Talk:Guion Bluford/Archive 1

Archive 1

"The Struggles of a Black Astronaut"

Per the recent WP:CFD debate, I have created a sub page, Guion Bluford/Temporary. It is an article submitted mistakenly as a category by Foch0501 (talk • contribs). I should be grateful if Wikipedians could investigate whether it can be merged with the current article, or whether it can otherwise be used to improve the article. It appears to be well sourced. --RobertG ♬ talk 11:41, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

It looks like a college essay that I would only have given a "C" (maybe an "B" if it had been a high school essay) ... all of the referencess are websites, most of which are either copies of each other or just boiler-plates (I looked at all of them), and this Wikipedia article is also buried in the list, so it's hard to say what is copied from where ... whole paragraphs are just copied & reformatted (like http://nasajobs.nasa.gov/astronauts/content/broch00.htm#msad ):

Guion Bluford had to meet a few basic qualification requirements to become a mission specialist candidate. Some of these qualifications included a bachelor’s degree from an accredited institution in engineering, biological science, physical science, or mathematics. The degree must be followed by at least three years of related, progressively responsible, professional experience. An advanced degree is desirable and may be substituted for part of or all of the experience requirement. The quality of academic preparation is important. The candidate must have the ability to pass a NASA space physical, which is similar to a military or civilian flight physical. They need distance visual acuity of 20/200 or better uncorrected and correctable to 20/20 each eye. Their blood pressure must be 140/90 measured in a sitting position, and they must have a height between 58.5 and 76 inches Template:15 Anonymous May 18, 2006;.

That kind of information is Too Much Trivia for a biographical article (and subtract one-half letter grade for blatant plagiarism) ... I don't see anything that would improve the current article ... only one paragraph seems to be on target ("struggles", hence my low overall grade on the essay) ... the rest is just general bio and "what it takes to be an astronaut". 72.75.105.165 16:30, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

"...second African-American in space..."

I think we're making unnecessary confusion here, where 'African-American' is used to mean black. Mendez was the first black guy in space - but he went up in Soyuz 38, and is American only in the sense that his homeland is very close to North America. Bluford is the first African American in space, in that he's both of African ancestry and an American. I suggest reworking this to remove the semantic confusion. Wyvern (talk) 21:18, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Agree completely. I don't know whether its a typo, or and example of using the expression 'african american' in any context to refer to someone of african ancestry (see CNN's Carol Lin reference to French rioters!). Either way it is incorrect, and Bluford should be given the appropriate recognition of his achievement.82.23.52.82 (talk) 20:52, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

I reworked the statement, because the parenthetical info about Mendez didn't flow well. I wrote that Bluford was the second person of African ancestry in space, after Mendez. It's probably safe to assume that none of the Soviets listed on List of human spaceflights, 1980s between Mendez and Bluford's '83 flight are black; obviously none of the Americans were. That leaves a Mongolian, a Romanian, and a Frenchman. Again, safe to assume that none of these were of African ancestry. But that's original research, so I'm not opposed to further rewording. Khakiandmauve (talk) 14:41, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Guion Bluford. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20100501074629/http://astronautscholarship.org/2010ahof_induction.html to http://www.astronautscholarship.org/2010ahof_induction.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 18 January 2022).

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 07:18, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Guion Bluford. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20120306060631/http://live.psu.edu/story/19471 to http://live.psu.edu/story/19471

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 18 January 2022).

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 10:04, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

His hobbies include...

Regarding the verb selection for "His hobbies ____," which appears to have generated much interest amongst anonymous IPv6 editors of late, I will suggest that 1) we cannot possibly expect this to be an exhaustive list of his hobbies. He may well dabble in one thing or another not on this list, and the things he pursues may change from time to time, also 2) until he is dead or we have a reliable source saying he's incapacitated, the verb for this list should be present-tense. -- ke4roh (talk) 13:12, 8 April 2019 (UTC)