photo challenge. You are encouraged to share the results of your work here. Happy editing! -- Another Believer ( Talk ) 19:06, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

Leaflet For Wikiproject Women Scientists At Wikimania 2014
Hi all,

My name is Adi Khajuria and I am helping out with Wikimania 2014 in London.

One of our initiatives is to create leaflets to increase the discoverability of various wikimedia projects, and showcase the breadth of activity within wikimedia. Any kind of project can have a physical paper leaflet designed - for free - as a tool to help recruit new contributors. These leaflets will be printed at Wikimania 2014, and the designs can be re-used in the future at other events and locations.

This is particularly aimed at highlighting less discoverable but successful projects, e.g:

• Active Wikiprojects: Wikiproject Medicine, WikiProject Video Games, Wikiproject Film

• Tech projects/Tools, which may be looking for either users or developers.

• Less known major projects: Wikinews, Wikidata, Wikivoyage, etc.

• Wiki Loves Parliaments, Wiki Loves Monuments, Wiki Loves ____

• Wikimedia thematic organisations, Wikiwomen’s Collaborative, The Signpost

For more information or to sign up for one for your project, go to: Project leaflets Adikhajuria (talk) 09:19, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Eyes needed at Laura Mersini-Houghton
There's what seems to be some sort of POV editing going on at Laura Mersini-Houghton by a fluctuating IP editor. By their own admission they are not a native English speaker, and as far as I can tell they don't really understand the original research policy, despite my attempts to explain it. I don't want it to turn into a back-and-forth edit war here, so I think the best thing to do is to get a few extra eyes on the article to establish a proper consensus. The discussion is here. Thanks. 0x0077BE [talk/contrib] 07:31, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Women of Science Wikibomb
The Women of Science Wikibomb, held by the Australian Academy of Science, is underway. Category:Wikibomb2014 is being used for articles created during the edit-a-thon. Editors are also tweeting their progress at #ozwomensci. Experienced editors are needed to patrol, proofread and de-orphan articles. gobonobo + c 03:38, 14 August 2014 (UTC)


 * On the whole, this is a great effort -- some much-needed articles are being added. In a few cases, notability of the person in question is unclear, and those articles are likely to wind up at AfD unless they are edited to make the assertion of notability more clear. The relevant criteria, in most cases, would be WP:PROF. -- 203.15.226.133 (talk) 07:26, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Comment on the WikiProject X proposal
Hello there! As you may already know, most WikiProjects here on Wikipedia struggle to stay active after they've been founded. I believe there is a lot of potential for WikiProjects to facilitate collaboration across subject areas, so I have submitted a grant proposal with the Wikimedia Foundation for the "WikiProject X" project. WikiProject X will study what makes WikiProjects succeed in retaining editors and then design a prototype WikiProject system that will recruit contributors to WikiProjects and help them run effectively. Please review the proposal here and leave feedback. If you have any questions, you can ask on the proposal page or leave a message on my talk page. Thank you for your time! (Also, sorry about the posting mistake earlier. If someone already moved my message to the talk page, feel free to remove this posting.) Harej (talk) 22:47, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

No pride in Marie Maynard Daly
Why is it that there is no pride reflected in this Wikipedia article? It discusses our nation’s first African-American woman to receive a PhD, a woman who has made tremendous strides in the scientific community, yet her Wikipedia page is brief, uncelebrated, and in my opinion, pushed aside. Of course I do not believe that bias should be a part of any Wikipedia page, but in certain ways, it is. Through my research, I have noticed that many Wikipedia pages dedicated to males and/or White people have an enthusiastic tone throughout the article. After an accomplishment is discussed, many phrases along the lines of, “This discovery completely changed the world of science...” are distributed throughout articles. However, while reading the article on Marie Maynard Daly, I do not come across any such celebrations. Daly’s Wikipedia page is a mere laundry list of events, even though these events constituted “groundbreaking work [which] helped clarify how the human body works” (The Biography.com website). Furthermore, the article fails to mention the majority of clubs and honor roll societies she belonged to, omitting information that corroborates the success and achievements of Marie Daly. In total, the article mentions only two of the thirteen associations and honor roll societies Marie Daly was a part of. Isn’t it unfair to leave out the accomplishments of Marie Daly, no matter how small or big they are? So many other scientists are given credit to every minute success in their lives per Wikipedia, even those that occurred in childhood, yet Daly is not given given credit for her hard work and dedication. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cheysommo (talk • contribs) 21:34, 20 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Which articles have an enthusiastic tone? Wikipedia articles are supposed to have a neutral point of view - it's one of the core policies of Wikipedia. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia; its goal is to provide accurate information. The biggest problem that I see with the article is that there are no citations for her post-dissertation career. That should be fixed, and then the lead should summarize her significant contributions. If you have a reliable source that lists the associations and honor roll societies she was part of, you could add them yourself; but make sure you read about reliable sources first. RockMagnetist(talk) 15:49, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
 * One more thing. Generally the best place to discuss an article is on their talk page - see Talk:Marie Maynard Daly. RockMagnetist(talk) 15:52, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

IEG Renewal Request - Feedback?
Hi everyone! I just wanted to let you know that I've started a request to renew my IEG project over on Meta. You can read about the original project here and see the renewal request here. It's been pretty successful and I'm planning some big things to help with systemic bias on a larger scale - I would love any feedback! Thanks, Keilana&#124;Parlez ici 16:03, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

Request for proofreading of Catherine Furbish
Hi there! I am a student at Northwestern University and I am editing my first wikipedia article on Catherine Furbish. She is a botanist whose personal life-long goal was to categorize and draw all of the flora of Maine.

I request proofreading by a more experienced wikipedian, as well as any feedback you could give me. My main concern is this: I am unsure how to cite the same source more than once throughout the article. Can you give me some information about such? Much thanks! Gabiravioli (talk) 02:28, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Launch of WikiProject Wikidata for research
Hi, this is to let you know that we've launched WikiProject Wikidata for research in order to stimulate a closer interaction between Wikidata and research, both on a technical and a community level. As a first activity, we are drafting a research proposal on the matter (cf. blog post). Your thoughts on and contributions to that would be most welcome! Thanks, -- Daniel Mietchen (talk) 02:14, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Two new women scientists in Spanish
There are two articles about women scientists in Spanish from the Wikimaratón Científico 2014 being held this weekend at six museums in Spain, awaiting your translation. --Djembayz (talk) 14:55, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Iota Sigma Pi
Hello, if anyone has a free moment can you have a look over this article for me - I have put it as a Start-class and I am hoping to get a DYK for it at some point. I only found it through the 'Random Article' button and tried my best to improve it. Thanks ツStacey (talk) 20:50, 16 December 2014 (UTC)