Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mary Burns (US Civil War soldier)


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.  

The result was no consensus, I highly recommend for this article to be merged somewhere though, especially in the should be article of Women in the American Civil War. Secret account 18:15, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Mary Burns (US Civil War soldier)

 * – (View AfD) (View log)

We'll try this again. Non-notable, no references except a brief mention in a couple books. The previous version that survived AfD had several comments that Mary Burns was notable, but no one spoke up for this person. SatyrTN (talk / contribs) 16:08, 5 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Weak Keep - As in Very Weak. I added a couple links (one of which is probably not WP:R enough, granted) to the article so others can use them (and back-reference them through their references). The "woman who dressed as a man in order to serve her country" is a significant situation itself (I said significant, not notable), and I think that this article and others like it could have potential. I'd like to see this end, ideally, in a "no consensus" for the time being and, if the article isn't improved within 3-6 months, then PROD or AfD it out then. There could be potential here; that's really all I'm saying. VigilancePrime (talk) 16:36, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Weak keep. I think it would be a shame to lose this information- someone whose name is still known after all this time... Perhaps there would be an appropriate merge target? Something like Missouri Militia Cavalry or Women in the American Civil War? J Milburn (talk) 17:14, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Merge and redirect to Timeline of women in 19th century warfare. This is so minor (she never fought) and the sources are so brief that I'm reluctant to have a whole article. There's a point at which this is undue weight and I think this is definitely it. As the sources show there were many more significant instances of disguised women soldiers who actually fought. --Dhartung | Talk 17:44, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Query -- How is this undue weight? Undue weight really talks about weight of information within a particular article; information tending to be given undue weight in a way that creates a non-neutral POV. Concerns about a more notable topic not yet being included while less notable topics are included are not undue weight -- in some instances they're systemic bias, but not in the way you're suggesting, I think. --Lquilter (talk) 03:14, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
 * This could be considered UNDUE because there are 42 people listed in Category:Female wartime crossdressers and anothe 6 in Category:Female wartime crossdressers in the American Civil War. How many individual articles of two sentences do we need for this subject? Shouldn't this encyclopedia stick to Notable people?  This woman didn't even make it to fight but was discovered before the company left! -- SatyrTN (talk / contribs) 15:38, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Hmm. That doesn't really work for me; it just seems like a straight WP:N argument. We'll have to agree to disagree on this one, I think. --Lquilter (talk) 07:28, 8 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Military-related deletion discussions.   —User:Ceyockey ( talk to me ) 18:04, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete I don't think that this woman was notable enough to be included in Timeline of women in 19th century warfare, which presently only includes women who actually took part in fighting. --Nick Dowling (talk) 22:31, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep, I see 2 secondary sources. That's the heart of WP:N.--Cube lurker (talk) 23:16, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment: You realize she's mentioned in one sentence in each of those sources? -- SatyrTN (talk / contribs) 01:20, 6 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep - 1 sentence in each is enough to keep a stub around. There is no lack of server space. Exit2DOS2000   •T•C•  10:25, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment: Actually, Notability requires "significant coverage in multiple third-party reliable sources. -- SatyrTN (talk / contribs) 15:59, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment - While I agree with Satyr about the notability and one-sentence-ness, I do feel the need to point out that the bar for notability is set really low. When Wikipedia routinely keeps pages like Fuzzy dice, Cooties, Fish of Oklahoma (a list!), Dibs, Vorpal, and stubs like Victory Boulevard (Los Angeles) and Carolina Renaissance Festival, and empty pages like 32 AH (and series...at least fill them!), I can see where a one-sentence by two-reference "article" could be seen as a legitimate keep. As for the inclusion or exclusion in the timeline article, that is a list not of women who are notable, but of women with Wikipedia articles. Notice that every line links somewhere? The reason she's not listed there isn't (necessarily) a lack of notability, but that nobody's added her since she got her own article. Anyway, I stand by my "vote" of VERY WEAK Keep, but absolutely agree that this is not enough currently to keep around; I just would like to see someone improve it drastically (and if not, PROD it in a few months). VigilancePrime (talk) 16:40, 6 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Weak delete unless someone can save this with improvement. Greswik (talk) 22:04, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment - I copied the article content from the preceding AFD, but won't be able to do anything with it -- not my bailiwick, no sources, etc. However, I will note that any historical figure of 150 years who has survived by name in a few list-type sources is likely sourced elsewhere, and especially given the reams of scholarship on the US Civil War -- really, rivers of ink have been spilled on this -- I would imagine the article could ultimately be sourced. There's no deadline, and so my inclination would be to keep this one tagged, add it to relevant wikiprojects, and hang in there. There's no deadline and no compelling reason to delete it -- no BLP issues, no vanity concerns, no spam concerns, no vandalism or troll-magnet issues. --Lquilter (talk) 03:10, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment - Lquilter said in a lucid and eloquent manner what I try and fail to say in my unlucid, uneloquent way. No compelling reason to delete, and there probably are / ought to be some sources out there. Expand and other tags could garner attention and help of others. That's why I think keep is warranted (though weak). VigilancePrime (talk) 03:16, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
 *  keep . Weak keep. Having looked into it, I find that the article already cites a source that in its turn cites 5 contemporary newspaper reports and a history book from 1911 (Ethel Alice Hurn, Wisconsin Women in the War) . There’s slightly more detail in DeAnne Blanton and Lauren M. Cook’s They Fought Like Demons: Women Soldiers in the American Civil War (LSU Press, 2002). ISBN 0807128066, page 31 and page 124. She clearly meets “multiple sources over time”. That she’s notable only for being sent to prison for enlisting illegally "masquerading as a man" is a problem, but my own feeling is that one-off notability still being “noted” over 100 years later is quite sufficient for our purposes. --Paularblaster (talk) 09:19, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Thank you for this research! It makes *FD discussions much better when folks have done research on the issue at hand. --Lquilter (talk) 17:38, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Don't thank me - I've made rather a bloomer. The footnote in question actually covers a discussion of two different women discovered before seeing combat, and only the last of the references is to Mary Burns. I've reworked the article and I think it's now about as full as it's ever going to be. --Paularblaster (talk) 14:36, 8 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep, sources indicate notability. Everyking (talk) 03:35, 10 January 2008 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.