I think it’s “new-ness”
bias and a “related content bias” and a “popularity bias”
rather than primarily a gender bias. There’s loads of new work published
all the time. Lots of it will not merit a Wikipedia article, just as many
novels by the male contemporaries of Clive Cussler don’t get Wikipedia
articles either. Novels that have been around for years will have had lots of
opportunity for 3rd parties to talk about them to establish
notability. New novels have a harder job to establish notability because they
have been around for a shorter period of time for others to write about them.
At the time the notability tag was added to
the October article, there wasn’t a whole lot of content in the article. There
was no mention of any award. There were 2 cited sources, one of which was an
interview with the author. The publisher of October (The New Press) doesn’t
have a Wikipedia article. And the only link to the October article is from the Zoe
Wicomb article which probably deserves a notability tag itself (based on the citations,
not the author’s evident merits). The other Zoe Wicomb novels don’t
have a Wikipedia article either (they are visibly red-linked on the Zoe Wicomb
article) and two of their publishers (Kwela and Umuzi) don’t have
Wikipedia articles. One work was published by Virago Press which does have a
Wikipedia article though. If you look at it from the point of view of someone
who has never heard of Zoe Wicomb, it seems a notability tag for the October article
was not unreasonable; the evidence of notability of both the author and her
works and her publishers (as currently shown on Wikipedia) looks pretty flimsy.
I think if the Zoe Wicomb article was better fleshed-out and there were
articles about her other novels and her publishers, the notability of her most
recent novel would be more self-evident. I suspect this in itself a form of
bias; I’ll call it “related content bias”. That is, the presence
of “related content” on Wikipedia provides its own evidence of
notability. Personally I often check the “What links here” as a notability
test – if lots of other articles have previously had red-links to this
topic, it suggests that an article on this topic is indeed needed (noting that “needed”
is not necessarily the same as “notable” but personally I think it’s
a good reason for any article’s existence).
I think comparisons with Clive Cussler are
inappropriate. Whatever anyone might think about his works (I am not a fan
myself), it’s hard to deny that he’s an extremely popular author. Wikipedia
readers would expect to find Wikipedia articles about him and his works. An
equally popular (probably more popular) female author is J. K. Rowling; I note
her very recent book (under the Robert Galbraith pseudonym) “The Silkworm”
got a Wikipedia article very quickly (without a lot of citations but with “obvious
notability” – we’ve all heard of J K Rowling). Zoe Wicomb isn’t
in the same league for “obvious notability” as Cussler and Rowling.
I’ve never heard of Zoe Wicomb until this thread but, to make it a fair
test, I looked in my local public library current collection: 384,380 works in
total, 130 works by Clive Cussler, 105 for J K Rowling, none whatsoever for Zoe
Wicomb (they did have “You can’t get lost in Cape Town” previously,
I guess it has since been “de-acquisitioned”). (The count of work
here include alternate formats: book/e-book/audio-book but not physical copies,
if anyone is wondering). So I suspect the different treatment of Clive Cussler
and Zoe Wicomb on Wikipedia may reflect a “popularity bias” too.
I am not denying that we have gender bias
issues on Wikipedia but I think in this particular case I think there are definitely
a number of other considerations in play.
Kerry
From:
gendergap-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org
[mailto:gendergap-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Kathleen McCook
Sent: Tuesday, 22 July 2014 11:34
PM
To: Addressing gender equity and
exploring ways to increase the participationof women within Wikimedia projects.
Subject: [Gendergap] Zoë Wicomb or
Clive Cussler?
Thank you. But I do
not believe these Guidelines are used fairly when it comes to author's gender.
Again..why would every novel by Clive Cussler get its own page but there be a
notability query about one by Zoë Wicomb??
This seems to me pure
gender bias.
On Tue, Jul 22, 2014 at 9:20 AM, Nathan <nawrich@gmail.com>
wrote:
On Tue, Jul 22, 2014 at 8:54 AM, Kathleen McCook <klmccook@gmail.com>
wrote:
I took off the
scheduled for deletion notice or maybe it was lack of notability he put up. I
couldn't bear. I am fearful he will put it back.
This is the issue--how
can a male editor decide a woman's novel is not notable. on what basis? On what
basis in Clive Cussler notable?