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Latest comment: 4 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion
In preparing this page, it became clear that Mark's name had been mis-spelled in the historical record, feminized to "Jessie". However, the PhD clearly states "Jesse". In efforts to get a photo of Mark from ISU, the ISU confirmed Mark was a man. I haven't been able to identify a source that addresses this discrepancy in the historical record. Hildabast (talk) 21:55, 20 March 2017 (UTC)Reply
@Hildabast: Nice detective work. Unfortunately, this appears to be a case of original research. Most "reliable" sources (e.g. books) treat Mark as a woman, and the few sources I've found that actually 'correct the record' are not considered reliable for Wikipedia purposes [1], [2], [3] (I see two blog posts are yours- no disrespect intended). I'm not sure what should be done: perpetuating the myth that Mark was a woman doesn't seem right, but Wikipedia itself should never be a primary source of new information. Perhaps this article should be hidden/draft-ified until reliable, published sources can firmly investigate and publish on the discrepancy, thus allowing Wikipedia to reliably, veritably assert the claim that this person, who appears in many books about African-American women, was not one. Do you know of any reliable news, journal, or magazine coverage? Perhaps you could nudge one of your contacts at Scientific American or PLOS to publish a peer-reviewed article we can cite. --Animalparty! (talk) 02:00, 7 May 2018 (UTC)Reply