Is Horace Morris notable?

Question

On 31 Jan 2024 Ellen Smith wrote on Morris-31918:

He was important, but that's not the same as Notable. Back in 2021 when I created the profile I could not find evidence that he met the Wikipedia notability criterion, which says a person must "have received significant coverage in multiple published secondary sources that are reliable, intellectually independent of each other, and independent of the subject." I don't find indications that this situation has changed. The Notable Kentucky African Americans Database is not "significant coverage" and it is just one source. The other sources I've seen that mention him are basically just mentions, not significant coverage.

While Ellen 's reasoning is sound, my understanding of the US Black Heritage Project 's goal is to note and include as many African-American people as possible on WikiTree. Many important and influential icons were sidelined and continue to be underrepresented and little known, and their achievements overlooked. 

I moved this discussion to G2G for input from other members of USBH.

Comments

Wikipedia is not an unbiased criterion for notability. For example see

https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/female-scientists-pages-keep-disappearing-from-wikipedia-whats-going-on/3010664.article

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For sure, Jim. That's why we have the USBH Notables, Needs Wikipedia Page category.

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Wow, talk about petty and regressive.   Feels like a crime against the dissemination of knowledge.  

In response to the post in general, as others have pointed out having a Wikipedia page isn't the only guideline to having a notable badge on WikiTree.  And especially for people from minority groups prior to the 20th century, mentions in official papers are slim and contributions are often downplayed or attributed to others of lighter skin tones.

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Excuse me, Michael. I did not suggest that this man did not deserve attention from WikiTree. I merely said that he did not meet the threshold test for notability, which has "always" been based on Wikipedia's criteria (not on whether the person had a Wikipedia profile, but rather on whether they meet Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion).

I created or greatly expanded profiles for Horace, his father (Shelton), Shelton's mother (Fanny) and his slaveholder father, three of Horace's siblings (Benjamin, William, and Ellen), and some children and grandchildren of Benjamin, as well as some spouses, etc. I think this family is very interesting and a few of them probably qualify to have notable stickers (which were not a "thing" back when I worked on these profiles), but not every important or interesting person or family is "Notable." I didn't profile every family member, but I hope that the USBH project would continue to research and document the family, with or without "Notable" designations.

PS - Some of the candidates for "Notable" designation in the "Morris" extended family include https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Morris-25482 , https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Morris-27528 , and https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Graham-19468 . Shirley Graham DuBois is undisputably notable and is classified as such.

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I think maybe you misunderstood.  I was referring to the article posted about people deleting female scientists pages from Wikipedia.  That is a petty act imo, and was the main reason I commented.  I hadn't heard of that happening before.

I don't really know all the specifics on what is completely required for a notable badge.

Cheers

Answer 1

I'd call him interesting but not Notable. I really wish we had a category or a sticker for people like him.

Answer 2

Hi L.A. Since we are often under represented at WikiPedia, the criteria we use for notability in USBH is if they have a media presence that talks about their accomplishments. That usually means newspaper articles about them from that time period, current day articles or entries in something like a local notables database, or an accumulation of works about them. In other words, to be notable, we have to have more than one reference to their accomplishments to be able to sufficiently write about it.

Answer 3

I moved this to G2G to open the discussion, apropos to to the start of Black History Month, as to what qualifies "notable". Someone suggested to me before that those included in the Notable Kentucky African-American database qualify as notable on WikiTree. Horace Morris has an entry there as well as in The Kentucky African-American Encyclopedia. Morris is probably mostly notable locally, a Louisvillian and Kentuckian. But it just got me thinking again about how and why we ascribe importance to some but not others, an the impact of these collective choices on recorded history and its romanticism.

Comments

Thank you for raising this, L A.

WikiTree's Standards for Notability 'accept anyone from an "official" Dictionary of National Biography (in any language).' For a country as large as the USA, it seems reasonable to extend this to state-based resources such as the two you mention.