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"Did you know ..." featured a photo of the wrong female WWII pilot

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By Vysotsky

Did you know?

Not Ida Veldhuyzen van Zanten

There were only a few hundred women pilots in World War II. Yet Wikipedia recently mixed up the images of two women pilots from that period. The image of Veronica Volkersz ( née Innes) was featured prominently on the English Wikipedia main page on 19 November 2021, to illustrate the DYK ("Did you know?") item about Dutch pilot Ida Veldhuyzen van Zanten.

This was the complete text of the DYK hook: "Did you know … that about 700 airmen – and Ida Veldhuyzen van Zanten (pictured) – received the Dutch Airman's Cross?" Pictured was a woman pilot. So far, so good. It was a pity though that the woman in the photo was not Ida Veldhuyzen van Zanten, but Veronica Volkersz.

First woman flying a fighter yet

Veronica Volkersz, née Innes

Love was to blame, of course. The photo was taken from the Dutch National Archives, which had a rather complicated text accompanying the photo, speaking more about Ida Veldhuyzen van Zanten than about the actual pilot in the photo, Veronica Volkersz. Veronica, born Veronica May Innes in Chesterton, April 17, 1917, was a former beauty queen who joined the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA) as a Second Officer in March 1941. We know this because of the book that Veronica Volkersz wrote about that period (The Sky and I, 1956) and because of her RAF logbooks 1939–1965 (currently for sale online at £9,000). [1]

Veronica May Innes

Veronica married Dutch pilot Gerard Volkersz in Chelsea in 1942, and thus acquired Dutch nationality – hence the mix-up in the Dutch archives. ATA pilots like Veronica were tasked with ferrying aircraft between airfields, but she did far more. Her first solo flight in a Spitfire was in 1941, and she flew in a few dozen types of aircrafts. She was in fact the first woman ever to pilot a Gloster Meteor EE386, a jet fighter. Volkersz flew until 1965. She died in Cambridge, Dec. 13, 2000. According to AbeBooks: "The entry on her Death Certificate describes her occupation thus: 'Aviator (retired)'." Indeed, this woman needs a Wiki article a.s.a.p.

Mistakes and metadata

Ida Veldhuyzen van Zanten

Back to Ida Veldhuyzen van Zanten – who rightly received the Dutch Airman's Cross in 1947, and still is the only woman to have received this distinction. Pictures of her are quite rare, but I recently found some images to illustrate her Wikipedia article, helped by a family member and the Dutch National Archives. About 400,000 photographs from this archive, Nationaal Archief, were transferred to Wikimedia Commons in the last decade. [2]

All metadata contain mistakes. That's only natural, and Wikipedia editors were not the first to be tripped up here. They were in good company: the Dutch Ministry of Defence used the same wrong photo of Ida in its magazine De Vliegende Hollander (Flying Dutchman) in 2015. [3]

Wikipedia can learn from the mistake made with this photo in DYK. Never take information for granted, not even metadata from National Archives. In this case the (admittedly unclear) source, in which two names were mentioned, should have been a clear warning sign. Moreover: the original of the cropped photo of Veronica Volkersz was already in Commons – with correct attribution.

  1. ^ Website AbeBooks (visited 25 Nov. 2021)
  2. ^ '325,000 images from Dutch photo archives uploaded by Mr.Nostalgic'. In: GLAM Newsletter, April 2018
  3. ^ De Vliegende Hollander, 2015–5
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  • When newspapers make an error like this, they issue a correction. I wonder if we ought to do the same. {{u| Sdkb}}  talk 03:20, 29 November 2021 (UTC) reply
    • After 20 years or so you'd think Wikipedia (and DYK in particular) would have already developed a sytem of stating corrections - if we were ever to do it. There's just no place to do it, or any standard of when it should be done. Think of Andreas's opinion piece from last month. Should we prominently post in the article "whoops, wrong photo folks - sorry"? I expect The Signpost will be the best place to do it for some time to come. Smallbones( smalltalk) 03:50, 29 November 2021 (UTC) reply
      • This would be the second time I've seen an F-up on the main page of this caliber, the first was when the mainpage misidentified a Colonel as General MacAuthor and apparently no one picked up on it until it was out on the mainpage. TomStar81 ( Talk) 12:11, 29 November 2021 (UTC) reply
    • Perhaps one way to do a correction is to somehow modify the DYK lineup, but I'm not familiar enough with that process to know if that's feasible without screwing up something else. ThadeusOfNazereth Talk to Me! 13:27, 29 November 2021 (UTC) reply
    • I thought so too—the fact that it wasn't "our fault" (the mistake was in the source itself) meant that I encountered some significant initial pushback. I still support the idea, though. theleekycauldron ( talk • contribs) ( they/them) 19:54, 29 November 2021 (UTC) reply
    • Even though I wasn't the only one who made a blunder due to outside coverage, I wish that I knew this happened since I promoted the image to the prep. I just learned of the situation through this article. SL93 ( talk) 20:09, 29 November 2021 (UTC) reply
  • Interesting, because they did the very same thing with a photo of General MacArthur, that wasn’t, in another WWII female bio ( Beulah Ream Allen), last year. [1] I wonder if the problem is DYK, or something else, as this is two in the same realm, and people of a certain age know what MacArthur looked like. Talk:Beulah Ream Allen#Did you know nomination SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 01:08, 30 November 2021 (UTC) reply
  • SandyGeorgia I'm not sure what you mean by something else, but that DYK was nominated by two women and promoted by a woman. SL93 ( talk) 01:12, 30 November 2021 (UTC) reply
    Interesting. That suggests we may be in too much of a hurry to promote articles about women by women. It may be an unfortunate truth that most men of a certain age know what MacArthur looks like. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 01:23, 30 November 2021 (UTC) reply

Andrew Davidson started a stub about Volkerz. I was about to beat him by 3 hours :-) but I decided to step aside :-) In doing research I run into some group photos and here is a caption: ATA women pilots at No.15 Ferry Pool, Hamble, in 1943. Here Mary is with friends, standing second right of the picture. In the front row, left to right, are: Rita Baines, Rosemary Bannister, Faith Bennett, Rosemary Rees, Margot Gore, Veronica Volkersz, Jackie Sorour, Mary Wilkins, Margaret Frost. In the back row, again left to right, are: Pam Tulk-Hart, Joy Gough, Sylvia Edwards, Monique Agazarian and Helen Kerly

It is nice to see that the majority of these ladies got their article, but some are still missing. Anyone? "Women in Red"? Loew Galitz ( talk) 18:03, 30 November 2021 (UTC) reply

@ Loew Galitz What besides being female is your standard here? Are all ATA pilots during WWII notable too regardless of gender? Should all male ATA pilots have an article? Jason Quinn ( talk) 15:23, 4 December 2021 (UTC) reply
What "standard" are you talking about? I merely copied a caption of a photo of an all-female division. I dont care about male pilots, just as I don't care that wikipedia has an article on every single Nazi soldier with an Iron Cross. You have problems with this? Loew Galitz ( talk) 19:28, 5 December 2021 (UTC) reply
Your comment implies that all the people in the caption are notable and should have articles, even going so far as prompting people to go create them. You wrote, "It is nice to see that the majority of these ladies got their article, but some are still missing. Anyone?" So, saying you just "copied a caption" is false. The standard I'm talking about is your personal standard of notability under which you assumed all these pilots are notable, presumably just for being female. Since, Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information I'm worried that your standard is too loose compared to Wikipedia's guideline for notability. Given what you've written, it is tenable that you A) assume these ATA pilots are notable primarily because they are female and B) admit that you "don't care about male pilots". So, although I'm sure it was not done deliberately, you are advocating for adding gender bias to Wikipedia articles. Advocating for this kind of editing therefore violates our neutrality policy. So, yes, taken as a whole, I do have a problem with what your comment is implying. It conflicts with Wikipedia's goal of creating a high-quality neutral encyclopedia. The proper way to approach this is would be to ask, "Should any of these other female ATA pilots have articles?", not to assume they should as the wording of your comment clearly suggests. Jason Quinn ( talk) 02:19, 7 December 2021 (UTC) reply
I am worried you are reading my mind and making far-reaching conclusions up to accusations instead of asking clarifying questions. This is hardly a cooperative approach. Also, your answers to my two questions are non-answers. (Q:What "standard" are you talking about? A: The standard I'm talking about is your personal standard of notability under which you assumed all these pilots are notable, presumably just for being female" -Oh, really?). Yes I don't care about male pilots. I don't care about Hasidic rabbis, I don't care about governors of Wisconsin, I don't care about pokemon and sex workers, I don't care about mountains in Kenya. And I thoroughly disagree that this conflicts with "the goal of creating a high-quality neutral encyclopedia". Your demand for me to care about male pilots is on par with these snotty Wikipedia readers who raise media tantrums about Wikipedia errors instead of fixing them. Loew Galitz ( talk) 03:34, 7 December 2021 (UTC) reply
I was not trying to read your mind; that's why I quoted your own words, which do suggest that all these pilots ought to have articles based only on the fact that they are female. That is not how to think about notability for Wikipedia. If that's not not what you are doing, then all you have to do is say I'm mistaken and move on. I have nothing more to say on the matter so I'll finish with this comment. Jason Quinn ( talk) 09:03, 7 December 2021 (UTC) reply
Sorry, I am not mistaken. It is you who are mistaken trying to act accusatively based on your assumptions. Yes, you are quoting my words; and then jumping to conclusions. Since you refuse to communicate, for the record: you are severely confusing "notability for Wikipedia" and Wikipedians' preference which topics to pick: there is nothing wrong for a Wikipedian to prefer writing about women only and this has nothing to do with WP:N. (FYI I didn't write a single article about women; you picked a fight with a wrong person). Loew Galitz ( talk) 18:21, 7 December 2021 (UTC) reply
  • I think part of the problem is that DYK is one of our review processes which is bound by a stricter time frame, i.e. the "New" criteria, thus there's a rush to get the nomination out the door on the part of the nominator. Some nominators in the past have seemed to exhibit tendencies which show they care more about the success of their DYK nomination than the actual quality of the article being promoted ( Template:Did you know nominations/Alec Sutherland), which is not how the process is supposed to work. I'm not familiar enough with WiR to make accusations of structural issues per se, but it is a project which regularly encourages and rewards the speedy production of content, so I'm not terribly surprised that an old mislabeled photo would fall through the cracks. - Indy beetle ( talk) 00:48, 1 December 2021 (UTC) reply
  • In that case, the issues were resolved during the review process and the article is now GA status. SL93 ( talk) 21:59, 3 December 2021 (UTC) reply
    • Yes, and it's quite nice to see the article at GA now, but I'm doubtful much would have been said if I didn't place a tag on the article. - Indy beetle ( talk) 12:44, 4 December 2021 (UTC) reply
  • There are some rather strange comments on the topic of gender above. I don't really understand the applicability, given the discussion is over one recent case of a man with the wrong image, and one recent case of a woman with the wrong image. (So, what makes this a problem specific to women subjects or editors?) Two errors is not worth starting witch-hunts over, though there is validity in pursuing discussion about a corrections section/process. I agree with comments in favour of one above, but would like to point out that there's only so much use it could have—newspapers really have them for legal reasons, and as a way to cordon off that pesky matter of the truth when it conflicts with the newspaper's propaganda (100 people read the lie on the front page and 5 read the tiny correction a week later). — Bilorv ( talk) 00:38, 3 December 2021 (UTC) reply
    Actually, both are women’s bios (one happened to have an image of her with a man). Are these processes being hurried? SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 00:44, 3 December 2021 (UTC) reply
    I see. I've struck the appropriate part of my comment. — Bilorv ( talk) 09:23, 3 December 2021 (UTC) reply
  • The whole DYK process is deeply flawed. Its the easiest way to get an article to the front page and the standards to get there are way too low.-- Catlemur ( talk) 08:54, 3 December 2021 (UTC) reply
    • Yep. What worries me is that some people seem to be "feeding" their ego off DYK: they even have a policy that for every 6 self-noms a person have to review one nom. Meaning that some people are just bombing DYK with self-noms. I would suggest to restrict self-noms. Loew Galitz ( talk) 17:25, 3 December 2021 (UTC) reply
      Well, the "reward culture" is a factor at all content review processes. For years, we worked successfully to minimize the impact on WP:FAC, but that, too, has changed. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 17:51, 3 December 2021 (UTC) reply
      What I described, if my guess is correct, introduces a strong bias into DYK. You remember the case with DYK when it was flooded with articles about one country? I forgot whether it was Madagascar or Hibraltar. Loew Galitz ( talk) 18:14, 3 December 2021 (UTC) reply
      Gibraltarpedia, nothing to do with "ego", but (critics would say) sustained government interference with Wikipedia that went beyond DYK. — Bilorv ( talk) 21:18, 3 December 2021 (UTC) reply
      That isn't the policy at DYK. An editor with five or less nominations doesn't have to review a nom. An editor with over 5 nominations has to review a nom for every nomination. I'm not sure where you received that wrong information. SL93 ( talk) 19:31, 3 December 2021 (UTC) reply
      In addition to SL93's correction, almost all noms are self-noms. Joint nominations sometimes occur, but nominating an article for DYK without consultation of major editors involved is disruptive and out of process (as is the case at all quality review processes). The central purpose of the DYK section is to celebrate newly-improved content, so nominations need to be made quickly (though the review can take as long as necessary to ensure accuracy and quality). — Bilorv ( talk) 21:18, 3 December 2021 (UTC) reply
      I hear about DYK having serious issues at times, but I don't buy that. When issues about DYK are brought up on the errors page, it is usually only minor mistakes involving spelling, formatting, and missing wikilinks. Assuming good faith is still a thing and assuming bad things about DYK contributors, especially without contacting them yourself, is wrong. Two issues with images in the long history of DYK is not a reason to make rude assumptions. SL93 ( talk) 21:52, 3 December 2021 (UTC) reply
  • Did you know ... that the Wikipedia article for Dutch pilot Ida Veldhuyzen van Zanten (pictured) was originally promoted with a photo of Veronica Volkersz (pictured), and the matter was covered in the Wikipedia Signpost? Accompanied by a montage picture of both. ⁓  Pelagic (  messages ) 08:59, 22 December 2021 (UTC) reply


The Signpost: doing it for free since 2005.
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