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A fact from Mary Bulkley appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 5 March 2019 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
Did you know... that 18th-century British actress Mary Bulkley(pictured) was once hissed by her audience because she had "taken the son of her long-term lover to her bed"?
@Storye book: For context, I'm working on cleaning up Commons categories in general, when I came across this article. The correct Commons category for this article is commons:Category:Mrs Bulkley. commons:Category:Actresses who have played Hamlet is tangentially related, doesn't add value to the article, and shouldn't be here. If you wanted to find that from this article, you could by going to the correct Commons category and then looking at the parent categories. So I think it should be removed. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 09:24, 30 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
This link is placed in the See also section, which is designed for what you have termed "tangentally related" issues. A lot of readers will not realise that women played Hamlet so long ago - I certainly didn't until I noticed a Victorian one a while ago and started looking for other ones, and producing articles and Commons categories relating to that - but most readers don't do that - and that is one of the things that we researchers and editors are here for. So bearing in mind that probably a lot of people would think that Bulkely acting Hamlet was a one-off, the prompt to check out the link in the See also section is a healthy one. Most readers make assumptions and do not think of researching further - that is what the See also section is for.
Another isssue is that so many of our readers are using phones, not laptop or pc. I've been here for years and know my way around a bit, but I have not yet discovered how to access categories via my phone. I would be surprised if most readers could do the search that you recommend, on their phones (assuming that most of them would even bother). Storye book (talk) 10:01, 30 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Storye book: If you want to do that, why not create a list article here of women that have played Hamlet? Probably more people will see that than will click on the Commons link. I use 'desktop' mode on my phone, that shows categories fine. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 10:17, 30 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
A list article is a good idea. Thank you. However it will have to join the queue, as I have a number of articles which I must complete first. Meanwhile I have re-formatted the commonscat link in the See also section, in the hope that you will find it less provocative that way. Yes I agree you can get at the categories in phone-desktop mode, but they appear tiny (i.e. as small-print material), and if a reader did not already know they were there, they might not bother to enlarge them to read them. Storye book (talk) 10:42, 30 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
That takes it out of the tracking category, but doesn't really solve the problem. Maybe @Fjjulien: could help - it feels like 'has played role: Hamlet' should be something that Wikidata can be queried for to easily generate a list. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 11:14, 30 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Storye book:@Mike Peel: This is indeed the kind of information that could be stated (and queried) in Wikidata. Two strategies come to mind:
Create items for each performance (or run) and state each cast members and define their character role as a qualifier. This modelling approach has been used by Beat Estermann and others to document recent productions and performances. However, in the context of historical performances from the 19th century, this could prove to be a daunting task.
State the notable role as a main value directly in the actor item (as suggested by Mike Peel). This would be a simpler, faster route for documenting all women who performed Hamlet.
At present, Wikidata has a property for "notable work (P800)" but none for notable character works. I believe a case for a new property could easily be made. Such a property could be used to query all women who were known to play Hamlet, but also any other male character role. Let me know if you think this could be useful and I'll add this property creation to my to-do list. Fjjulien (talk) 02:25, 16 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
What matters to me as creator of this article is that the link should be relevant. I have therefore created extra commons categories to separate 18th-, 19th- and 20th-century actresses who have played Hamlet. To us today, it is surprising that 18th- and 19th-century actresses were playing male protagonists in doublet and hose for a whole two hours on stage, with no gracious return to the decency of female skirts at the end. On the other hand, although it is interesting, it is not amazing that late 20th-century and early 21st-century women should do this, because female legs were no longer hidden. Since there is only one other actress in the "18th-century actresses who have played Hamlet" category (Sarah Siddons), I could have replaced the commons link with a link to the Sarah Siddons article - but decided not to, so as to allow easy reader-access to any later additions to the commons category. I hope that information is useful. Storye book (talk) 09:16, 16 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding the C18 performers Mrs Bulkley and Sarah Siddons, they both have WP articles stating the time and place where they played Hamlet. Regarding the C19 performers, most of them only have Commons photos of them in Hamlet costume, and an an image-page source link to the newspaper which confirms that they played Hamlet - because that link is just to a page of photos with captions and an overall title. Most of those C19 Hamlet actresses don't yet have WP articles. So, for the C19 ladies, we have evidence that they played Hamlet, but for most of them we don't yet know exactly where or the exact date. Storye book (talk) 13:55, 16 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
