Talk:Thomas J. White

A fact from Thomas J. White appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 22 December 2020 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that Thomas J. White estimated that he gave more than $75 million to charity after resolving "to die as close to penniless as possible"?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2020/December. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Thomas J. White.

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DYK nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Yoninah (talk) 16:46, 13 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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... that Thomas J. White estimated that he gave more than $75 million to charity after resolving "to die as close to penniless as possible"?

Reviewed: Chori Chori Chupke Chupke

Created by Coffeeandcrumbs (talk). Self-nominated at 06:46, 5 December 2020 (UTC).[reply]

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
Cited: Interesting:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: Gog the Mild (talk) 11:38, 5 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Good work, but neither the article nor the source support the hook; both state that the amount is an estimate, and White's own at that. The source adds "the total is difficult to gauge". The hook, which is fine in principle, needs amending appropriately, as does the article's lead. Gog the Mild (talk) 11:38, 5 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- @Gog the Mild:, I have modified both. I believe the Boston Globe is actually saying the amount is actually bigger because it may not account for everything he has given away. He used to walk around with stacks of $20s and $100s all the time and give them away to strangers everywhere he went. Bending the Arc, a 2017 documentary, says that late in his life when he was almost out of money, he told Partners In Health to use his home as collateral to take out a loan. I am fairly certain he actually died almost penniless.--- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 22:53, 5 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Cheers. Good to go. Gog the Mild (talk) 23:02, 5 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Why?

Not intending to mock Thomas White, but why does he have his own article? Aside from having amassed what was probably sixty to seventy times more wealth than my grandfather, he is certainly no more notable. My grandfather had a national impact in the industry of his vocation, as broad and apparently more direct involvement in philanthropic efforts, and joined the Navy during WWII. But there is nothing about him notable to the public. Probably the most notable thing about White is his connection to Brigadier General Maxwell Taylor. But then, how man other brigadier generals' aides make it into Wikipedia? Again, no judgement nor disrespect, but I'm curious as to what justifies the existence of this article. Jyg (talk) 10:17, 22 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]