Female scholars are marginalised on Wikipedia

[Kumioko]

In an article by The Guardian posted December 11, 2018 here: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2 ... ten-by-men female scholars are marginalised on Wikipedia because it's written by men.

The article refers to a Dr. Jessica Wade (Jesswade88 (T-C-L), Jess Wade (T-H-L)) a Physicist and Wikipedian who states on her User page she tries to make a biography a day.

A couple quotes from the article:

between 84-91% of editors are men.

Out of 1.5m biographies on Wikipedia, only 17.7% focus on women

[Kumioko]

I wanted to follow-up with a note that although Jess Wade seems to be doing some good work, she has also been warned several times for Conflict of interest editing and copyright infringement and several of her articles have been either sent to AFD, Speedy deletion or marked with templates indicating they may not meet Wikipedia's notability standards.

One such case, as noted on her talk page is the situation where she created the article for Ben Britton (T-H-L) and BenBritton (T-C-L) created the article for her and they both appear to be associated to the Imperial College London (T-H-L).

Why does this matter? Well clearly COI is an issue with regards to writing articles on Wikipedia and I think it might be worth looking into to see if these and possibly others are coordinating votes or actions which could undermine the integrity of the processes on Wikipedia like AFD.

[Midsize Jake]

Presumably the author of the piece is this Victoria Leonard, who is only mentioning Prof. Wade in passing. It's quite possible that she doesn't know about the recent attempt to use AI to fix the biography gender-gap problem, and she's also using the "Women in Red" figure of 17.75%, which includes historical biographies. As some of us have pointed out in the past, even if you reject the notion that this figure is more reasonable-looking for historical biographies (since a smaller proportion of women in the past were "notable" by Wikipedia's standards than in the present), it would be much better if people using this figure would give us all some sort of idea as to what the ultimate percentage goal is, if any.

One such case, as noted on her talk page is the situation where she created the article for Ben Britton (T-H-L) and BenBritton (T-C-L) created the article for her and they both appear to be associated to the Imperial College London (T-H-L).

Isn't that just "logrolling"? I'm not saying it's good that they're doing it, but it probably doesn't rise to the level of "COI" (in the Wikipedia sense, which they define as something more like "corruption") since they're probably just friends and didn't actually pay each other to write and post those articles.

Also, I suspect there are way more examples of this in Wikipedia than anyone realizes.

[Randy from Boise]

A couple quotes from the article:

Quote:
between 84-91% of editors are men.

Quote:
Out of 1.5m biographies on Wikipedia, only 17.7% focus on women

Another cookie-cutter hit piece presenting Fact A, implying that it is directly causal of Fact B, and then extending that (dubious) connection to Cause of the Moment/Clickbait Headline C.

End of the day, the journalist gets paid, the website gets hits and ad revenue, and we go night night and wake up fresh in the morning...

The real story would be "Junior Level Academics Get Short Shrift from Wikipedia" or "Young Academics Utterly Ignored by Wikipedia."

That at least would be a new headline and food for thought.

RfB

[Midsize Jake]

The real story would be "Junior Level Academics Get Short Shrift from Wikipedia" or "Young Academics Utterly Ignored by Wikipedia."

Because there are proportionately fewer WP biographies of them? I can't imagine that angle getting much media traction, even if people accept the notion that WP is actually doing them a disservice.

Frankly, if junior-level academics want WP articles written about them, they should just become overpaid professional athletes like everyone else.

[Poetlister]

In general, the coverage of academics is patchy. You get the small proportion who are famous, such as Nobel prize winners and those with their own TV series. Apart from that, it's probably mostly those who happen to have students who feel bothered to give their professors an entry. Obviously, junior lecturers are unlikely to survive an AfD even if they get articles. Academics senior enough to pass WP:Prof easily are still overwhelmingly male.

[Dysklyver]

To some extent there is a faction of editors who believe that any full tenure professor is considered to be notable, trouble is they rarely show up at AfD to make their numbers count. So basically unless it's a clear PROF pass, there could be problems.

[Kumioko]

To some extent there is a faction of editors who believe that any full tenure professor is considered to be notable, trouble is they rarely show up at AfD to make their numbers count. So basically unless it's a clear PROF pass, there could be problems.

Yeah generally I wouldn't agree that many of them are notable either. In this case I think she is though, but of course that's just my opinion.

[Poetlister]

One problem is that professor means different things in different countries. Anyone who is a professor in Britain ought to pass WP:PROF, since most tenured staff are only lecturers, senior lecturers or readers. In the USA, every tenured lecturer gets to be a professor.

[The Garbage Scow]

The real story would be "Junior Level Academics Get Short Shrift from Wikipedia" or "Young Academics Utterly Ignored by Wikipedia."

Because there are proportionately fewer WP biographies of them? I can't imagine that angle getting much media traction, even if people accept the notion that WP is actually doing them a disservice.

Frankly, if junior-level academics want WP articles written about them, they should just become overpaid professional athletes like everyone else.

Or King of the Hill characters.

[Poetlister]

Or King of the Hill characters.

Or stars of very dubious videos.

[Lir]

Or King of the Hill characters.

Or stars of very dubious videos.

Or elementary schools in Mindanao that closed twenty years ago.

[Poetlister]

Or elementary schools in Mindanao that closed twenty years ago.

For a university lecturer, junior or senior, to turn into a closed school would be quite a neat trick!

[greyed.out.fields]

Or elementary schools in Mindanao that closed twenty years ago.

For a university lecturer, junior or senior, to turn into a closed school would be quite a neat trick!

Still wouldn't land them an article. As per WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES (T-H-L) they'd be a redirect to the town or village where it was located.

[lonza leggiera]

Or elementary schools in Mindanao that closed twenty years ago.

For a university lecturer, junior or senior, to turn into a closed school would be quite a neat trick!

Oh, I don't know. Many years ago, when I was a university lecturer, and driving past a closed school, I turned into it to have a quick squiz. It wasn't at all difficult. Since the gate was open, I didn't even have to get out of the car.

[Jim]

Or elementary schools in Mindanao that closed twenty years ago.

For a university lecturer, junior or senior, to turn into a closed school would be quite a neat trick!

Oh, I don't know. Many years ago, when I was a university lecturer, and driving past a closed school, I turned into it to have a quick squiz. It wasn't at all difficult. Since the gate was open, I didn't even have to get out of the car.

Heh. Reminded me of this old one:

Taxi driver says to his mate , "Here, I was driving along last night when I picked up a witch. I knew she was a witch 'cos when she rubbed her hand up and down my leg I turned into a lay by..."

[Moral Hazard]

Or elementary schools in Mindanao that closed twenty years ago.

For a university lecturer, junior or senior, to turn into a closed school would be quite a neat trick!

Oh, I don't know. Many years ago, when I was a university lecturer, and driving past a closed school, I turned into it to have a quick squiz. It wasn't at all difficult. Since the gate was open, I didn't even have to get out of the car.

[Poetlister]

Jessica Wade is back in the news; thenextweb.com

[Pudeo]

Well, if this is the "Jessica Wade thread", how's this for a BLPCOI edit? Adding original research to discredit a journalist who criticized yourself in the very op-ed the sentence is about, in a BLP about a person who you've had a public dispute with.

[Poetlister]

Yes, Wikipedia is the ideal medium for that sort of thing. But of course, there was no problem. BLP policy is rigorously enforced. That was all reverted in minutes, wasn't it? What, no?!?

[Midsize Jake]

Adding original research to discredit a journalist who criticized yourself in the very op-ed the sentence is about, in a BLP about a person who you've had a public dispute with.

I don't know if it's "discrediting" Sastre to say she wasn't at the CERN conference — the article in question doesn't say one way or the other so I suspect most readers would assume she wasn't there. But I agree that it's "original research," by Wikipedia's definition. Frankly, that whole sentence may be unnecessary.

As for the list of signatories (to the petition in support of Strumia) not being published, that's not in dispute, is it? I understand why they wouldn't want to publish such a list, but it's still a valid point that should probably be in the article.

Still, you're right, this is something she should have gotten someone else to do — I'm guessing she waited a year for someone else to do it without her having to ask, in vain, and she figured that was long enough.

[tarantino]

Jess Wade amalgamated two Kathleen Collins into one bio, where it sat for a month and a half, until one of the Kathleens complained.

[Poetlister]

Great. That increases the number of female scholars with BLPs by one. Every little helps to reduce the bias.