User talk:JFG

Lapalissade of the day

"When JFG is right, JFG is right."

— XavierItzm, 15 August 2018, [1]

Officeholder box assumed office/in office

Hello. I noticed that earlier today, per consensus at the talk page for Melania Trump, you adjusted the parameter on the officeholder IB template so a custom term label could apply to an incumbent office/role holder. It seems that another thing that happened earlier today is that, for reasons I couldn't quite deduce, every incumbent officeholder box had the label for their start date change from "assumed office" to "in office" (i.e., the label used for former officeholders who have completed a term). I'm not sure exactly how these template edits work, but are these two changes related? I ask because I checked the talk pages when I noticed the change a little while ago, and it didn't seem that there was any discussion for it, and no other edits made to the template recently, so I'm guessing it was some kind of consequence of your edit. Not a huge deal in any case, but just curious about how these things work. --Sunshineisles2 (talk) 21:49, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

@Sunshineisles2: You are correct, I had not noticed that {{Infobox officeholder}} forced "In office" as a |termlabel= parameter for the sub-template {{Infobox officeholder/office}}. When I changed the latter to accept a term label instead of the hardcoded "Assumed office" for incumbents, the default term label "In office" became visible. My edit was reverted in the meantime, and I'll have to solve the issue differently. Ping Neveselbert for info. — JFG ^talk 22:58, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

Discussion at Scjessey talk

Since you are indirectly invoked, I think it only fair to point you to this discussion as a courtesy. -- Scjessey (talk) 17:22, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. These editing restrictions are a minefield indeed. They should not hamper good-faith collaboration, but rules are rules and we must all tread carefully. I will comment on your talk-page thread. — JFG ^talk 17:58, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

Top 25

While you don't return to writing the weekly report, just found out the bottom two comments here with "kind" words about one of your entries in the 2017 annual one... (here are some more positive ones) igordebraga ≠ 00:45, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

I'm an incel at rButtcoin? My new business card. — JFG ^talk 09:05, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

Thank you, Igor, I'll be happy to participate in the 2018 roundup. — JFG ^talk 09:06, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

Though for that, you'd better contribute at least one week of the normal thing. Maybe not the latest one (Stormy clouds might be finishing it, and of course, don't know if you care enough about football), but hope you can help us sometime. igordebraga ≠ 02:49, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

Why Can't add a self-made list as a source.

I made it by myself，why Can't add a self-made list as a source. Other sources are made by people by thenselves Braun Ge (talk) 10:10, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

Greetings Braun Ge, welcome to Wikipedia! We are talking about this revert on the article List of Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launches. Your question is fully addressed in our editorial policies WP:NOR, WP:SPS and WP:IRS. In a nutshell, Wikipedian editors compile information previously published by independent sources. Besides, your table of launches as a graphic would bring no extra information to the existing contents of the article, so that it would be rejected even if published independently. Don't let this discourage you; further constructive contributions are welcome. — JFG ^talk 10:23, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

Talk:Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections

Context: we are talking about a conversation that Geogene had collapsed[2] and I restored.[3] — JFG ^talk 14:44, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

The statement by an IP, The sourcing of this article is beyond poor, I looked at some of the articles in question claiming direct Putin influence and they have zero solid evidence, its all inferences or insinuations by unknown sources is not a commentary on the sourcing in the article, it's a complaint that our reliable source criteria don't prohibit us from citing media that use anonymous sources. That complaint is going nowhere. Then there's also the opening remarks at the beginning of the thread, from an account registered in February that has all of 11 edits: This article seems biased, I for one do not believe in this being legitimate and many others don't either, however, I appreciate the information commonly believed put into an article. Again, this is just somebody's random opinion. A regular editor then asked them if they could be more specific, and this reply followed from someone else: Completely agree with Guymanforget. Didn't take reading past the first sentence to read bias here. The way it is laid out suggests these conclusions to be written in stone and there is a sizeable community that does not concur with that assumption. Oh, good, some other jerk with an opinion, that one a sleeper account that has gotten about 150 edits in 10 years. That whole thread was pointless, bad faith accusations from users that at best don't understand core policy, and at worst are probably sock puppets. There was no reason to uncollapse it, because "I don't like it" and "I don't like it either" aren't useful for improving the article. Stuff like that doesn't belong on Wikipedia talk pages, it should stay in the comment threads at RT and Sputnik News. Geogene (talk) 13:58, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Given the thread was kind of stale, you could have just archived it untouched. When you collapse some discourse that was meant to redress perceived issues with the article, even if you and I can deem such remarks unfounded, it sends a WP:BITE message to new users who are not frequent contributors. As long as such comments do not turn to insults or vandalism, they should be left alone. Everything you came here to explain, you could have written on the talk page to educate those users about Wikipedia policies and history of this particular article. Think about that next time. — JFG ^talk 14:06, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Those users weren't interested in hearing about Wikipedia policy, they were here to make drive-by political statements. The OP, for example, disappeared when a regular asked them in good faith if they could be more specific. The next account that stood in for them was challenged in good faith by a different regular; they responded to that with a mild insult No, I prefer to live in the real world where dissent is still seen as a useful path to ferreting out the truth. This page is yours. Have a nice life which does not indicate any interest in learning our policies. The next drive-by remark was, its just something that the democraps came up with to try and undermine him which is not evidence of any interest in WP policies either. These accounts aren't interested in our policies, JFG. They're offended by the article and dropped in to argue. Geogene (talk) 14:17, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

I understand where you're coming from, and I have pushed back mercilessly on a bunch of obvious trolls, but I remain strongly attached to Old Fashioned Wikipedian Values such as AGF. Have you genuinely considered that the kind of replies that those users have received simply discourages them from arguing their point of view? A comment like This page is yours. Have a nice life! makes me feel that we are failing as Wikipedians. I do agree with you that the remarks by Zgrillo2004 were pure opinion, so that you could have hatted only this part. On the other hand, remarks by Guymanforget, Tvillars, TheConduqtor and Azuefeldt looked constructive. The thread could have brought some article improvement if "dissenters" had not been summarily dismissed. — JFG ^talk 14:44, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

I didn't like the "the page is yours" thing either, but consider the arguments that Tvillars was making. I'll be quoting some of them here. Not a single American has been convicted of collusion with the Russians and yet the article states as FACT it took place. Does it? It's a huge article, but my browser's Ctrl+f isn't finding it. The article does state as a fact that interference took place, but that's not collusion. Another example is the only references to David Nunes are colored to support Russian collusion which couldn't be further from his position. The only references to Nunes I'm finding in the article aren't about collusion at all, it's about whether or not the Russians specifically wanted Trump to win, plus some House procedural drama. So Tvillars seems to have been saying collusion when they meant interference. But Nunes appears to accept that Russia interfered in the election [4], so it isn't misrepresentative. Then they mentioned the VIPS thing and SPECIFICO told them it had been argued before, and that's when Tvillars chose to discontinue the thread. Their last post was on May 21, I collapsed the thread on June 28. I don't consider that summary dismissal, at least not for Tvillars. I could have Fisked them like that on the spot, but we'd have gotten the same outcome, sooner. Geogene (talk) 21:23, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Understood. The thread was rightfully archived; case closed. No need to get bogged down in details unless some of the involved editors resurface. — JFG ^talk 22:33, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Are you saying that I am not allowed to have an opinion? I have voted for Trump, he was never a politician and what Putin said, wasnt aware that he was in Moscow. This hole thing is just an excuse by the democrats to impeach him so they can turn the US into a socialist country. Not to mention that they want war against Russia which from what I understand is cooperating with the US to hand these cyberattacks. Again, if I cant have an opinion then why are we only to makr articles that the progressive media pits out. Its just insulting to all of us conservative /SMDH --Zgrillo2004 (talk) 04:40, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

You are most definitely entitled to your opinion, however opinion alone does not help improve articles. The wikipedian approach is to make a concrete suggestion for modifying the article contents, back it up with a reliable source (which in turn should not be an opinion piece), and get consensus for the change if another editor revert your edit. It is a difficult process, but it is necessary to maintain stability and credibility in an "encyclopedia that anyone can edit". In the long run, it helps keep articles factual, neutral and balanced. Nevertheless, in politics, emotional reactions to news of the day tend to be over-represented, and that's sad indeed. — JFG ^talk 05:37, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

devising a damper on knee-jerk emotional headline-chasing

Right now, I'm worried about too many cooks spoiling the broth: I'm trying to hammer out a proposal with Masem and possibly NeilN, Awilley and EEng. But you will certainly be one of the first people I ping once we have an actual proposal, as you're one of the most consistently level-headed editors in politics right now. Hell, you could look at my contribs and figure out where we're discussing it and weigh in, but I want to actively avoid too many voices in that discussion, because it makes it take longer and produce a more complicated result. I've probably invited too many people already, but oh well. lol

I also think you might be able to help with an alternate proposal for a site-wide policy against "reaction" sections in articles about not-necessarily-political events like natural disasters and military actions, but I'm not quite ready to work on that yet. I will -again- certainly ping you when I am.

And of course, none of that is to say that I'm not open to having more than one discussion, if you want to have one here or at my talk page. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 17:50, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

@MPants at work: Thanks for your note. I have looked at the ideas you are juggling, and shall await your invitation before submitting any comments or ideas of my own. — JFG ^talk 10:17, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

Presidency of Donald Trump

Hello. It appears that you violated 1RR on Presidency of Donald Trump with two non-consecutive reverts to two different sets of new material:

1. 14:38, 19 July 2018, reverting this
2. 16:35, 19 July 2018‎, reverting this

Please self-revert. Politrukki (talk) 23:24, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

You are correct, thanks for the notice. I have reverted the Mueller indictments, and will start a talk page discussion. — JFG ^talk 05:36, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

Well, I actually meant that you should self-revert the latter edit, but I guess you are in the clear now. Many thanks. Politrukki (talk) 08:15, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

I believe I had a choice of which revert to pick. When removing the Mueller paragraph, I was not aware that it had been added the same day, so that I consider this one to be my error. When removing the family separation issue from the lede, I was consciously reverting a change that did not have talk page consensus. Both reverts are being discussed on talk, so we'll see where consensus goes. — JFG ^talk 08:37, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

Deletion review for Ankit Love

An editor has asked for a deletion review of Ankit Love. Because you closed the deletion discussion for this page, speedily deleted it, or otherwise were interested in the page, you might want to participate in the deletion review. MB190417 (talk) 22:58, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

Pancam & PanCam

Hello. I just finished a draft of an article on ExoMars' camera PanCam. I just realized the MER rovers Spirit and Opportunity carry a camera setup called Pancam (upper case C). Being that the cameras are actually different and from different manufacturers, they deserve separate articles, but I am not able to create "PanCam" as it automatically redirects to Pancam. Can you please help with the redirect? Cheers, Rowan Forest (talk) 14:26, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

 Done. Had to perform a few more edits elsewhere (check my contribs for details). Added hatnotes per WP:SMALLDETAILS and WP:TWODABS, which is nicer than landing on a disambiguation page. — JFG ^talk 21:53, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

I thought you were too busy so I requested help elsewhere. The feedback I got was to name both pages Pancam (Mars Exploration Rovers) and your draft to PanCam (ExoMars rover). With all my best intentions, I see the new article is now duplicated at Pancam (Mars Exploration Rovers) and PanCam. Redirect are my nemesis and I have no clue how to fix this. Could you, pretty please? Rowan Forest (talk) 14:30, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

I have restored the simple Pancam and PanCam titles, with hatnotes. The dabbed titles including rover names can remain as useful redirects, I have marked them with the appropriate {{R from unnecessary disambiguation}}. Seems we're done with redirect logistics, now feel free to improve the article contents, on which you have already done a great job. — JFG ^talk 14:35, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

Once again, thank you for your help. And I apologize for the mess. Rowan Forest (talk) 14:37, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

No worries. Watch my talk page! — JFG ^talk 14:38, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

May-Day! I just made another article in my sandbox: FREND (Fine-Resolution Epithermal Neutron Detector) and it conflicts with the existing FREND (Front-end Robotics Enabling Near-term Demonstration). Can you work your magic, please? Rowan Forest (talk) 19:40, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

This one will need to be handled differently, because there are already several entries under Frend. @Rowan Forest: Is your draft ready for prime time? — JFG ^talk 06:05, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

It looked complete, so I moved it to Fine-Resolution Epithermal Neutron Detector. Removed some superfluous categories and navboxes per WP:SUBCAT and WP:BIDI. — JFG ^talk 06:25, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

Thank you again. Cheers, Rowan Forest (talk) 14:04, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

Revert

Sorry, but bullet 1 vio. That content is only 5 days old,[5] well below NeilN's 4-6 weeks suggestion. ―Mandruss ☎ 21:09, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, I thought this had been discussed recently, but it was on another article: Talk:Protests against Donald Trump#Hollywood Walk of Fame. I will self-revert and start a discussion. — JFG ^talk 22:18, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

A question

Editor Lithopsian after all the explanations I have presented on the talk page of the "ferrolens" and neutral point of view with no counter arguments presented by any other editor/user (I have deleted the COI tag [WP:SILENCE], dormant discussion) and senior editor (you) passed the page after with minor edits as well an administrator with minor edits, has reinstated the COI tag after eight days of absence. The only think I did was prior to answer to a previous deleted prod on the talk page.

Is this normal behavior or a bias and him holding a personal dislike on me?

I have enough with this WP:HARASSMENT violations by this editor. If you don't want the ferrolens article, fine. I will delete it myself and depart. I have better things to do.

Markoulw (talk) 17:04, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

I have no idea; you would have to ask Lithopsian why he added the tag again. He did state in his edit summary that you should not have removed the tag, because you are the person subject to COI; that makes sense to me. Another editor may remove the tag whenever COI issues have been resolved; looks like nobody took the time to look over this in detail yet. I did some rewriting and some formatting on the article; content looks fine to me but I'm not an expert. Finally, if you're going to communicate further with your fellow editors, accusations of harassment are not helpful; please read WP:ASPERSIONS. Thanks. — JFG ^talk 17:14, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

A favor?

Hey JFG - could you do me a favor? I’m going on vacation for a week starting Wednesday. Could I ask you to keep an eye on two newish articles that I’ve been helping with? At each article the main editor means well but doesn’t know what they’re doing. They need a lot of cleaning up after, and there doesn’t seem to be any other experienced editor watching the article. Look at the histories and you'll see what I mean.

One is 2018 North Korea-United States summit. There is an editor named Goodtiming8871 who adds large chunks of material that are sort-of-supported by the references, but clearly written by a non-English speaker, probably Korean, who seems to have a mild pro-NK slant. I always have to come in and clean up after them - to fix their grammar and sometimes rewrite to what the source actually said.

The other problem article is Trials of Paul Manafort, 2018, where most of the writing has been done by user Arglebargle79. They created the article mostly by cutting and pasting from other articles, and then recently they added descriptions of the trial without any references at all. Again, I did a lot of cleanup. So, if you have time and inclination, you might keep an eye on them and tidy up where necessary. If you don’t have time and inclination, that’s OK too. We are all volunteers after all. Thanks! --MelanieN (talk) 05:00, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

Hi MelanieN, sure I can keep an eye on those pages. Obviously I'm already following the summit article, but I'm not familiar with the Manafort trial thing, will have to do some reading there. I've come across Arglebargle elsewhere, and I know this editor tends to be a prolific cut-and-paster of news headlines. Telling them about WP:COPYVIO might help. Happy holidays! — JFG ^talk 05:49, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

Thanks! I haven't seen Arglebargle cut-and-paste from sources at that article, but the majority of the article is a copy-paste from two other Wikipedia articles. Which of course is not a problem if acknowledged. I belatedly added a null edit to document that. My main problem with AG is that they added a whole section describing the first few days of the trial (as they saw it) without any sources at all. I did a rewrite based on sources - which may be necessary again since the trial is ongoing. I'll try to bring it up to date before I leave. --MelanieN (talk) 15:27, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

Hatting

We're done with this. — JFG talk 22:05, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

Your now hatting innocuous comments while at the same time providing this and this? Whatever. The entire discussion is rife with nastiness and loaded with hate filled rhetoric so why not just hat the whole thing and start over.--MONGO (talk) 21:25, 7 August 2018 (UTC) Yeah, then we can have another discussion rife with nastiness and loaded with hate filled rhetoric. Stellar idea. ―Mandruss ☎ 21:28, 7 August 2018 (UTC) (edit conflict) I actually explained this in reply to another editor's comment on your talk page, but you had erased it while I wrote my reply, so I didn't post it. I was saying that the motivation for my hatting was Scjessey's rant, and your comment by itself wouldn't have deserved this; I included it in the hat because it was also personal opinion, and to avoid more drama of the sort "why do you hat me and not them?" I do agree that the discussion is going sideways, but what can you do when some people insist that birtherism made Trump president, and bail out when asked for sources? — JFG talk 21:33, 7 August 2018 (UTC) I figured as much, but my comment was of a olive branch of sorts, but it did deviate from the discussion and of course brought the best in others that have done a fine job of creating as toxic a discussion page as I have seen since I participated in the GW Bush "dry drunk" fiasco more than a decade ago...[6]--MONGO (talk) 21:42, 7 August 2018 (UTC) Wish I'd been around to see that. But have you heard of the New York disambig wars? I never figured whether the following comment was sincere worry or epic trolling: No such move! No such change! No no no no, no! Very much opposing this very very bad and insulting idea! Such a move would be insulting and disrupting to the more than 1 billion people of Africa. African children are studying in the schooling systems that New York is a state in America like the state of California or the state of Illinois and that New York City is a city like Chicago and Los Angeles. Wikipedia cannot simply ignore Africa!!! — JFG talk 21:51, 7 August 2018 (UTC) Bush was not liked especially on Wikipedia...his popularity as we know was rock bottom when he left office, but even so, there is a visceral anger that exists now that makes the discussions at the Bush article look truly tame. I suppose the best I can do is either avoid the Trump BLP or figure out a way to reduce any chance of inciting a riot! I do know this though, we can all waste a lot of time on these difficult topics, and I see I contributed more than 750 edits to the Bush talkpage, or we can find ways to reach solutions and free up our time for more enjoyable and productive ways to spend our energies here.--MONGO (talk) 22:01, 7 August 2018 (UTC) I'm sorry, but the answer to "why do you hat me and not them?" is "because you violated TPG and they didn't." Drama notwithstanding. If we stop enforcing rules because of the threat of drama, guess what will be the result? Increased drama. I reverted that hat before I saw this explanation that your stated reasoning was completely incorrect and misleading. ―Mandruss ☎ 21:44, 7 August 2018 (UTC) (edit conflict) That would be a good answer, and I happened to give it to some editors some times. Now, when you unhat saying: "Personal anecdotes", i.e. accounts of personal experience, are quite common on this page, and do not not violate NOTFORUM when they are about article improvement. I also agree, but for the love of God I can't see anything about article improvement in Scjessey's tirade lamenting the outcome of the 2016 election and berating the winning candidate. MONGO's crime was to remind other people of who the candidates were, and with some levity too. An excusable offense in my book. — JFG talk 22:00, 7 August 2018 (UTC) As I indicated, my revert and its edit summary were responses to your hat rationale, my mind-reading skills being sorely wanting. ―Mandruss ☎ 22:03, 7 August 2018 (UTC) Well, I have struck my comment since it led others to go places I actually didn't mean it to...I thought I was being "funny" sort of but it did stray off discussion and that is my fault. I'd prefer to keep it struck if that is ok.--MONGO (talk) 21:54, 7 August 2018 (UTC) if that is ok If I'm not mistaken any editor is free to strike any of their own comments they wish to strike. ―Mandruss ☎ 21:58, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

NY Times

Just a quick note re The New York Times. My thinking is that "The New York Times is often called The Times, accordingly confusion with the British paper is widespread, so the hatnote is warranted" makes perfect sense for a hatnote on The Times (i.e. someone looking for NYT could conceivably search for "The Times") but I can't imagine how someone looking for The Times of London could accidentally wind up on the NYT article. Station1 (talk) 02:36, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

You have a point, and I did add the {{distinguish}} hatnote to The Times of London for this reason. The reverse link from The New York Times is less compelling; on the other hand, it does no harm. Perhaps you could open a discussion at Talk:The New York Times to gather more input from our fellow editors? — JFG ^talk 09:09, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

I don't think it's that important. As you say, there's no great harm. Station1 (talk) 03:30, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2007 North America South and Eastern heatwave

Hi there. Could you consider amending your nomination in light of the addtional information that was found and added to the article? Bearian (talk) 15:09, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

@Bearian: Thanks for your efforts in improving the sourcing for this article. Another editor has removed a lot of the anecdotal contents, so that we are making progress. If the article is saved by those changes, I'll be happy to have brought its sorry state to attention. There is no need to amend the nomination: the closer will be able to take improvements into account. Thanks again for your note. — JFG ^talk 15:17, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

Just piggybacking on this comment with all the heatwave stuff, but in addition to saying Wikipedia is not the Weather Channel in your AfD intro, you could also say Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a weather almanac. I'd almost be tempted to propose something to that effect at WP:ISNOT, but it's just an idea for now. Kingofaces43 (talk) 16:19, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

That would be a good addition to WP:NOT indeed. What started my interest was the navbox for {{Heat wave}} which curiously listed many more events since Wikipedia got traction in the mid-2000s, to the point where every summer was a heat wave. Looking at the individual articles, I realized that most of them had been created in the heat of the moment (hah!) and did not look exceptional in the long run. This tendency to create articles about current events will continue, so that a specific guideline against "weather report" type articles would possibly help editors focus on truly exceptional weather events. The jury is still out for 2018: it does look pretty hot in many regions of the Northern hemisphere, so that there's a good chance the heat wave articles for Europe, North America and Japan could be kept in the long run. We'll have plenty of time to re-evaluate them next year.

And now I have just started looking at winters! Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2006 European cold wave/List of cold wave AfDs — JFG ^talk 16:28, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, well there's a very good reason for that - "Sixteen of the 17 hottest years recorded have been in this century."- and that's globally, in the 21at century, since weather data-recording began in the late 19th century. And it's something that we've been experiencing in Australia, where heat waves kill more people than other natural disasters:

• Doctors for the Environment Australia: Heatwaves are silent killers but risks are highest for those on the margins of health
• Experts warn against underestimating heatwave threat
• Even without El Nino event Earth sweltered again in 2017, UN's World Meteorological Organisation says

If the deleted articles could be restored, they could always be improved, and allow readers to compare these events. Bahudhara (talk) 09:04, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

• 'We've been warned': Swelling Northern Hemisphere heatwaves bring unprecedented fires
• Drought, wind and heat: Bushfire season is starting earlier and lasting longer

More from a global perspective, which may not be so well covered by Trump-obsessed U.S. media wars. Bahudhara (talk) 03:03, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

@Bahudhara: This article was kept and renamed. Please bring your sources and further discussion to Talk:2007 North American heat wave. — JFG ^talk 11:04, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Barnstar of Good Humor
	For you punny comment about "heat of the moment". Bearian (talk) 16:41, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

from my talkpage

First, have I managed to clean it up enough? and second, if yes, how would you recommend going about suggesting it? -A lad insane (Channel 2) 17:49, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up, I'll take a look later. — JFG ^talk 17:55, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

Removal of valid WP:GF content.

Your false conflation of "mischaracterization" as "personal opinion" on the Donald Trump nickname page was a clear violation of goodfaith additions WP:GF. If citations are required, which they are not, it should've been left in place and tagged with WP:CLARIFY and/or WP:CITENEED, instead of being undone. It shouldn't have simply been removed because you (and only you ...) happened to decide you didn't like what was stated by someone else or took issue with how it was worded. The mischaracterization is simply a logical statement of the truth. Nicknames are are not "bullying" but "verbal abuse", the latter being a type of insult, the former being physical violence. In other words, the statement at the top of the article needs clarification that the mainstream media is intentionally mischaracterizing the nicknames as something they are not. I hope you recognize the situation as it is and willingly choose revert the changes. Also, and I see this alot on Wikipedia, some people act as if they own or control a page. I hope that's not the case in your situation, although it does appear that you are reverting large numbers of edits on that page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.54.0.181 (talk) 01:08, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

Dear IP68, I have no idea which edits you are talking about. Here are instructions on how to quote edits or "diffs" for easy reference. If this is related to the "nicknames used by Trump" page, feel free to make your comments at Talk:List of nicknames used by Donald Trump, which is the appropriate discussion forum for this article. You can get an editor's attention from any page by using the {{ping}} template followed by their name, e.g. in my case {{ping|JFG}}. Generally, you may want to sign your posts with ~~~~, and open an account, which would make it easier for your fellow editors to interact with you, while enhancing your privacy, because IP addresses of registered users and not traced. Kind regards, — JFG ^talk 11:53, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

Lead picture of the Collapse of the World Trade Center

Hello JFG,

You thanked me for my proposal for another lead picture for the Collapse of the World Trade Center article.
But it was was first moved down, to the "Collapse of the North Tower" section, and subsequently removed from the page again.

Regards, --GeeTeeBee (talk) 14:59, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

I noticed, and I have opened a discussion on the talk page. — JFG ^talk 15:05, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

OK, Thank you ! — I've been put on notice to explain my content edits in the "Other investigations" section, and will open an item regarding that on the talk page there soon. --GeeTeeBee (talk) 15:09, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

Where do you want it?

Where should we have the won deposited for keeping dear leader's pictures looking good? PackMecEng (talk) 13:45, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you. — JFG ^talk 17:39, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

Just remember 낮말은 새가 듣고 밤말은 쥐가 듣는다, keep it on the down low. PackMecEng (talk) 17:49, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

Trials of Paul Manafort

Funny - I had been planning to move this article today to remove the year, and when I went to remove it I discovered it's already gone - you beat me to it! Have you been reading my mind, or is it just a case of GMTA (great minds think alike)? --MelanieN (talk) 18:10, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

In my interpretation, we are all meatware in service of the Mighty Wiki… — JFG ^talk 18:23, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

All hail the great and powerful Wiki. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 19:28, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

What is encyclopedic tone?

As a native French speaker (which you are), your use of this word puzzles me. Tone is a word that we in English use to refer to music. Perhaps by analogy you could apply it to subjects other than music, but it still is not clear in what light you can do this. Is there an article on Wikipedia which discusses the standard of "encyclopedic tone", a term I believe to be best used by people who don't speak English natively? If it exists, this article would prove interesting reading material. DonaldGump (talk) 19:25, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

Absolutely, we have that. See WP:TONE about the writing style considered encyclopedic for the purposes of this project.

Encyclopedic writing has a fairly academic approach, while remaining clear and understandable. Formal tone means that the article should not be written using argot, slang, colloquialisms, doublespeak, legalese, or jargon that is unintelligible to an average reader; it means that the English language should be used in a businesslike manner.

The use of "quote unquote"[7] can be construed as "clever" or conversational tone, which is addressed in the guideline thus:

Just present the sourced information without embellishment, agenda, fanfare, cleverness, or conversational tone.

More generally, Wikipedia has a house style at WP:MOS. — JFG ^talk 19:30, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

Sea level archives

To help with longterm maintenence lets get the redirs and the annual subfolders deleted. The only downside is if the original path was referenced anywhere else and that's sufficiently rare if indeed it happens at all that its small potatoes comparerd to this sea (yuk yuk) of redirs sticking around NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 16:22, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

Sure. Let me finish the merge and we'll get to that. In the meantime you might want to check the "What links here" for archived discussions by year, because there may be links to fix if we remove the redirects. — JFG ^talk 16:26, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

Working on it. FYI, I'm tracking my work at my sandbox. If you think it helps you're welcome to comment at talk page there and we could pass the editing of the tables back and forth. I didn't write the text for others so if you have Qs ask! NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 16:30, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

I'm just going through the remaining year archives, consolidating them by groups of one or two years in Archive 1…n. Currently done up to 2011 and Archive 5. — JFG ^talk 16:34, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

 Done. All good up to 2014 and Archive 6. Bot reconfigured to take over from Archive 7. — JFG ^talk 16:58, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

Thanks!NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 17:03, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

RFC Closure

Hi JFG, thanks for your contributions. I am not sure if you are aware of WP:ANRFC and especially Point number 3. Can you explain why you chose to ignore Point#3 and when you had a chance here to discuss the closure statement you chose to discuss the editor instead of his edits. I just felt that you should know this if you are not aware. Cheers --DBigXrayᗙ 19:54, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

I understand the process, however my first issue with the close was that it was made by a non-admin in contradiction with the request that was specifically asking for an admin; that's why I focused on the process, not on the closing statement. I know that NACs are generally fine, however I also know that when editors request an admin close, non-admins should refrain from closing. In fairness, WBG may have closed this RfC without seeing the close request, because he also did not mark it done at ANRFC. I was expecting that WBG would say "oops, had not seen the close request, sorry", and retract his close, I've seen that happen in other cases. If you read the thread I opened on WBG's talk page, you'll notice that I was starting the dialogue and waiting for his second answer, when he went offline. Other editors commented there, and I told everyone I wanted to hear from WBG first before taking further action. Only after getting no response for a week did I open the AN request for a close review. There, more people are asking for an explanation of WBG's reading of the discussion, and given that he's apparently away, it looks pointless to wait further. The simplest thing in my opinion would be for an admin to step in and make their own evaluation of the discussion, although I'm not sure that would be the proper process at this point. I have experience with the move review process, where a close can be formally challenged, but I am not aware of a similar process to dispute an RfC close, except posting a request at AN and letting the free flow of comments do its thing. We'll see what happens, thanks for your comments there. — JFG ^talk 03:01, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

Just a little BTW, you should notify them on their talk page when posting on a notice board like that. If you do not mind I took the liberty of doing so here. PackMecEng (talk) 19:56, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for that. I did ping the editor when opening the AN thread, so I think he was made aware. He's just been mostly offline. — JFG ^talk 03:01, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

Yeah they do not seem around much, especially lately... But on those admin boards there is a warning at the top saying "When you start a discussion about an editor, you must leave a notice on the editor's talk page. The use of ping or the notification system is not sufficient for this purpose." Better safe than sorry. PackMecEng (talk) 03:03, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

Janitorial barnstar

		The Cleanup Barnstar
		For turning talk page archives at Sea level rise into something actually useful, and enable easy longterm maintenence. A typically thankless task.... so thanks! NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 10:57, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

Draft:Active Measures (2018 film)

Any comments about Draft:Active Measures (2018 film)? 69.181.23.220 (talk) 00:44, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

Archival

Re this, "apparently resolved" is not "closed", which is what #13 says. I've treated "answered" edit requests as "closed" but otherwise applied a bright line that has worked just fine up to now. It wouldn't have hurt anything to keep that around for another 5 days—even if there were four times as many threads in the TOC—and I can safely predict that a blurred line will create problems with premature archival. ―Mandruss ☎ 09:40, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

Understood; I had wondered why you archived one thread and not the other. I saw the second one as a distraction, and a continuation of the same editor's misplaced questioning. No biggie. I'm not going to attract attention to this by un-archiving it now. — JFG ^talk 09:47, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

I wouldn't either. How many non-Americans say "no biggie"? I've often felt you don't talk much like a ferner. ―Mandruss ☎ 09:55, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

Ouch, you blew my cover! — JFG ^talk 10:01, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

NPR flowchart

Sorry to hear that my flowchart dissuaded you from joining all those months back. A while back I changed the caption of the flowchart indicating that it is best used for difficult cases when a reviewer doesn't know how to proceed. And as you said, the basic flow chart was also re-added.

I have had a lot of positive feedback from reviewers that it helped them learn all the various steps when they first started out, so I know that it is quite useful to at least some of them, but I definitely don't wan't to be pushing away potential applicants with it. Is there anything else you think could be done to not scare people off with it? — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)} 22:56, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

Right, I think both the simple and the detailed flowcharts have their uses. I would definitely want to be able to refer to the detailed version when assessing delicate cases, so don't ditch it. The simpler, color-coded version, is a great intro. The incentive that prompted me to apply today was the backlog chart. This needs to be included in any further invitations you launch, while still stressing that any work is voluntary and that (presumably) habits are quickly formed, so that page patrolling can become an enjoyable "daily breakfast" task for experienced editors. — JFG ^talk 23:09, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for these suggestions, I'll certainly take them on. Always a joy working with you. Cheers and good luck at PERM, — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)} 23:13, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

New Page Reviewer granted

Hi JFG. Your account has been added to the "New page reviewers" user group. Minor user rights can now be accorded on a time limited or probationary period, do check back at WP:PERM in case this concerns your application. This user group allows you to review new pages through the Curation system and mark them as patrolled, tag them for maintenance issues, or nominate them for deletion. The list of articles awaiting review is located at the New Pages Feed. New page reviewing is vital to maintaining the integrity of the encylopedia. If you have not already done so, you must read the tutorial at New Pages Review, the linked guides and essays, and fully understand the deletion policy. If you need any help or want to discuss the process, you are welcome to use the new page reviewer talk page. In addition, please remember:

• Be nice to new editors. They are usually not aware that they are doing anything wrong. Do make use of the message feature when tagging pages for maintenance. so that they are aware.
• You will frequently be asked by users to explain why their page is being deleted. Please be formal and polite in your approach to them – even if they are not.
• If you are not sure what to do with a page, don't review it – just leave it for another reviewer.
• Accuracy is more important than speed. Take your time to patrol each page. Use the message feature to communicate with article creators and offer advice as much as possible.

The reviewer right does not change your status or how you can edit articles. If you no longer want this user right, you also may ask any administrator to remove it for you at any time. In cases of abuse or persistent inaccuracy of reviewing, or long-term non use, (it is a 'use-it-or-lose-it' access) the right may be withdrawn at administrator discretion. Alex Shih (talk) 04:22, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

Raptor

Hey JFG. COuld you maybe take a look at the Raptor engine article and see what you think. Has been a bit of two editors seeing things a bit differently for a bit, and now, although a (not full) bare link citation was added to a primary source, the previous source was secondary, and may differ from the (hour-long) video source the editor left. Need some fresh eyes. Cheers. N2e (talk) 01:27, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

My eyes are far from fresh tonight, but I'll keep your request in mind for another day. As the saying goes, there is no deadline. — JFG ^talk 01:34, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Useful scripts for NPR

I just wanted to share a list of useful scripts for New Page Reviewing with you that I have been drafting for the next newsletter, as you can probably make use of them straight away:

• WP:Twinkle provides a lot of the same functionality as the page curation tools, and some reviewers prefer to use the Twinkle tools for some/all tasks. It can be activated simply in the gadgets section of 'preferences'. There are also a lot of options available at the Twinkle preferences panel after you install the gadget.
• User:Equazcion/ScriptInstaller.js^(info): Installing scripts doesn't have to be complicated. Go to User:JFG/common.js and copy importScript( 'User:Equazcion/ScriptInstaller.js' ); into an empty line, now you can install all other scripts with the click of a button from the script page! (Note you need to be at the ".js" page for the script for the install button to appear, not the information page)
• User:TheJosh/Scripts/NewPagePatrol.js^(info): Creates a scrolling new pages list at the left side of the page. You can change the number of pages shown by adding the following to the next line on your common.js page (immediately after the line importing this script): npp_num_pages=20; (I recommend 20, but you can use any number from 1 to 50).
• User:Primefac/revdel.js^(info): Is revdel annoying and time consuming? Install this script and deal with copyvios in the blink of an eye. Just have the Copyvio source URL and go to the history page and collect your Diff Ids and you can drop them into the script Popups.
• User:Lourdes/PageCuration.js^(info): Creates a "Page Curation" link to Special:NewPagesFeed up near your sandbox link.
• User:Writ Keeper/Scripts/deletionFinder.js: Creates links next to the title of each page which show up if it has been previously deleted or nominated for deletion.
• User:Evad37/rater.js^(info): A fantastic tool for adding WikiProject templates to article talk pages. If you add: rater_autostartNamespaces = 0; to the next line on your common.js, the prompt will pop up automatically if a page has no Wikiproject templates on the talk page (note: this can be a bit annoying if you review redirects or dab pages commonly).

Welcome to the team. Cheers, — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)} 02:13, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for all this. I've been using Twinkle before, and it really helps a lot: copyvio reporting took all of 30 seconds. I've also been using HotCat to help with assigning categories; you should add it to your list of recommendations. I installed a script to facilitate stub-sorting, but it's quite frustrating because it only drops you into the super-long list of stub tags, and you still have to manually find the best one. Is there a better tool for that? Regarding the revdel script, what us can it be to a non-admin? Does it have an option to ask an admin to process the revdels on your behalf? Thanks! — JFG ^talk 03:03, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

The revdel tool is for helping to add a revdel tag to an article (i.e. requesting revdel), it isn't super easy, you still have to get the diffs, but its better than nothing. I'll clarify this for the newsletter. Unfortunately I haven't found a better script for stub tagging. Hot Cat is awesome, I forgot that you have to opt in, I'll add it to my list. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)} 03:26, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Another gadget I forgot about: MoreMenu is extremely useful and I use it all the time. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)} 03:36, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

+1 on MoreMenu, I use that all the time. PackMecEng (talk) 03:38, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Alrght, I installed More Menu, thx. If you're going to suggest scripts, I'd strongly recommend Disambiguation Assistant:

importScript('User:Qwertyytrewqqwerty/DisamAssist.js');

We've got a great toolsets all around, except for stubbing. Oh well… — JFG ^talk 04:19, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Archive help

Hi JFG, I have archiv-phobia. None of my attempts to set up archives have gone well and I seem unable to learn how. If you have time, could I trouble you to set up archiving for Talk:Atmospheric methane ? Thanks for any help you can give over there! NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 12:13, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

 Done. Given low traffic, I set the archive at 6 months. The bot should do its job tonight; otherwise ping me again. — JFG ^talk 12:24, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Thanks! NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 12:52, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

i-Space rediect

Hello. I noticed there are 3 companies by the name i-Space, and 2 have their articles in WP:

• ISpace Foundation
• i-Space (Chinese company)
• ispace (Japanese company), an aerospace company that will operate the Hakuto rover on the Moon.

The I-Space disambiguation page is at [8], but when typing Ispace in the search function, it redirects to ISpace Foundation instead of to the disambiguation page. The difference may be the hyphen or the use of caps, but I think it should redirect all variants to the same redirect page. Can you please help me fix that? Redirects are a black box to me. Thank you. Rowan Forest (talk) 23:48, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

All settled. It would be nice if you could start an article about the Japanese Moon exploration company. I left a red link for them in the dab page. — JFG ^talk 10:08, 11 September 2018 (UTC)

Actually, there seems to be no need for a separate article. I have redirect the Japanese company entry to our article on Hakuto. You could expand that with basic info on the company, based on the SpaceNews article from December 2017. — JFG ^talk 10:12, 11 September 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for the help. I'll start digging info on the Japanese company. Cheers, Rowan Forest (talk)

A barnstar for you!

		The Space Barnstar
		For your everlasting endurance in maintaining space articles Hadron137 (talk) 16:46, 11 September 2018 (UTC)

SPAaaaaace! (seriously this is all I can think about whenever I see the space barnstar). In all seriousness though, thanks for all your work on Wikipedia. Cheers, — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)} 21:41, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

Just beware of the Space Force.  — Amakuru (talk) 21:44, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar
	Indeed. Thank you. Rowan Forest (talk) 13:35, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

NPR Newsletter No.13 18 September 2018

Hello JFG, thank you for your work reviewing New Pages!

The New Page Feed currently has 2700 unreviewed articles, up from just 500 at the start of July. For a while we were falling behind by an average of about 40 articles per day, but we have stabilised more recently. Please review some articles from the back of the queue if you can (Sort by: 'Oldest' at Special:NewPagesFeed), as we are very close to having articles older than one month.

Project news

• The New Page Feed now has a new "Articles for Creation" option which will show drafts instead of articles in the feed, this shouldn't impact NPP activities and is part of the WMF's AfC Improvement Project.

As part of this project, the feed will have some larger updates to functionality next month. Specifically, ORES predictions will be built in, which will automatically flag articles for potential issues such as vandalism or spam. Copyright violation detection will also be added to the new page feed. See the projects's talk page for more info.

• There are a number of coordination tasks for New Page Patrol that could use some help from experienced reviewers. See Wikipedia:New pages patrol/Coordination#Coordinator tasks for more info to see if you can help out.

Other

• A new summary page of reliable sources has been created; Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources/Perennial sources, which summarizes existing RfCs or RSN discussions about regularly used sources.

Moving to Draft and Page Mover

• Some unsuitable new articles can be best reviewed by moving them to the draft space, but reviewers need to do this carefully and sparingly. It is most useful for topics that look like they might have promise, but where the article as written would be unlikely to survive AfD. If the article can be easily fixed, or if the only issue is a lack of sourcing that is easily accessible, tagging or adding sources yourself is preferable. If sources do not appear to be available and the topic does not appear to be notable, tagging for deletion is preferable (PROD/AfD/CSD as appropriate). See additional guidance at WP:DRAFTIFY.
• If the user moves the draft back to mainspace, or recreates it in mainspace, please do not re-draftify the article (although swapping it to maintain the page history may be advisable in the case of copy-paste moves). AfC is optional except for editors with a clear conflict of interest.
• Articles that have been created in contravention of our paid-editing-requirements or written from a blatant NPOV perspective, or by authors with a clear COI might also be draftified at discretion.
• The best tool for draftification is User:Evad37/MoveToDraft.js^(info). Kindly adapt the text in the dialogue-pop-up as necessary (the default can also be changed like this). Note that if you do not have the Page Mover userright, the redirect from main will be automatically tagged as CSD R2, but in some cases it might be better to make this a redirect to a different page instead.
• The Page Mover userright can be useful for New Page Reviewers; occasionally page swapping is needed during NPR activities, and it helps avoid excessive R2 nominations which must be processed by admins. Note that the Page Mover userright has higher requirements than the NPR userright, and is generally given to users active at Requested Moves. Only reviewers who are very experienced and are also very active reviewers are likely to be granted it solely for NPP activities.

List of other useful scripts for New Page Reviewing

Twinkle provides a lot of the same functionality as the page curation tools, and some reviewers prefer to use the Twinkle tools for some/all tasks. It can be activated simply in the gadgets section of 'preferences'. There are also a lot of options available at the Twinkle preferences panel after you install the gadget. In terms of other gadgets for NPR, HotCat is worth turning on. It allows you to easily add, remove, and change categories on a page, with name suggestions. MoreMenu also adds a bunch of very useful links for diagnosing and fixing page issues. User:Equazcion/ScriptInstaller.js(info): Installing scripts doesn't have to be complicated. Go to your common.js and copy importScript( 'User:Equazcion/ScriptInstaller.js' ); into an empty line, now you can install all other scripts with the click of a button from the script page! (Note you need to be at the ".js" page for the script for the install button to appear, not the information page) User:TheJosh/Scripts/NewPagePatrol.js(info): Creates a scrolling new pages list at the left side of the page. You can change the number of pages shown by adding the following to the next line on your common.js page (immediately after the line importing this script): npp_num_pages=20; (Recommended 20, but you can use any number from 1 to 50). User:Primefac/revdel.js(info): Is requesting revdel complicated and time consuming? This script helps simplify the process. Just have the Copyvio source URL and go to the history page and collect your diff IDs and you can drop them into the script Popups and it will create a revdel request for you. User:Lourdes/PageCuration.js(info): Creates a "Page Curation" link to Special:NewPagesFeed up near your sandbox link. User:Writ Keeper/Scripts/deletionFinder.js: Creates links next to the title of each page which show up if it has been previously deleted or nominated for deletion. User:Evad37/rater.js(info): A fantastic tool for adding WikiProject templates to article talk pages. If you add: rater_autostartNamespaces = 0; to the next line on your common.js, the prompt will pop up automatically if a page has no Wikiproject templates on the talk page (note: this can be a bit annoying if you review redirects or dab pages commonly).

Go here to remove your name if you wish to opt-out of future mailings. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:11, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

Question

User:JFG, shalom. As for the article, List of military occupations, can you please tell me why 2,000 US troops, along with their Kurdish allies, who are currently stationed in the eastern banks of the Euphrates River in eastern Syria and who hold that territory against the solemn wishes of the sovereign government of Bashar al-Assad is not listed there as a "US military occupation"? Just curious.Davidbena (talk) 11:34, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

Dear @Davidbena:, you raise an interesting question. If you can provide sources calling this situation a military occupation, there would be no problem adding it to the article. Personal opinions of editors don't count, no matter how well-founded. But please let's move this to the article's talk page. Kind regards, — JFG ^talk 20:06, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

The word "occupation" was thrown around, here and there, in various foreign news media reports, mostly of Russian origin. I'm not sure just how credible these reports are, since the argument from the US side is that the American presence in Syria is based on a UN resolution to defeat ISIS, and that the US has no wish to permanently stay there. It's complicated. Be well.Davidbena (talk) 21:40, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

About Template:Asteroid spacecraft

Hello, I noticed you've combined Template:Asteroid spacecraft with Template:Comet spacecraft, and I would like to first express gratitude for it, as I long felt those two template were redundant, and many pages displayed both of them. The reason why I'm writing here is I would like to hear your opinion on two questions I haven't settled with in regards of this template.

The first question is, how to classify Deep Impact's extended mission to asteroid (163249) 2002 GT. This flyby was to happen in 2020, but unfortunately it couldn't be realized as contact with the spacecraft was lost while en route. As 2002 GT was to be the first asteroid Deep Impact would visit, I originally put the probe in the Failed section of Template:Asteroid spacecraft. However, as the template now includes Deep Impact's nominal mission to comets, I'm not sure whether it should be labeled with a ^† mark, as its comet mission was a complete success. The second question is, how much the scope of this template should be expanded. For example, in the French version of this template, which is phrased as 'spacecraft missions to minor objects', it includes not only asteroid and comet probes, but missions to such destinations like Phobos. I am aware that the distinctions between asteroids and comets are now pretty vague with the discoveries of centaurs and main-belt comets, but not sure that means that the category should include every type of similar objects. Kind regards, Hms1103 (talk) 08:06, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

Greetings Hms1103. First of all, thanks for your appreciation. Indeed those redundant templates were crying for a merger. I can't make sense of the French version: it purports to list missions to "minor objects" but it includes dwarf planets, and on the other hand it omits a number of missions to comets and asteroids that are well-documented in the English version. I think the template is clearer for readers when specifying "dwarf planets, asteroids and comets" in the title, rather than "Small Solar System objects", a technical description whose scope lay readers cannot easily grasp.

Regarding Deep Impact, I would agree that we should only list the successful parts of the mission at Tempel 1 and 103P/Hartley. The template currently reflects this, unless I'm missing some detail. — JFG ^talk 09:56, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for sharing your view. I concur with your view that the current template is the optimal solution to meet the demand of of most readers. Regards, Hms1103 (talk) 10:31, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

Ziff brothers

Maybe I am missing something, but was there any discussion before you started Ziff brothers and changed the existing articles, Daniel M. Ziff, Robert D. Ziff, and Dirk Edward Ziff into redirects to this new article? All three articles had been around since 2012. Edwardx (talk) 12:20, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

Greetings Edwardx. There was no discussion. The three articles were practically carbon copies of one another, and we had red links elsewhere pointing to Ziff Brothers Investments. Rather than creating an article about their investment fund that would essentially be a fourth copy of the same material, I figured that a joint biography would make more sense. Feel free to improve, as some statements I copied from the original articles were not verified in the given sources. — JFG ^talk 12:47, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

Archive size

Re: this, I had increased the archive size to 350 because of stuff like Archive 88 which contains only two level-2 headers (one an RfC granted). It makes it harder to follow the history and find specific things when you have a hundred archives each containing only a couple sections. I much prefer reviewing one big archive instead of hopping around between smaller ones. ~Awilley (talk) 23:16, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

I feel the same way. My talk page archives often have 50 or so sections. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 05:33, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

I understand the feeling, however Archive 88 was exceptional in that it stored two very long-winded discussions. Most archives of the Trump talk page include a dozen threads. I find that navigating 200-250K of wikitext is long enough. The one archive that followed Awilley's switch to 350K felt very long. Obviously that's subjective, however I have rarely or never seen talk page auto-archives for articles set to more than 250K. Also, chatter on this particular talk page has slowed down, so that we will have a lower volume to wade through going forward (unless some super dramatic stuff happens again…) — JFG ^talk 08:24, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

I don't really understand the objection about navigating wikitext. The amount of wikitext is the same no matter how you divide it up, and dividing it into separate pages actually makes it harder to navigate (hopping tabs and scrolling up and down, instead of just scrolling). Let me put it another way. If I wanted to see what happened between the months of June 2018 to July 2018, I would have to navigate through seven(!) different pages. Archive 83 contains about 8 threads closed on June 5, and archive 90 contains the second half of July into the beginning of August. (I increased the archive size in late July.) Does it really make sense to split two months into seven different archives? What if I wanted to track the number of times people proposed inserting variants of "racially charged" into the Lead during that period? Should I really need to hop between seven tabs to do that? Archive 91, which you thought was too long, contains less than a month of material. Responding to your last point, I wouldn't put too much stock into people spontaneously deciding to talk less about Trump. ~Awilley (talk) 12:59, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

I don't use autoarchiving, so I don't understand the settings or exactly how it works. Is it possible to set it to trigger only for a size limit, and not for any time periods? -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 14:17, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

@JFG, would this be an acceptable compromise for now?

@BullRangifer, that's what we are talking about. The 150k, 200k, 300k, and 350k are the size limits for the archive. When the page reaches the limit the bot creates a new archive. ~Awilley (talk) 01:40, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

Hi Awilley, sorry for my late reply. I'd be happy with settling on 250K, as a middle ground between the original 150K and your initial update to 350. OK with 4 threads minimum as you recently updated as well. Regards, — JFG ^talk 09:08, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

Question

Hi, JFG! I see that we were both working on the Religion section of the Trump article. I'm wondering, why did you make this edit? I had deliberately moved the the word "is" inside the quote (and yes, it is part of the quote), because I felt "was" was kind of ambivalent - did the past tense come from the statement itself, or it was Wikipedia's voice meaning at the time of the statement but maybe not now, or what. I thought that quoting the statement saying he "is not a member" was clearer. (A minor point, I know, but hey, copy editing is all about minor points!) --MelanieN (talk) 21:25, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

The statement dates back to 2015, so past tense seemed more appropriate: we are reporting what the church said at the time. Appreciate the collegial work on detail with you as usual. — JFG ^talk 00:54, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

Switching sides on UNDUE

I noticed in these talkpage comments [9] [10] that you were complaining about editors arguing UNDUE when material is "positive" and then switching sides when material is "negative". The reverse is happening as well, albeit with different editors, and I wanted to point out you seem to take part in that yourself. For example, in Archive 81 you argued pretty strongly for including in the Lead that Trump had "pressured" North Korea to denuclearize. (See for instance the comment beginning with "I strongly object to calling the North Korea situation 'undue for the lead'" and the quasi-RfC you started in the following section.) But on the subject of the detention and separation of migrant children from their families, (archive 91) you argued that it was "UNDUE" and that it had "no lasting significance". ~Awilley (talk) 18:36, 13 October 2018 (UTC) I'm not criticizing your opinions on those two issues, just pushing back a bit on the concerns you expressed yesterday. ~Awilley (talk) 04:46, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

Hi Awilley, thanks for stopping by and voicing your concern. I believe that my assessment was correct, as to the eventual long-lasting significance of a local US law enforcement issue vs a geopolitical shift in the Korean Peninsula. As a foreigner, I readily admit that I tend to sit away from the daily partisanship in American politics, and I pay more attention to policy shifts in international relations. Eventually, DUE and UNDUE elements of an eventful biography such as Trump's must take into account sound editorial judgment about the actual impact of events, and not blindly parrot what journalists get excited about today. Was the child-separation policy a disgrace? Certainly, and I said as much in the debates about it. Was the North Korean threat to regional and world peace worth worrying about? Absolutely. Did Trump play a key role in changing the tone and setting up meaningful dialogue towards a halt of NoKo's nuclear and missile programs? Definitely. Which one of these events should be mentioned in the lede section of Trump's biography? You be the judge. I agreed that it was too early to tell whether the Trump-Kim summit would have real consequences, however the summit itself was a significant geopolitical event, more so than the one with Putin, therefore I believed it should have remained in the lede. We shall surely revisit the issue when the next steps unfold. — JFG ^talk 10:39, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

On your general pointing out that I may weigh things differently than some other editors, I agree, and I sometimes see my own contributions as simply trying to provide some balance. Of course I feel more strongly about some issues and I'm more inclined to let go of others. Generally, I dislike one-sided pile-ons about anybody, be they Trump, Hillary, Brett Kavanaugh or Sarah Jeong. In any case, I respect the eventual consensus of editors, whenever we can reach it. — JFG ^talk 10:54, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

Certainly hindsight will prove us all wrong. At the time, and now, I personally saw both as being about equally notable. (I would note that the children separation thing is also still an issue, with over 100 children who still haven't been reunited, and a giant tent city for new children being captured while crossing the border without parents. [11]) I don't think either deserves more than a single clause of a few words in the Lead, as things currently stand.

I definitely get that it's important to have voices of dissent, and I appreciate the respectful way in which you approach it. On providing "balance", the issue I have with that is most people interpret "balance" as opposing one non-neutral POV by pushing the opposite non-neutral POV, turning things in to a partisan tug-of-war. I see very few editors who are able to sidestep the tug-of-war and start from a position of "How do reliable sources treat this, and how can I make the article reflect that?". ~Awilley (talk) 14:12, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

October 2018

Hi JFG, I just wanted to let you know that I have added the "autopatrolled" permission to your account, as you have created numerous, valid articles. This feature will have no effect on your editing, and is simply intended to reduce the workload on new page patrollers. For more information on the autopatrolled right, see Wikipedia:Autopatrolled. Feel free to leave me a message if you have any questions. Happy editing! GAB^gab 16:32, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

Many thanks GAB! — JFG ^talk 18:43, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

NPR Newsletter No.14 21 October 2018

Chart of the New Pages Patrol backlog for the past 6 months.

Hello JFG, thank you for your work reviewing New Pages!

Backlog

As of 21 October 2018, there are 3650 unreviewed articles and the backlog now stretches back 51 days.

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2020 Democratic party primaries

You say McAulliffe and Omalley dont have any new refs so therefore cannot appear on the page. That is not true they have sources from late september, early october of them expressing interest. Same with Williamson mid october 2018 ref.

Gillibrand has said she is not running, can't emphasize that enough. If you are upset with old refs, why the hell are you removing Bullock and Blumenthal, but not Emmanuel and Raimondo? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rhian2040 (talk • contribs) 20:20, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

@Rhian2040: Per recent sources, I have moved Williamson to the "interested" section, and Gillibrand to the "declined" section. I have not seen any recent sources about McAuliffe and O'Malley, but feel free to show what you have. However, please take further discussion to the article's talk page, so that everybody can participate. — JFG ^talk 20:25, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

Mcaulliffe: https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Former-Virginia-Gov-McAuliffe-says-hes-not-ruling-out-2020-campaign-493689191.html

O'Malley: https://www.tampabay.com/florida-politics/buzz/2018/06/05/martin-omalley-looks-to-reboot-democrats-and-possibly-his-presidential-hopes-in-florida/

Change the name of: Ixquick by StartPage

Good morning. I think that you should change the name of: Ixquick by StartPage. Since the name of: Ixquick is out of date. The updated name is: StartPage. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Notewiki2000 (talk • contribs) 04:21, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

@Notewiki2000: Thanks for your note. I have never been involved with the article you just mentioned; perhaps you are confusing me with somebody else? If you'd like to suggest a title change for the article, the correct process is explained at WP:Requested moves. Enjoy! — JFG ^talk 11:03, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

WP:TOP25 for October 27-November3rd

Hi! I noticed you recently picked up editing on this weeks Top 25 report. I was wondering: do you mind collaborating for this week? I already have entries 1-8 done, but am newish to Wikipedia and could use some help with formatting, etc. Rogerknots (talk)

Sure, let's do that. I'd be super happy if you could pick up the articles about American TV series and wrestling events, because I'm neither familiar with them nor motivated to learn… Do you have a draft? — JFG ^talk 22:32, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

I've got a draft going in a google doc, because spell check and portability. Heres the link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/11iScywB86wlUMUDcKhr27B4svwiefQwrJDihY7B4SoA/edit?usp=sharing Rogerknots (talk)

Hope you end the report soon. (and wonder whether Rogerknots will ever appear again) igordebraga ≠ 17:51, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

Andrea Leadsom edits

Wrong venue
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Is this where I discuss Leadsom's page edits? Who knows? RE: the following undone edits: "03:01, 7 November 2018‎ 240f:76:59d:1:c459:db33:dc51:dd07 (talk)‎ . . (87,235 bytes) (+671)‎ . . (Leadsom did not respond to requests for comment on suspected COI edit of wikipedia page.) (undo)" This is not an "I don't like" edit. In the "Black Ops" section of Leadsom's page there are quotes from IDS and Tebbit alleging a smear campaign against Leadsom. But in fact neither IDS nor Tebbit prevented evidence - the news reports about Leadsom were facts and the increased press scrutiny would be expected for somebody in the running for PM. It is a fact however that an edit of Leadsom's wikipedia profile which deleted lots of embarrassing facts about Leadsom was reverted for COI IP (the IP address was in Towcester, a small town where Leadsom's constituency office is located) and when asked about this by the Guardian, Leadsom refused to respond. "No" would have closed the issue, but for some reason she didn't deny the allegations. So, in fact, the only "Black Ops" with any supporting evidence is Leadsom's possible edit of her own wikipedia page. "(cur | prev) 02:12, 7 November 2018‎ 240f:76:59d:1:b9e4:601d:7e83:a41 (talk)‎ . . (86,564 bytes) (-895)‎ . . (Have removed comments by Allison Pearson as she is a bankrupt who didn't pay her taxes (see Allison Pearson) . The opinions on matters of conscience by bankrupts who haven't paid their taxes are not relevant.) (undo) (Tag: references removed)" Allison Pearson wrote a sympathetic opinion piece not a factual news piece about Leadsom. Pearson is a bankrupt who according to public records was made bankrupt after a request by HMRC, which suggests Pearson was made bankrupt because of non-payment of taxes. In fact, Pearson has confirmed to me by email (shall I submit it as evidence?) that she was indeed made bankrupt for non-payment of taxes. So the tax dodger Pearson is sympathetic to Leadsom whose husband ran and brother-in-law owned a company that used a potential tax avoidance mechanism once described by George Osborne as “morally repugnant”. I don't think the opinion of a tax dodging bankrupt on matters of "conscience" concerning another tax dodger are relevant. Pearson is tainted. "(cur | prev) 01:59, 7 November 2018‎ 240f:76:59d:1:b9e4:601d:7e83:a41 (talk)‎ . . (87,459 bytes) (-872)‎ . . (Backed out possible COI edit: IP address appeared to be SW1; the edit is claiming Leadsom was Institutional Banking Director, but she released an "updated" CV to the FT which stated she was a deputy director; the link to the PDF is a link to some PDF on Leadsom's own website once you unscramble the static squarespace url; the edit comment contains a smear of the former colleague.) (undo) (Tag: references removed)" As written in the edit summary, there are reasons to believe that the backed out edit was a COI by Leadsom or someone related: the IP address of the edit appears to be SW1 where Leadsom's workplace is located; the supporting PDF linked to is on her own website - we have no idea where it comes from originally; the edit comment contains a smear of the colleague who criticised Leasdom - seems personal; it seems that Leadsom or her team has edited this page before to cover up her and her family's naughty behaviour. Some of what I have written won't be wikipedia-talk-page-compliant but I think there are some points made which are relevant according to wikipedia rules (in particular, linking to random PDFs on one's own website seems dodgy). I apologise for any time wasted. Steven Evans — Preceding unsigned comment added by 240F:76:59D:1:3DF4:44E8:1ADA:1CC5 (talk) 11:07, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

The place to discuss contents is Talk:Andrea Leadsom. I have copied your comments there, and replied. — JFG ^talk 11:22, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Cheers! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 240F:76:59D:1:AC5D:AB2D:EC84:E6CA (talk) 14:22, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Your WP:AE filing

There appears to be some confusion here: I don't work for you, nor am required to fit the convenience of your schedule. It's certainly not my job to help you obscure the obvious because it clashes with your political agenda.

I'll note your frequent appearances at WP:AE, and I'll also note your sudden respect for a hardline view of "consensus required" seems at odds with what you said last year: which seems, overall, to suggest that you view WP:AE as just another tool in getting your way on political articles. Calton | Talk 13:53, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Wow! Try AGF next time. It's true that I don't like the "consensus required" mechanism very much, but it's the rule, and we must all abide by its terms. — JFG ^talk 15:09, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Spliting discussion for Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court nomination

An article that you have been involved with (Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court nomination) has content that is proposed to be removed and move to another article (Brett Kavanaugh sexual assault allegations). If you are interested, please visit the discussion at the article's talk page. Thank you. Quidster4040 (talk) 23:17, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

2017 Special Counsel investigation (restoring last discussed title) listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect 2017 Special Counsel investigation (restoring last discussed title). Since you had some involvement with the 2017 Special Counsel investigation (restoring last discussed title) redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. {{3x|p}}ery (talk) 04:55, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

typos

Yes, please always do correct my typos anywhere DGG ( talk ) 19:16, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

NPR Newsletter No.15 16 November 2018

Chart of the New Pages Patrol backlog for the past 6 months.

Hello JFG,

Community Wishlist Survey – NPP needs you – Vote NOW

• Community Wishlist Voting takes place 16 to 30 November for the Page Curation and New Pages Feed improvements, and other software requests. The NPP community is hoping for a good turnout in support of the requests to Santa for the tools we need. This is very important as we have been asking the Foundation for these upgrades for 4 years.

If this proposal does not make it into the top ten, it is likely that the tools will be given no support at all for the foreseeable future. So please put in a vote today.

We are counting on significant support not only from our own ranks, but from everyone who is concerned with maintaining a Wikipedia that is free of vandalism, promotion, flagrant financial exploitation and other pollution.

With all 650 reviewers voting for these urgently needed improvements, our requests would be unlikely to fail. See also The Signpost Special report: 'NPP: This could be heaven or this could be hell for new users – and for the reviewers', and if you are not sure what the wish list is all about, take a sneak peek at an article in this month's upcoming issue of The Signpost which unfortunately due to staff holidays and an impending US holiday will probably not be published until after voting has closed.

Go here to remove your name if you wish to opt-out of future mailings. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}18:37, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

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Hello, JFG. Voting in the 2018 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 3 December. All users who registered an account before Sunday, 28 October 2018, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Thursday, 1 November 2018 and are not currently blocked are eligible to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

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Your attacks on longevity coverage

I don't believe as some do that everyone who reaches 110 deserves their own article. But anyone who becomes world's oldest person should be guaranteed an article. Why do you see it as in any way helpful to remove them? LE (talk) 18:22, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

Nice WP:SPA with wonderful edit summaries. Legacypac (talk) 22:52, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

One spate of edits on this topic today provoked by a mass attempt to delete articles, after plenty of edits on other topics. LE (talk) 23:25, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

There is tons of precident to roll up these pages on superold ppl. You are fighting a losing battle. Legacypac (talk) 23:28, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

There is a great need to defend such pages from those attacks. LE (talk) 00:57, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

@LE: I don't see why the world's oldest known person between time X and time Y should be guaranteed an article on Wikipedia. As always, notability needs to be assessed based on the breadth of coverage, and independently of a single event. People whose record-setting age is the only claim to notability are best documented as an entry in a list, where their vital statistics are easily accessed and compared with their fellow supercentenarians. We have numerous such lists, typically including the oldest (known) people in country X, and global lists of the 100 oldest-ever men and women. I am nominating for deletion articles that consist fully of longevity statistics and routine coverage of a person's life triggered by her being the oldest. That kind of article typically reads like this: "Jane Smith was born in 1899, married John Taylor, worked a farm, begot 5 children, moved to a retirement home in 1988, where she died in 2011, having lived 112 years and 58 days. Up until her last days, she had been in good health, quickly recovering from a broken hip when she was 103. She attributed her longevity to sleeping soundly and drinking three cups of coffee a day. Smith was the world's oldest known person for 3 months, following the death of Kyoko Miyake of Japan; she was succeeded by Martina Cabreras of Spain." Her age is notable, not her life and deeds. This situation is best handled by a list entry. — JFG ^talk 00:29, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

If a person's age is so extreme as to be of historic importance, a list entry is not enough. LE (talk) 00:57, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

That's an WP:ILIKEIT argument. We do have people with "historic importance" among supercentenarians: last veterans of World War I, psychologists, mathematicians, chess players, etc. Those people are notable for their life and deeds, as documented by several independent sources, not just routine obituaries or Guinness World Records. We also have a few supercentenarians who were world famous because of their age, and received extensive coverage over several years: that qualifies too. The most notorious example is Jeanne Calment, who remains to this day the only proven person to have lived beyond 120 years. — JFG ^talk 01:37, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Enforced wastefulness

You evidently like to slow down the Wikimedia servers, wasting computing cycles and as much electrical energy as possible by employing horrifically inefficient code. — Quicksilver (Hydrargyrum)^{T @} 06:43, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

?? — JFG ^talk 09:38, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

NOPAGE

Let me suggest that in future nominations you not offer notability as a deletion argument (unless there really are essentially no GNG-qualifying sources) but simply go with NOPAGE: "Whether he/she is notable or not, per NOPAGE he/she would be best presented in a list alongside [etc] [etc]." Bringing in notability just muddies the discussion. EEng 04:21, 3 December 2018 (UTC)