Talk:Mac Ross

Attribution

Text and references copied from 332nd Fighter Group to Mac Ross, See former article's history for a list of contributors. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 13:58, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

Picture needed

There are other (and arguably better) photographs of him. We could have them both. Not a binary solution. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 14:18, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

Major James A. Ellison returns the salute of Mac Ross, as he reviews the first class of Tuskegee cadets; flight line at U.S. Army Air Corps basic and advanced flying school, with Vultee BT-13 trainers in the background, Tuskegee, Alabama, 1941

Wondering if anyone has an opinion about whether to add this photo to the article. The photo appears on the Tuskegee Airmen article. It is a public domaine photograph and is free to use here as far as I know. I simply copied this from the article, so we could change the caption. Lightburst (talk) 00:02, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Bibliography

User:Jamesallain85 stop edit warring this page. You have added references into the bibliography that aren't referred to in the page. You added these between 12:26 and 12:36. If you have something to add to the page then add it, you have had more than an hour to do so. Mztourist (talk) 13:55, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

Are you serious, you are the one edit warring. Go ahead revert my edit again and I will report you, which I am sure wouldn't be your first time. You are attempting to AfD this page, and at the same time are reverting edits to improve it. There are multiple bibliography entries, why would you delete just mine? You are targeting me and harassing me. Let me contribute and leave me alone. Jamesallain85 (talk) 14:02, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

I'm harassing you? That's rich. Yes "There are multiple bibliography entries" all of which are referred to in the page, whereas yours aren't. Your edit summary at 13:48 said "They are not yet referenced in the page." so what's taking you so long to do that?

Do you know what a bibliography is? Because works listed in a bibliography do not need to be directly cited. Jamesallain85 (talk) 14:10, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

No you are the one who clearly doesn't know what a bibliography is. The bibliography is the books referred to in the page, if they're not directly referred to in the page then they're further reading. So are you going to what what you said you were going to do at 13:48, i.e. actually reference them? If not then delete them or I will. Mztourist (talk) 14:50, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

Birth

Birth certificates less than 125 years from birth are restricted in Dallas County, Alabama. I called their office this AM and spoke to a woman there. I asked her if she could just verify the birthday and I would not need the BC. She said she could not provide that information. We will need to find another avenue. One needs to be a relative or authorized to obtain a birth certificate. I will keep looking at other ways to confirm a birth date. Lightburst (talk) 17:22, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Wow cool, thanks for that. He had a number of brothers and sisters, but they are likely all deceased, leaving nieces and nephews as a remote possibility. If he was born 1916 that would free up records in 2041, 20 years from now. -- GreenC 18:34, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Not sure why his Bday is so hard to find. I wonder if his BC name is different. I will look into relatives. With George L. Knox II I was able to get news clippings from his brother and granddaughter. Lightburst (talk) 18:58, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Because he's not notable, that's why. A notable person's birthday would be known. Mztourist (talk) 04:22, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

Category:Year_of_birth_unknown or Category:Year of birth uncertain. This would be in the "uncertain" category since we have 1912 and 1916 in various sources. It's a common circumstance. We should have another category for "year of birth wrong" because that is also very common (someone did a study once and found how frequent the problem is on Wikipedia). Getting DOB is often not obvious or easy. Not even the US military put a DOB on his grave marker. And then you got Jim Crow voter suppression tactics: "Older adults born in rural areas or during Jim Crow may have never gotten a birth certificate, a requirement for obtaining a government ID", in order to vote. -- GreenC 05:14, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

Availability of a birth certificate or published birth date has nothing to do with notability. It is an adventitious fact. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 11:48, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

If someone is notable such basic facts are known. Mztourist (talk) 14:09, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

Not really: Category:Year of birth unknown (22,513), Category:Year of birth uncertain (9,558), Category:Date of birth unknown (1,716) -- GreenC 15:13, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

Do you have a source for your statement that: "If someone is notable such basic facts are known." Or are we to take your word for it. Ipse dixit doesn't apply. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 15:31, 9 October 2021 (UTC)

If someone is notable then basic biographical details about them should be readily available. Its WP:COMMONSENSE. Mztourist (talk) 03:27, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

It's also common sense that your assertion is simply not true: Category:Year of birth unknown (22,513), Category:Year of birth uncertain (9,558), Category:Date of birth unknown (1,716) -- GreenC 03:36, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

How many of those were born in the 1910s or later? Mztourist (talk) 03:41, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

Ok, specifics. That's a good point. As noted above, poor rural black people from the south often had no birth certificate as this was one way the system kept them from voting, what their true birth date might be unknown. With Ross, we see reliable sources giving both 1912 and 1916, and the military has no birth date. I settled on 1912, but am thinking of redoing with both dates, since they are reliable sources. -- GreenC 04:00, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

So after I point out the flaw in your lists, you accept the point... right. I don't see how there can be reliable sources with a 4 year difference in birth date. Mztourist (talk) 04:05, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

You are right, struck. There are people in the categories from the 20th century - what's your point again? I'm not sure what your position because before it was "If someone is notable such basic facts are known", but then it was only for 20th century people, but even that is a flawed position because the lists have 20th century people. -- GreenC 04:38, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

If someone is notable, particularly in the 20th century, basic biographical details such as date of birth should be readily available. The page has 31 refs but we don't know his date of birth and you say that there are RS for both 1912 and 1916. That is my point. Mztourist (talk) 04:44, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

DOB are often not so simple. I linked a source above that said it wasn't uncommon for blacks in Jim Crow states in early 20th century to not have a birth certificate and thus determining their true birth date is a problem for researchers; and possibly even he lied about his age to get into school when he moved to Ohio, IMO that would explain a few things. People would also lie about their age to get into the military, creating parallel realities of how old they are. We may never know his true birth date until his records are released in 20 years, assuming they exist, or we get a better confirmation from his relative (whose email is available). -- GreenC 04:56, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

Where is there any suggestion that "he lied about his age to get into school when he moved to Ohio"? If his family moved north in the "late 1920s" he would have been anywhere between 11 and 16 years old. If he was born in 1912 he would be 28 in 1940, if he was born in 1916 he would be 24 in 1940 so your comment about people lying about their age to get into the military is clearly of no relevance. Mztourist (talk) 05:44, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

First you speak in generalities ("if someone is notable"), then you speak in specifics about Ross. When generalities are addressed you pivot back to talking about Ross, and when Ross is spoken of, you go back to generalities. So which is it, all notable people (in the 20th century) should have DOB available, and/or Ross should? Because these are different conversations that will raise different things. -- GreenC 15:40, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

I said that his birth date wasn't known because he wasn't notable as birth dates of notable people should be known. You then gave three lists of people who have pages lacking birth dates. When I queried how many of those were from the 1910 or later you pivoted and asked me what my point was. I reiterated it and you then offered up a variety of reasons why Ross's birthdate might not be known including theories which I proceeded to discredit. You are now wikilawyering about whether I'm talking about Ross or whether all notable 20th century people should have a birth date available. I reiterate my original point, if Ross was truly notable his birth date would be known, because notable people have significant coverage that would include such detail, whereas Ross' coverage is a collection of passing mentions and recycled information, with none of the writers bothering to find out this most basic fact. Mztourist (talk) 03:28, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

Your opinion is yours to have but it's probably a minority since we can determine, generally speaking, notable people in the 20th C. have unknown/uncertain/contested DOB, plus for people like him there are valid reasons that an early 20th century black man from rural Alabama could be uncertain. As for Ross specifically, there is a recent, reliable, research-based source for June 12, 1912. I went back and checked old diffs where 1916 came from and found Find-A-Grave ie. unreliable; leaving an uncontested reliable source for 1912. -- GreenC 17:36, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

What is this "recent, reliable, research-based source for June 12, 1912"? Mztourist (talk) 03:04, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

I posted a while back at WP:REGEX for a copy of:

Graham, Sonja (June 2008). "Dallas County's Red Tail Eagle, Tuskegee Airman Captain Mac Ross". Journal of the Black Belt African American Genealogical and Historical Society. 1 (2): 22–23.

..and it sat unanswered for a long time, assumed never to be found online. But today User:Mdaniels5757 found and sent a copy! The first paragraph gives detailed information about his early life, including a DOB June 12, 1912. Mdaniels5757 can confirm. I think this source has high reliability as a journal that specializes in genealogical history, and the amount of detail in the article shows the author did a lot of research. -- GreenC 02:02, 9 October 2021 (UTC)

Just a brief comment from me. I understand Mztourist's point, but I don't agree that lack of a known DOB means not notable (lots of notable people don't have known DOBs, though that is admittedly much less common for 20th century American people than in other times and places). But my main concern is Lightburst's digging for birth records to try and confirm a claim made in a Wikipedia article. While done in WP:Good Faith, it flies 100% in the face of the WP:Original Research policy. The actual birth certificate is a WP:PRIMARY source document and thus, if used at all, must be used carefully. That said, since it is not publicly available (and held in an archive) it doesn't truly count as published, which is a key requirement for any source cited in a Wikipedia article. Even if you could get that info out of the records person, it's not like you can cite "Personal interview with Dallas County Register of Deeds, October 2021". And I doubt the community would really approve of going into archives to try and gather source material (aside from things that were published in the past, like old newspaper articles). Birth records are essentially private and/or internal administrative documents. Sometimes they can be wrong, too! If this were a borderline notable WP:BLP, we could get in some serious trouble for violating someone's privacy. Let's just stick with what the already published sources say and, when in doubt, leave it out. -Indy beetle (talk) 03:41, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

User:Indy beetle Not true regarding BCs. Some states allow anyone to obtain a birth certificate from a non-relative. California for instance: In California, anyone with the right information can request an informational copy or abstract of a birth certificate. In Texas, for example, birth records are kept private for 75 years after the citizen’s birth. Regarding primary documents? They are not forbidden - sometimes we use company websites and autobiographies of notable subjects. For a birth certificate of course, we can cross reference that date once known, with other sources. There is the spirit of the law and the letter of the law regarding OR. I am sure we are on opposite sides of that dichotomy. Lightburst (talk) 16:17, 11 October 2021 (UTC)