Talk:Pinta Trail (Texas)

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Revision, December 2014

The original version of this entry was scanty and based on erroneous information. Its principal sources were an article on a local-interest website that has since disappeared and an entry in the Handbook of Texas Online that has now been revised. This revision of this Wikipedia entry tracks the revision of the Handbook of Texas.

I am a Texas historian and the author of "Promised Land: Solms, Castro, and Sam Houston's Colonization Contracts" (College Station: Texas A&M Univ. Press, 2009) and "The River Has Never Divided Us: A Border History of La Junta de los Rios" (Austin: Univ. Texas Press, 2004). I live in Central Texas, near the Pinta Trail, and have been interested in its history for more than a decade. The trail has been buried in legends and lore; extracting an accurate history has been difficult. My efforts on the topic have culminated in an 11,000-word article that is pending publication in the Southwestern Historical Quarterly. This Wikipedia entry is not a repeat of my article; in the spirit of Wikipedia, this entry relies on outside sources, not my own opinions or theories, for its statements. The entry presents verifiable, public, historic information, not new ideas or concepts. If anyone cares, I can provide hundreds of historic documents to back the entry, but I felt that that level of detail was not suited to Wikipedia. Instead, I have just hit the highlights.

You can find comprehensive documentation at http://www.gettingtofred.com, a website created to support my article intended pending with the SWHQ. I have not cited that website in this entry because I am not trying to promote myself or my own work and do not want to appear to be interested in anything other than fixing an outdated Wikipedia entry.

I notice that while making several cleanup edits I failed to mark them as minor or to explain their reason. Sorry about that.

I look forward to any comments or suggestions.

Gjmokcb (talk) 22:28, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Hello, I'm the person who created the article, and I've been following your revision. My only suggestion is one of what Wikipedia likes on its sourcing format. If you would, please, everywhere you have a web citation add this at the tail end right before the }}: | accessdate=December 11, 2014

Other than that, I'm just as happy you took the time to edit the article and source it so thoroughly. — Maile (talk) 00:13, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

As a Chicago-Manual-of-Style-type person, I struggle with Wikipedia citation formats. I note that Chicago now considers the access-date element optional. I never understood its purpose in most cases--either the content is still there, or it isn't. The access date seems relevant only in the context of news sites or other places where changes are regular, predictable, and important--places where one might turn to the Internet Archive to look for a historical version of that date. That's a pretty rare case, it seems to me. Nonetheless, I try to be a good citizen and will add today's date as the access date for all the web cites. I'm also going to chase down ISBNs where available, which seems like another time-waster to me, but it seems to be the custom. I try not to color outside the lines. (BTW, I think the format is "|accessdate=11 December 2014" but I don't do this all the time, so I could be wrong.)

Thanks for your input.

Gjmokcb (talk) 16:19, 12 December 2014 (UTC)