Talk:List of African-American inventors and scientists/Archive 1

This is an archive of past discussions about List of African-American inventors and scientists. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

List of black inventors and scientists → List of African-American inventors and scientists — This is regional bias - the article itself goes on to say "This is a list of notable African American inventors and scientists.", so the title should reflect this. Or the opening sentence of the article should be changed.

— superbfc [ talk | cont ] — 09:52, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

As an adjective, "African-American" is hyphenated. I have taken the liberty of adding the hyphen in the proposal above, but if you find this offensive, please revert. Dekimasu よ! 10:01, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

It's not hyphenated in the article text, so that's what I was basing it on, regardless

— superbfc [ talk | cont ] — 10:22, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I have changed it back, cf. also Category:African American inventors and Category:Lists of African Americans

— superbfc [ talk | cont ] — 10:25, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Furthermore, you should not alter someone else's proposal like that. Discuss it below, or start your own proposal. I agree that gramatically a hyphen might be more correct, but I'm using observed usage which is a more convincing rule than a grammar rule which might be out of date. And, BTW, I am an English teacher too.

— superbfc [ talk | cont ] — 22:02, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry to have offended you. Dekimasu よ! 12:37, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Survey

Add # '''Support''' or # '''Oppose''' on a new line in the appropriate section followed by a brief explanation, then sign your opinion using ~~~~. Please remember that this is not a vote; comments must include reasons to carry weight.

Comment. Have no opinion yet, other than if the move goes through, do not forget to then remove Norbert Rillieux from the list, as he is not African-American. --SigPig |^{SEND - OVER} 16:20, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
Support since list seems to only include Americans although I'm not sure if they're all of African descent or not. What is the rationale for this article anyway? — AjaxSmack 02:47, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
Support. The proposed title accurately conveys the scope of the list as constituted. Dekimasu よ! 12:37, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Discussion

Add any additional comments:

The four categories mentioned above that are named incorrectly should be moved via a CfD discussion. That does not negate the fact that this term should be hyphenated, and I would support a move to the hyphenated title. Dekimasu よ! 12:35, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Previously no consensus on mass renaming to hyphenate. Still, it should be hyphenated when used as an adjective as is the case here. –Pomte 18:37, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I agree with the result of that discussion, because those were nouns. All four of the categories mentioned use them as adjectives. Dekimasu よ! 09:17, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

I have added the hyphen, but will also propose/support category renaming of other grammatically incorrect ones. They should either be consistently wrong, or consistently right

— superbfc [ talk | cont ] — 09:35, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

This article has been renamed from List of black inventors and scientists to List of African-American inventors and scientists as the result of a move request. --Stemonitis 06:28, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

why isn't Walter Sammons in this

walter sammons invented the hot comb comeon ladies BLACK WOMEN know what im talkin bout yeah —Preceding unsigned comment added by 167.93.59.82 (talk) 19:46, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Otis Boykin didn't invent the guided missile

OR the pacemaker.

He may have made some contributions to those devices, although this is open to debate. BlackBerryHill (talk) 02:31, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Conversion to timeline?

I was just reading the talk section at Timeline of United States inventions, and it occurs to me that this article could be improved by converting it to a timeline as well.

We'd need to find dates to assign to each achievement, but I think it would be a lot more interesting than alphabetical order.
-- Randy2063 (talk) 21:01, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

From my perspective the listing is becoming a little unwieldy and difficult to use since titles have been included into its first column, and names are sorted by family name but listed in western name order. As a fix, I'd like to propose two improvements:

1) present the names in eastern name order, i.e.: LASTNAME, Firstname(or initials). Thus, Benjamin Banneker would become BANNEKER, Benjamin, and USAF Major Robert Henry Lawrence, Jr. would become LAWRENCE, USAF Major Robert Henry, Jr., helping users to locate people of interest; also

2) change the table type to a sortable table, which would let users sort each field at their convenience. That would allow a 'timeline view', as mentioned above, when sorted by the 'Life' field.

Comments or suggestions? Best: HarryZilber (talk) 22:48, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Why only American blacks?

What about blacks from other places who have invented things? Bad regional bias. 86.173.97.212 (talk) 18:44, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

The title of an article defines the article's scope. If you feel that there should be a similar article for British inventors and scientists of African origin, you are welcome to start one. You need only enter "List of African-British inventors and scientists" (or similar) in the search box, and then click on the red link that is part of "You may create the page: List of African-British inventors and scientists". Best: HarryZilber (talk) 23:29, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Sarah Boone

Did Sarah Boone really obtain a patent for her ironing board improvment in 1892 at the age of 14? This does seem unlikely. Is her year of birth (1878) accurate? Does anyone have any further information? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nimzobob (talk • contribs) 09:33, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

It seems her birth date is not known for sure. [1] says:

There is little known about her and there is conflicting information about her date of birth. Some reports say that she was born on 7th March 1878 and others say 18th May 1867. The latter date is far more likely since the improved ironing board was patented in 1892, making her 14 years old. Considering the complexity of the design and the process of patenting this seems highly unlikely.

I'll modify her entry accordingly. Optimale ^Gu 12:21, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

vandalism

This I.P. inserted garbage into the article. --66.190.69.246 (talk) 05:24, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Full of falsehoods

Numerous lies and Afrocentric myths are present on this page including the long disproven lies about Garret Morgan.

This is really sad and really pathetic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.158.28.97 (talk) 03:34, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

What really is sad is cowardly racists coming here to whine about things that are none of their businesses. 89.152.142.21 (talk) 16:25, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

I am surprised that you're surprised about this! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.18.185.168 (talk) 19:57, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

Why are intentional falsehoods allowed in the article?

Garrett Morgan did not invent the gas mask, not even close, this is a well established fact, yet an obviously bias editor keeps putting his name back in the last after I rightfully remove it, why is that? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.158.28.97 (talk) 12:50, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

We have an article on Garrett Morgan with many citations that clearly shows what he did and did not do. That is why he is in this article. --Dagko (talk) 01:07, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

You have a single article from an Afrocentric website.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_light

Wikipedia itself states who actually created it.

I know you have low self esteem and have to lie about history, but it won't happen on Wikipedia, sorry. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.158.28.97 (talk) 20:36, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

With this comment of yours, you make it sound like blacks disn't contribute anything. History proves that to be false, you bigot. My self-esteem is actaully quite high. B-Machine (talk) 13:56, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

If that was true, you wouldn't need to lie on Wikipedia would you? you wouldn't need to constantly make things up and create fake lists of inventions that you had nothing to do with right?

Pathetic.

--69.158.28.97 (talk) 06:19, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

You're pathetic. In order for me to have a low self-esteem, I would constantly have to put others down and act like I had something to with the creation of, say, the car, even though that was an individual creation and I wasn't alive to take part in it. I would also have to act like my background makes me superior. None of those apply to me and I think highly of myself as a person. But with the way you're acting, it sounds like you have a low self-esteem. B-Machine (talk) 15:38, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

You are a revisionist historian who is trying to lie and manipulate history in order to elevate his particular group over others, you don't get to call other people pathetic.

--Savakk (talk) 21:20, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Why is Garret Morgan on this page?

Garret Morgan had nothing to do with the invention of either the gas mask or the traffic light.

Those inventions are detailed on THIS website along with their actual creators.

Why is this allowed?

--Savakk (talk) 21:19, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

It looks like this was discussed in the section above, with lots of nastiness from multiple users, including yourself. Regardless, from the looks of things, the article asserts that Garrett Morgan invented a traffic signal and a gas mask, not the traffic signal or the gas mask. This seems perfectly accurate, especially in the case of his traffic signal, as supported by the patent drawing. In addition, since Wikipedia is open to editing by anyone, it is not considered a verifiable, reliable source for the purpose of citation, per WP:CIRCULAR. —Josh3580_talk/hist 22:34, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Bashen / strange text

I just removed a first-person edit by an anonymous editor that added a strange quasi-legal notice about affiliation to one of the inventors on this list. See diff. It's not encyclopedic, WP:OR, not cited, etc. But I note it here for reference; there was a similar set of edits on the Janet Emerson Bashen article, which I described at Talk:Janet Emerson Bashen. For the record. --Lquilter (talk) 22:02, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

I Just...wow

I'd ask for a deletion petition on this, but that'll get nowhere. Why are citations on this article allowed from sites that are clearly not credible and have outright lies on them? I mean, Snopes.com is a good starting place for many of these falsehoods.

In the end it's not worth getting into edit wars about this stuff...there are too many true believers here — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.163.48.24 (talk) 18:28, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

Is that you, Savakk? B-Machine (talk) 15:43, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

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