[Gendergap] Sesame Street articles

[Sydney Poore]

On Mon, Sep 5, 2011 at 7:38 PM, Christine Meyer
<christinewmeyer at gmail.com>wrote:

> This may not qualify as appropriate for this list, but in the little bit of
> time I've been in this mailing list I've seen that articles written by women
> are fair game.  I also believe that this would be appropriate because the
> subject, the children's television show "Sesame Street," is a
> female-oriented subject.  These articles have been largely neglected, I
> think, because The Show's viewers are small children and their parents, a
> demographic that doesn't tend to edit Wikipedia.  For that reason, I think
> that they also fulfill the systematic bias.  (I also edit other articles
> that apply, including articles about other children's television shows such
> as Blue's Clues--a GA, and The Wiggles--my first FA).
>

Hi Christine :-)

I agree that this topic is appropriate for this  mailing list. And I agree
that this topic has been neglected because it is outside the usual topic of
interest of our regular contributors. It is fantastic that you have adopted
these articles and are shepherding them to FA.

>
> BTW, Sesame Street (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sesame_Street) is
> currently up for FA.  This article was delisted in 2008, for good reason,
> and I've been working on it ever since.  It's been quite a journey.  I've
> become an expert on The Show, have amassed a small library of SS books, and
> have experienced a great amount of joy in the process.  FA is so close!  All
> weekend, I'm thinking, "C'mon!  It's a holiday weekend; surely you have the
> time to pass it!" ;)  If it passes, it will be my 9th FA, and my 1st to pass
> in only one FAC.
>
> The interesting thing about this article is that it's essentially a series
> of summaries of forked articles, all of which I created or re-wrote.  The
> first of these forked articles, "History of Sesame Street", was the first of
> these articles to become an FA.  Many of the others are also FAs or GAs.
> Currently, I'm helping someone write "Sesame Street in the U.K." (
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sesame_Street_in_the_U.K.) that demonstrates
> the need for improvement for these articles.  I'm thinking that the creator
> is either a member of the demographic mentioned above or a second-language
> learner.  At the very least, he's a horrible writer.  I was going to just
> let it go (there are scores of badly-written articles on WP, you know), but
> I decided that if I did, I'd be embarrassed by the association.  Ugh, what a
> pain!
>
> For the most part, other than this fellow and maybe two other editors in
> all of WP, I've been mostly alone in this endeavor.  That's why it's taken
> three years to get "Sesame Street" to FAC.  There are benefits to working
> this way; I've experienced very little of the drama that I've seen with
> other editors who tend to edit high-profile and controversial articles. I've
> also had, for the most part, very positive experiences as a content editor.
>
>
> OTOH, the articles I focus on tend to be highly vandalized.  (Don't get me
> started on "Steve Burns"!)  Personally, I think that's the key to becoming
> indoctrinated to become a "successful" WP editor; begin with articles that
> don't get a lot of attention and ones you can learn from and have the
> freedom to make mistakes.
>

Good luck with the FA!! Hope that it passes soon.

Sydney
User:FloNight
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