User talk:Ken Gallager/Archive 1

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James Kendall [talk] 20:53, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Project New Hampshire Mountains

Consider joining WikiProject New Hampshire Mountains. You seem interested. -- Sturgeonman 21:47, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Pinkham Notch

Thanks for fixing it up - I sent it for peer review, and I'm gonna try to get it featured. Thanks! -- Sturgeonman 21:29, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

New Hampshire

Why did you take out the footnote about Census districts differeing from town populations, out of the New Hampshire page? I'm not saying you shouldn't have done it, I'm just curious about your reasons - did you think it was unnecessary? misleading? wrong? I assume from your edit history that you're in NH, too. - DavidWBrooks 19:22, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

The italicized note about the various town populations was one that I had put on probably a year or more ago, when there were some problems with the list -- users were listing the Census Designated Place population of Derry and the other towns and not realizing that they weren't including the populations for the entire towns. Looking at the list now, I see that the populations are correct and there is no mention anywhere of other portions of the towns that would have smaller populations, so havingt the note there seemed to raise more questions than it answered.

This whole slightly confusing issue would've been avoided if, when I made the original note, I had realized that it should've gone into the discussion section. The town and city populations as listed now are accurate, and therefore my old note seemed to be unnecessary. Do you think there should still be reference to Census Designated Places one way or other? As far as I can tell, people doing the populations now seem to understand the finer points of Census data -- the individual town entries seem always able to distinguish between entire town populations and those for CDPs. Ken Gallager 19:44, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

high points

Hello again. I'm curious where you get your "high point" information for each town; is there an official source, or are you reading it off USGS charts? (I live in Mont Vernon, and I've never heard of Storey Hill, although that doesn't mean it doesnt' exist. Maybe it's inside the satellite tracking station land.) - DavidWBrooks 21:30, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Straight off the USGS maps - the 7-1/2 minute series. If an elevation isn't printed for a summit, I've interpolated - usually half the contour interval. Storey Hill is right on the New Boston line, just west of NH 13. There's also a South Hill just to the north in New Boston and a McCollum Hill just to the south. All three make up more or less a single mass with multiple summits.

Background note: through my work at the NH Office of Energy and Planning, I have recently been designated the state contact for the federal Board of Geographic Names. I'm finding that there's often some variation between the names that get on the USGS maps and the names the residents are aware of. There is a process, available at the BGN website, that lets people update the names that appear on the maps. Ken Gallager 15:21, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Have you considered putting mountain elevations in meters as well as feet -- especially for New Hampshire summits above sea level? --Hugh Manatee 22:48, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, will hack away at it little by little. Ken Gallager 19:45, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Done. Ken Gallager 19:37, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Hey, I know you!

Looking through old science columns of mine, writing for the Nashua Telegraph, I think I talked to you back in 2003 about the length of New Hampshire's coastline! (I'm going to revisit the topic soon, hence my hunt through old columns). No wonder you're so wicked knowledgeable! - David Brooks DavidWBrooks 19:41, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Aha! So that was you! This seems to be a good venue to get a lot of this geographic info out to people. There are lots of interesting topics to go around. Ken Gallager 12:48, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Are you going to be pointing people to this information as part of your official role? Or maybe suggesting it as a route for public outreach by the state? Or do the (often justified, alas) suspicions about wikipedia's openness make that a no-go, do you think? - DavidWBrooks 19:08, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

It certainly has lots of potential as a very inexpensive vehicle for public outreach. At the same time, I sort of fell into using this site when I saw areas that needed fixing up (the list of rivers, duplicate articles for unincorporated communities up north, etc.). It's not going to replace official state publications, but since the place gets so much use, I feel like we have to keep an eye on it and help it along. Ken Gallager 19:32, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Hey, I know you too!

When'd you get a wikipedia account, Dad? Your Son 20:14, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Sugar River

I reverted your changes to the Sugar River disambiguation page. The Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages) specifically states: Each bulleted entry should, in almost every case, have exactly one navigable (blue) link. Including more than one link can confuse the reader; including no links at all makes the entry useless for further navigation. Sorry. -Freekee 01:27, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Judging from the disambiguation pages I've seen, somebody has a lot of work to do... Ken Gallager 16:29, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Cold River, NH

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Rivers for direction for proper naming of streams.

• If no other page exists in Wikipedia for another stream of the same name, just use the stream name. Example: "stream a"
• If Wikipedia pages exist for other streams of the same name, then clarify by state. Example: "stream a (Montana)"
• If Wikipedia pages exist for other streams of the same name in the same state, then clarify by the body of water it feeds. Example: "stream a (stream b)"
  • Clarification is not done by county. Indeed, there may be instances of multiple streams by the same name in the same county.

Gjs238 21:04, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Gjs238 did not accurately portray the naming conventions suggested in the WikiProject_Rivers. Here's what they really say:

• In practice, most rivers needing disambiguation have been identified by the smallest appropriate political entity. So Colorado River and Colorado River (Texas).
• A river can be identified uniquely as a tributary of another river. It should be named with the name of the principal river following in parentheses. So St. Joseph River (Lake Michigan) and St. Joseph River (Maumee River)
• If a river with a shared name empties directly into a lake or definable sea, then the name of that body of water could follow in parentheses, as in Jordan River (Dead Sea).
• Failing that, the name of the continent could follow in parantheses, as in Rio Grande (North America).

Note that the Rivers project doesn't require one way of naming (political entity) or the other (principal water body). Ken Gallager 16:36, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Maine Rivers

I've noticed you making many improvements to the Maine Rivers articles. I have all the old articles on watch from when I went through and added the flow gage data. This is obviously an underworked on list of articles, as you saw when you added redlinks and tributaries to List of Maine rivers. Thanks for working in the trenches like this! GRBerry 02:20, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

It was a fun project to put together starter pages for all the New Hampshire rivers that were over 10 miles long. If they spilled over into Maine, I added them to the Maine lists as well. It would be interesting to continue the project into Maine at some point. Ken Gallager 14:05, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

New Hampshire high points

Hi, Ken. I've noticed that you added some information to some NH towns/cities regarding highest elevations in towns (or maybe I'm misremembering -- if so, let me know). I was wondering -- if a town has an unnamed high point, is there some way to go about encouraging people to adopt a name for the hill? Would you approach town government, the local newspaper, or whatnot? I see that USGIS suggests that local use is the most important criterion for adoption of new place names. And that if named after a person that person must be dead 5+ years. Sounds like a great opportunity to add a little color to some of our NH towns and perhaps name these points after a hometown hero or historical figure. I was curious what you thought. Isoxyl 20:01, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Hi Isoxyl -- The way to go about proposing a name for a high point is via the federal Board on Geographic Names. If you follow the "Domestic Names" link, you can "Propose or Change a Name", using an on-line form. (I gave you a link to the BGN home page in case you want to explore the site a bit.) Take a look at the form and see what sort of info they're looking for. Local support for a new name, or evidence for local use of an existing name that hasn't made it into the BGN database, are the things that will make a name proposal successful. Once they receive a naming proposal, they send it out to all sorts of people on their contact list for comment, including the town and county governments, state agencies, and any tribal groups that are in the area. So to build that support, I'd start with some of the town governing boards -- the selectmen, the conservation commission, the historic commission if there is one, maybe the planning board -- and see what type of response you get. Good luck! Ken Gallager 14:02, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Ken! Much appreciated. I will see what I can get started when I have a minute to put something together. All the best! Isoxyl 14:19, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

coastline

Hey, Ken - when you get a chance, give me a call at the Telegraph (594-5831) or email (dbrooks -at - nashuatelegraph.com); I want to pick your brains again about the state coastline length for a reprise! - DavidWBrooks 19:14, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks on Mt Sunapee!

Ken, many thanks on your edits for the Mt Sunapee article, I do hope you'll help keep an eye on it, hoping to flesh that out some more over time! -- Protocoldroid 21:46, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

And thank you for starting it! That was a red link that had been on my "get around to it at some point" list for a long while. --Ken Gallager 13:34, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

question for Ken

i wanted to use a pic of lake solitude for the mount sunapee page. i have two shots both taken by me. one has children in it which adds a lot of realty to the picture. the children are some of my grandchildren who live outside of new hampshirel. i would prefer to use the pic w the grandchildren but do not want to violate at wiki rules. \

what sayeth you?

the pics are at Image:LakeSolitude.jpg and Image:LakeSolitudeHikers.jpg

joe 20:38, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Hi Joe -- I would say use whichever photo you think best. As long as they're your own photos, you're not violating anyone's copyright. Just read the fine print on the Image Upload Form for any special caveats. --Ken Gallager 13:32, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Maine sites in New England

We are in the process of defluffing the New England "Notable Places" section to make it shorter and more about New England as an aggregate. Unfortunately, people on wikipedia live in every state in New England and therefore want their own state covered better. This has resulted in lengthy section out of what was a few sentences. It now seems that Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Maine all have sandy beaches and great shorelines. Our solution is to have a forum on the New England talk page and come up with essential sites we all agree on. Feel free to contribute there for input into the overhaul of the section.--Loodog 02:48, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Mount Sunapee Beach picture

Ken; thanx for the edits; i have not been spell checking, etc. i am always late doing that. you are doing a fine job making the article read better.

re the picture; i am happy to do whatever you want. i actually wanted to add a better picture of the beach, which i will take in the next few days, when it stops raining, to both lake sunapee, mt sunapee and maybe even newbury.

the beach is actually part of mt sunapee state park, even though it is across the traffic circle. were you aware of that??

you can make the final call, let me know what is best. joe 14:34, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Hi again. You're right about "Mt. Sunapee" being the name of the state park, even for the beach part. I had to double-check that, because I've always thought of it as "Sunapee Beach". Nevertheless, because (1) the beach is separated from the mountain by Route 103; and (2) there's such a good article about Lake Sunapee, I think the beach picture and most of the details about the beach would make more sense being in the lake article. Perhaps there could be a quick mention of the beach in the mountain article, since the beach is part of the park named after the mountain. --Ken Gallager 14:42, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

OK, give me a few days to change it. i will try to get a new picture today. joe 15:33, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Barnstar Award

File:Interlingual Barnstar.png		The Geography Barnstar
		I award you this barnstar for your fine work on articles on American geography, including the work on Maine rivers work I noted above and work on the geography of the Appalachian mountains that I am seeing today. GRBerry 17:58, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Percentage of water in towns

Hi, Ken,

Thanks much for fixing my mistakes on Claremont and Clarksville. I guess I should read the sentences when I make minor edits <sheepish grin>

I noticed you have some knowledge about NH geography <understatement>... I wonder if you wouldn't mind going through NH towns and checking my town elevations in the InfoBoxes? I took my data from GNIS, but I noticed that the data seemed a bit skewed - every conversion from feet to meters came out to the closest meter. For instance, there were towns at 571 ft (~!74 m), but not 572 or 573. That made me suspicious about it's accuracy.

Thanks again! -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 14:03, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Hi there, No problem on the minor word changes for Claremont and Clarksville. Actually, I think those happened when the Smackbot ran through there a few months ago. I've been enjoying seeing the updates you've been making to all of the towns, and just ran across those two fixes because I wanted to reread the town high point sentences. That's a good idea about the town elevations; I'll try to take a look at them when I get a chance. (I'm sure seeing your steady updates every day will remind me...) See you, --Ken Gallager 14:19, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Interesting - per our conversation above: Template_talk:Infobox_City#Elevation -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 16:59, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that is interesting. For most towns in New Hampshire, it's pretty easy to decide where to read the elevation: it's the crossroads at the center of town, or the town hall or something similar. I think that's generally what other maps or atlases use when they list a city's elevation; figuring out some sort of average is beyond most people's capabilities and might not be that revealing. As it is, we do have high points listed for all the NH towns (though not low points). -- Ken Gallager 17:05, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Midwest Aquifer Lake Sunapee

You got me! I am not sure of a source other than people. It has been said so many times in the past 20 years that I just assumed it as gospel. Maybe we should put an unknown surce for the time being. --or a need citation. I will find it. The cold springs is for real and is a big surce of water. But i will talk with the folks from LSPA and get it clarified. joe 16:57, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

yes, i need to clarify the source, because i have quoted the midwest so many times. joe 17:13, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Allegheny Front and Allegheny Mountains

I just destubbbed Allegheny Front, which was previously unreferenced. It doesn't play well with Allegheny Mountains, which is completely unreferenced, because they conflict on some facts. I also believe that I didn't add enough states to cover the full extant of the front, but I couldn't find a good source. Can you take a look at these and help sort out the mess? Thanks. GRBerry 03:31, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

hi

hi-Zadsat 19:00, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Move requests

I noticed you made a series of move requests, but did not create discussion/survey sections on the corresponding talk pages. Please do so per the instructions at the top of the move requests page. Thanks! --Serge 00:00, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Along similar lines, you might want to check out WP:MOVE#Moving over a redirect. If you want to move article A to article B but article B is taken, you can still do the move if B is a redirect to A and has only one edit in the history. It's called a "move over redirect". Several of your NH mountain article moves met those criteria so you could have done them yourself. Let me know if you have any questions. —Wknight94 (talk) 01:37, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

This edit

Please read Wikipedia:Redirect#Don't fix links to redirects that aren't broken. Thank you. --NE2 12:19, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

By now, you have seen this message; why have you not stopped? --NE2 12:25, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Nashua River

• I added an infobox to the Nashua River entry. It was correct. You edited Merrimac River to use an older spelling, Merrimack River. Since both are correct, I don't think the change was appropriate. Just because there was a redirect, doesn't mean the reference was incorrect. The major purpose of a redirect is to handle different spellings of the same item. FYI, I live on the Merrimac River. I certainly know how to spell it. LymanSchool 12:36, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Hi LymanSchool, I'm going to change the infobox in Nashua River back to Merrimack River for two reasons: 1. That's how it's officially recognized by the federal Board on Geographic Names ( go to their web site, click on "Query GNIS: U.S. and territories", then enter "Merrimac River", and you'll see what I mean), and 2. It's already been discussed and resolved on the Wikipedia Merrimack River page. I realize a lot of people in Massachusetts prefer the spelling with no k, but "Merrimac" is still the variant, not the official name. Thanks for putting the box together, though. --Ken Gallager 12:43, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Oh sorry, I didn't realize you hadn't edited it yet. --Ken Gallager 12:44, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

• Don't tell the folks in Merrimac, Massachusetts on the Merrimac River that they have been spelling their town name incorrectly! This whole discussion is absurd and is a demonstrated example of arrogance. I would suggest that it is entirely inappropriate to change something that is correct to something that is your personal preference. LymanSchool 12:55, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

You're right, Merrimac, Massachusetts is spelled without a "K". That is also recorded in the GNIS. --Ken Gallager 13:00, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Winnipesaukee

Hi, Ken,
Recently (Oct 5) someone removed the statement that "Lake Winnipesaukee is the sixth largest natural lake entirely within US borders." I know you have resources related to rivers - do they extend to lakes? Can you check that fact out? See the Winni talk page for more info.
Thanks! -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 01:37, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Londonderry name origins

Hi Ken, Thanks for the positive feedback on the Londonderry, New Hampshire article and its name origins. I think we just needed to come to an understanding that while the name dispute in Northern Ireland is important, insofar as N.H. is a far different place, we can be assured that while a knowledge of the current city's name might be important to some, what is more important is how that name relates to the name of the town in N.H. (at least for THIS article!). So, thanks -- I just wanted to come to an amicable solution. Isoxyl 21:54, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Linking to disambiguation pages

I noticed that you reverted this edit I made to the Albany, New York page here. I have changed it back. The reason I made that edit was to help in fixing acciental links to the Albany page. The Wikipedia:Disambiguation page section on "Links to disambiguation pages" has more information about this. Thanks. Khatru2 08:01, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

The Wikipedia:Disambiguation page says under "Links to disambiguation pages" the following:

"To link to a disambiguation page (instead of a specific meaning), link to the redirect to the disambiguation page that includes the text "(disambiguation)" in the title (such as, America (disambiguation)). This helps distinguish accidental links to the disambiguation page from intentional ones."

Most of the links that point to "Albany" are accidental, so the ones that are actually meant to point there are linked to the page with the disambiguation suffix so that they are removed from the "What links here" list. I hope this helps. Khatru2 18:13, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Isabel Weld Perkins

Thanks for catching some errors on my new Isabel Weld Perkins article. I've done over a dozen articles about the Weld Family and related topics lately -- ever ading more detail and trying to connect all the facts -- and I think my ability to self-proofread has suffered. I am sure there are many typographical errors among them...but at least I'm pretty sure there are few if any factual errors. Thanks again. ◄HouseOfScandal►13:33, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

List of Haunted Locations

Hi.

I see you removed the Sunnyvale Toys R Us from the list of haunted locations saying it's "clearly a joke".

First of all, that's the problem with having an entierly unreferenced list like that; there's no way to tell what's a joke and what isn't. I've been thinking about slapping a template on that list for a while, but have been too lazy to do so.

At any rate; the Toys R Us entry wasn't a joke. I remember watching a thing about it on television a number of years ago. The store was built on farmland where some deaths had taken place; hence the haunting. I'll try to dig up some references for that and a few of the other more obscure things on the list. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)} 19:26, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Hi - My apologies about the Sunnyvale deletion. Somehow a poorly-dressed guy rooting around in the aisles of a Toys R Us doesn't strike me as a typical haunting! I'll be interested to see what you can find. Ken Gallager 19:30, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

List of high schools in New Hampshire

Hi, Ken!

Couple of questions for you regarding this list - which we were both editing at the same time, btw :)

1. I was thinking the list would be better suited to the average reader if it were alphabetized by school name rather than by county, then school name. In NH, anyway, counties are rather ... redundant? Superfluous? Under-utilized? In any case, most people seem to be attached more to a town or city than to a county. Growing up here, I couldn't even have named them! However, upon looking at the lists for other states, I see they are all organized by county. In any case, I've put together a test listing in the way I was thinking of doing it. Your thoughts?
2. According to both the Dept of Ed and school's own website, "The White Mountain School" is really the "White Mountain School". I'll make a note on the talk page for the school and will probably pursue a AfD move, but wondered what you thought.

Thanks, and talk to you soon! -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 03:25, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Hi there -- That's a much nicer looking list than the current one. I think you're right about de-emphasizing the counties (though it hadn't occurred to me before, since I use them as mapping units fairly regularly). My one question would be about the horizontal line every 5 schools: it looks good, but how do you think the list would look if you used a line to mark each new letter instead? Maybe it'll look worse that way, but I just expect some people (like me) will be scratching their heads for a moment about the significance of the lines in their current configuration. However, I'll go for looks over meaning if the table looks bad with unevenly-spaced lines.

I'd say go ahead and change the White Mountain School article's title. I found that the school uses "The" occasionally, but not in the most important places (their logo, their contact info, etc.). Just my vote, anyway.

Later, Ken Gallager 10:44, 20 December 2006 (UTC)