User talk:MattWade/New York

Sports infobox

For the collapsible box on all sports teams in NY would you mind if I made it sortable by column so that with the click of a button one could have all teams listed together by sport, alphabetical by team name, or listed together by city location. Similar to the sortable columns at List of incorporated places in New York's Capital District. It shouldnt affect anything else with the look or feel.Camelbinky (talk) 16:46, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Go for it. I haven't started on that yet and had planned on condensing it down to prose, but I can agree to your plan. upstateNYer 21:16, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

If you want to just make it prose then I'll just not bother. But if you decide you want to keep it let me know, it would only take two seconds for me to put in the sorting ability so it can wait. I'm just eager to get distracted, putting off going back to the town timelines, working on the Southern Tier and it's very tedious work on tiny towns I've never heard of.Camelbinky (talk) 00:01, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

If you want to do the sports, table, by all means have at it. I have a couple great sources for the NY article: The Encyclopedia of New York State (which I got from Amazon for $40—a steal!) and The Empire State. They have great condensed histories as introductions. upstateNYer 02:33, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I had never heard of the Encyclopedia of New York State, I am going to have to see if I can get that same deal! I already own The Empire State, if it is the same book I am thinking of. There's a great book on the history of the City of New York up to 1898 called Gotham, originally intended to be a two-part with 1898 onwards in the second edition (its been quite awhile and I have a feeling that second part is not getting written). It is amazingly in-depth and a huge book, might be worth seeing if you can get another great deal and get it cheap, because a lot of NYC history overlaps state history; and of course Albany features quite a bit especially in the early years with families like the Schuylers, Livingstons, etc and such having a presence down there even though we think of them as being our forefathers up here.Camelbinky (talk) 00:04, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Interested contributors

Please list your name below if you want to help out with the rewrite of the New York article. Thanks for your interest. upstateNYer 18:43, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Interested contributors:
*{{User|Username}} ~~~~

Informal "peer review"

• In the state parks section mention is given of bobcats in the Catskills. Despite tens (perhaps hundreds) of calls each year I believe the official state and federal stance is that the bobcat is completely extinct in the state of NY and probably entirely east of the Mississippi as well.

Lede

• Fort Nassau (North River), being where the Port of Albany is I would say could be better described as being "in Albany" as opposed to "near Albany". Since Albany annexed the area relatively late (mid-late 1920s), many sources will of course use the "near Albany" due to being from before annexation or later sources relying on sources which were before then.
• It is mentioned that New York is sometimes referred to as "New York State"- The Times Union does not capitalize state when saying that phrase (except as part of a wider proper noun such as New York State Teachers Union), I am curious how widespread either form is and if one is more acceptable.
• "...its most populous city is New York City. New York is often referred to as New York State to distinguish it from New York City." New York City is already distinguished from the state by using "City" in its name, perhaps rewriting to "...its most populous municipality is the city of New York. The state is often referred to as New York State to distinguish it from the city which is often referred to as New York City" or something along those lines to make it clear that BOTH the city and the state are named NEW YORK in an official capacity and the use of clarifiers at the end of New York are added to distinguish them from each other.
• What is currently the last paragraph of the lede, which lists main economic engines of regions of NY could easily be expanded with some particular large companies that dominate, either currently or historically, in each region- Eastman Kodak as a driver for the Rochester area for example. Entire lede is unfortunately heavily weighted towards the Hudson Valley and downstate areas which have more in common with each other than with the Western and Central areas.