Talk:Onesimus (Bostonian)

Guaramantee

I reverted the "Mather referred to his ethnicity as "Guaramantee", which most likely refers to the Coromantee, people of Akan or Ashanti descent.[3]". For this simple reason. 1. Guaramantee is nearly identical with Coromantee, whose identity is known. 2. There is no reference to the Sudan by Mather. There is no explanation given why Guaramantee would refer to the Sudan. MrSativa (talk) 11:02, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

Onesimus

@Esprit15d:, can you please check the year Onesimus is said to have died? I would do it myself but your reference doesn't include a page number. Thanks. --Slugger O'Toole (talk) 00:12, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

@Slugger O'Toole:, while I've been working on copy editing the article, I haven't added many new sources (only one, I believe). But I will try to go through the sources that are already here and see if there is a credible date for his death.--Esprit15d • talk • contribs 14:56, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

Grammar errors

Before we descend into an edit war @Esprit15d: we should talk here. First of all I have only ever made 2 edits on this page, the edit that clarified “We don’t know his wife’s race...” and the edit that restored that information after you deleted it. What you are telling me makes zero sense. I don’t know what you’re trying to tell me. I don’t know what “Grammar errors” I’m making and I am definitely including new information, since we don’t know where his wife lived, who she belonged to, what her race was, etc. I am simply clarifying. If you believe this is irrelevant or incorrect information then it’s pretty easy to just say that instead. 2604:2000:1107:8A76:ED01:70BE:5632:B7F6 (talk) 04:58, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

This sentence: His wife's race and whether lived in the Mather household, another household, or was a free woman, is unclear. has multiple grammar errors. Introducing poor grammar into an article is technically disruptive editing, and its reversion would not qualify as a "revert war." Additionally, the current sentence in the article reads: It is unclear if his wife lived in the Mather household, another household, or was a free woman. That sentence establishes that two things are unknown: where Onesimus's wife lived and her status as a free person. Honestly, it should just state those two things even more simply. We don't have to add every unknown thing about her, least of all her race since slaves weren't permitted to marry outside of their race. If you have a source that substantiates that her race was significant, that would be a welcome addition to the article. If you have any references about any of it, that would be welcome, since that section is light on references.--Esprit15d • talk • contribs 15:21, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for the explaination. I didn’t really mean to say this was an edit war, I said “Before” we descend into one. 2604:2000:1107:8A76:95CB:F98D:222B:D9B6 (talk) 18:00, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

Portrait

Someone has reverted the AI generated portrait I made to represent this Onesimus, which is fine. However the reason stated was that it did not match pictures from an image search. I believe that they saw photos of Onesimus the saint, or the Ethiopian Onesimus from the 1800s who translated the Bible into the Oromo language. The only picture explicitly of this Onesimus appears to also be a product of someone's imagination. This one appears to be based on the 1800s translator. Again please let me know if I am missing something, or some written description of this Onesimus, I am happy to be corrected. I just wanted to add some visual representation of this important figure in the history of vaccines. Most photos claiming to be of this Onesimus are simply mislabeled. This man died before photography was invented. Gold Broth (talk) 23:44, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

Hi Gold Broth, and thank you for taking care to research this fascinating historical figure.

I believe you're entirely correct about the reasoning being faulty for the removal of the AI image.

Indeed there seems to have been no contemporary illustration of Onesimus (as this was a time before photography). The BIHOF uses a historical document as his identification, which I find interesting. This is what I did for the Phebe Ann Jacobs article. Perhaps if a written account of Onesimus was ever published, its image could be used, and an infobox thereby created again.

I agree with and commend your goal to add visual representation of this important figure. However, AI imagery is a contentious topic on WP. Generally, AI images in non-AI contexts are discouraged. This is because they have power to spread misinformation and discredit Wikipedia, such as the inaccurate AI-generated illustration of Amesemi which led to this very negative Reddit discussion doom-and-glooming Wikipedia's future.

To be frank, as wonderful as the portrait appears to be from far away, it contains quite noticeable historical inaccuracies and artifacts. For example his collar is not clearly defined and the shirt collar appears to be in a 1900s-1930s style; it is not clear what is happening with the tie area; and he has an unlikely 20th-century looking short haircut and modern beard that does not look similar to other African-Americans of the time period and circumstance. Perhaps it would be beneficial in the future to declare the specific AI prompt in the caption of your Wikimedia image, i.e., What sentence was used to generate the illustration?

Currently it seems AI-generated imagery is only used in articles that concern AI generated topics. (In contrast, AI upscaling is generally acceptable.) Otherwise, human illustrative detail is necessary to create historically accurate imagery.

Check out WP:AIIMAGE for more (albeit, extremely little) information.

Nevertheless, this is inspiring and I certainly hope to arrange an image or illustration for Onesimus that is as historically accurate as possible. Thank you for caring about this article and personage! Evedawn99 (talk) 20:59, 8 September 2024 (UTC)