Talk:West Ford

Article title

Per WP:QUALIFIER, “use only as much additional detail as necessary” to make an article title unambiguous. So, we could use the title “West Ford (slave)” as the title, but I don’t like it because he became a free man in 1805. We could also use the title “West Ford (Father of Gum Springs, Virginia) but that’s too long because “Virginia” isn’t needed to make the title unambiguous. After all, we don’t have any Wikipedia articles about anyone else in the world named West Ford who lived in a place called Gum Springs. Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:03, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

Now the title's even shorter, as User:CambridgeBayWeather has helpfully pointed out that no disambiguation is necessary, and a hatnote will suffice. Anythingyouwant (talk) 13:03, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

User:Dr vulpes and user:CambridgeBayWeather, FYI it looks like this article has now been replaced with a redirect to “West Ford (Founder of Gum Springs)”. Anythingyouwant (talk) 22:47, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

Actually, Anythingyouwant, the article itself was moved to the Founder title but the mover did not move this, the associated article talk page. In my opinion there are possible issues with some of their edits, citation structures, and their deletion of sources. Also, per WP:COMMONNAME, WP:PRECISION, and WP:CONCISE, I do disagree with the article's present title. I did think about moving this article talk page to the Founder title but decided to leave it here, because of my objections. Shearonink (talk) 04:02, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

Are you okay with the article title “West Ford” without any parenthetical? That seems like the one most consistent with Wikipedia rules, which are sometimes tricky to follow. Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:06, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

Yes, the commonname seems best to me, I am hoping, however, that CambridgeBayWeather will weigh in on the issue of the most recent page-move. The mover obviously thinks the most recent title is best, the title might need to be discussed some more. Shearonink (talk) 05:30, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

I do quite a bit of moves and they are usually not controversial. If they are I request a move or get the occasional person asking on my talk page. It's usually people who want to describe something or highlight a persons nationally. This seems so obvious that I didn't think about it. By the way if you do want it in a parentheses you cant have "Father" or Founder". Not a capital. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Huliva 06:04, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

Sketch

I think we are free to use this sketch. The uploader wrote “own work” but also indicated an acceptable license. Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:15, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

Cannot tell a lie

This article cites the following source: Allen-Bryant, Linda (2004) I Cannot Tell a Lie: The True Story of George Washington's African American Descendants. According to Google Books, that book was published by iUniverse which is a self-publishing company. Wikipedia has a policy at WP:SELFPUB that prevents us from using self-published books as references for our Wikipedia articles. Anythingyouwant (talk) 10:03, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

Agreed. Shearonink (talk) 04:02, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

All sources from I Cannot Tell a Lie have been removed. Lindab116 (talk) 17:05, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

Notability

This article may have difficulty meeting notability requirements if its main focus remains the identity of Ford's father. So I would suggest having a separate section about Gum Springs, its historical significance, Ford's role therein, et cetera (assuming we can get enough reliably-sourced information on that subject). Merely being the son of someone famous does not justify a Wikipedia article, even assuming he indeed was the son of someone famous. And it's doubtful that being a slave overseer at the former home of someone famous would be sufficient either. Anythingyouwant (talk) 11:44, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

I started a separate section about Gum Springs. It will have to be expanded. Anythingyouwant (talk) 13:54, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

On the other hand, the Sally Hemings article has had no problem regarding notability, so I have no idea if this article will have a notability problem. Three children of Sally Hemings each have Wikipedia articles too. Anythingyouwant (talk) 15:08, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for all the work you've put into this article. Yeah I'm in the same boat so I added the needs an expert tag. Dr vulpes (talk) 15:29, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

West Ford is notable. Yes, his notoriety derives perhaps from his possible paternity but his notability derives from all the content about him in published reliable sources. He certainly fulfills WP:BASIC and I'd say WP:POLITICIAN as the founder of a free black community in Virginia during the antebellum era. Shearonink (talk) 15:36, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

Maintenance tags and hatnote - removal or not - let's discuss

The following maintenance tags and a hatnote have been twice removed wholesale but let's go through each one here and discuss here if they are all still valid. Or not.

• {{For multi|the test by MIT|Project West Ford|the fiord in Norway|Vestfjorden|places and ships|Westford}}

Hatnote. No discussion on this hatnote makes the removal valid. There is possible confusion between this person West Ford and other geographical westford English Wikipedia articles in English. Also, our readership is worldwide and we have to keep in mind the other-language westford articles present in the English WIkipedia.

On to the present maintenance tags.

• {{Multiple issues| {{Copy edit|for=tone and citations|date=May 2022}} {{Expert needed|reason=Citations need expansion and it's unclear if this article fits under the guidelines of notability.|date=May 2022}}}}

Expert needed. Meh, I don't think this one is necessary. All that's needed is interested editors willing to put in some work. In my opinion that one can go. Also, the commentary about notability at this point doesn't seem all that helpful.

Copy edit - tone and citations. In my opinion this one is still valid.

• For the citations... for instance there are now multiple references to Wiencek's 700+ page book but with no page numbers. These pageless cites replaced the multiple "Citation needed" templates (which were, to me, frankly, a bit much) but replacing the citation neededs with incomplete references don't really help. Complete valid reliable sources have to be found and placed in the article to support its statements.
• For copy edits...not a big deal, just that some of the puffery or POV elements/wording might need to be adjusted.

Your opinion might differ from mine. Let's discuss and collaborate. Shearonink (talk) 16:03, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

I don't have an opinion on the hatnote. I included it because they were the links on the disambiguation page. I find it easier when doing a move to include stuff like that sometimes. It can help with the transition. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Huliva 16:18, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

The hatnote seems fine to me, it’s much less obnoxious-looking than the maintenance tags, and it seems pretty standard. Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:14, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

The “expert needed” tag makes me say “meh” too, not just because I am generally skeptical of “experts” (!), but because there’s an easy alternative: one of us could post a message at the Sally Hemings talk page asking for experienced editors to come here and take a look. Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:18, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

This is a really good idea and one I didn't think of. I agree that this would be a good way to handle this issue. Thank you. Dr vulpes (talk) 17:22, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

Done.[1] Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:39, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

As to the maintenance tag for copy editing (tone and substance), it looks like this article has been making rapid progress, so I support keeping the tag, but I don’t anticipate we’d need it for very long. Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:20, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for tagging me, as I noted on my talk page I think I did go overboard with the citation need. Still new and learning the ropes I'll be sure to be more careful in the future.

• Hatnote: I agree it should be restored as there are people outside the United States who use the site and appears to be fairly standard.
• Expert needed: This isn't my area of specialization so with the sensitivity and importance of the subject in mind I would still like someone with expertise in this area to at least go through the article. I guess my point is this, no one gets hurt if one of my plant articles is off by a tiny bit but when it comes to the descendants of slavery in the United States small errors and misalignments can cause harm.
• Copy edit - tone and citations: I added this one because the article doesn't read like an encyclopedia article but more like a history book. I echo the previous concerns about the citations and if someone can point me in the right direction I can go though later to add citations and clean some of the existing ones up.

Dr vulpes (talk) 17:21, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

The consensus on the hatnote is to restore it and so I have done so. At the same time I've WP:G14'd the redirect West Ford (disambiguation). Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 20:34, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

Copy-edit

I did a copy edit of the whole article, plus added a little bit of new stuff.[2] Anythingyouwant (talk) 07:31, 1 June 2022 (UTC)