Wikipedia:Meetup/Philadelphia/WikiSalon 2020-09-19

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Philadelphia WikiSalon, September 19, 2020
This page archives a past event. Do not edit the contents of this page.

Zoom call link: Join the Zoom Meeting for WikiSalon If you are asked for an ID or password, use Meeting ID: 819-4956-6322 Password: 12345

Agenda for WikiSalon, September 19, 2020: The September 19 meeting will be a work day! Practice some of the skills we've demonstrated by working on suggested activities or your own ideas. We will archive each agenda after the event.

If something is wrong on Wikipedia, you can help us fix it!

Sign up here for the WikiSalon announcements mailing list.

Expectations[edit]

If you are new to Wikipedia, we hope you will create an account and make at least one edit during this session. If you have experience already, we hope you will share what you're doing or learn something new. Let us know in the Zoom Chat or during introductions what your goals are.

Attendees[edit]

Please edit this section to add the line * ~~~~

Special mentions[edit]

If you want to talk about something that you're working on, or you've created a new article or had a "Did You Know" featured lately, add that here!

  • Wilhelm Ostwald was featured on the front page of English Wikipedia to mark his birthday, September 2, 1853. Bob's extensive work on this article brought it to a level where it was considered worth featuring.
  • Released for the ACS editathon, Ruth deForest Lamb wrote American Chamber of Horrors, perhaps not about what you might think...
  • Through Jan Yager Mary learned of Daphne Farago, an American art collector and philanthropist
  • Bob is working on a new article on Jazz musician Paul Crawford, which is currently in his sandbox.

Activities[edit]

You can review these skills by watching the Demonstrations. Here are some ideas for things to do:

Adding archival finding aids to Wikipedia[edit]

Natalie Hinderas and Leota Palmer papers, African American Museum in Philadelphia

Adding archival finding aids to Wikidata[edit]

Wikidata Example Indicating the Archives at property and reference setup

Adding Presidents of the Ecological Society of America to Wikidata[edit]

Add the office of president to a person's Wikidata item

Interlanguage Link Template[edit]

  • Go to almost any list of foreign-language writers (c.f. List of Spanish women writers) and click on an article. Look for red links and search for the red-linked text on wikidata or google to see if there are Wikipedia articles in English or other languages. Add ills as needed.
  • Example: {{ill | La sonrisa vertical |ca| Premi La Sonrisa Vertical |es| Premio La sonrisa vertical}}
  • Example: {{ill |Andityas Soares de Moura |WD=Q98276700}}

Library Resources Templates[edit]

  • Many of the editions at A Celebration of Women Writers were created before there were Library Resources Templates. You can search Wikipedia for articles about these authors and add {{Library resources box|by=yes |onlinebooksby=yes|others= |lcheading= |viaf= }}. Use the author namestring (e.g. Adami, J. George (John George), 1862-1926) to look up the appropriate viaf ID (e.g. VIAF ID: 62289315) on viaf and fill it in.
  • Example: {{Library resources box|by=yes |onlinebooksby=yes|others= |viaf=62289315 }}

Articles that need work[edit]

The following articles could use work: feel free to edit any that catch your interest. You can add your name after something to show that you are working on it, and add if you feel the article is sufficiently improved to be taken off next month's worklist. You can also suggest new ideas.

Other listings of articles needing work[edit]

Art and Feminism[edit]

Barbara Chase-Riboud[edit]

Malcolm X Complete by Barbara Chase-Riboud
Malcolm X Complete by Barbara Chase-Riboud

Barbara Chase-Riboud is an African-American visual artist, sculptor (The Malcolm X Steles), novelist (Sally Hemings: A Novel), and poet. There's a lot of unsourced information on the page about her, and a long list of further readings that are potential sources.

Iole de Freitas[edit]

Iole de Freitas is a Brazilian sculptor, engraver, and installation artist. The page about her has quite a lot of information but desperately needs sources. There do seem to be online sources available, but most are in Spanish. This could be a good candidate for testing the interlanguage links as demonstrated in the session.

Maria Martinez[edit]

Pot by Maria Martinez
Pot by Maria Martinez

Maria Martinez was a Native American artist who was known internationally for her pottery. There's a lot of unsourced information on her page, and a lot of quotations need to be checked against their sources if anyone has access to print copies.

Ealy Mays[edit]

Death of an American Boom Town by Ealy Mays

Ealy Mays is an African-American artist based in Paris. The article about him has a lot of information and some good sources but lots of paragraphs need citations.

Ada "Bricktop" Smith[edit]

Ada "Bricktop" Smith was an American dancer, jazz singer, and vaudevillian, who owned the nightclub Chez Bricktop in Paris. Lots of interesting material and possible sources, but it needs a good cleaning up and solid citations (as so many do...)

Sylvia Snowden[edit]

Sylvia Snowden is an African American abstract painter. The page about is written too much like a resume; it lists a lot of possible resources but doesn't say much. Searching google with the "Books" option suggests quite a few published sources that mention her.

Isabella Tree[edit]

Isabella Tree is a British author and travel journalist. Her page may have conflict of interest issues and needs sourcing.

Richard Wright[edit]

Richard Wright
Richard Wright

American author Richard Wright (author) has an extensive article but it is missing a lot of citations. Plenty of material is available, someone just needs to do some searching for sources.

  • NMcNinney (talk) 18:06, 8 August 2020 (UTC) is going to take a stab at this as my first project![reply]

Sciences[edit]

Aron K. Barbey[edit]

Aron K. Barbey is about a medical researcher, and as such needs much more scientifically valid references that a usual Wikipedia article. See Wikipedia:Why MEDRS? for more information about the standard required.

Cleaned up Mary Mark Ockerbloom (talk) 16:42, 31 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Margarita Colmenares[edit]

Margarita Colmenares is an American environmental engineer and activist and the first woman to serve as President of the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, More could be said about her and her work using the sources currently cited on the Wikipedia page. Newer sources would also be helpful.

Christiana Figueres[edit]

Christiana Figueres is a is a Costa Rican diplomat involved in developing the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The page needs to be rewritten in a more objective manner and properly sourced.

William A. Haseltine[edit]

William A. Haseltine is an HIV/AIDS and human genome researcher. The page about him is extensive but needs inline citations to support the information given. Medical information needs medically-credible sources, not just anything.

Saul Hertz[edit]

Saul Hertz was an innovator in medical uses of radioactive iodine. His article needs a careful review for accuracy of claims, and solid sourcing.

Bob Burch is working on this one. Nolabob (talk) 11:32, 27 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Nancy Hopkins[edit]

Nancy Hopkins is a molecular biologist at MIT who has worked on gene expression, viruses, and zebrafish. The article has a lot of unsourced sections and there are materials available.

Ynes Mexia[edit]

Mexican-American botanist Ynes Mexia collected at least 145,000 plant specimens during her career, 500 of which were new species. Most were from Mexico, Peru, and Colombia. Her Wikipedia article needs a lot of help, both organizationally and due to copyright issues. You can see possible copyright violations needing rephrasing at this Copyvio detection report.

Doreva is working on this one. Dorevabelfiore (talk) 22:03, 7 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Jan Nolta[edit]

Jan Nolta works on stem cell-related regenerative medicine. The page about her needs a careful review and better sourcing.

Ralph E. Oesper[edit]

Ralph E. Oesper was a chemist and historian of chemistry. The article about him needs sourcing.

Wilhelm Ostwald[edit]

Chemist and rare earth scientist Wilhelm Ostwald received a Nobel Prize in 1909, but the Wikipedia page for him is sadly neglected. It could use a thorough review and additional inline citations.

Bob Burch working on this one. Nolabob (talk) 16:13, 13 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Otto Schott[edit]

Chemist Otto Schott invented borosilicate glass. His article needs sourcing.

Susan Schneider[edit]

Susan Schneider writes about the philosophical nature of the mind and self, often in relation to artificial intelligence and cognitive science. The article about her needs critical review and checking of all statements and sourcing.

Cleaned up. Mary Mark Ockerbloom (talk) 18:40, 1 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Elke U. Weber[edit]

Elke U. Weber is a Professor of Psychology and Public Affairs at Princeton University where she studies the ways in which we think about risk. Stubby article needs a little love.

Evelyn J. Fields[edit]

Evelyn J. Fields was a hydrographer and a leader in NOAA and with the NOAA Corps. Her page is not cited well and her accomplishments need clarification and to be listed in chronological order.

Will be working on this one Drlauraguertin (talk) 17:08, 13 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Questions[edit]

Add questions that you have about Wikipedia or Wikipedia projects (Encyclopedia articles, Wikimedia Commons images, Wikidata) either here or in the Chat. Also feel free to suggest resources in response, and discuss during WikiSalon.

I'd appreciate having an on-going discussion of Wikipedia's sister projects during the WikiSalon meetings.[edit]

  • If you're interested in learning (or talking about) a particular project, let us know!
  • Perhaps WikiQuotes would be a good one to discuss soon. It strikes me as being particularly useful, if it ever catches on. Nolabob (talk) 11:20, 24 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

How do you know whether to label an edit on Wikipedia as "minor"? Why does it matter?[edit]

  • The only things that should be labelled "minor edit" are changes in punctuation, spelling, and some types of formatting. Breaking a long paragraph into 2 shorter ones could be considered a minor change; making one of them into a new section, maybe not. Any change that affects the meaning conveyed or the sources provided is not a minor change. "If there is any chance that another editor might dispute a change, the edit should not be marked as minor."
  • Some people spend most of their time making minor changes, like fixing misuse of "it's" and "its". Others spend much of their time editing and sourcing content.
  • Wikipedia software allows users to see the proportion of minor changes made by a particular user. It allows users to ignore minor changes when they are reviewing edits, to streamline workflow. Robots may use the minor/major distinction when making decisions.

Proper citations are indispensable to any good Wikipedia article. However, with the decline of print media, citations in Wikipedia articles are more dependent on on-line citations which may not be permanent. How does Wikipedia manage the transient nature of these citations? How should Wikimedians manage citations in this regard?[edit]

  • The issue of whether any lasting record of electronic media will continue to exist, comparable to printed media, has relevance far beyond Wikipedia. A number of archiving projects attempt to record electronic publications and capture the ephemeral nature of the internet. One of the best known is archive.org whose Wayback Machine has been used for decades to store copies of electronic pages from websites.
  • Wikipedia has the capability of Help:Using the Wayback Machine to do lookups of no-longer-available urls and to serve pages that no longer exist. However, this will only work if the page has previously been archived. It is possible to request the archiving of existing pages on archive.org and to look up urls that no longer appear to work, and add template code that will retrieve archive.org's stored value.

How do you know a permanent url when you see it?[edit]

  • Permanent urls (PURLS or permalinks) are urls that are written in a way that is supposed to remain usable even if underlying computer systems or sites change their link structure. Non-permanent urls can change over time, even from one session to the next. The url that is shown in your browser may not be the permanent url; it may be a temporary form that the permanent url has been converted to by the computer software.
  • It is desirable to use a permanent url in a Wikipedia citation or a Wikidata reference because it is more likely to continue to work and to be verifiable by someone else.
  • A finding aid or other web page may explicitly state its permanent url in the page's text. The easiest way to find it is to search for "http". You can also search for URL, PURL, permalink or permanent link. There is no standard for what term is used: some sites may simply cite it: e.g.

Alan G. MacDiarmid, interviewed by Cyrus Mody in University of Pennsylvania on December 19, 2005. Philadelphia: Science History Institute, n.d. Oral History Transcript 0325. https://digital.sciencehistory.org/works/z316q261v

In Wikidata, is there a way to import any existing data such as NAF / SNAC or has that already been done as baseline bio data?[edit]

  • SNAC (Social Networks and Archival Context)
  • NAF example: LC control no. n 80153256 authority control for Hetzel, Pierre-Jules, 1814-1886
  • Wikipedia page: Pierre-Jules Hetzel
  • Wikidata item: Q552619
  • Wikidata has an item Library of Congress Name Authority File (Q18912790). It also has a property Library of Congress authority ID (P244) which is accepted as an identifier on Wikidata items.

In Wikidata, is there a controlled list of "types" for archives, such as finding aid, digital collection, online exhibition? What are the type choices?[edit]

Wikipedia provides various metrics to characterize articles, for example, it provides a "pageviews" analysis. To what extent as Wikipedians should we be concerned with these metrics on our articles?[edit]

There are many Wikipedia:Statistics, including Wikipedia:Pageview statistics which can be used to indicate how often people view a page. In some ways this is a bit of a vanity metric, but if you want to pick topics that are read by more people to maximize your impact as an editor, you can certainly do that.
Strategic choosing of articles to work on may be helped by looking at a Wikiproject like Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemistry. They have a table of "Chemistry articles by quality and importance " that can be useful in identifying important articles that need work.
This can also be useful if you are working in a field where you are reporting on your work and need to demonstrate impact to others.

Thanks and praise[edit]

What did you work on today?

Thank you everyone!