User talk:James A. Buckhorn

Just a hello

Hi James, Do let me know when you need help with a first (serial) input. It's easy and I will guide you on our Webex-channel. Best --Olaf Simons (talk) 08:51, 20 May 2022 (CEST)

Hello Olaf! Thank you so much for the warm welcome. I have been meaning to reach out to you. I hope I am formatting my response here correctly. I have several questions and ideas that I want to run by you.

1) [Project] I am hoping to start the push for more Freemasons in the US to become involved with doing masonic research on FactGrid. I am working on a short slideshow presentation on what it is, who it's for, and what it can do. I intend to have a Call to Action at the end and my hope is that I can get American Freemasons to start chipping away at adding historical records of active and demised lodges to FactGrid. I plan to coordinate this in a private Facebook group where I will 'assign' volunteers, and keep track of our progress. I know that I understand only a portion of what FactGrid can do and I hope you will share some of the most useful features for our purposes so that I can highlight them in my presentation.

2) [Importing] I'm very interested in adding records of lodges in Indiana and would like to do it in the most efficient way possible. It seems there may be a way to do this with QuickStatements. I'm wondering if you could show me how to convert an existing ideal lodge to a spreadsheet, which I will then fill out with all 770+ active and demised lodges before finally importing to FactGrid. I have attempted to model Lodge “Pentalpha, No. 564”, Indianapolis, Indiana off of other American lodges I've found but I feel as if I've done something wrong and am wondering if you could explain what it is, and help me put it in it's best form. https://tinyurl.com/tj9goev does not list this lodge, and I've even put in geographical coordinates. I must be missing something.

3) [Importing from other sources] I am wondering if there might be a more efficient way to import a great number of lodges into FactGrid? Amity/Copiri/King Solomons Pass states that they have data for over 40,000 lodges in 300 Grand Lodges. I'm wondering if they are someone we could partner with to pull their lodge data from, and then format and import it into FactGrid? I'm sure others have had similar ideas but I would be remiss if I did not bring it up. --James A. Buckhorn (talk) 07:17, 22 May 2022 (CEST)