Talk:Hunger strike of Larry Hebert

Action needed?

The article has been given a "notability" tag. Am I supposed to do something about this? It seems to me that an active duty soldier who goes on a hunger strike against the government actions is pretty notable, and the sources listed in the references thought so too.

Is there something wrong with the article that I need to fix?

WagePeace (talk) 03:16, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

I can talk more later, but for now I'll just point you at WP:1E. jlwoodwa (talk) 03:27, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

Also, there's an easier way to let editors know about a discussion: see {{ping}}. jlwoodwa (talk) 03:29, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

WagePeace, jlwoodwa, I've been looking for somewhere this can be merged into and I'm honestly not sure, there's no central page afaict for US protests about the conflict in Gaza. There is United States support for Israel in the Israel–Hamas war, which lists protests/strikes/etc. under "Reactions", and Israel–Hamas war protests in the United States. The latter includes a few sentences on Hebert, which could be expanded into a section (this current article is pretty short if you remove the quotes), but that article is very long already.

Re: the BLP1E bit, this article would best be focused on the hunger strike itself rather than Hebert as a person, like with Self-immolation of Aaron Bushnell. At the very least, imo, it should be renamed and reformatted a bit.

WagePeace, the act itself doesn't confer notability: notability is based on coverage, and there really isn't that much. The sources are:

• Primary document made by the subject
• Google doc presumably from Veterans for Peace
• Interview with Democracy Now
• Article in Military.com
• Article in Task & Purpose
• Blog post from Veterans for Peace

The Military.com and Task & Purpose articles are the most important from a notability perspective, but it's still not much. This might be worth moving to a subsection in the US protests article and a line in the "Reactions" section of the US support article. Vermont (🐿️—🏳️‍🌈) 04:03, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

Thank you jlwoodwa and Vermont. I was not previously aware of the one event issue, and it makes sense. It is the hunger strike that is notable. I have changed the article to being about that. Please tell me if there are further changes to make it acceptable. It certainly doesn't have the same level of notability as Aaron Bushnell's self-immolation, but it still does seem notable that an active duty U.S. soldier went on a hunger strike against his government's actions.

WagePeace (talk) 19:01, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

WagePeace, I've moved it to Hunger strike of Larry Hebert, which seems more appropriate given that the coverage is almost exclusively about him, and that articles of this sort are usually "[action] of [person]". I noticed you added mention of four others continuing the strike, though didn't add a source for this. I googled a bit and couldn't find one, can you add the source for that info? Vermont (🐿️—🏳️‍🌈) 21:02, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

Vermont, yes, I realize that that information is based on my personal knowledge and I've reached out to colleagues to ask if there is verification of it somewhere, telling them that if we don't find that, the information might need to be removed from the article. So please give me a couple of days to see what I can find.

WagePeace (talk) 21:08, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

Okay. I'm copyediting it a bit now, hoping to bring it more into an encyclopedic, rather than journalistic, style. I also can't find a source for the end of the hunger strike; a primary source will do for that, if you can find one. Vermont (🐿️—🏳️‍🌈) 21:18, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

Yes, sorry, that statement is the same situation -- my knowledge. My request to colleagues was for references on the statements both about Hebert being called back and about the others who carried on from him.

WagePeace (talk) 21:21, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

WagePeace, I'm reading the Task & Purpose article and realizing that basically all of the actually encyclopedically-relevant bits aren't said in the voice of their publication. E.g., sentences start with "According to Hebert" or "He said...", which implies they didn't fact-check what he said. Fortunately most of these are treated as fact by the Military.com article, but we can't use what Task & Purpose says with a higher level of credibility than they assign to it.

I've finished copyediting, and ended up removing a lot of the content that only had primary sources or wasn't clearly relevant. Vermont (🐿️—🏳️‍🌈) 21:39, 20 May 2024 (UTC)