Bod Notbod, when you say, "I see a lot of
green", it's also worth looking at what B actually means. The article on Doris
Lessing for example, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, is B class.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doris_lessing
It is woefully inadequate. It says there are three phases to her writing, communist,
psychological, and sufic. Only the latter has any coverage at all, and it is generally the
least highly regarded part of her output. Everything there is on superficial
"controversies" (why did she write science fiction, is she a feminist).
Almost all the sources are newspaper articles; there is not a trace of the available
peer-reviewed literature on her output.
It is much the same in the article on Selma Lagerlöf, another Nobel Prize winner, which
is Start class.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selma_Lagerlöf
Again, no trace of the scholarly literature. The only biography listed in the
bibliography is "Who’s Who in Gay and Lesbian History from Antiquity to World War
II", which is sort of typical.
I think there *is* a problem with the humanities, as well as with the gender imbalance in
Wikipedia.
It would be worthwhile to study the location of these deficiencies in more depth, and
perhaps to establish links to universities, similar to the recently launched public policy
initiative, to address the areas where Wikipedia's natural contributor base does most
poorly.
You are comparing two women writers so I don't see gender imbalance as a
factor here. I have also little to no interest in the game of
determining whether any article is start, B, or feature class. If you
recognize the stated deficiencies applying "sofixit" could be more
constructive than an in-depth analysis of the problems.
Mention of the one work in the Bibliography only begs the question of
why it has never been merged with the other 8 works in the "works about"
section. I agree that focusing on someone's sexual orientation is a
matter of minor importance. I can only respons with "So what?" I also
agree that there should be greater use of scholarly literature,
especially for Lagerlöf because her prize was 90 years earlier; that
simply gives that much more time for these works to have been written.
Some may even be in the public domain.
Recentism may also be a factor in the analysis, as is the fact that only
Lessing wrote in English. A first step may be to list all the works
that can be found about these writers (useful or not), and use that as a
stepping stone to improvement. It does not take academic qualifications
to do that. It does take work.
Ray