User talk:Gnhn

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Tell me . . .

[edit] Thachers

LOL, yeah, I'm trying to sort that out right now in fact. Working on a decent-sized edit to John Boyd Thacher. It appears the first generation of Thachers is basically George Hornell Thacher (1818-1887) who was mayor four different times from 1860-1874(http://www.schenectadyhistory.org/families/hmgfm/thacher.html). The second generation is:

1. John Boyd Thacher (1847-1909), two-time mayor, once in the 1880s, once in the 1890s. Also state senator.
2. George Hornell Thacher (1851-?), businessman, never mayor

The third generation is John Boyd Thacher II (1882-1957) who was the son of the younger George Harnell Thacher and mayor from 1926-1940.

Political graveyard is a pretty unreliable source. I e-mailed the guy once and he even admitted that there are a lot of inaccuracies - and I think he has no plans to fix them. You get what you pay for, right?

Anyway, I'm planning pages on John Boyd Thacher II as well as the elder George Harnell Thacher - but feel free to start them first! I'm also planning on making my sources clear which doesn't seem to be the case with most of the Albany mayoral information.  :) —Wknight94 (talk) 15:33, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Cool, thanks . . . what I can't figure out is whether the EXISTING wiki on JBT is correct, or the same person. Was there ANOTHER one with that name, who was the writer, or was the writer the mayor/senator as well? I pulled the mayoral info about him from the page because the dates shown included some of George H's . . . so it sounds like at least two of those need to go back in. Glad you're on top of it!--Gnhn 15:37, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

The mayoral info in Albany, New York is correct as far as I can tell - at least the Thacher parts. The current John Boyd Thacher article is the same guy that was mayor and state senator. That's what I'm in the process of adding in my other edit window. The mayor which you modified recently in Albany, New York is John Boyd Thacher II who does not yet have an article.

Oh, I didn't even notice you modified the John Boyd Thacher article until now. I think the info you removed was correct. I think the park was named after the elder JBT - at least according to http://www.albanyruralcemetery.org/albrurcem/Notable.html. Do you see somewhere that says the park was named after JBT II? So what I'm doing now will partially revert your edit there. —Wknight94 (talk) 15:43, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

No worries. Revert away! But check the 1880s JBT dates closely . . . aren't there two competing entries one above the other with slightly different dates, one linking to the JBT page, one not? There's also now a gap of no mayor listed for three years afterwards. Maybe I'll see if I can't get a library copy of the "Mayors of Albany" book this week.--Gnhn 15:45, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, you're right. Only one is linked simply because the WP:MOS says you shouldn't link to the same article twice (within reason). But the 1880s entry and the 1890s entry are the same person. Feel free to add a note if that's adding to your confusion. I too noticed that there are gaps through that time period - and I have no idea why. I guess whoever added the list didn't have sources for the whole time period. I'll confess I didn't look for any sources either - I simply saw the Thacher confusion and decided to try to resolve it. Did you have a source saying the younger JBT is the namesake for the park? I've only found one saying the elder one is the namesake - and having only one source doesn't make me real comfortable. —Wknight94 (talk) 15:56, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Here's a source that says JBT the elder's widow donated the land in 1914: http://www.sthubertsisle.com/page115.html I think that certainly makes it more likely that it was named for him, not his nephew.--Gnhn 15:59, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

BTW, I finished by edit of JBT the elder. I stole - I mean "leveraged" - your park source!  :) I also moved this discussion to Talk:John Boyd Thacher. I also created a new category, Category:Mayors of Albany, New York. —Wknight94 (talk) 17:44, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Looks great! Nice work! Now we just have to figure out who the mystery mayors were in the late 19th Century!--Gnhn 18:04, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mayors list

Hey, great job on filling in the list of Albany mayors!  :) What would you think about putting it all into a table? Maybe with the last column left for the comments - or maybe {{ref}} {{note}} pairs for the comments. This is a nice piece of reference for such a historic city. —Wknight94 (talk) 15:02, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! Yeah, I think a table would be wise at this point. My wiki/code skills are pretty rugged at this point . . . will need to play a little to see if I can convert it to tabular form without destroying the page. The Rural Cemetery page has a lot of neat little notes that could loaded in a table format pretty easily without making the page look too busy or hard to follow.--Gnhn 18:40, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

A pretty simple example I added is at World Series#List of modern World Series. It's a peculiar syntax but you get used to it after a while. I'll take a look after work tonight if you don't get to it first.  :) —Wknight94 (talk) 19:56, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Wow! Looks MUCH better! Excellent! I will start filling in some of the comments today as work allows.--Gnhn 11:20, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Ooop! Sorry I deleted the ascii spaceholders in the table . . . I thought they were there because of where I copied that guy's name from, not because you put them there to force the column width. My bad. --Gnhn 14:07, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Heh heh, no problem. I just thought it looked a little better. It looked cheesy elsewhere in that column to have a mayor's roman numeral suffix on a different line than the rest of his name. —Wknight94 (talk) 16:16, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

I contacted the Albany City Historian's Office today to get a copy of the official "Mayors of Albany" book. Should come in handy, given the number of conflicting sources I'm finding online.--Gnhn 13:27, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Please cite sources

Hello, and welcome to Wikipedia! We welcome and appreciate your contributions, such as McPhersonville, South Carolina, but we regretfully cannot accept original research. Please find and add a reliable citation to your recent edit so we can verify your work. Uncited information may be removed at any time. Thanks for your efforts, and happy editing! Can't sleep, clown will eat me 16:11, 4 October 2006 (UTC)