dagblog - Comments for "Wikipedia’s Women Problem"

But the fact that there is

EmmaZahn — Thu, 02 May 2013 19:48:05 +0000

In reply to Oh, well, that's interesting

But the fact that there is public controversy over it is reason for hope.

Yes, that and that Jimmy Wales weighed in when he read about it. He asked his editors, WTF. But Lambert was still busily re-categorizing when the linked article was written. Really glad that meta discussion is somewhere I can only see if I look really hard for it.

Oh, well, that's interesting

artappraiser — Thu, 02 May 2013 19:35:41 +0000

In reply to No, as the essay

Oh, well, that's interesting in itself. I do think Wikipedia has gotten better at reining in the obsessives (whatever their obsession--conspiracy theories, for example) with editorial oversight procedures....so this is proof that one person can still have considerable sway. But the fact that there is public controversy over it is reason for hope.

No, as the essay

EmmaZahn — Thu, 02 May 2013 19:29:14 +0000

In reply to I suspect a pedalogical

No, as the essay details:

how did this happen? It turns out that a single editor brought on the crisis: a thirty-two-year-old student of history named John Pack Lambert, enrolled at Wayne State University and living in the Detroit suburbs. He’s a seven-year veteran of Wikipedia and something of an obsessive when it comes to categories. He creates a lot of them. Last year he briefly created Category:American people of African-American descent. Then he raised hackles by recreating the defunct category American “actresses,” a word that others felt belongs in the same dustbin as “poetess.”

On April 1 Lambert started working alphabetically through all American novelists and moving the women into Category:American women novelists instead. First he did Patricia Aakhus, at 5:44 PM. Two minutes later, Hailey Abbott. Then Megan Abbott—pausing also to add her to Category:University of Michigan alumni. Then Diana Abu-Jaber, Alice Adams, Lorraine Adams, Renata Adler…. He did English women novelists, too; also Australian, German, and Moroccan. At 8:51, he created a new category, Nigerian women novelists, and put Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie there.

By the end of the day he’d gotten to the D’s: so Daphne du Maurier is now an English woman novelist. Like most people, she falls into multiple categories; she is also a “bisexual writer,” a “British historical novelist,” a “Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire,” an “English person of French descent,” an “English short story writer,” a “writer from London,” and an “LGBT writer from England.” But not (as of this morning) an English novelist.

And so it went. The next day Lambert was briefly sidetracked by a discussion of whether there should be a Category:Jeans enthusiasts (for “celebrities and famous people who are always wearing or frequently spotted wearing jeans”), but then he got back to work and A. L. Kennedy, till then a Scottish novelist, became a Scottish woman novelist. On April 3 he created a category for Greek women screenwriters; so far it has only one member.

It is a really good read. I could not help but laugh at the guy's lunacy. He does not like general categories (like that's not the first place people look) so he subdivides endlessly.

The problem isn't adding them

Verified Atheist — Thu, 02 May 2013 19:24:34 +0000

In reply to I suspect a pedalogical

The problem isn't adding them to the "American women novelists", the problem is removing them from the "American novelists". (It'd be different if they'd created a category called "American men novelists" or some such.)

I suspect a pedalogical

artappraiser — Thu, 02 May 2013 19:19:40 +0000

In reply to It is not really a 'women

I suspect a pedalogical problem. Where children in school, when assigned to write on famous or accomplished women, are not finding enough homework help from their wikipedia. Gotta have more lists of women to complete those essays...ye olde self-perpetuating societal problems....

It is not really a 'women

EmmaZahn — Thu, 02 May 2013 18:50:50 +0000

In reply to Wikipedia’s Women Problem

It is not really a 'women problem' so much as a male(s) with ocd and poor reasoning skills problem.