I've been doing my part in addressing the gender gap in en.Wikipedia, and this week marks a major accomplishment for me in this area and for me as an editor. [[Maya Angelou]] is now a featured article.
I've been literally working on Angelou's article for years; my very first edit of it was early in my WP-editing career, in September 2007: [diff http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Maya_Angelou&diff=prev&old...]. It took this long mostly because I do have a life, most of the time. When I came across it, I realized that Angelou's work and life was sorely underrepresented and not at all comprehensive, way before I came to understand the gender gap in this project. I also realized that in order to do the subject justice, I needed to become a MA-expert, something I definitely was not at the time. I realized that at the very least, I needed to read her six autobiographies, and while I was at it, write articles about them. Only one article existed at the time: her first autobiography [[I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings]], which was in a pitiable state. A year's worth of research, a lot of assistance from some of the most premiere editors in the project, and 3 FACs later, it became an FA.
In the ensuing years, I created and wrote articles about Angelou's five remaining autobiographies (one is a FA, the others are GAs), some ancillary articles about her other works, and a couple of lists. ([[Works of Maya Angelou]] is currently up for FLC.) After I completed the article about Angelou's final autobiography, I worked to get her bio up to snuff, and it had a relatively easy FAC, my first FA to pass in its first candidacy. I think that was due to the fact that the article was truly prepared before it was submitted. For anyone who wants to drive an article through the FAC process, that's my advice: make sure it's ready to be reviewed, and do not use FAC (or GAC, even) to review it. There are other places for that, so use them before bringing it to FAC.
My next goal is to create a Maya Angelou Featured Topic. There are some things that need to be accomplished before that; my goal is to get there before Dr. Angelou's 85th birthday in April. I'm certain, at the very least, that her bio will on the front page. Ironically, this is the week I started researching the article about another elderly and important woman: [[Joan Ganz Cooney]], co-creator of Sesame Street.
Christine Username: Figureskatingfan