The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus.  Sandstein  07:02, 16 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Antulio Segarra[edit]

Antulio Segarra (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)
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It's well-written and well-referenced, but verifiability is not the same thing as notability. The claim for notability here is that he was the first Puerto Rican to achieve a certain military rank. No matter how well-referenced the assertion, I just don't think that's enough to meet WP notability standards. Compare this to a little-known military figure who actually is notable, such as Frederick Funston, who captured Aguinaldo and tried to keep San Francisco from burning down after the 1906 quake--that is notability. I just don't think Antulio Segarra has it. Qworty (talk) 19:40, 8 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, your argument is self-contradictory. WP:NOTABILITY has five points in its guidelines, of which this article meets at least three ("Reliable", "Sources" and "Independent of the subject"). - Caribbean~H.Q. 21:32, 8 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

1. The nominator failed to notify the creator of the article of his/her intentions.

2. The nomination creates a misconception that the article and the AfD is about a person who reached the rank of Colonel, which per se would not be notable and thereby influence "delete" votes on said misconception. The article clearly states in it's introduction the following: "Colonel Antulio Segarra (January 20, 1906 - September 14, 1999), was a United States Army officer who in 1943 became the first Puerto Rican in history to command a Regular Army Regiment. Segarra served as Military Aide to the Military Governor of Puerto Rico Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. and during World War II commanded the 65th Infantry Regiment." Antonio Martin (talk) 07:11, 9 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • You are putting words in my mouth to falsely accuse me of bad faith. Please read the nomination again. The word "colonel" never appears in it. The term used is a "certain military rank." I had no intention of obfuscating the fact that he "commanded the 65th Infantry Regiment," because that fact is itself not notable. Are we now to have 64 articles on the commanders of the 1st through 64th Infantry Regiments? Articles on every aide-de-camp to territorial governors? That is why Segarra is not notable. I'm all for including more articles about notable people from underrepresented ethnic groups, but first the individual has to do something that is notable. Where is the threshold here? The first person of such-and-such a group to command a squad? Nobody who has voted yes has demonstrated where that line is drawn. Nor has it been demonstrated what level of bureaucrat, military or otherwise, who has worked under a territorial governor is notable. I would hazard that exactly zero of them is notable. Instead what we have is the name "Theodore Roosevelt" thrown around, as though an extremely tenuous--so tenuous as to not exist--relationship to a U.S. President will confer notability. Notability is not conferred simply because someone works in a non-notable capacity for the son of a former President. What's next, the first member of such-and-such a group to become a high-school principal? Being a high-school principal is itself not notable, so it doesn't matter who becomes one; in the same way, since being the commander of a regiment is in itself not notable, it doesn't matter who becomes one. Qworty (talk) 15:47, 9 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • False analogy. Being the first to climb Mount Everest is notable, as there can be only one such person and Mount Everest is itself notable; however, being a regimental commander and an aide-de-camp are not in themselves notable. Clearly, being a regimental commander and a minor military bureaucrat are not the equivalent of being the first person to climb Mount Everest. Would an article on the first Puerto Rican to climb Mount Everest survive AfD? I doubt it. Qworty (talk) 17:04, 9 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No more false than your "high school principal" analogy. Given the long and well-documented history of legal discrimination against ethnic minorities in the United States, it should be clear to reasonable people that often overcoming such entrenched barriers is no less notable than climbing Mount Everest, perhaps doing it under sniper fire. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 17:51, 9 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The article does not assert that Segarra suffered discriminatory abuse in the U.S. military, much less that he suffered such abuse and then challenged it, or that he became an internationally recognized test case, such as James Meredith at the University of Mississippi. If you have evidence of what you're saying, by all means present it and cite it according to WP:RS and WP:V. If you find such evidence, and perhaps attendant press coverage, he would then be notable, of course. For all we know, Segarra achieved his promotions by catering to the white-male power structure that dominated the U.S. Army at that time, rather than by challenging it and becoming the target of racist threats and ridicule, as Meredith was. In fact, given the pervasiveness of institutionalized racism at the time, the former is much more likely than the latter. Either way, notability on the basis of discrimination must be documented, not merely asserted. Qworty (talk) 18:13, 9 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. Verifiability is not the same thing as notability. See WP:REDFLAG. I haven't seen a single source that says that Segarra received press attention or scholarly attention for being the first Puerto Rican to command a regiment. It is an extraordinary claim to suggest that he received this journalistic or scholarly attention, and it would require specific sourcing to verify it. The reason the sources don't exist is because it never happened--he never became a test case. The sources show that he received only incidental attention for being a regimental commander, and no attention whatsoever for breaking an ethnic barrier. To combine two unrelated facts--being Puerto Rican and being a regimental commander--to create something that is unsourced for notability ("first Puerto Rican regimental commander") is nothing more than WP:OR. Qworty (talk) 19:14, 9 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Not a single acceptable source here. Have a look at the significant coverage criterion for notability at WP:GNG: "Significant coverage" means that sources address the subject directly in detail, and no original research is needed to extract the content. Significant coverage is more than a trivial mention. The argument for the notability of Antulio Segarra is that he was the first Puerto Rican to become a regimental commander. However, not a single one of the six sources proffered satisfies the "significant coverage" required for this assertion. In fact, five of the sources given do not even mention his being the first Puerto Rican regimental commander. To wit:

The first source given [1] is nothing more than a message-board exchange between the article's author and another individual. As such, it does not constitute WP:RS; instead, it is WP:OR. In any case, it does not state that Segarra was the first Puerto Rican regimental commander or that he received significant (or any) journalistic or scholarly attention for being such.
The second source given [2] is the only source that even mentions that Segarra was the first Puerto Rican regimental commander, but even this is only a website and therefore does not satisfy WP:RS. In any case, this one mention is not "significant coverage" as required by WP:GNG. And, of course, it does not state that Segarra received significant (or any) journalistic or scholarly attention during his lifetime or afterward.
The third source given [3] is the same website and mentions only that Segarra was a commander, nothing more.
The fourth source given [4] is a webpage that does not even mention Segarra!
The fifth source given [5] mentions only that Segarra was a troop commander. In any case, the source is a vanity-press book produced by the notorious iUniverse, which means that there were no editorial standards employed, and no fact-checking whatsoever. Vanity-press and self-published books fail WP:BK, WP:SELFPUB, and WP:RS.
The sixth source given [6] merely states that Serrago was buried.

Thus, there is nothing whatsoever in any of the sources that constitutes the "significant coverage" as required by WP:GNG, nothing that states that Segarra received significant (or any) journalistic or scholarly attention during his lifetime or afterward for being "the first Puerto Rican regimental commander." Instead, what we have here is WP:OR, with the "notability" arising from nothing more than the article editor's conflation of the fact that Segarra was Puerto Rican AND a regimental commander, very weakly supported by a single webpage reference that he was the first Puerto Rican in that position. This is not, by any stretch of the imagination, what notability verification or "significant coverage" are all about. What we need is something like a newspaper article from 1943 that says "first Puerto Rican becomes regimental commander," or a legitimately published series of books that tell us the same thing. Qworty (talk) 20:23, 9 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment. Thanks for the links, which I've now had the chance to review. I scoured the first one Army remembers All-Hispanic regiment several times, but am unable to find Segarra mentioned anywhere on that page. Are you sure that is the correct URL? I was surprised when I opened the second link Commands by Col, Villahermosa, because it is one that has already been identified as problematic. See WP:SPS. If Segarra were in fact the first Puerto Rican regimental commander, and if that in itself were a notable fact, than that information should be readily available somewhere other than a personal website. And perhaps it is available elsewhere--but we haven't seen it yet. Either way, the point is a moot one, as is the distinction between a colonel and a regimental commander, since neither one confers notability. How can Segarra be notable for doing something that is not itself notable? That doesn't make sense. As it stands, the entire article is very flimsily supported on a single instance of WP:SPS. I believe that particular guideline is extremely important and should be adhered to as much as possible, since blogs and personal websites can too often be used for purposes of character assassination, and in fact they have been used for those purposes on Wikipedia in the past. It makes me sick whenever I see anything like that and can't get it reverted because there are admins who don't accept the value of the WP:SPS guideline. So it's best just to follow the guideline, recognizing that personal websites are not RS. As for withdrawing the AfD nomination, since nothing new has been presented that supports Segarra's notability as per WP guidelines, we have to wait and see if supporting evidence from RS shows up before the AfD expiration. I've been looking hard, and haven't found anything yet. I assume others are looking too. If the evidence doesn't appear, then the article should be deleted. Qworty (talk) 01:01, 10 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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