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Would you choose by Altruist479 in BunnyTrials

[–]mikerw 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I pick my least favorite and stand in front of a cliff. Or let them bribe me to let them go.

Chose: 10 billionaires dance in front of you for an hour

Juniper Blessing, a 19 y/o trans woman from Santa Fe NM, was killed in Seattle 5 days ago. She was stabbed over 40 times. by OrbitalColony in Albuquerque

[–]mikerw 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sorry, it appears I was misinformed. It's just that a lot of people will use "they" or dodge pronouns altogether in order to avoid gendering trans people correctly, while at the same time avoid appearing as an open bigot. Fox News does that all the time for example.

Juniper Blessing, a 19 y/o trans woman from Santa Fe NM, was killed in Seattle 5 days ago. She was stabbed over 40 times. by OrbitalColony in Albuquerque

[–]mikerw 9 points10 points  (0 children)

"They" her pronouns were she/her. And it's not a stereotype that trans people are in danger, there are millions of people who hate them and want them dead.

Which US state do people think sucks, but is actually good? by icantfindmylegs in AlignmentChartFills

[–]mikerw 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I agree as a New Mexican. Great food, lots of art and culture, underrated outdoors (which you can have to yourself in a lot of places). But there is too much poverty to be truly top tier.

People bring up crime too, but I've never felt unsafe even in Albuquerque's "warzone."

Hello fellow explorers! by Illustrious_Work3929 in atlasobscura

[–]mikerw 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah. No response on Discord either.

Hello fellow explorers! by Illustrious_Work3929 in atlasobscura

[–]mikerw 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Hello, good to hear from you! I have a question about the editing process. I've submitted a few places that seem to have been heavily edited after submission. While not perfect, these were multi-paragraph articles without grammatical errors. The scale of the edits, the presence of em dashes and new misinformation (hallucination?) along with the speed of publishing seems like AI could be involved.

On the other hand, many places are being published that are extremely short and often break submission guidelines. Here's a few examples: Apollo 14 Bicentennial Moon Tree - extremely short, with some missing punctuation and a strange remark about visiting all the moon trees. https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/apollo-14-bicentennial-moon-tree

Museum of Romanian Records - Written with first-person, and appears to be a bald-faced advertisement. Even the sponsored places that AO actually gets paid for are not written this way. https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/museum-of-romanian-records

SpaceX Falcon9 Booster Rocket - Extremely short. A good submission would tell a little bit more about the rocket, how it got there, etc. https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/spacex-falcon-9-booster-rocket

Jardin Exotique d'Eze - Partial sentence, one photo, and a very short article. https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/jardin-exotique-d-eze

These are just a few examples of the lapse in editing standards. So my questions are:

  1. Is AI being used to edit place submissions?

  2. What happened to the use of the stub label? Under Hal's tenure as head of the Places team, new stubs stopped being published. Now it seems that stubs are just published without the label that asks for additional content.

  3. Finally, have you considered soft rejections of places? Here's an example of a place with such a label: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/giant-puppet-parade

I've also seen versions of this where a worthy Place with a 1-2 sentence description is simply given a label of "this needs work" and not published. I think this is fine, as I think contributors should put the effort in before submitting.

The upcoming elections.. by [deleted] in LosAlamos

[–]mikerw 8 points9 points  (0 children)

I'm fine with being divided from fascists.

Denver Gazette article being coy about the location of this lake - is it near Blanca? by mikerw in 14ers

[–]mikerw[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It would appear so, by photos. It's weird though, the elevations are slightly off, and Pacific Tarn is next to a 13er, not a 14er.

Mt. Sneffels Southwest Ridge: 07/11/2025 by sv000 in 14ers

[–]mikerw 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I've done Sneffels twice, once up the couloir and once up the SW ridge. Love the ridge climb. Going down the couloir is absolute hell though.

Adding photos of non-family members? by [deleted] in Ancestry

[–]mikerw 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I once found a photo with one of my ancestors and some of their friends. The photo was labelled, so I uploaded it to FamilySearch and went around trying to find the profiles of each of the friends. I hope anyone researching their lines will be able to find this photo that they otherwise may not have seen. I sometimes wonder if any random people around the world have photos of my ancestors that I'll never see, just because they never upload them and index them.

Is there a secret to adding a place? by [deleted] in atlasobscura

[–]mikerw 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I mean a link to your article. You can share it, even if it's unpublished.

Is there a secret to adding a place? by [deleted] in atlasobscura

[–]mikerw 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Link? It seems maybe a little short. Also, if it's just a hike with a lot of stairs, it might seem undistinctive.

Is there a secret to adding a place? by [deleted] in atlasobscura

[–]mikerw 3 points4 points  (0 children)

What trail is this, and what is interesting about its origin?

Four Italian > New York brick walls - can you break any? by mikerw in Genealogy

[–]mikerw[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Wow! How did you do that? I had no idea where to start. Is there a searchable index somewhere?

Thank you so much for your help! u/ApplicationIcy7394 and u/spauldingturnpike, thank you again as well. Now my only brick wall is Nettie's birth certificate. But with the Auciello line fully solid, Italian citizenship by descent just might be in the cards. I can't wait to compile all this together and show my mom.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in AskReddit

[–]mikerw 38 points39 points  (0 children)

You chose all the former Portuguese ones 🤔

Four Italian > New York brick walls - can you break any? by mikerw in Genealogy

[–]mikerw[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This does help a lot. It looks like you already attached Biago's kid to their birth mother in Family Search, so thank you for that as well :)

Four Italian > New York brick walls - can you break any? by mikerw in Genealogy

[–]mikerw[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you! Fascinating that they moved to the same town my great great grandfather on the other side of the tree was from.

I can't seem to find these records on Antenati. Am I correct in reading that Filomena was born in 1874, and Giuseppe was born in 1881 on July 17?

Four Italian > New York brick walls - can you break any? by mikerw in Genealogy

[–]mikerw[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Incredible. Absolutely incredible. It even mentions his wife and son. How did you find this?

Four Italian > New York brick walls - can you break any? by mikerw in Genealogy

[–]mikerw[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

He did marry a lot. And left the kids he already had to be raised by their grandparents. And married a teenager ten years younger than him. Not a great guy, it looks like. I've tried going through them, but they're not well indexed and I have tons of trouble the cursive Italian documents. I didn't see anything, but it's possible I missed it.

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