Hi Florence and all!
Sorry for the late reply; see below for the text.
[One note first: despite what the "i" suffix may imply to English speakers, I
am a (genetic, non-trans/etc.) male. "Shlomi Fish" is my real and legal
name, but I also have adopted or been called by several nicknames, some of
which I still approve of which include "Rindolf" or "Slimy Fish". For
more
info about all that, you may wish to peruse the first questions in my home
site's FAQ:
https://www.shlomifish.org/meta/FAQ/ .]
On Tue, 3 Nov 2020 02:58:13 +0100
Florence Devouard <anthere(a)anthere.org> wrote:
Did you know that quote
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right
to say it."
was authored by a woman ?
I didn't know that.
For the record:
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/06/01/defend-say/
Evelyn Beatrice Hall, who went under the pen name "S. G. Tallentyre"
*
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evelyn_Beatrice_Hall
Do you know how many entries on Wikiquote are about women versus Men ?
14639 men entries... for 2977 women entries...
Suprised ?
I am happy to announce the new*#SheSaid campaign*. The #SheSaid drive is
aimed at improving the visibility of women across Wikimedia projects
(and beyond) by creating new or improving already existing Wikiquote
entries spoken by notable women.
Here are a few statistics:
* On the English Wikiquote main page on 6th of Oct 2020, in
the/Selected people/section... 29 men are featured and only 4 women
(check out the screenshot on the right...)
* There are 233 women who have a featured article on either French or
English Wikipedias... with no entry on the French Wikiquotecheck it
out
<https://query.wikidata.org/#SELECT%20DISTINCT%20%3Fitem%20%3FitemLabel%20%3FFAsitelink%20%3FWQsitelink%0AWHERE%0A%20%7B%0A%20%20%20%3Fitem%20wdt%3AP31%20wd%3AQ5.%0A%20%20%20%3Fitem%20wdt%3AP21%20wd%3AQ6581072%20.%0A%20%20%20%20%20%3FFAsitelink%20%23%20There%20is%20a%20Wikipedia%20Featured%20article%0A%20%20%20%20%20schema%3Aabout%20%3Fitem%3B%0A%20%20%20%20%20wikibase%3Abadge%20wd%3AQ17437796%20.%20%23%20Sitelink%20is%20badged%20as%20a%20Featured%20Article%0A%20%20%20%7B%0A%20%20%20%20%20%3FFAsitelink%20schema%3AisPartOf%20%3Chttps%3A%2F%2Ffr.wikipedia.org%2F%3E%20.%0A%20%20%20%20%20%7D%0AUNION%0A%20%20%20%7B%0A%20%20%20%20%3FFAsitelink%20schema%3AisPartOf%20%3Chttps%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2F%3E%20.%0A%20%20%20%20%20%7D%0A%0A%20%20%20MINUS%0A%20%20%20%7B%0A%20%20%20%3FWQsitelink%20%23%20And%20a%20sitelink%20to%20a%20frwq%20page%0A%20%20%20%20%20schema%3Aabout%20%3Fitem%20%3B%0A%20%20%20%20%20schema%3AisPartOf%20%3Chttps%3A%2F%2Ffr.wikiquote.org%2F%3E.%20%20%0A%20%20%20%20%20%7D%0A%20%09SERVICE%20wikibase%3Alabel%20%7B%20bd%3AserviceParam%20wikibase%3Alanguage%20%22%5BAUTO_LANGUAGE%5D%2Cen%22%20%7D%0A%20%7D>
* There are 141 women featured article on the English Wikipedia with
no wikiquote entrycheck it
<https://query.wikidata.org/#SELECT%20DISTINCT%20%3Fitem%20%3FitemLabel%20%3FFAsitelink%20%3FWQsitelink%0AWHERE%0A%20%7B%0A%20%20%20%3Fitem%20wdt%3AP31%20wd%3AQ5.%0A%20%20%20%3Fitem%20wdt%3AP21%20wd%3AQ6581072%20.%0A%20%20%20%20%20%3FFAsitelink%20%23%20There%20is%20a%20Wikipedia%20Featured%20article%0A%20%20%20%20%20schema%3Aabout%20%3Fitem%3B%0A%20%20%20%20%20wikibase%3Abadge%20wd%3AQ17437796%20.%20%23%20Sitelink%20is%20badged%20as%20a%20Featured%20Article%0A%3FFAsitelink%20schema%3AisPartOf%20%3Chttps%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2F%3E%20.%0A%0A%0A%20%20%20MINUS%0A%20%20%20%7B%0A%20%20%20%3FWQsitelink%20%23%20And%20a%20sitelink%20to%20a%20enwq%20page%0A%20%20%20%20%20schema%3Aabout%20%3Fitem%20%3B%0A%20%20%20%20%20schema%3AisPartOf%20%3Chttps%3A%2F%2Fen.wikiquote.org%2F%3E.%20%20%0A%20%20%20%20%20%7D%0A%20%09SERVICE%20wikibase%3Alabel%20%7B%20bd%3AserviceParam%20wikibase%3Alanguage%20%22%5BAUTO_LANGUAGE%5D%2Cen%22%20%7D%0A%20%7D>
* There are 519 women listed on the French wikiquotecheck it
<https://query.wikidata.org/#SELECT%20DISTINCT%20%3Fitem%20%3FitemLabel%20%3FWQsitelink%20%28GROUP_CONCAT%28%3FFAlang%3Bseparator%3D%22%2C%20%22%29%20AS%20%3FFAlanguages%29%20%3Fsitelinks%20WHERE%20%7B%0A%20%20%3Fitem%20wdt%3AP31%20wd%3AQ5%20%3B%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20wdt%3AP21%20wd%3AQ6581072%20%3B%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20wikibase%3Asitelinks%20%3Fsitelinks%20.%0A%20%20%0A%20%20%3FWQsitelink%20%23%20And%20a%20sitelink%20to%20a%20frwq%20page%0A%20%20%20%20%20schema%3Aabout%20%3Fitem%20%3B%0A%20%20%20%20%20schema%3AisPartOf%20%3Chttps%3A%2F%2Ffr.wikiquote.org%2F%3E.%20%20%0A%0A%20%20SERVICE%20wikibase%3Alabel%20%7B%20bd%3AserviceParam%20wikibase%3Alanguage%20%22fr%2Cen%22%20%7D%20.%0A%7D%20GROUP%20BY%20%3Fitem%20%3FitemLabel%20%3FWQsitelink%20%3Fsitelinks%0AORDER%20BY%20DESC%28%3Fsitelinks%29>and
3117 men listedcheck it out
<https://query.wikidata.org/#SELECT%20DISTINCT%20%3Fitem%20%3FitemLabel%20%3FWQsitelink%20%28GROUP_CONCAT%28%3FFAlang%3B%20SEPARATOR%20%3D%20%22%2C%20%22%29%20AS%20%3FFAlanguages%29%20%3Fsitelinks%20WHERE%20%7B%0A%20%20%3Fitem%20wdt%3AP31%20wd%3AQ5%3B%0A%20%20%20%20wdt%3AP21%20wd%3AQ6581097%3B%0A%20%20%20%20wikibase%3Asitelinks%20%3Fsitelinks.%0A%20%20%3FWQsitelink%20schema%3Aabout%20%3Fitem%3B%0A%20%20%20%20schema%3AisPartOf%20%3Chttps%3A%2F%2Ffr.wikiquote.org%2F%3E.%0A%20%20SERVICE%20wikibase%3Alabel%20%7B%20bd%3AserviceParam%20wikibase%3Alanguage%20%22fr%2Cen%22.%20%7D%0A%7D%0AGROUP%20BY%20%3Fitem%20%3FitemLabel%20%3FWQsitelink%20%3Fsitelinks%0AORDER%20BY%20DESC%20%28%3Fsitelinks%29>
Obviously, not all women say/good quotes/that would make a wikiquote
entry worth it. Still...
*How to get involved?
* *Give a bit of love to Wikiquote in the language of your liking. Check
existing Wikiquote women entries and see if they might be improved. Or
create new entries for notable women who produced notable quotes. Or add
notable quotes from women in various entries.
* When you improve them, please add #SheSaid in the comment box so that
we can see how much impact we make !
* Relay the SheSaid drive to your friends and community ! We have
created cool postcards (you may suggest or create more !)
#SheSaid runs until the 20h of December 2020. We hope you will take
part! Find out more and jointhe campaign here
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Loves_Women/SheSaid>.
That sound like a worthwhile initiative. As the maintainer and/or originator of
several "competing"[1] quotes collections (e.g:
https://github.com/shlomif/fortune-mod ;
https://www.shlomifish.org/humour/fortunes/ ;
and
http://shlomifishswiki.branchable.com/ ) I rely on wikiquote and
https://quoteinvestigator.com/ and similar reliable sites for an accurate
origin/attribution/mis-attribution record. For instance, the quote "We have two
ears and only one mouth so we should listen more [or 'twice as much'] than we
say" has been attributed to many sources but the ultimate originator appears to
be
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Zeno_of_Citium .
{{{
[1] - I am saying "competing" in quote marks because unlike many sport
competitions, e.g:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Running competitions, where
your competitor's performance negatively influences your benefit, in the FOSS
world, or the free/open web, you can benefit and build upon other people's
work. I got some of my best ideas for a solver of several
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Card_solitaire variants, from some authors of
competing solvers, and in one case integrated a different solver wholesale
after its original author relicensed it from the GPL to the MIT/expat licence
following my request.
As the quote (of unknown origin) go "Free software: everyone contributes a
brick and in return everyone gets their own house."
}}}
Anyway... I do agree that there is a lacking coverage of women in wikiquote.
I've been lamenting the fact that some of my favourite actresses and
other entertainers (including award winners and/or those that were very talked
about or often used as a canonical example for a female celebrity) have
pathetic pages on wikiquote with fewer than ten quotes.
I might help trying to remedy this (assuming I can handle a recent hand/wrist
disability which we suspect was caused by a past prescription of psychiatric
drugs) but then I remember investing a lot of time and effort in populating
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/User:Shlomif/Hebraic_Proverbs (which is an older,
saved, copy of
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Hebraic_proverbs ) with common
idioms, their transliterations, their translations and English equivalents,
only to have most of them removed for lacking citations. I can try to find
citations, but i don't have ready access to for-pay online sources, and some
sites (e.g:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MintPress_News ) try to go to some
length to appear like reliable source to the unsuspecting, while in fact seem to
be bogus.
---
As a side note, I should note that while it may seem to be blasphemous, I have
a hypothesis that modern day entertainers and art creators (especially the
http://www.paulgraham.com/opensource.html / "amateur" bloggers, web writers,
youtubers, web comedians, etc. - both male and female, young, old, and
sometimes non-human (meow!), which are still often looked down upon with
contempt) have more in common with philosophy as the Greek/etc. understood it
than many self-proclaimed academic philosophers and scholars.
For example, many
people find the well-known Indiana Jones gunscene (see
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YyBtMxZgQs ) funny, and I suspect that the
David vs. Goliath biblical tale (see
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goliath and
my attempt at modernising it and interpreting it at
https://www.shlomifish.org/philosophy/philosophy/putting-all-cards-on-the-t…
), which used a similar formula of missile-weapon-vs-melee-weapon, was equally
laughter provoking back when it was written, and it is just that we are
distanced from the biblical account's writing's mentality, and we may have some
spiritual or religious baggage (or technological misconceptions) in thinking
about it.
Similarly once when I complained on reddit that I found Shakespeare's plays too
boring to read from start to finish, a replier noted that I should instead try
watching films productions of them, because "Shakespeare wrote plays". I also
tend to agree with Eric Raymond that most classical music, albeit popular in
its time, is now often performed as "museum pieces":
http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=4229 .
Note though that I also suspect that "90% of everything is crap" (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon%27s_law ) also applies to the bible, the
Greek/Roman philosophy and Shakespeare (and despite its esteem, I found
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_and_Punishment incredibly boring to read
cover to cover. And I read longer books with pleasure volitionally). I did meet
a fellow software dev online, who later became a fan of my software and textual
works, who is younger than I am and told me he has read the KJV bible, the
complete Shakespeare and Beowulf cover to cover.
---
Sorry for going off on a tangent, and good luck with the initiative.
Regards,
Shlomi Fish
Flo
--
Shlomi Fish
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