Talk:Edward L. Cochran

Citations and Verifiability
I would work to improve the citations: blogs are not normally appropriate citations for Wikipedia articles, and many of the citations do not appear to fully support, or even address, the facts for which they are cited. For example, the sentence that is (misplaced) under "Early Life and Education" beginning "Despite..." cites a reference that merely describes a "19th-century farmhouse on 10 acres south of Route 32" without mention of "strong support for..." or "preserved from development." (To the best of my knowledge, Dr. Cochran's homestead is in an area that is planned for future growth, but that should be validated.) Finally, a balanced biography would not focus on two or three issues that the Dr. Cochran faced during his tenure on the school board, county council and as County Executive. Surely, during the years when Columbia was being born and the area being developed from an agrarian county to a thriving part of the Baltimore Washington corridor, there must have been many controversial, topics with which local government wrestled.

Balance
Unfortunately, many of those topics are likely of limited notability. However, if the subject of the article is deemed notable, I believe inclusion of a discussion of the following topics (properly verified and referenced), gleaned from local knowledge and google searches of existing internet material, would improve its balance (I provide references as starting points for additional research).

Dr. Cochran received a Ph.D. degree from the University of Notre Dame in about 1953, and moved to Howard County three years later.

Dr. Cochran worked at Johns Hopkins University for over 30 years, interrupted only by his 4 year tenure serving as County Executive of Howard County, Md.

Dr. Cochran was part of a team that carried out pioneering studies on the nature of free radicals, along with Chih-Kung Jen, Adrian, Bowers, Foner, and others, including the description of the spectra of simple photolytically produced free radicals trapped in solid argon. The team published seminal papers in the area in scientific journals. e.g.,

Dr. Cochran played a significant role in accelerating the desegregation of the Howard County school system.

Dr. Cochran was honored by the NAACP in 2004 for "unceasing and untiring efforts on behalf of equal access to education in Howard County."

Dr. Cochran was awarded the 2009 Human Rights Award from the Howard County Human Rights Commission. The award honors individuals who have contributed to human and civil rights in Howard County, recognizing citizenship, leadership and achievement in eliminating or eradicating discrimination, while advancing human rights for all residents of Howard County. ?

Dr. Cochran was awarded the Clark Medal from Howard Community College in 2010 in recognition of his service on the HCC board of trustees from 1985 to 1991 and as its chairman from 1989 to 1991. Fanatic W1K (talk) 02:56, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Edits
I added to the description of Dr. Cochran's scientific career.

I have obtained copies of some of the references cited and cleaned up the article in sections that cite those references contain only the facts that are included in those references. I also corrected numerous spelling and syntax errors and restructured the article to be consistent with its headings.

Deleted: "Despite his strong support for the dense residential Columbia project, Cochran lives in a 19th-century farmhouse on 10 acres in the area of the county preserved from land development.[6]﻿" The cited reference describes only the "19th-century farmhouse on 10 acres south of Route 32," which is of insufficient import for this biography. "Despite..." and "...preserved from" are unsupported and can be read as biased.

Deleted: "In 1976 Cochran placed a two-year building moratorium in Ellicott City and Elkridge, pushing development to densely rezoned areas of North Laurel, Jessup, and Columbia. " I obtained the original article; The ban started in 1973, prior to Cochran's tenure as executive, and was initiated due to insufficient capacity in the sewage plant in Baltimore that serves this area of the county. Construction delays led to an extension of the moratorium from 1978-1980, which is the topic of the cited article, which goes on to discuss issues with the Savage plant that serves Columbia. The article therefore does not support the contention that Cochran placed a building moratorium; he announced an extension in an existing one. The article does not speak to "pushing development..."

Needed: A non-blog citation for the statements about support for Columbia, along with a balanced discussion of why this matters. Also, the article includes a smattering of facts (sign legislation, Omar Jones, regional planning council) without discussion of relevance or import.

The article still needs significant work to improve verifiability, neutrality, and balance.Fanatic W1K (talk) 19:24, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Re-edits
"Cochran lives in a 19th-century farmhouse on 10 acres in the rural western tier of Howard County.[4]" Again, this is not supported by the reference (and is factually incorrect). The age of the farmhouse and size of the lot is all that is supported in the article, but why is it germane to this biography?Fanatic W1K (talk) 23:29, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

"During his term, Ellicott City and Elkridge faced a building moratorium from 1973 that extended to 1980 due to insufficient capacity in the sewage plant in Baltimore that served portions of the county.[23]" This is true, but is not placed into a context that aids the reader in understanding why it belongs in this biography. The rapid development of downtown Baltimore and the Baltimore-Washington corridor in general led to all kinds of infrastructure issues, including the need to expand the capacity of the Baltimore plant by 12X since 1949, the need to significantly upgrade the Little Patuxent Water Reclamation Plant as described in the reference listed in the article, and requirements for significantly improved highways, fire protection, domestic water, and so on.Fanatic W1K (talk) 23:54, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Edits in light of deletion discussion
Per the deletion discussion, Dr. Cochran's political career deserves mention as marginally notable. I take this to mean key offices and major achievements/controversies. My rule of thumb is that if topic would be worthy of mention in a biography of a significant political figure (a governor or senator, say), then it might be worth including in a biography of a local figure. But simply because a person is named in local newspaper coverage of an issue doesn't make the issue notable per se-- especially if the issue is mentioned in passing in only one source. The article could use more on Chemistry, and still more clean up of some of the political content--minor offices, ex officio positions, and the like--in order to make it more about a career scientist who was also a part time public servant for several years and a full-time County Executive for 4 years. Fanatic W1K (talk) 22:44, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Additional edits in light of deletion discussion
I have made additional edits to improve the article per the following comments during the deletion discussion. : User:LFaraone Hopefully they also address some of the issue tags on the page. While his political activities are not his primary notability, I did leave the more detailed information regarding segregation, as it references a national issue of the time. Thank you to User:Xxanthippe and User:PWilkinson for reviewing the article and your constructive comments to improve this article during the deletion disscussion and to  User:Fanatic W1K for your edits toward that goal. Hopefully other editors can improve on the scientific career section for which he deserves notability. MilaPedia (talk) 05:46, 26 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Keep. Passes WP:Prof with a GS h-index of 18, plus political activities. Xxanthippe (talk) 22:42, 14 August 2013 (UTC).
 * Keep per Xxanthippe. However, the article does need to be rewritten to make it clear that his academic career is his primary claim to notability, although his political activities are verifiable (and marginally notable) enough that some mention of them in the article is justifiable. PWilkinson (talk) 13:32, 17 August 2013 (UTC)