Talk:David Rabkin

A fact from David Rabkin appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 13 March 2023 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that after anti-apartheid activist David Rabkin was sentenced to prison in South Africa, he gave the courtroom the clenched-fist black power salute?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2023/March. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/David Rabkin.

Wikipedia

Discrimination Low‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Discrimination, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Discrimination on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.DiscriminationWikipedia:WikiProject DiscriminationTemplate:WikiProject DiscriminationDiscrimination articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the importance scale.

Biography

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography, a collaborative effort to create, develop and organize Wikipedia's articles about people. All interested editors are invited to join the project and contribute to the discussion. For instructions on how to use this banner, please refer to the documentation.BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Biographybiography articles

United Kingdom Low‑importance

	United Kingdom portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject United Kingdom, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the United Kingdom on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.United KingdomWikipedia:WikiProject United KingdomTemplate:WikiProject United KingdomUnited Kingdom articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Africa: South Africa Low‑importance

	Africa portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Africa, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Africa on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.AfricaWikipedia:WikiProject AfricaTemplate:WikiProject AfricaAfrica articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.
	South Africa portal This article is supported by WikiProject South Africa (assessed as Low-importance).

Journalism Low‑importance

	Journalism portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Journalism, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of journalism on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.JournalismWikipedia:WikiProject JournalismTemplate:WikiProject JournalismJournalism articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Did you know 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 Cielquiparle (talk) 09:45, 8 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

(

Comment or view
Article history

)

~~... that David Rabkin was an anti-apartheid activist who spent seven years in a South African prison and now has a street named after him in Cape Town?~~ Source: He served seven years of his sentence and was released in 1983. and David Rabkin Street: David Rabkin was a student activist at UCT in the 1970s. He joined Umkhonto we Sizwe and was later exiled. He died in Angola.
- Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Gimix

Created by FlyingKangeroo (talk) and Bruxton (talk). Nominated by Bruxton (talk) at 02:15, 15 February 2023 (UTC). Post-promotion hook changes for this nom will be logged at Template talk:Did you know nominations/David Rabkin; consider watching this nomination, if it is successful, until the hook appears on the Main Page.[reply]

Hi Bruxton (talk), was going to do a full review but a few things initially:
Completed Uncited infobox says he was born in Cape Town but the cited main text only says South Africa.
Completed Infobox also gives a date of death but the main text only says "November 1985"
What makes the MA thesis reliable? Wikipedia:Reliable_sources#Scholarship says "Masters dissertations and theses are considered reliable only if they can be shown to have had significant scholarly influence".

Can you let me know on these before I continue with the review - Dumelow (talk) 12:48, 15 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Dumelow: I made the necessary fixes. Thanks for catching these. Regarding the doctoral thesis I did not cite the thesis in the article, I only listed it in the external links section as an interest. It can be removed if you like. Bruxton (talk) 15:41, 15 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Bruxton, the doctoral thesis is fine. It's the MA thesis cited three times in the main text that I was referring to (Manenze, Jacob. "The Politicization of Funerals in South Africa During the 20th Century (1900-1994)". UPSpace. UPSpace. Retrieved 15 February 2023.). Does it meet the above requirement? - Dumelow (talk) 19:00, 15 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Dumelow: the source is used to state that two people spoke at his funeral, and to name his two children and it states that he served 7 years of a ten year sentence. I am sure I could reference those to other sources: in my mind they are all uncontroversial. I will go about replacing them now. Bruxton (talk) 20:04, 15 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Completed using the Obituary in Sechaba, March 1986 to replace all three. Bruxton (talk) 20:20, 15 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Bruxton, looks fine now. Article new enough, long enough, couldn't find any issues with copyright violation etc. However I struggled to verify the street renaming from the source given. It only states that the renaming was proposed (in 2011), I couldn't find any mention of the street name in a Google search (aside from this article from 2007 also discussing the proposed renaming) and it doesn't appear in a Google Maps search - Dumelow (talk) 08:44, 16 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Dumelow: Thanks for the research about the street. I removed the bit about the street from the article and wrote two new hooks. See if you like them.

ALT1 ... that David Rabkin spent seven years in a South African prison for publishing anti-apartheid pamphlets?
ALT2 ... that after anti-apartheid activist David Rabkin was sentenced to prison in South Africa, he gave the courtroom the clenched-fist black power salute?

Bruxton (talk) 15:49, 16 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Bruxton, looks fine to me. I slightly amended the hook and article from "distributed" to "published" as the latter was the wording used by the force and they aren't quite synonymous - Dumelow (talk) 16:38, 16 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]