User talk:BillThayer

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John Sevier [4 August 2013]

Bill,

I got your message on your talk page. I assume you're talking about this page: Person:John Sevier (1)? I have actually had pretty much nothing to do with that page. But to answer your questions:

• You get an "essentially blank" page for the section that has John's birthdate in it because the content that is there is the template that pulls the intro paragraph from Wikipedia.
• You could in theory edit the text there by editing that template, but that would mean it's no longer an accurate reflection of Wikipedia, so you should not do so except to correct a typo (like the lack of a dash in the dates).
• If this wikipedia template text is wrong or misleading, the best approach is to delete the template and rewrite a sourced introduction of similar written quality, and to use the "moreinfo" wikipedia template somewhere lower on the page. The source entry for Wikipedia should include an explanation of why its intro is wrong.
• In this case, I don't think there's enough evidence to say it is wrong. That monument looks like it was probably build after his death as a memorial; there is thus no reason that the people behind it would have special knowledge regarding his birthdate. In the absence of anything else, we'd go with that date, but apparently there are numerous secondary sources that say 1745. In this case, the 1744 date should be listed as an "alt date" with Find A Grave as the source.
• As a general matter, if you want to raise questions about a page, use the talk page for that person. That will ensure that people that care about that person see it. I'm assuming you asked me because I'm first on the list of watchers, but that's an essentially randomly ordered list that will include people doing administrative edits (like me).

If you have any other questions, feel free to ask.--Amelia 16:55, 4 August 2013 (EDT)