Talk:Black cowboys

other cowboys

Although a portrait of Nat Love is included he is not in the article. Another was George Bush. One book listing Black cowboys is The Negro Cowboys by Phillip Durham. Colonial Computer 06:17, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Black Women and Popular Culture

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 21 August 2023 and 9 December 2023. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Darneshea88 (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Bezzza (talk) 23:26, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

Hi Darneshea88, thank you for adding material about Black women cowboys! A great topic to work on. I have a couple questions for helping improve the new material. For Mary Fields and Jane Manning James, do you know of any reliable sources that call them cowboys/cowgirls, specifically? I'm wondering if they may not be relevant enough for an article specifically about cowhands? I would also suggest moving the information about contemporary women upholding the tradition to a new section at the end of the article, rather than embedding it with the historical material. Happy to help with these suggestions if you have any questions! Dreamyshade (talk) 05:49, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Also just a note - it looks like the citation to "Women of the West The Creation of the Black Cowgirl" is to a self-published book labeled as fiction, so it isn't a reliable source for this article unfortunately. Dreamyshade (talk) 05:58, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Hi! Thank you for your feedback. To answer your first question about whether or not there is information about Mary Fields having the title of cowboy/cowgirl, the answer to that is yes. It mentions it in the second citation I made for her. The same thing for Jane Manning James who was considered a Western pioneer. I also cited the source where I got that information from. Both women, especially Mary Fields, played integral parts in the history of Black women cowboys/cowgirls. Also, in my opinion, I feel as though the modern-day Black female cowboys are relevant to this article because it shows that it is a continuation of the history of Black women cowboys. I am open to moving it to another section but may I ask why? I feel like I should leave in the section that is mentioned only about women so that it is an easier read for the audience and flows better. I fear that if I break it up the section might lose its relevance and the quality of it as a whole. Lastly, thank you for catching that citation issue with the book! I will be sure to remove that one immediately. Darneshea88 (talk) 21:01, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Thank you, glad to work on this together! In the referenced AARP Senior Planet article that mentions Mary Fields, it looks like the author is referencing this History.com article about Fields as her source, but that History.com article doesn't call Fields a cowboy/cowhand. It looks like they're sometimes discussed alongside cowhands but not generally called cowhands. So I'm wondering if it'd be more historically accurate to say something like this: "There were also other Black women in notable roles in the American West, including Mary Fields, a star route postwoman, and Jane Manning James, who built a farm with her husband."

The goal of my suggestion to move the present-day material to a new section is to help make sure each section is coherent for the reader. If the article moves from discussing the past to the present within the section about Black women cowboys, and then goes back to the past in the next section about historical rodeos, that seems like it could be a bit confusing? It also seems helpful to discuss the work of contemporary women upholding this tradition in the context of other contemporary efforts like the Black American West Museum and Heritage Center, the Bill Pickett Invitational Rodeo, and the present-day riding clubs in several cities. For example, one of the articles about Gooch also talks about the Fletcher Street Urban Riding Club. Dreamyshade (talk) 01:53, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

I understand what you are saying and I appreciate the feedback. I have taken into account both of the errors you have pointed out regarding my misuse of a source and maybe rewording the way I talk about Mary Fields. However, we might have to agree to disagree about breaking up the section into two in regards to the contemporary Black women cowboys. I think that it flows better when it is read as one. I also noticed that you added a few sentences to the end of the section titled “Work” using at least one of the links that I obtained in my research. I feel as though the ending for that section was not needed as Black Women Cowboys needs an entire section of its own. However, I’m not opposed to the end of the section titled "Work" being used as a transitional few sentences to help the following section flow better. Do you think you could reword those last few sentences so that it flows better? I am going to upload my contribution again with the changes I made so that we can continue to work on this together and see what looks best with the formatting and everything! Darneshea88 (talk) 09:08, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

Now that I am looking at it, you reused most of the links that I did during my own research, as well as using the same people and words, yet you just rephrased everything. Can you please remove your section and find your own links to use? I just do not think it is a good look for us to use the same links throughout the article. I will not remove my links because I am the one who researched to find them. Darneshea88 (talk) 09:41, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

Ahh, a useful thing to note about Wikipedia is that it's ok here to modify another person's writing in an article, including reusing parts of it in a different way, in an effort to improve the article.

Check out this part of the "Five Pillars" (WP:5P3): "All editors freely license their work to the public, and no editor owns an article – any contributions can and may be mercilessly edited and redistributed."

The article history system automatically keeps records of who wrote what, in case somebody wants to find out later — you can see yourself credited at https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Black_cowboys&action=history. Wikipedia editors are allowed to change or remove each other's work, including re-using sources, to improve articles.

This collaborative approach is pretty different from most things in life, so I totally get how it seems weird that I rewrote your additions and re-used your sources! It's a positive thing though — you found some helpful sources and relevant information, which improved the article. To further improve the article, I condensed your additions into a more formal and encyclopedic style (see Wikipedia:TONE and the related guidance at MOS:FLOWERY and MOS:EDITORIAL). I also removed sentences that weren't cited to a specific source (which is important for ensuring Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:No original research), and sentences that repeated information already in the Background section. Under "Legacy" at the end, I added context about the revival moment that the contemporary women are participating in.

So I'd suggest reviewing those guidelines and seeing what you think about next steps? Your course instructor may also be able to give some helpful background information. I know that Wikipedia can be challenging, and I really appreciate students getting involved in this messy, lively, amazing project. :) Dreamyshade (talk) 06:14, 8 December 2023 (UTC)