User talk:Closer1616

Richard Watson Gilder
Hi there, I see you're trying to add content to Richard Watson Gilder. Please remember that content cannot be added without a source, otherwise there is no way of knowing if the information is accurate. GraziePrego (talk) 01:06, 11 September 2023 (UTC)


 * Hi GraziePrego..
 * great grandson of Richard Watson Gilder & wife. It is accurate!
 * thank you! Closer1616 (talk) 02:41, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Please stop deleting our edits!
 * thank you Closer1616 (talk) 02:43, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
 * I will say it again- "Please remember that content cannot be added without a source, otherwise there is no way of knowing if the information is accurate.".
 * Without a source, it is impossible to know if the information you are adding is true. If your only justification is that you are a relative, then that falls under WP:ORIGINAL.
 * "To demonstrate that you are not adding original research, you must be able to cite reliable, published sources that are directly related to the topic of the article and directly support the material being presented."
 * GraziePrego (talk) 03:00, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Nice to meet you! Fairly accurate
 * Page, however, Richard Watson Gilder, and his wife, Helena dekay Gilder had two other children, their daughter, Marion who was the first born Dec1875 died June 1876 @ 6 months.
 * Richard Watson Dekay Gilder jr
 * Born and died December 1880
 * WP:original
 * We are the owners,Four Brooks farm Tyringham, Massachusetts, the Berkshires that is being turned into a museum.
 * children buried with their parents in Bordentown,NJ.cemetery Gilder house Closer1616 (talk) 03:13, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't think you're actually reading what I'm saying. You must have a reliable and citable source to add information to the page. Posting it here does nothing to confirm its accuracy. GraziePrego (talk) 03:43, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
 * I would also advise you to read WP:ORIGINAL, as I think you are misunderstanding what it means. It means that having a personal connection to the subject of the article is NOT a justification for adding unsourced content, and that you are NOT to use "original research". GraziePrego (talk) 03:44, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

Hello Closer1616, I hope to find you doing well. I see that you seem to be trying to add additional children to the list on the article for Richard Watson Gilder. I very much appreciate that you might have some additional information to contribute to the life of Gilder and especially his children (starting with at least their names). But there are at least three problems that you have (apparently accidentally) encountered so far:

1. Your additions have caused formatting errors, and of a rather noticeable and severe kind. I, and others also, can help with the details of this kind of formatting.

2. You need to provide some references for where you have read about these additional people. These references might be books, old newspaper articles, or (hopefully) articles on the web someplace, or (in some cases) video interviews where the information is discussed. Note (like by writing it into a temporary note of some kind) as much information (the meta data) about these sources as you can. Then people, like myself, can help you format those references in order to put them (the references) and the new information itself into the WP article on Gilder.

3. It seems that you were also trying to add a person named (if I can decipher your mangled format correctly) Gilder Palmer as a notable relative of Richard Watson Gilder. There is a person named Gilder Palmer but he was not a descendent of Richard Watson Gilder. Please go over to the Talk page on Talk:Richard Watson Gilder for further discussion of these matters. There are many people who can help you incorporate any new information that you may have, but you need to discuss it with the general editorship on the Talk page first in order to get some help.

Best regards, --L.Smithfield (talk) 05:04, 11 September 2023 (UTC)


 * Hello Closer1616, I have to apologize for a few things. 1) Because your edits were somewhat messed up with the formatting I had not realized that you actually intended to name Reese Denny Alsop Gilder Palmer as a great-grandson. Rather I mistakingly thought that you were trying to refer to a person named Gilder Palmer (my mistake there). Indeed I see that you were correct and that Reese Denny Alsop Gilder Palmer is a great-grandson of Richard Watson Gilder but through a female lineage, through his daughter Helena Francesca de Kay Gilder and her husband Walter Walker Palmer. 2) I think that the person Gilder Palmer is actually the person Richard Gilder "Gilly" Palmer. Can you confirm that? This Richard Gilder "Gilly" Palmer was the son of the daughter (above) Helena Francesca de Kay Palmer (née Gilder). He (this Gilly Palmer) went on to marry the widowed wife, a one Anne Spring Denny Gilder (née Alsop), whose first husband (deceased) was Richard Watson Gilder II (cousin of Gilly). Anne and Gilly went on to have Reese Denny Alsop Gilder Palmer as a son, the son also being the half brother of George Franklin Gilder (the present-day author and economist).
 * Closer1616, you can be very invaluable in documenting this Gilder family. Much of the genealogical information about the people in and around this family has many errors in it and is quite confusing. If you have access to the true facts of this Gilder family (which it seems that you do) that can be quite useful in documenting this family.
 * Closer1616, let us move over to the Talk page of Talk:Richard Watson Gilder and continue this discussion there (for all editors to see and possibly contribute). If you are willing, I would like to help you with getting some documented information into some WP articles, if we can. You can start by giving me a clearer picture about this family. We may not be able to put it all into WP articles because we may not have all of the source documents (newspaper articles and the like) we would need in order to put required references into the WP articles, but we can make a best effort at it. Also, in general only "notable" people can have an article in WP, so many of these above people cannot have articles of their own unless they are pretty much notable in their own right. For example, it is not clear that Reese Denny Alsop Gilder Palmer is actually a notable person, so it may be the case that he would not be able to be listed in an info-box as a great-great-grandson of Richard Watson Gilder, even though he actually is a great-great-grandson. These are WP notability rules that we have to (pretty much) abide by. But the good news is that principal people (like all of the above, I think) who are related to existing notable people who already have WP articles (meaning that they are already considered notable) can be certainly mentioned within the text of these existing articles. So let us continue over on the Talk page Talk:Richard Watson Gilder. I hope to see you there. --L.Smithfield (talk) 10:19, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much for your help with the formatting WP
 * Here is the information you were asking me for The Gilder children
 * of Richard Watson Gilder, and Helen de Kay gilder.
 * Marion dekay Gilder‘s born December 12, 1875 Newport Rhode Island died July 23, 1876 New York six months old
 * Documented in family bible Gilder
 * and dekay family Bible record of births and deaths Closer1616 (talk) 17:37, 12 September 2023 (UTC)
 * I hope that I can help constructively with getting some of this stuff in WP, at least eventually. Your knowledge of the family is invaluable. For example, the two children that died young (Helena Marion and Richard Watson Jr) are hardly mentioned in any biographical article on Richard Watson Gilder that I have seen. So without your confirmation few would ever even know that those were indeed children of this Richard Gilder! In fact as I have mentioned already elsewhere, few of the Gilder children are ever mentioned in most biographical records of this Richard Gilder! Thanks again, --L.Smithfield (talk) 18:24, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

Encouragement and the irony of WP
Hi Closer1616, I have mentioned elsewhere about the errors that have crept into both WP and other biographical records. But I wanted to illustrate a very recent example of an error (with some funny irony) that was made to the very WP article on Richard Watson Gilder no less. Back in February of this year (2023) someone (not to name names, but YES it is recorded in the log) added to the text-body of the article that George Franklin Gilder was a grandson of Richard Watson. Of course, this was incorrect, but nobody noticed it and it remained in the WP article until just a few days ago now (back on 7 September). It was I who eventually corrected that (to be a great-grandson instead), but this is somewhat beside my point here. But the irony that I find in all of this is that you tried to add the person Reese Denny Alsop Gilder Palmer as a great-grandson to the info-box (formatting aside) and you were (to put it mildly) slapped down for doing so (although I understand the WP rules about why). But you were entirely correct with both the person, his full name, and his proper relationship to the principal, while the previous Wiki editor (the someone named above) was both incorrect and his error remained for months without being corrected! I find some humor in this!

I am laughing right now as I am writing this! This sort of thing is very typical of what you will find on WP! There can be incorrect information in an article, and if you (or anyone else) goes to remove or change that information, some other (high and mighty-like) editor (sometimes with super-editor powers) will come around and slap you down and remove your corrections while restoring the previous incorrect information in place. This happens over and over again. This is just another reason for why it is so important to have sources (along with references to those sources) on hand so that you can prove that your information is correct against the entrenched prevailing opinion that the previous (indeed incorrect) information is the correct version.

To borrow a slightly modified line from one or two Clint Eastwood movies: "An editor alone is easy prey." But having two or more editors agree on the correctness of something (along with sources on hand) is often hard to beat, even in this wild west environment of WP. Yes, we have to follow the WP rules on things. So for example, we would likely have to have a WP article on Reese Denny Alsop Gilder Palmer before we could add him into any info-box as a relative. There is a rule that is usually strictly followed that only notable people (meaning at the least there is a WP article on them) can be added to the "relatives" field of any info-box. Sometimes (and I have had this happen to myself) high and mighty editors will come along and even remove notable relatives (that indeed already have a WP article on them) from the info-box because they still feel that the added person is not important enough to be mentioned. And normally when this happens, when powerful and mighty editors intervene in destructive ways, you just have to let the matter alone and accept it. That is the tyranny of this WP system. Although there are rules, they are not always followed uniformly by the powers that be (the powerful editors out there can often do what they wish anyway).

Also as an aside, normally and recommended is that no people be added to info-boxes (or any other information for that matter) without that information (people or whatever) first being added to the text of the body of the article (with source references). This is just something to keep in mind when considering what can go into info-boxes in the first place. This rule is not always strictly followed, but for myself I think that it is good rule.

But I hope that this funny irony about the relatives added to the article (someone else being incorrect and allowed to remain, while you being correct was forced to have it removed) will serve as something of an encouragement for you.

Best regards (still cracking up laughing about this even now), --L.Smithfield (talk) 19:31, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

Reese Denny Alsop Gilder Palmer
Hi L.Smithfield, 😂 thank you so much I haven’t laughed this hard in several months. Can’t wait to pass the chuckle along to several editor friends. I have not been able to stop laughing since I shared this with some other family members. The powers that be and bureaucracy sometimes get in the way of the importance of the details of life i.e. the garden is important, but the flowers are what add the details to the picture of life. Although the basic details of life and education and birth, and death are important, it is the – in between the date that holds the key to the most important things in life. Also the more specific details of the life. Thank you for sharing and thank you for helping update this and nutrition, I consider you now part of what we are calling our new circle of friends, who have been instrumental in telling the family story and bringing these people back to life. A grandson who is now in teens and working diligently on creative web paging set up the historical site for FourBrooksfarm.org when I praised him for his work, and what a great job he did I stated “it needed some thing else” I wasn’t quite sure what, but I needed to make it more real and bring these people to life for history. He took me literally, and went upstairs working for hours and came back down to show me the revisions, which were Richard, watsonGilder and Helen a dekay Photographs and portraitures actually brought to life by a program on the computer, where they move their heads and talk nod & blink their eyes..”it really freaked me out.” but once I reviewed it several times it was pretty cool so I told him to leave the changes in place. Hope you get a chance to take a look. Thanks for sharing. Will send more info and answer more questions as time goes on. We have been privileged to participate in writing many articles on the family and their circle of friends that they have influenced,including many scholars, who pursued PhD‘s in history,Art,Lirerature,and theatre who ended up at this house to study the archives. I had to laugh when a certain somebody (we will not name) proceeded to tell me that just because I was family and related that I would have more information than he…🤣 Unfortunately, we have come across this particular bridge to cross in a great deal of our travels and speaking engagements. I am having a very difficult time right now, convincing many of the “so said scholars”on Winslow Homer are noting that Helena may have been a love interest of homer, when not only was he a love interest, but her letters in her own handwriting, dated and preserved have revealed that they had a sexual tryst, and she gets down to details describing it. she made a decision to married Richard watsonGilder instead, after witnessing homers, increasingly hot temper and jealous rages. I think it frightened her some and ultimately she decided on a more passive gentleman. ultimately, we will get the documentation published, and the rather course “scholar” who has refused to accept and disputes Its authenticity, will eventually come around. history will be heard. even if it takes several hundred years! fortunately, I have also been blessed to be in contact and working with one of the foremost authorities on homer and his art, including the influences of his relationships on his art. Also a book in progress! I really need to figure out how to get some of these photographs to you to post. There are some amazing ones here of every generation especially Richard and Helena.

What I can do is post many of these on our website for the nonprofit museum project at Four Brooks farm and you could post them and quote them from there.A great Example is a wonderful article from the women’s athletic club of Chicago, welcomed and introduced by Roberta Kramer on Thursday, September 22, 2022 recorded interview celebrating 125th program the Gilded Age, Gilder family collection shared. Reese Denny Alsop Gilder Palmer, and Leslie Thayer Piper speakers. ”Reese Palmer is the middle son of Richard Gilder, Gilly, Palmer and And spring else up Gilda Palmer Reese‘s father GilderPalmer was the middle son of Walter Walker Palmer and Helen a Francesca Gilder‘s, the youngest daughter of Richard watsonGilder and Helena de Kay Gilder, founders of Gramercy Park in Historical Four Brooks farm in Tyringham Massachusetts. Walter Walker Palmer, prominent Harvard physician, was the cousin of Chicago American businessman Potter Palmer, husband of Bertha, whose family originated in Stonington Connecticut. Reese is the fourth generation to own and live at four Brooks Farm, and has been caregiver to three generations of the Palmer,Gilder and dekay families. Known for his kind heart and compassion, Reese is an avid biker, photography artist, poet, runner, and humanitarian.“ 😊 Closer1616 (talk) 21:49, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

email
Hi Closer1616, I sent you some email using WP. The mail goes to the email address that you setup for WP when you first created your account. So to look at (retrieve) that email, use your regular email client program or website, whatever it may be where your email from WP is programmed to end up. Thank you. --L.Smithfield (talk) 21:42, 13 September 2023 (UTC)


 * Forgot to mention, if you did not already know, in order to reply to my message, you have to do it using WP itself. The procedure is to go over to my user page here L.Smithfield and to click on the "Email this user" entry in the "Tools" pull-down menu near the top right side of the page. Best regards. --L.Smithfield (talk) 10:09, 14 September 2023 (UTC)