Talk:Howard Mather Burnham

Notability
This article's subject may not comply with the notability requirement for Wikipedia articles. It should be remembered that, notability requires "that the subject has received significant attention by the world at large, to support a claim of notability." This is one officer from the Civil War, who was unfortunately killed in battle. His contribution to the war effort is not being questioned. What is being questioned is whether he meets the notability requirement. He came from a distinguished family, yes, but that does not establish notability. Two cited sources are genealogical records. Two other cited sources are contemporary newspaper articles about his death. Another cited source appears is a memorial record published by the family. Please see the Wikipedia page on Notability for more information about how to improve this article.


 * This article is certainly a lower ranked article about a civil war commander killed in action at a major battle, but "determining notability does not necessarily depend on things like fame, importance, or the popularity of a topic". This article certainly meets the basic nobility critera: "A person is presumed to be notable if he or she has been the subject of published secondary source material which is reliable, intellectually independent, and independent of the subject." In addition, this article indeed satisfies your statement that it must have "signficant attention by the world at large" -- any objective biography that is still currently in print meets this criteria. Your assertion that his biography was written by the family is not factual. The biography was written anonymously and all we know about the author is the following "Affectionaly inscribed by their friend", the author is generally thought to be the editor of a newspaper or a politico in Massachussettes (Howard M. Burnham's father was a member of the Massachusetts Legislature and Justice of the Peace). Also, no claim was made that his nobility achivement came from his distinguished family. -- Ctatkinson (talk) 16:56, 15 February 2010 (UTC)