Grants:IdeaLab/Notability is the gender problem, fix by creating seniority
Project idea edit
What is the problem you're trying to solve? edit
I believe that gangs are bullying women by deleting pages women create saying the subject is not notable. Notability is different for women! Let's take one example. I created a page for a midwife who was active in the 1970s in the US. She wasn't just an ordinary midwife she created and practiced a new birth-assisting method and she even wrote a book about it. Immediately deletionists ganged up on me and deleted the page. One said "I Goggled this person and there was virtually nothing written about her in newspapers. Strong delete." One person wrote "She's written ONE book? So what? Delete." These people know nothing about women's healthcare, midwifery or apparently, women in general. I do. Even though a midwife creates a groundbreaking new method of childbirth assisting - she may never have one article written about her in a newspaper. Especially in the 1970s. She only wrote one book?? That should be sufficient to allow her page to remain on Wikipedia. My goal on working in the area of women's healthcare is for men and women to be able to learn about the history of assisting in childbirth. What can be more important? But my work has been deleted. By people I believe know nothing about the subject.
What is your solution? edit
I believe the solution would be to create a seniority system at Wikipedia. Men and women could prove that they are serious about good editing. If any of the people who deleted my work would have looked at my contributions they would have seen that I am serious. I want there to be a committee of maybe 5 people and I could request seniority status from then. The five would look at my contributions and very easily determine that I am a serious Wikipedia contributor who consistently has written quality edits. I should be granted the ability to determine if a person is notable or not. Of course if anyone enters un-referenced edits to the page it could be deleted. But the page could not. I believe this would solve the problem without even having to get into the whole gender thing. Because my solution would give both men and women the ability to not have their pages deleted. In Sue Gardner's 9 reasons why women don't edit Wikipedia number 5 is "Belief that their contributions are too likely to be reverted or deleted". And I think when gangs of deletionists destroy your work that is classified as harassment, that's why I am talking about it here.
Project goals edit
I think this will solve one huge problem which is actually a combined problem of gender bias and harassment. I don't see a downside.
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