User talk:Jgstokes/Archive 14

2022 Senate Composition

It appears you are not familiar with Wikipedia's norms and rules regarding Senate composition. I respectfully ask that you stop changing Democrats to having 50 seats. They have 48 with 2 independents that caucus with them, so in reality they only have 48 members of the Democratic Party. Wikipedia has always labeled it this way. See here, here, here, and here as reference points as to how it should be labeled. The last link also goes to the Senate.gov website which shows the official Senate composition. There, it labels the Democratic members and the Independents separately but note that they caucus together. As you can see, they have always been separated in every article with the independents being listed separately with a note attached to explain how the independents caucus with the Democrats. For the integrity of the page, I once again ask that you stop changing it and leave it the way it is, as other editors have rightfully reverted it back to. GJH2000 (talk) 01:47, 10 January 2021 (UTC)GJH2000

GJH2000, I apologize for my delayed acknowledgement of your message (though I believe I opted to publicly thank you for it at the time I was made aware of it) . You are absolutely correct in your assessment about my edits on the page in question: I have edited here on Wikipedia through participation in various projects for almost 15 years now, and I have a lot of edits under my belt as a result. In 2020, I made a decision to further branch out my watchlist based on topics which have had an increased interest to me. Among those I started contributing to were articles about US politics and politicians. When it comes to Wikipedia overall, I flatter myself that I know my way around the relevant general policies that apply in most cases. However, in joining new projects, such as contributing to articles about political subjects, I have found myself severely lacking a correct understanding of the proper protocols, styles, and policies. That in turn has been a problem for other projects to which I am newly contributing. It is obvious from the comment you left me here that you know your way around articles about US politics, and have knowledge that I was lacking at the time I made the edits in question. So I'd like to apologize if my inexperience in this matter led me to do something that violates page protocols based on prior consensus decisions. I am well familiar with the pillars of Wikipedia and why they are important, but am still very much learning the nuances related to articles that I have just started editing. I will try to keep your timely advice in mind in similar situations, and to do a better job of asking questions before editing content if I'm not completely sure those edits are consistent with the relevant policies. Thanks for reach out to me about this. I always appreciate hearing from anyone who desires to help me improve in the work I do here. --Jgstokes (talk) 01:46, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Your draft article, User:Jgstokes/List of general authorities of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints/August 2020

Hello, Jgstokes. It has been over six months since you last edited the Articles for Creation submission or Draft page you started, "List of general authorities of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints/August 2020".

In accordance with our policy that Wikipedia is not for the indefinite hosting of material deemed unsuitable for the encyclopedia mainspace, the draft has been deleted. If you plan on working on it further and you wish to retrieve it, you can request its undeletion. An administrator will, in most cases, restore the submission so you can continue to work on it.

Thanks for your submission to Wikipedia, and happy editing. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 02:13, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

I'm sorry but this is why I DON'T like wikipedia.

"The Ant-Man & The Wasp" — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sabriel974 (talk • contribs) 11:24, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

I firmly believe that Wikipedia is a case of too many cooks in the kitchen.

The plot was confusing and I clarified it. Yet it is reverted back to the confusing version because it's too wordy? I added very little information and clarified it much better so that it actually made sense. What's the point of having a confusing plot explanation? That plot description for that movie is half the normal amount I've seen for movie plots and I firmly believe that adding a few words to clarify it, does not make it too wordy.

Then on the page for the movie "Struck by Lighting" (and yes I know this has nothing to do with you), I revert an edit that changes the date form because it alters the whole thing from the original, American style, to the British style, which is not what wiki standards are. The person goes in and redoes it again, typing it in British style despite the fact that the page is supposed to remain in the same date form as it was first written. It's not even a British film! And if I try to revert it again, despite the fact that I'm trying to follow the Wiki setup, I get yelled at. But hey, why don't you take a look at that page and see if I'm wrong about that? I do wonder if you come to the same conclusion as the other person because I'm just a sporadic editor and don't have a book explaining about myself on my profile page. Despite the fact that that page started and was in American date format the entire time of its existence until just last month when they altered it, it just gets redone to reflect the wrong format over and over if needed.

Thank you for reverting my minor plot correction and expansion back to the confusing original. You just reasserted my belief that wikipedia is not worth donating information to, because there's no point in trying to correct things if other people don't want them corrected.

I really do hope you have a good day. Sabriel974 (talk) 00:35, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

This Is Us

Hi, could you please elaborate on my This is Us additions that you removed due to, "eliminate problematic edits that are not stylistically coherent with the page."? Asc85 (talk) 22:52, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Absolutely. There were a few issues I had in particular. I will try to list them in order of importance/relevance, as follows:

1. Episode count issue: It is consistent with Wikipedia policy that the number of episodes should be updated only after the episode has aired. So for the season 5 page, the season finale will not air until 10:00 PM Eastern time. The episode count cannot be updated to 16 until that time tomorrow, at earliest, Adding information implying the episode has aired before that is true violates Wikipedia policy.

2. In the list of characters and the actors who portrayed them, you unilaterally moved the actors portraying Laurel and Hai from the "recurring" section to the "guest" section. The guest section is reserved for those whose role in the season is limited in terms of screen time or the number of lines delivered. And since the characters of Hai and Laurel played a significant role in more than a couple of shows, they are best listed as recurring characters, because that's what they were, and the parts they played in moving the action of Randall's character arc along are too pivotal to consider them as being guests. Aside from that, This Is Us billed them as recurring characters, which is verified by the sources cited about their roles in the season.

3. The final problem had to do with the summaries you provided. While episode summaries are best expressed in one's own words, they also need to include correct grammar, complete thoughts, and proper phrasing. For starters, someone does not "make" a realization. They "have" or "come to" a realization. And people experience emotions, so Beth can be sad when she realizes something, but she cannot come to a realization (inanimate object) that ls sad in and of itself. The wikilink to the university in question was also broken (improperly formed), so it would not lead to the intended page. There were also some details in the first description that seemed unnecessary, and other crticial plot elements that may have been left out which were crucial to include. Meanwhile, the summary for the next episode incorrectly capitalizes "bachelor party", neither of which words are appropriately capitalized except possibly at the beginning of the sentence. Also, the idea that Kevin has a "Bachelor Party" is given more weight than Madison's "get=together" which should have been termed as a bachelorette party. And with that summary as well, it was too brief, and therefore more likely to be mistaken for something taken from some other recap rather than using original wording. We also want to make sure we strike a balance between detailing importaNt plot points with more context and weight to those descriptions while ensuring that the less relevant (but still important) episode summary elements are properly included with sufficent due weight.

I'd just add here that I appreciate the good faith efforts on your part in making these edits. It is crucial that characters are properly placed on a cast list and that episodes are described. Perhaps some of the problems I've mentioned here weren't evident to you based on the edit summary I provided. But hopefully these explanations have contextualized my actions on this matter. If you need further clarification or would like further assistance regarding this matter, feel free to ask any follow-up. Hopefully that helps explain where I was coming from in regards to this matter. Thanks for reaching out with the inquiry. I hope you enjoy your Wikipedia experience and decide to keep contributing. --Jgstokes (talk) 05:04, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Episode Count Issue - I had nothing to do with that, and I honestly have no idea what you are talking about, at least in regards to me. As for your deleting my summaries, as you probably know, those were blank until I filled them in. Now, I have no problem if someone wants to revise my work, because Wikipedia is collaborative, by definition. And people do edit/revise my work (as I edit/revise other people's work). However, you simply deleted it. Was leaving it blank better for this entry than what I had written? I think not. My prose may not have been Charles Dickens in what I wrote, but I think it was more than acceptable, and certainly enough for you (or anyone else) to revise the edit, rather than just delete it. Simply deleting an entry in a situation like this without revising it is lazy and arrogant. Getting into "edit wars" is something I try very hard not to do, as I think it's a waste of time. So you got your way. Asc85 (talk) 15:14, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Loki (TV series)

Yeah, thanks for flagging that, it was a typo on my part. IronManCap (talk) 20:55, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

July 2021

Hello, I'm FormalDude. I noticed that you added or changed content in an article, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but you didn't provide a reliable source. It's been removed and archived in the page history for now, but if you'd like to include a citation and re-add it, please do so. You can have a look at referencing for beginners. If you think I made a mistake, you can leave me a message on my talk page. Thank you. ––FORMALDUDE^(talk) 23:16, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

FormalDude, thanks for stopping by to reach out to me on this matter. FYI, I have edited Wikipedia in general (with a specific focus on articles about the Church) since 2006. So there's not a lot about Wikipedia in general or articles about the Church in particular that I don't know my way around. And I am also fully aware that some statements of fact here need to be verified by a reliable source. There are ample sources online that verify the information I attempted to add. In fact, a careful reading of a relevant section of Wikipedia's own article on the subject, you'll find that adherence to the Word of Wisdom has been a requirement for Church members to remain in good standing has been in place for at least the last 50 years. I appreciate the good faith that attended your reaching out to me on this, but a review of my edit history and the sources mentioned in that article should satisfy you that I know what I'm talking about when it comes to content I add on Wikipedia. Thanks. --Jgstokes (talk) 05:53, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

I'd like to explain my point better and hopefully you can tell me where I'm wrong. Your wording makes it sound like practicing the word of wisdom is done in order to stay in good standing. My issue with that is the Word_of_Wisdom#Standards of adherance does not say that is why members of the church practice it, only that it is a requirement of the church. It actually mentions nothing of good standing at all, and that is why I reverted it to "The LDS faithful observe . . .". I think your edit is fine right now minus the "In order to remain in good standing,". I appreciate your time on this and promise I'm not trying to be nit-picky. ––FORMALDUDE^(talk) 06:12, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

Adherence to the Word of Wisdom is one of many prerequisite requirements for baptism, whether of children 8 and above, or of converts to the Church. And during the temple recommend interviews, members are ashed if they adhere to the Word of Wisdom in their personal lives. Those who, for whatever reason, do not adhere to that, are not eligible for baptism, nor are they deemed worthy of a temple recommend. That is verified in several resources produced by the Church, including this one, and this one. And in case you are concerned about Church resources being the primary support for what I have attempted to lay out, that's further clarified in this article from the Salt Lake Tribune. So, I am a lifelong Church member who has extensively studied most subjects relating to the articles about the Church to which I have regularly contributed since 2006. If the information I have found about your Wikipedia experience is correct, you have been a Wikipedia editor since 2017, and have only contributed very recently to articles about the Church or Church topics. Without knowing more about your background and experience, I have no way to gauge where you're coming from. But my role as a regular contributor of valid and relevant additions to articles about Church-related subjects has been extensive enough that, aside from my recent exchange with you in this thread, those efforts have hardly never before been called into question. I understand if you have a role you're trying to fill by carrying out your due dilgence on this matter, but once you familiarize yourself with my Wikipedia experience and contributions, you'll see that, when it comes to Church-related subjects, I know what I'm talking about, and the wording I insert in those article is supported by appropriate sourcing. Your good faith efforts in this regard are both noted and appreciated, but I think that judging the validity of my edits on this matter in question without also looking at all the other contributions I have made in the last 1.5 decades might not be a very fair approach. To be clear, I'm not upset or angry about your revert or previous comments on this issue. I just want to make sure that you are evaluating my edits in this case against the thousands of other contributions I've made to articles about the Church in the last 1.5 decades of my Wikipedia experience, based on nearly 3.5 decades of membership in the Church in question. When it comes to things like this, I know what I'm talking about. If you have any further reservations on this matter, I'd be happpy to request input and feedback on this matter from some of the editors alongside whom I have worked, who know my reputation as an editor and who could also provide you with additional sources supporting my wording in this case. Just let me know either way. Thanks, and best wishes to you for your continued success here on Wikipedia. --Jgstokes (talk) 07:19, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

I certainly recognize your vast experience as a Wikipedian and as essentially an expert on the LDS Church. You certainly have every right to be skeptical of my intentions, so I'll give you some background. I have lived in Utah for about 10 years and for that reason the LDS Church is a subject I'm a greatly interested in, although I am not a member of it nor do I consider myself very religious.

I should have addressed this matter on a talk page before reverting your edit, my apologies for that. I understand the edit is fine now and I do see it corresponds directly with citation 15. I really appreciate your kind explanation! ––FORMALDUDE^(talk) 14:18, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for your latest response. I know that it can sometimes be difficult for outside observers (who do not contribute regularly to such articles) to know for sure whether or not an edit is valid or appropriate. I appreciate your good faith efforts which are so evident here. I appreciate you mentioning that you now reside in Utah, and that that has led to your interest in contributing to Wikipedia articles about Church subjects. It just now occurred to me that I should share some additional information with you about Wikipedia articles pertaining to Church subjects and current or former general leaders. Before I get to the issue at hand, when mentioning "former general leaders" of the Church, I am referring to those who have either passed away or been otherwise removed from their roles (through being released or no longer actively serving in those capacities).

With that explanation of the kind of articles to which I'm referring, we now come to my explanation of the problem we've been having. More often than not, in order to find reputable information about any Wikipedia article subject, those of us who regularly work on articles relating to the Church in any way have run into the issue where sometimes the only sources we can use are those published or endorsed by the Church. This has created a massive headache for many of us as we have had to watch otherwise good articles about current and former Church leaders being nominated for deletion here on Wikipedia, as the official sources from the Church have been seen as being too close to the articles' subjects. If you were to go through the recent archives of my talk page messages here, you'd find that, except in a few cases where we have found sympathetic admins who have tried to help us work through the issues which have led to the article deletions, there has not been a lot any of us could effective do to prevent the deletion of some of those articles.

Given what I know about your background from looking at your recent editing history, and through interacting with you here as well, I am wondering if you, as someone outside the bubble from myself and other editors (who have had to balance our Church membership and knowledge of the relevant topics against Wikipedia policies as currently established), might have any idea as far as Wikipedia policy is concerned, which would enable us to use the Church-produced or -supported resources that we have without running into the problem where such articles might subsequently be deleted.

I am sorry for that long-winded explanation on my part. Hopefully you can make sense of what I was trying to convey here. If you need further clarification on the issue I've mentioned, please feel free to ask follow-up questions. And if you know of any way that we could establish a different standard policy-wise for Wikipedia articles about the Church, I'd welcome any suggestions you can give me. Thanks again for taking time to interact with me regarding all of this. Please keep up the great work. --Jgstokes (talk) 19:51, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

I have read the above message. I will reply when I have a moment. ––FORMALDUDE^(talk) 20:38, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

That's definitely a tricky situation. The first thing that comes to mind is that primary sources that have been reputably published are permitted to be used in Wikipedia, and I'd think that would be a requirement the LDS Church sources often meet. Do you have a recent and/or prominent example of this happening so that I could take a look at the reasonings being made? I'm sure you've given this a lot of thought so I don't want to start listing things that may have already been brought up. ––FORMALDUDE^(talk) 21:15, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. As to your question, it is a very tricky situation. Often the best coverage of matters related to the Church (including events related to temples or General Conference, or to elements of leader biographies) is provided by sources that are sponsored, endorsed, or approved by the Church. I know for sure that we have been able to use information from the Church Temples site to verify information about temple construction matters, since the individual who operates that site maintains it personally and notes it is not an official church website. So that's been a source that's been good to use. Similarly, this Church Growth Blog has been a site kept by an expert on the subject with no official affiliate connection to the Church. But more often than not, the main sources used for the bulk of Church-related content here on Wikipedia has come from the Church News, the official Church website and its' subpages, and the official Newsroom. We have also been able to use coverage from the Deseret News and KSL. The latter two sources are affiliates of parent companies which in turn are owned and operated by the Church or its' secular business arms.

So I know that one of the huge problems we've faced in finding and citing good information when it comes to articles which are in any way related to the Church is that the sites officially operated by the Church either directly or indirectly through affiliate entites have been considered as too close to the subjects themselves, and not sufficiently independent enough to meet Wikipedia standards for inclusion. During the last 3-4 years, over time, there have been some Wikipedia administrators who have identified several articles that rely mostly on sourcing from the Church News, the official Church website, the Deseret News, or KSL as not being sufficiently independently sourced as far as the current Wikipedia policies are concerend. I can give you an example of a specific page that has been affected by that scenario. On this page, if you navigate to the list of leaders, you'll notice that each member of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles has been able to have a Wikipedia article in view of their roles. But if you look further down the list, you'll see few, if any, links on the names of most members of the Presiding Bishopric, the Presidency of the Seventy, General Authority Seventies, and emeritus General Authorities. Most of those without a link did have a Wikipedia article at one time or another, but due to the fact that the admins were able in those cases to get sufficient support for the argument that the articles didn't meet Wikipedia's standards of indepedent sourcing, and lacked sources which were not in any way connected to the Church, each of those articles where there is now no link has been deleted on those grounds.

We have tried a variety of arguments, including the fact that articles about university personnel or other religion's leaders or topics are able to use sources directly connected to the subject, but the counter-argument has been that there have been established standards of notability in each of those scenarios, whereas any similar standards of notability have been established to create similar allowances that would enable the articles about the other leaders of the Church to be kept and used in other articles here.

And it appears that the reason we haven't gotten anywhere on this is that there are not enough of us editors here on Wikipedia who can effectively see and balance both sides of the equation towards effective resolutions. For example, as a member of the Church, I can attest to the fact that the leaders of the list of general authorities are all notable for the roles they have played generally and locally to build the Church in a variety of ways. But as a Wikipedia editor, I've had to accept and try to work around the policies as they are, rather than what I'd like them to be. And it seems as though other editors involved in these discussions are either too focused on one or the other of the two positions (with one side arguing that any prominent Church leader at the general level deserves coverage, with or without independent sourcing, while the other side argues that, in the absence of adequate sourcing not connected to the Church in any way, there is no current way to establish notability standards particularly for those leaders.

These difficulties have also applied to this article. Of the 15 leaders listed on that page (who, serving at the general level, have a worldwide stewardship), only 7 of those still have active Wikipedia pages, because any others have either been deleted on the same grounds, or have been unable to be created due to the fact that they would likely quickly be deleted after they are available, also on those same grounds. And we don't have enough editors that can balance both sides and help us work towards sufficent solutions for these difficulties. On my end, I've been trying to resolve this problem fairly consistently for the last 3-4 years. I have had one or two messages from various admins about those efforts and have been able to take some of their recommendations, but those also went nowhere.

It's a very convoluted problem, and it seems sometimes as though most editors are of the opinion that deleting these articles would be preferable to taking time to find ways to fix the current policies and guidelines in a way that would allow such articles to stay here on Wikipedia. And most editors aware of the problem seem to have an all-or-nothing approach, which has left very little room for compromises, which means nothing gets fixed, and the situation repeats itself.

I hope that gives you context into the type of problems those of us involved in the relevant Wikipedia project have encountered. I believe that in the archives of my talk page messages from 2015-2020, you might find specific mentions about the overarching problems, and what has been done to attempt to fix them. More often than not, everything I've tried on my end has yielded a grand total of nada. If you need further clarification from me on any of this, I'd be happy to provide it. And if my explanation of the related issues we've been having leads you to recommend anything I haven't tried, I'd love to take those ideas on board. Thanks again for dialoguing with me about all of this. I appreciate you. --Jgstokes (talk) 22:05, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the thorough explanation. I think a big part of this probably ends up being the context surrounding each article. There's lots of factors to consider when determining if a person is notable, and I think the likelihood just is that some of the Church leaders you list are notable and some are not, and it will be hard to form a consensus that LDS Church leaders are inherently notable.

The easiest way to create/save these articles would be to find find independent sources, even ones that solely regurgitate the primary source, as that's all that needed per WP:PRIMARY. If those sources don't exist, then they likely aren't notable enough to have a Wikipedia article. Unfortunately there do exist people who are widely perceived as notable in real life, but not by Wikipedia policy, simply because Wikipedia, as a tertiary source, has to have standards on being able to verify the notability of someone. I don't think there's a way around that without basically creating your own publication to use as a source in Wikipedia.

One option to look into would be creating notability guidelines in the LDS WikiProject, similar to WikiProject Catholicism/Notability guide. This gives factors that are likely to mean someone may have significant coverage in reliable sources.

Now this is just my first take, obviously I can't see any of the deleted articles, only their discussions. If there are any AfDs or discussions that open up regarding this topic, please ping me. I'd certainly be interested in seeing the debate that goes on. ––FORMALDUDE^(talk) 01:40, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

One more thing to add, it seems most of the sources are considered not independent because of their direct business affiliation with the church. Are any of the sources considered not independent for other reasons, like being managed by members/advocates of the Church, but on their own dime? Because that is certainly a different story for the independence of the source. ––FORMALDUDE^(talk) 01:45, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

Walter F. González is a deleted page that seems like it has significant enough coverage to warrant an article. ––FORMALDUDE^(talk) 01:55, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

FormalDude, my apologies for my late acknowledgement of your most recent comments here. I wanted to let you know that I did try to make an effort to try and get notability guidelines established for articles about Church topics and general leaders, but that was one scenario where I was directed to specific administrative pages only to be told to go elsewhere, so when it came to pursuing notability standards specifically applicable to general leaders of the Church, I basically ran around in circles and didn't get anywhere meaningful. That being said, if my memory serves me correctly, I never initiated that process on the project page specific to those types of articles. That's a new suggestion that I'd not been advised about before, so I might pursue that avenue shortly here if I can.

As far as your question about the websites to which I previously referred, I know that the LDS Church Growth Blog is run independantly, through a privately-funded initiative. Similarly, the Church Temples site was first established by the webmaster for a college project, and he's turned that into a personal labor of love that he continues to this day. I am not aware of any funding that is provided for that resource, so that could be on the webmaster's own dime. The Church News, Deseret News, and KSL are all subsidiary organizations owned and operated by Bonneville International, which is governed by the Church's real estate investment arm. Bonneville also owns and operates other radio and television stations outside of Utah. And KSL is additionally an NBC affiliate for the Salt Lake City area.

So in some respects, the Church is involved in varying degrees with the day-to-day running of the Deseret News, the Church News, KSL TV and radio, and all other Bonneville International affiliates. I am not quite sure whether that might help address your question. At any rate, since those three sources all directly or indirectly trace back in various ways to the Church itself, that could be part of the reason it's difficult to use those sources as they are to establish notability for leaders of the Church. Somewhere up the line, all of these organizations could be said to have ties to the Church, but I don't think it's also fair to assert that these sources are not sufficiently independent from the Church and its' leaders. Having noted that, I was grateful to hear your assessment that the article about Walter F. Gonzalez might use sufficiently independent sourcing in a way that that article could potentially be restored. I wish there was an easy way I could suggest for you to be able to view the previous deletion discussions, but some of those have likely either been archived or deleted, given the amount of time that has elapsed since those discussions originally took place. If you need further clarification from me on this, please let me know. In the meantime, thanks again for dialoging with me on this matter. --Jgstokes (talk) 05:46, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

I'd be interested to see about the prospects of having religious figures included in WP:CREATIVE, and what the process would be to pursue a change lik toe that to Wikipedia's notability guidelines for people. I definitely think pursuing WikiProject guidelines is a good idea.

So it sounds like the LDS Church Growth Blog is a reliable source, but some of the other ones are not. Deseret news certainly varies, but if there's Church news covered in Deseret I would think there would be at least some coverage in other local sources not affiliated with the Church.

Happy to be having this discussion. ––FORMALDUDE^(talk) 16:51, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

I'd have to look back at which avenues I've pursued in the past to figure out whenter there has been any attempt on my end to try and establish notability of some of these sources and the coverage they provide. The Church temples site is one we've been able to use pretty liberally in articles about temples of the Church, so that website must have been determined to be sufficiently independent from the Church. The same is likely true for the Church Growth Blog. Although the work done by the author of that blog is funded by a private initiative, the inititive in question which funds those efforts, to my knowledge, is not connected, either directly or indirectly in any way, to the Church or the Church-owned sources. And the author of that blog has been cited as a Church Growth expert in several articles published by online and print newspapers that have no connection whatsoever to the Church. So those two sources are likely sufficiently independent.

That being said, the arrangement whereby the Deseret News and KSL are run does allow for a significant degree of journalistic independence, as evidenced by the fact that KSL is also an NBC affiliate. And there is some overlap between the Deseret News and the Church News where staff writers for either entity have had articles featured on the other resource. Meanwhile, KSL has been known to share stories from the Deseret News on their website and on air, so there is also overlap there.

It may also be worth noting that while those in the general leadership hierarchy in the Church are frequently featured in the Church News, Deseret News, and KSL that, to my knowledge, the Church itself does not directly try to interfere with or manipulate any content from any of the three sources. So although the Church and its' subsidiaries that operate these resources are somewhat interconnected, I can't think of any instance where the Church took any actions to directly control, alter, or manipulate the reports shared by those three resources. But since it has been difficult, if not impossible, to prove that is the case, the very fact that KSL, the Deseret News, and the Church News can trace their ownership back to corporate subsidiaries of the Church has apparently given many outside observers pause in terms of accepting those resources as sufficiently independent for Wikipedia purposes.

That being said, at this point, I've been trying to make meaningful progress on this issue for years now. And more often than not, even when helpful suggestions towards resolution have been offered, pursuing those avenues in the past has usually resulted in my being referred elsewhere, only to be referred elsewhere, no matter what else I've tried up to that point. So there are a lot of moving parts here. There have been several periods of time within which these mass deletions were occurring when trying to get anywhere close to a resolution was frustrating enough that I have repeatedly had to step away from those efforts for a time, then pick up and start again whenever I felt I could get back to it. So again, I appreciate your wilingness to dialogue with me about the issue. Hopefully what you're finding as you're looking into it, along with the additional details I've provided along the way, might yield a more productive result this time around. So thanks again. --Jgstokes (talk) 18:48, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

Regarding Deseret News (and therefore KSL), this article is a pretty good testament to their editorial independence and integrity. I think you're right that the conflict of interest between Deseret and the LDS Church is probably minimal overall. It does seem like Church Growth Blog is likely independent too, at first glance.

The Church News, however, states this on their website:

"The Church News is an official publication of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Jointly published by the Deseret News and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, its content supports the doctrines, principles and practices of the Church."

So it is a primary, non-independent source.

I can definitely imagine the challenges you face with WP:BUREAUCRACY, sorry to hear it's been so difficult. I'm going to do some more looking into this, as these are policy processes that I don't know much about yet. ––FORMALDUDE^(talk) 19:30, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

FormalDude: I just did some more digging on my end, and I came across at least two archived AfD discussions in which I participated that can still be viewed. Those can be found here, and here. And if I was able to track down those two articles just on an initial check, you could probably find other AfD discussions from the recent past elsewhere in the archives. Another thing you might want to look at as you look into the issue is the page history here. Basically anytime the articles about Church leaders were unlinked from that page, that has been the result of an AfD outcome that took place. In some of those edit summaries, the deletion discussion was linked to in the edit summary when those links have been deleted. So that would be another place to look into for more information and insight on this matter as far as past discussions and determinations are concerned. Hope that also helps. Take whatever time you might need to look into what I've shared. I'll welcome your observations and suggestions whenever you might be able to provide them. Thanks again. --Jgstokes (talk) 21:14, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

I have read the above message. I will reply when I have a moment. ––FORMALDUDE^(talk) 04:25, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

Sorry for the very late reply. I did find some AfDs that resulted in delete here and here. I'm not sure what could've been done to save those articles, other than simply the finding of additional significant reliable sources. Obviously that's probably not the case with every article, so what do you think would help to keep more articles about notable LDS topics? I'm still thinking it might be nice to start a discussion at LDS WikiProject on creating subject-specific notability criteria. ––𝗙𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝗹𝗗𝘂𝗱𝗲 talk 10:12, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

District of Columbia retrocession

Slavery in DC is very relevant to the retrocession back to Virginia in 1847. See Slavery in the District of Columbia. deisenbe (talk) 23:56, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

I can see your point there, but I fail to see how the matter of past slavery in the District of Columbia is germaine or relevant to the currently-proposed DC statehood movement. That was the point I was trying to make with the removal in question. If I have misinrpreted your actions and the purpose of that addition, but when I removed that addition, it was based on the idea that the topic of past slavery in the nation's capital wasn't relevant to the consideration of statehood for the District of Columbia now. Hope this additional information is helpful to you.

A plea for help

We have communicated some on the growth of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints blog. I am currently being attacked with a very broad and unending topic ban from editing any topics related to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints because I tried to actually implent usage of the term "Latter-day Saint" instead of the term "M-----" and because I have publicly stated that I find the use of the term "M-----" offensive and insulting. I will admit that I probably got too worked up about the whole manner. Still, when we have a category Category:Mormon missionaries with this heading "Individuals who have served one or more full-time proselytizing missions for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), including mission presidents and their wives who accompanied them. Individuals who served missions prior to 1844 and were never associated with the LDS Church should be placed in the parent Category:Latter Day Saint missionaries. Individuals who served missions prior to 1844 and later became affiliated with the LDS Church may be included in a "Mormon missionary" category." the whole matter is at times a cause of much frustration. I wish I could just reverse the clock, and go back to Friday and never enter this fray. It is so frustrating.John Pack Lambert (talk) 18:32, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Indef'ed Meters (talk) 19:21, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

Meters, your comment "indef'ed" is somewhaT confusing to me. Did you mean to indicate that John Pack Lambert was blocked from editing articles about the Church specifically, or that he was blocked from editing anthing in general on Wikipedia because of his actions on articles about the Church? John Pack Lambert, in the discussions about Wikipedia that we've had on the threads of the Church Growth Blog, I have repeatedly mentioned that fixing the existing issues needs to be handled in a specific way. I've also mentioned that a lack of both secondary sources on articles about the Church and the lack of sufficient editors wiling to work within the middle ground area between personally supporting the he Church style guide while also recognizing that changes to Wikipedia policy won't happen overnight so more editors are needed who are willing to uphold the existing guidelines while trying to fix what's broken with them. Unfortunately, being overly insistent about the guidelines being followed here on Wikipedia is not an argument that will go over well.

In my recent comments here and on the Church Growth Blog threads, I've just recently noted that the lack of sufficient support for middle ground on this is problematic, and that Wikipedia will be hard-pressed to justify changing or correcting that terminology across the board if the secondary sources cited in these articles use the terminology. Additionally, when it comes to the guidelines from the Church, as I've also mentioned, more recent statements from Church leaders on using the correct name of the Church applied mainly to media outlets . Insofar as I have been able to ascertain, Church leaders have mentioned specifically that those guidelines are meant to be used by the media (and in some cases, blog owners and authors). Since Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia anyone can edit, and since so many of the cited secondary sources still use the term "Mormon" and "Mormonism" in references to the Church today, it will be difficult to find support for usage of those guidelines here. Could improvements be made to the current guidelines? Absolutely. But if there aren't enough of us supporting current guidelines while trying to apply fixes for what's broken there, this situation will never make sufficient headway, and proactive solutions won't be found and impmented.

That being said, I don't know what (if anything) I can do to help you in this situation. On the Church Growth Blog threads, I have warned anyone expressing their frustrations with the situation on Wikipedia relative to Church articles that being overly zealous or insistent about Wikipedia implementing those guidelines immediately to all articles about the Church that such attitudes will just lead to further issues. I have emphsized that repeatedly on the threads of the Church Growth Blog in response to your ongoing comments about that situation. I can certainly continue to provide such warnings, but if they are disregarded, I am not sure exactly what it is that you want/need/expect me to do to help resolve your block issue in this case. I do not have the capacity to unblock you myself, and my opinion would hold very little sawy with the admins who opted to block you in this case. What I can do, however, is offer you some advice which you'd be wise to take if/when these restrictions are lifted:

First, work with and within the current scope of the guidelines, rather than trying to implement the changes without an established consensus to do so. Second, focus more on proactive efforts to resolve the current flaws in the policies in question, rather than on complaining about the current policies. Third, recognize that the desired changes will take time and effort to implement on a proper level. And fourth, to the extent that you can do so, use subsequent comments on this issue, whether those are made on or outside of Wikipedia, to encourage others to be involved in the process of fixing the issues.

It's obvious this issue bothers you. But it's also obvious that, for whatever reason, you've not been going through the proper channels to appropriately resolve and fix these issues. Hopefully, if/when your current block is lifed, you might be able to focus on being part of the solution, rather than taking actions and positions that are not consistent with Wikipedia policies as currently established. Hope this comment is helpful to you. --Jgstokes (talk) 22:37, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

I was just pointing out that the user had been indefinitely blocked [1] since posting that. He cannot edit anything so there is no use in following up. Meters (talk) 22:44, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

Meters: I posted my reply to JPL's message before I was made aware he had been blocked, and I only just now finished going through the discussion in question that led to the block. As a Wikipedia editor and member of the Church in question here, I have developed the ability to work within and around the problems that I've encountered where, for good policy-based reasons, the cited sources that use the informal terms do have bearing on how Wikipedia handles content on articles about the Church. I have also accepted the current MOS as the determining factor in such references to Wikipedia, and I don't agree at all with JPL's characterization of the usage of the "Mormon" terminology as being as offensive as terms that bave clearly been defined as such by the larger population. I have found myself quite capable to work within and around the policies as they are, not as I might prefer them to be, and I have tried to let my offered perspective here be molded more by the relevant policies by comparison to what reliable sources say. Others working on articles related to the Church have been able to do the same. It's a tragedy to me that JPL could not do the same. I've done my best to try and convince him to moderate his stance and expressions of opinion on the matter, both on and off Wikipedia, but more often than not, that has been to no avail. Hopefully if/when the block is able to be lifted, he can make an effort to not be so forceful in his expressed opinions. Thanks. --Jgstokes (talk) 02:24, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar

Jgstokes, thank you very much for your comment to me, it is hands down the nicest message I've ever gotten on Wikipedia. I have much empathy for the position you've had to play on Wikipedia; we have the exact same philosophy of "we can disagree without becoming disagreeable." I have an optical illusion on my talk page that is intended to remind people that disagreements happen easily and there's no reason we can't respectfully disagree (which I too have probably not quite always succeeded in). I hope everything is going well with and continues to go well with your recovery, and also that it is a speedy one. It's greatly admirable that you donate your time and value to Wikipedia on top of everything you're already handling in life. I appreciate your comment about JohnPackLambert, because I really do always try to emulate open-mindedness in my editing. Everyone has their biases, but acknowledging them is they key to being able to set them aside. Much like you've done for your affiliation with the Church and your editing–I could also tell quickly that you were a neutral and good-faith editor (with a lot of expertise to offer on the topic). I do wish it had not turned out the way it did for John, but I too understand the reasoning. ––FormalDude talk 05:08, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

ideas about "depicting religiously sensitive material"

Hi Jgstokes, a while back I started a "guide to depicting religiously sensitive material" in my sandbox. I was inspired by my experience asking to have the image of the temple garb on the endowment page moved further down on the page. I found two or three other examples of religious material that adherents don't want photographed. I got distracted by other work and didn't really finish it. I'm trying to decide if it's worth finishing. What do you think? Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 19:26, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

Rachel Helps (BYU): thanks for requesting my input on this matter. I know that on the one hand, as a Church member, it does in some ways bother me to have those photos publicly displayed. As a member of the Latter Day Saint movement project, however, I also understand that fair usage has been applied to those photos. So I do think there is room either way on that spectrum, towards a scenario where the pictures could be better placed elsewhere in the article, or where the photographs themselves would be replaced or removed. If my memory serves me correctly, around a year or two ago, the Church released a new video series about temple worship, and in those videos, some new photographs related to the video content were included. As a consequence, my recommendation would be to keep working on that for the time being. If and when you feel you might want community input on it before, in conjunction with, during, and after you finish putting that together, I'd encourage you to submit that to the appropriate page, or even to the talk page of the project. That would be my recommendation to you for the time being. Hope that helps. Thanks for reaching out to request my input on this matter. --Jgstokes (talk) 04:20, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

Reverted edit

Hello, I'm rather confused as to why you reverted my changes at List of general authorities of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In my edit, I put headers in sentence case, took inappropriate external links out of the text, removed a few stray periods that didn't match the phrasing of the rest of the list, corrected a link, and did a few spelling and capitalization fixes. All of these were in line with the MOS and general Wiki standards.

How on earth was it "more correct" before I implemented these changes? Is the article better with duplicate citations, inappropriate caps, the misspelling "magzine" and "For the Strength of Youth" as a redlink due to a typo? I honestly don't understand what I'm missing here. Thank you, Jessicapierce (talk) 13:27, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for taking time to address this as I invited you to do so on the page in question. So the biggest concerns I had with your edits were that the level of change was slightly more significant than the explanations you provided had implied. Unfortunately, several articles relating to the Church have been subject to a series of unhelpful edits where the edit summary offered did not properly describe the intent and reasoning of the changes, or why they were needed.

I have no qualms in terms of believing your editing intent was good faith. Let's now look at specifics of the changes. The partial reference you removed had been complete at one point. I have not been able to check and see if the reference in question is still active. In either case, since that was an established reference, I would not have raised an issue with that edit if you had restored the original source rather than removing it. I had intended to go back and fix that myself, but haven't had a chance to do so yet. Regarding the second edit I reverted, there were a few issues I could see. There are some cases (such as the citation in question) where it is consistent with Wikipedia policy to utilize an external link in the midst of regular content, so your describing that as a "copy edit" seemed problematic to me. I also didn't understand the rationale behind using the lower case for "served" and "presidency". Even if "served" should be in the lower case, "Presidency" refers to the title of the group to which the leaders belong, so that is correctly capitalized, which can be verified here, here, and here, where the title of the position always shows "Presidency" in the capital case.

Aside from these specifics, as I mentioned, your edit summary seemed insufficient in terms of explaining what you were changing and why. I am not sure how long you've been editing Wikipedia in general or articles about the Church in particular, but I approached my response to your edit (and the resulting revert) from 1.5 decades of editing experience here, most of which has been devoted to and focused on articles about the Church. Based on your explanation that seemed incomplete, I opted to revert those changes. If you have any follow-up issues relating to my revert, please let me know. In the meantime, thanks again for addressing this issue here as invited to do so. --Jgstokes (talk) 22:02, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

Thanks very much for your reply - I never hear back from many people here, and I suspect my frustration with that made it into my initial message to you - apologies for that. I really am just trying to understand your rationale, and I appreciate you taking the time to add some context.

I think we're probably pretty much agreed on the bulk of the actual minor copy edits I did at that article, and I don't want to waste your time going over every detail, but briefly:

Caps: "Years Served" should absolutely go in sentence case ("Years served") (per MOS:HEAD; "sentence case... also applies to headers of tables"), but the "Presidency" thing brings up an interesting point. Just now I re-read up on Wiki policy on titles (which I thought I was remembering right, but there's a lot to remember). In short, as outlined here, titles are capitalized, offices aren't. One example given there is "President Nixon" vs. "Nixon was the president." It was with that rationale that I changed the capitalization there. However, I know very little about the LDS Church, and if it's their policy to always capitalize "Presidency," I would assume that would take precedence over general MOS guidelines, especially in a Church-centered article. I'm glad to defer to you on this (and ultimately it's a REALLY fine MOS point anyway).

External links: Another topic I just refreshed my memory on. I'm seeing that, as I thought, "external links normally should not be placed in the body of an article" (per this). However, that page does also say that rare exceptions can be made (though it doesn't describe any). My default is usually to remove external links from the body of an article (which I do, as a general policy, mention in the summary, but seem to have omitted this time). That particular external link looked, to me, like it would be more appropriate as a citation. I'm honestly surprised this was an issue. Can you shed any light on this, or is this just likely to be something that different editors might have a different take on? Genuinely asking.

I'm going go go back and resubmit some of the lesser changes I made at that article now, because I won't be able to sleep at night knowing "magzine" is out there. Cheers, Jessicapierce (talk) 22:33, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

I apologize for your frustration about talk page messages being ignored in most cases. Right off the bat, when I started editing on Wikipedia in 2006 or so, I quickly espoused and shared ideals that would direct my work here. Among those elements was "We can disagree without becoming disagreeable". It seems like some people seem inclined to take talk page messages directed to them as a personal affront or something to get offended about, and I disagree with that kind of thinking. If I can be respectful in dealing with earnest concerns, I find that I am responded to with that same courtesy. So I issue an open invitation to you: If you ever have future concerns about my edits, feel free to raise them here, and I will always do my best to respond ASAP to all earnest meswsages.

Your observations about the Wikipedia MOS on capitalizations are on point, as are your observations that articles about the Church might use different parameters. We are currently in the process of drafting new guidelines relating to notability about Church related subjects. If you think you might be interested in contributing to that, feel free to weigh in on the relevant pages, which are linked in the talk page for this project, where some of the issues you mentioned may be addressed. In the meantime, hopefully my explanations were helpful. Please let me know if you have any further questions, and thanks again for reaching out about this. --Jgstokes (talk) 00:16, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

I couldn't agree more re "disagreeing without being disagreeable." I work in a field that involves a fair amount of customer service, and it's daunting to see how quickly many people will snap into angry defensiveness in situations that don't call for it at all. So I appreciate balanced reasonableness more than you can know!

I will definitely keep an eye on that project's talk page. I'm always interested in learning the endless fine points of Wikipedia stuff, especially things like English variants and topic-specific details (such as the "President" thing) - because in essence, it's a way to show respect to certain topics and communities, through language. Which is always my own goal as well. I'm sorry to hear that some Church articles have been the target of persistent nonconstructive edits. It's not a surprise, but it's a disappointment. People will be people, I suppose, but I'm glad there are others, such as yourself, who care enough about the topic to try and keep things tidy. Cheers, Jessicapierce (talk) 02:14, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

I will plan on looking forward to your input on these issues any time you offer those. In the meantime, thanks again for dialoguing with me on this issue here. I've been in positions where interactions with other editors are nonconstructive, and where they've seemed more inclined to think the worst of me. So I am happy to recognize and express appreciation for good faith actions whenever they occur. I look forward to your additional input on Church articles whenever you'd care to provide it. Keep up the great work! --Jgstokes (talk) 05:30, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

Jessicapierce, I wanted to mention one other thing that I just now realized I had failed to address in my latest responses to you. I know that honorific titles (including president) are generally in the lower case due to being an honorific title. But what is less clear is whether the lower case applies in the proper title of a position. For example, in some cases, reference to the leader of the Catholic Church often correctly lowercase the title when referring to "pope" or "the pope", but capitalize the title when referring to a specific individual or organization that has that title. I took a cursory look as I crafted this comment, and it appears, on initial research, that any reference made to Pope Francis capitalizes his title and his first name.

My reason for mentioning this is that Patrick Kearon's titled position is Senior President of the Seventy, and all other members of that Presidency have used the capital letters in "Presidency of the Seventy." And since that's organizational rather than honorific, the capitalization policies relating to the use of honorific titles won't apply to the same degree. There are examples of those types of distinctions. Right now, the notability parameters for articles about the Church and its' leaders are under discussion for possible change, and we will probably need to account for the fact that some positions are capitalized and that honorific general standards don't apply in that case. Just wanted to add that clarification. Hope that additional insight is helpful. --Jgstokes (talk) 22:04, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

Saturday Night Live - Reverted Edit

Hello,

I'm not sure I understood your reasoning for removing my edit on the Saturday Night Live (season 47) page. You said there wasn't a reliable source, but the exact same source that is being used on the page to back up the claim that she performed nude (Variety, footnote #9 on the page) also, in the very same quote in the very same article, verified that it was the first time in the history of the show it had ever been done, which is noteworthy. I simply added it along with the other information that came from that article about the performance. If it is dubious, then it would seem to me that all of the other claims based on that article that are still up must be as well. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Michaelsmith81 (talk • contribs) 03:35, 13 October 2021 (UTC)‎

Sorry about my delayed response, and thanks for weighing in with your question. Please remember to sign your talkpage comments with the signature symbol above (immediately following the Bold and Italic text buttons) so that any replies can be correctly addressed to you personally. As far as your inquiry about my edit in question, I was aware that the article you cited contained a summary of the episode, but somehow missed that it included the information you had added. I was therefore mistaken in my edit, and by submitting it, I unintentionally violated this policy and this policy. I reread the article after reading your message, and I can see now that I was mistaken in the action I took. Please accept my profound apologies, and thanks for taking time to point out my error on this matter. I appreciate hearing from you on this. --Jgstokes (talk) 05:48, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

A Dog's Love

Hey. I didn't pick up on the woof'ing being so long term when I attended to your request at RfPP (until I noticed the corresponding ANI thread). Feel free to drop me a line personally if it continues after the 2-week semi expires. I'll leave the duration up to you. Months, years, indef — whatever you like. Most importantly: the dog's emotions were reported as surpassing the child's histrionics. El_C 09:36, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

Not quite sure I understand what you're saying here. If you meant that, when responding to my request for page protection, you had not viewed the history of the talk page, and that after you had reviewed that, you found that it might be a good idea to consider page protection for a longer period of time. I am hoping that the current semi-protected status of this page will discourage spam messages. If people find they are unable to spam here for that period, they might find it sucks the fun out of trying to get around that. We can definitely see where things land at the end of the two weeks, but I also wouldn't object if the protection period were extended into the end of this year or sometime next year.

I know that there are some users who have sent helpful messages to me without having a user account, so I hate to go to the possible extreme of excluding the earnest from being able to dialogue with me here. At the same time, a part of me thinks that, whenever this page protection expired, the spamming is almost definitely going to become a thing again. With that in mind, would there be an option where the settings of my talk page could be such that pending changes are submitted, but must be confirmed by either myself or other admins/trusted editors before they officially show up here? Just another thought from me.

I'm fine with whatever needs to be done, so long as those with earnest and valid feedback can get in to comment here, and so that any nonsensical, spam, or harrassment-type comments are not allowed to stand. Hope that clarifies where I am coming from on this matter. Thanks again. --Jgstokes (talk) 21:23, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

El_C: It has been less than a day since the protection on my talk page expired, and, as you can see by the page history, my talk page was vandalized again by an anonymous editor with a rubbish post that was based on a small thread of accuracy about my personal life (the real name of my actual wife). Based on the fact that such an edit was made so shortly after page protection expired, I would like to request additional protection for this talk page. At this point, since the 2-week duration wasn't nearly enough to deter the vandals and discourage the vandalism, I'd like to request that protection be enacted on this page again, this time lasting for the duration of 2-3 months. At that point, we'll see if the anonymous editors are tired of trying to spam my page. If they are, no further protection may be needed, but if it happens again, we may want to look at longer-term protection going forward. Thanks again. --Jgstokes (talk) 02:46, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

I support page protection for any duration Jgstokes feels necessary. ––FormalDude ^talk 02:55, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

How to punish a dog. El_C 04:34, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

El_C, thanks for applying the requested page protection. While that will be helpful, I also wanted to note that I still am not quite sure what all your references relating to dogs are supposed to convey. If ignoring or not acknowledging the behavior was enough to make it stop, I'd have done that a long time ago. This is a long-standing issue where the only effective solutions have been page protection and potential disciplinary action against those responsible. If I am incorrectly interpreting what you intended to convey, please feel free to clue me in on whatever it is I'm not correctly understanding. Thanks again. --Jgstokes (talk) 06:26, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

I wouldn't worry about it... many of El_C's comments are indistinguishable from patent nonsense. ––FormalDude ^talk 06:38, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

[2] El_C 11:03, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

Re: SPI

That case is closed now, so I'll respond here. In general I only report sockpuppets to AIV when:

• The disruption is recent (last few hours)
• I can describe what's going on in one short sentence (e.g. "Block evasion, WP:Sockpuppet investigations/GeraldFord1980").
• It's easy for the admins to evaluate. So either the sockmaster is extremely well known among AIV regulars (this can be difficult to guess) or it's plainly obvious even to someone who has never seen the case.

For anything else, I use SPI.

When it comes to this user, my first advice would be to not interact with them at all. No personal messages, no template warnings, just report right away. If it's declined at AIV because the user "was insufficiently warned", take it to SPI. I know playing whack-a-mole is tiring, but if you do it in a robot-like manner, you can hopefully bore them away. Now there are other methods (WP:Range blocks and WP:Edit filters), but with dozens of socks already blocked, I'm sure that checkusers have considered a rangeblock by now. We already have filters for this user; they just don't work all that well. I'll see if I can improve the filters, but don't get your hopes up; some people just like the game of Bypass-the-Filter. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 22:59, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

Suffusion of Yelllow: I didn't respond to your original comments in this section because I didn't feel like a formal reply was needed. But I see that, in addition to editing your previous comments, you also recently took swift action to remove a spam comment from an anonymous editor. Somehow, for some reason, I apparently got on someone's bad side in a big way. As a result of that individual's personal beef against me, they have taken the smallest thread of accurate detail (most recently the real name of my actual wife) and used that thread of accuracy, along with a reference to topics I have edited here on Wikipedia. I appreciate your quick revert of that recent comment. In a previous thread above this one, I have discussed varying degrees of protection for this page with El_C. If you want to weigh in on that discussion, I'd welcome your input on that matter. In the meantime, thanks for looking out for me in this case and reverting to spam edit soon after it was published here. I appreciate you keeping an eye out. --Jgstokes (talk) 02:53, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

Replied by email. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 19:57, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Zarahemla

Curious about your thoughts on this. ––FormalDude ^talk 21:11, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for asking me about this. Wikipedia, insofar as I am aware, cannot categorically state that the Book of Mormon is about actual people, events, and places. I am not sure where that would leave the question on articles about the people and places mentioned in the book. I know Wikipedia has generally had pages focused on various Book of Mormon aspects and characters, but I'm not sure I'd have anything to add to the discussion either way. Thanks for asking about it, though. P. S. I broke one of my fingers around 10 days ago and am in a splint for the next 4-6 weeks, so I'm not sure how regularly I'll be able to weigh in here while I'm dealing with that. If nothing else, I'll try to check in and help out here as I can. --Jgstokes (talk) 02:10, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

Nice to hear from you! I just thought it was interesting and wanted to see what your thoughts were. Appreciate the insight.

Sorry to hear you broke a finger! Hope you get better soon. ––FormalDude ^talk 03:51, 14 December 2021 (UTC)