Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rosetta Burke


 * 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 keep. Core desat 05:40, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Rosetta Burke

 * – (View AfD) (View log) Excess comments moved to talk page.

bio of a non-notable living person; db-bio tags deleted by article's author Delete The article is a bio of a non-notable living person. I put my detailed reasons on the article's talk page. Cbdorsett (talk) 15:35, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Delete I repeat my comments from before, which were deleted in bad faith by the article's author. I listed this article for speedy deletion because there was no assertion of notability. This is category A7 for speedy deletion. This tag was removed twice by the proponent of the article, who claimed that I personally failed because of the intervention of some admin, which was false. I objected here, and my comments were deleted by the same person, who claimed to have moved them to the article's talk page (it did not happen). The supposed reason? That it is acceptable to move out comments that detract from the Articles for Deletion discussion. This page has become a personal crusade for the original uploader, and I am sick of it. This is NOT the way to run any kind of organization. Wikipedia does NOT stand for the proposition that pages belong to the uploader, and anyone who disagrees can be silenced summarily by deleting comments from a public forum. --Cbdorsett (talk) 14:57, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I attempted to deal with this situation privately, and so did another editor, but Miranda seems uncompromising in the slightest. Lower down on this page, I put a discussion Miranda deleted from her own talk page. Users do (I think) have the right to make their own talk pages whatever they want (unless it contains a warning from an admin about behavior or violation of Wikipedia policies). They do NOT have the right to delete other people's comments from the AFD page or from the talk page of an article. Miranda has done both. This behavior is officially described on WP:vandalism. Miranda also knows how to lie about her own behavior. For example, she claimed that an "admin" deleted the original tag - but she was talking about herself. She claimed that she had moved my comments off of this page and put them on the article's talk page - only the first half was true. Now, she claims that someone did it to her in the past, so it's OK for her to do it. I don't care to do any research to find out if it's true - it doesn't matter. I also don't care to see if any other "admins" have overruled my placement of tags on suspect articles. Admins have the right to do that - part of the reason it's a tag is so that an admin will take a second look at the proposed deletion. --Cbdorsett (talk) 10:31, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
 * What concerns me about this editor now is that she seems to be angling for adminship herself (I'm guessing). She has an amazingly high edit count, over 21,000 as of today, even though she has been on Wikipedia only since January 2007. In the last two weeks alone, she has made over a thousand edits. Most of these seem to be chat-related, which is fine. Some people, however, do not look beyond edit counts when they vote on RFA, which I think is a shame. I'm just worried about what will happen if and when this immature user gets the tools to really aggravate people she disagrees with. --Cbdorsett (talk) 10:31, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I plan to mention this behavior to a couple of admins, but I don't feel like bringing it to the level of a formal RFC. It is obvious that Miranda is intelligent, so I hope she will learn from all this and become more civil without intervention. --Cbdorsett (talk) 10:31, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
 * First, be civil, we are talking about the AFD, not an editor. If you have problems with me, go for an RFC. Second, with posting my comments that I decided to archive, commenting on my behavior rather than the article in question, you are disrupting to the point of being blocked. Please stop it now. Miranda 16:49, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
 * In addition, you follow my behavior on wikipedia based upon a bad faith nominination of a clearly cut notable person. I clearly suggest you stop your personal attacks and other behavior right now before you get blocked. In addition, go on and learn from this, and write an article or do something else constructive. And, you do not need to question my motives, when they are clearly none of yours or anyone else's business. Miranda 17:02, 15 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Speedy Keep - I am in contact with the person right now to provide more sources. She is pretty notable, since there are few women in the Army National Guard who are high ranking officials. She was also tapped as a statewide official for the SSS. IMHO, this is a bad faith nom. by the person because an admin declined his speedy. Miranda 15:39, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Reasons from notability


 * Any Biography
 * The person has received significant recognized awards or honors. - she was the first African-American female Major General in the nation
 * The person has made a widely recognized contribution that is part of the enduring historical record in his or her specific field. (see above)


 * Politicians:
 * Politicians who have held international, national or statewide/provincewide office, and members and former members of a national, state or provincial legislature.5 - named as the leader of the Selective Service in 1997 by NY Gov.
 * Major local political figures who have received significant press coverage.(see NPR and SSS link. Miranda 16:43, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

The article, in its current state, cites several reliable sources showing notability, and links to several others. Per Notability, Non-notability is a rebuttable presumption, based only on a lack of suitable evidence of notability, which becomes moot once evidence is found. It is not possible to prove non-notability because that would require a negative proof.-  Ro   Bo   Tam   ice 19:20, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep, there are some good sources here and notable info. Allow time for more sources to be provided as stated above.  Cirt (talk) 15:52, 13 December 2007 (UTC).
 * Sorry - here it is: Talk:Rosetta Burke. --Cbdorsett (talk) 15:55, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep. The article is looking in quite a good condition (or at least, now — I'm unaware as to what its condition was prior to this AfD), hence, its a notable encyclopedic subject. Qst 16:10, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep, there appears to be a certain notability given her listing in several external sources/lists.Osli73 (talk) 16:28, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep, your arguments on the talk page are without merit. We do consider being the first at something (based on race, gender etc) notable. Otherwise, Rosa Parks wouldn't have an article. Notability is clear here.  Justin  chat 17:09, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep, "Rosetta Burke was the first female Assistant Adjutant General of New York State and of the Army National Guard." ... "after World War II, no women holding high office existed." ... "She was the first female general in New York's Army National Guard and the first female in the nation to be promoted to Major General."
 * Keep - Notability has been established.  Lara  ❤  Love  00:28, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Weak Keep. I placed a notability tag on the article when it was initiated, but the author removed the tag a minute later, without comment and without otherwise modifying the article . I see, now, that the article has been expanded, and has more external links and references. My problem with it originally, which is also my current issue, was the lack of "significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject". It is a good article about an American general with many accomplishments. This is not the issue. Basically, one should be able to point to secondary sources which have offered significant coverage. I have now examined each of the current four references and four external links with that specific issue in mind. (The version of the article I am reviewing is this one: .)


 * Reference 1 supports the statement that Rosetta Burke was the first female African-American general in the U.S. Army National Guard, in a single sentence, but has no more to say about her.
 * Reference 2, an issue of "The Long Island University Magazine" which has a full paragraph biography of Gen. Burke (p. 55), and which supports several of the article's statements.
 * Reference 3 is a message from Gen. Burke to the National Association of Black Military Women, as president of the organization.
 * Reference 4 is a list of honorary members of the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, which includes Rosetta Burke.
 * On the basis of the listed references, it is clear that the facts of the article are accurate, although these references do little or nothing to indicate the subject's notability; reference 2 does help, but is not really very "significant" to my way of thinking. The External Links may be expected to be more helpful in terms of demonstrating notability.
 * External Link 1 is a press release from the press office of the mayor of New York City, in which Mayor Giuliani recognizes that Gen. Burke is "the first woman Major General in the 221-year history of the Army National Guard"; providing more support for the facts, but only very modest notability.
 * External Link 2 is also a press release, this one from the U.S. Selective Service System, noting that Gen. Burke "has been named state director of the Selective Service System for New York", and providing further biographic details.
 * External Link 3 is the same as Reference 3, above.
 * External Link 4 is a quite interesting NPR interview of Gen. Burke.
 * Only the last external link, the NPR interview, fits well with "significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject". It is sufficient to move my recommendation from "Weak Delete" to "Weak Keep", but further links of that sort would certainly be welcome. Tim Ross ·talk  14:58, 14 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment.I must admit to being troubled by some of the editing of the article's author, Miranda. Looking at the article's history, I see that a speedy delete was applied to the article in its early stages, but deleted by the author 2 minutes later . I am assuming that Miranda must be an administrator, and has the authority to remove such tags, but doing so on one's own article seems, at the least, unusual. That action appears to have led to this AfD, on which we are all spending a good deal of time. Also, as far as I can tell, and disturbing to me, some material commentary from AfD initiator, Cbdorsett, appears to have been entirely deleted by the article's author, and moved to a talk page. Editing the work of others on an AfD about an article you have created raises ethical questions in my mind.  Tim Ross ·talk  15:05, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
 * First, you can delete notability tags. Second, I moved commentary which doesn't relate to the vote to the opposite page. You can do that. Also, Cbdorsett has been db-bio and db-spamming articles which have been overturned by an administrator to be notable. I am sorry, but I don't trust cbdorsett's judgment on what is notable and what is not. Miranda 16:55, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
 * And, I have been a part of AfDs where my comments were moved and deleted to the talk page by the original nominator. Get over it. Miranda 16:56, 14 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes, of course you are allowed to remove a notability tag, preferably, though, after considering what can be done to improve the perceived deficiencies in the article. One can not, however, remove a speedy deletion tag from your own article, as you did. As you may read in WP:CSD: "Any user who is not the creator of a page may remove a speedy tag from it. The creator may not do this." I am not sure of any specific Wikipedia guidance regarding the editing of others' comments in an AfD about an article you have created, but the potential conflict of interest seems quite clear. By the way, I will be happy to discuss civility with you, and your choice of language, above, on my talk page. Tim Ross ·talk  17:43, 14 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Keep as noted above, meets all elements of WP:BLP. Bearian (talk) 17:58, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep At the least, first female major general is notable, though it would be very good to have a more specific reference to a major national publication for something as important as this.DGG (talk) 03:13, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
 * National Publication such as the SSS? <b style="color:green; font-family:georgia;">Miranda</b> 16:48, 15 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Keep Obviously notable. -- Shark face  217  02:02, 17 December 2007 (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.