User talk:ජපස

no trouts

...but I don't want the bludgeoning simply transferred to my talk. The editors at the article should treat that as any other edit request from someone with a COI. valereee (talk) 15:57, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Will do! Sorry about mistreating your talkpage. jps (talk) 17:15, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Not at all. It wasn't that I didn't want it on my talk in particular but that I didn't think it needed to be done anywhwere. I just think the editor needs to go do something else. The article needs a synopsis, but they don't seem to be able to live with a collaborative effort on it. valereee (talk) 18:38, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Nomination of Cosmology for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Cosmology, to which you have significantly contributed, is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or if it should be deleted.

The discussion will take place at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cosmology until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article.

To customise your preferences for automated AfD notifications for articles to which you've significantly contributed (or to opt-out entirely), please visit the configuration page. Delivered by SDZeroBot (talk) 01:02, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

:)

Special:Diff/1068491098. And comments welcome at its talk page if you detect obvious problems or omissions... —PaleoNeonate – 18:38, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Cool. Reminds me of stuff I had done years ago. I think it's buried somewhere in the history of the userpage. Cheers! jps (talk) 21:33, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Nice, I found it, —PaleoNeonate – 15:29, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

WP:AFC Helper News

Hello! I wanted to drop a quick note for all of our AFC participants; nothing huge and fancy like a newsletter, but a few points of interest.

• AFCH will now show live previews of the comment to be left on a decline.
• The template {{db-afc-move}} has been created - this template is similar to {{db-move}} when there is a redirect in the way of an acceptance, but specifically tells the patrolling admin to let you (the draft reviewer) take care of the actual move.

Short and sweet, but there's always more to discuss at WT:AFC. Stop on by, maybe review a draft on the way? Whether you're one of our top reviewers, or haven't reviewed in a while, I want to thank you for helping out in the past and in the future. Cheers, Primefac, via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:00, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

New message from Jo-Jo Eumerus

Hello, ජපස. You have new messages at Talk:TRAPPIST-1.
Message added 12:47, 22 February 2022 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 12:47, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

Re: The Cosmic Serpent

I reverted your deletions from The Cosmic Serpent because your rationale for removing the material makes no sense. A crazy as Narby sounds, your edit makes it seem like you didn't even review what you were deleting, as the cited material you removed criticizes Narby. Further, the material adheres to various guidelines pertaining to synopses for non-fiction articles. You cited WP:REDFLAG which makes no sense for two reasons: one, the synopsis is written within the context of the author's stated claims, and two, biophysicist Jacques Dubochet debunks Narby's assertions within the same section, fulfilling the remit of REDFLAG. Again, it really sounds like you aren't reading what you are editing. Viriditas (talk) 11:49, 15 May 2022 (UTC)

@Viriditas: Am I in an alternate universe here? I would love to see Jacques Dubochet's debunking, but the reference link was to this cotton-mouthed review from the Guardian. It doesn't actually support the prose placed and, to the extent that it does, it is indeed a WP:REDFLAG as Jay Griffiths isn't exactly qualified to opine on whether shamans have scientific knowledge of molecular biology. It's possible that there were issues at some point back in the history of the article where reliable sources were removed, but Dubochet is nowhere mentioned in that source. I think the problem is that you assumed that the article was in a previous state. jps (talk) 11:59, 15 May 2022 (UTC)

You may want to consult how we write synopses for non-fiction articles. The stub as it is follows those rules. While you and I might agree that Narby has clearly fallen into a drug-induced state of pareidolia and patternicity, which is a very common psychological state in the psychedelic community, you must also agree that this altered state of consciousness is no different than a religious adherent who writes a crazy book about perceptions of religious imagery in natural phenomena, or a political conspiracy theorist who makes a crazy fake documentary film like 2000 Mules. Don't confuse the map with the territory. We can write about these works without also lending them credence, and we don't outright delete the material or the articles because they make crazy claims. I am unaware of any article about Narby on Wikipedia that asserts the veracity of his claims. Instead, the material asserts what he says and cites his detractors like Dubochet et al. Jay Griffiths has no bearing on this at all, and I'm confused why you keep bringing this up. I think it's perfectly acceptable to make it clear that Narby isn't adhering to established science, which was the purpose of Dubochet, which was removed. If more can be added, great. I think we may be talking past each other. Griffiths isn't being used to support Narby, it's been used to cite Narby. I think that's the part you are missing. Viriditas (talk) 12:11, 15 May 2022 (UTC)

@Viriditas: I'm confused That makes two of us. Consider your diff which kicked off this conversation. Can you see that you (re-)introduced two sources? One was Jay Griffiths and other was Narby's follow-up book. I also don't understand your distinction between "supporting Narby" and "citing Narby" vis-a-vis Jay Griffiths. jps (talk) 12:19, 15 May 2022 (UTC)

This is really simple and there should be no disagreement: you removed the entire synopsis section, including Griffiths, which summarizes Narby's book thesis (it is not used to cite Griffiths' personal opinion as you claim); and you removed Dubochet, who criticizes Narby's failure to test his theory. Let me repeat myself: you removed the statement "The book argue[s] that [the] modern scientific understandings of DNA have been known to indigenous people for thousands of years and learned by shamans through ritual." This is part of Narby's extraordinary claim. Griffiths is cited not for his opinion, but to source Narby. You also removed the material criticizing Narby: "Jacques Dubochet criticized Narby for not testing his hypothesis". And for another look, here is my original stub. Viriditas (talk) 12:28, 15 May 2022 (UTC)

You claim that Griffiths is reliable for a summary of Narby's thesis. I categorically disagree. This would be rather as if we took a shroudy's word for the synopsis of a book about a claim Roman Empire provenance for that mediaeval fake. It's just not a very reliable source for establishing what if anything is a worthy synopsis of the book. Further, do you admit that the source I removed was not to Dubochet?

Maybe you are concerned that the text in question was okay and that the sources could be improved. But we are under no obligation to keep text that is uncited or poorly supported at Wikipedia. If you have better sources, by all means let me know, but right now the article is being sourced to just about the most credulous that I can imagine. And, what's worse, I don't think we can use Narby as a source for Dubochet's criticism. Do you?

jps (talk) 12:32, 15 May 2022 (UTC)

Further, do you admit that the source I removed was not to Dubochet? You clearly removed Dubochet in this diff. I can't respond to your other comments because they make no sense. Either there is a language barrier or you honestly don't understand anything I've said. I'm not attached to the articles in question, and I would seriously recommend redirecting them to their parent temporarily. However, you are doing an endrun around the current discussion and that's why I reverted. How about letting the discussion play out? Viriditas (talk) 12:39, 15 May 2022 (UTC)

One last time to see if you will get it: The citation on that text was to a book by Narby. It was not a source by Dubochet and I cannot for the life of me find the claimed citation (Dubochet 1997) that appears in Narby's book. So what Wikipedia is doing is quoting Narby quoting Dubochet for criticism. This is not how it's supposed to work. The rest of the argument that we shouldn't edit/improve articles while they are under AfD is one that I think is roundly rejected by deletion policy. jps (talk) 12:59, 15 May 2022 (UTC)

@Viriditas: Trying to figure out what is going on here, I think that the Dubochet criticism that Narby is quoting might be found in this French-language book: [1]. However, I cannot confirm that as I do not have the book and no libraries near me have it. Can you confirm this? If so, that would be a good source for criticism, but I would appreciate not relying on Narby's translation as, at a minimum, this would be a slight conflict of interest, I'd argue. jps (talk) 13:07, 15 May 2022 (UTC)

I will ping @Odysseus1479: but he hasn’t been active since late 2021. Odysseus1479 has previously helped me find and translate French works for various articles. I will also attempt to look as well. Thanks for the tip. Viriditas (talk) 01:20, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

Thank you! I imagine that if we can locate this work, it is liable to be very enlightening one way or another. jps (talk) 03:14, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for thinking of me, @Viriditas! I’ll just say that my general laziness is punctuated by periods of low morale. Glad to help, anyway: although I’m not particularly good at finding things I’ll have a go at translating or summarizing whatever can be found. From a cursory survey following the above links I gather that the immediate issue is of our reporting criticism based on the subject’s own writing. I agree with jps that it’s a bad look, even where it’s not obviously a straw-man or otherwise self-serving account. (Presumably Narby would be describing Dubochet’s criticism by way of a preamble to his own rebuttal.)

Regarding DNA Before the Sovereign, it does look promising as the source. A few observations:

• I don’t suppose I can materially improve on a machine-translation of the blurb, but it’s more of a teaser than an abstract, anyway. The “debate” might be a collection of battling essays, a transcript of a moderated dialogue, or anything in between, and it’s unclear what role Kiefer actually plays as “arbitrator”: judge, framer/commentator, referee, facilitator or some combination thereof? (Not that that’s particularly relevant to what Dubochet says there.)
• “Not testing his hypothesis” is on the vague side for searchability, and the IA link doesn’t appear to host the Narby source any more, so I can’t tell how specific or detailed his description is there. The German edition of this book does appear to be searchable at Google Books, however, if you can recruit a German-speaker—then again snippet-views often fail to provide sufficient context to be properly understood, and the most likely search-terms may occur passim.

  P.S. The Ascent review cited at Intelligence in Nature contains what appears to be a quotation from Dubochet about CS: “blindly charging down the wrong path”. Translating that to German might score a hit. Then again it’s uncited, so for all we know it could be Narby’s description again.—04:04, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

• I’m nowhere near either of the two libraries WorldCat shows, but it can be purchased (& shipped here) for only about US$15. It would also take some time & effort to read through—I’m a good order of magnitude slower reading French than English—but I expect that would be the best way to get a proper grasp of the debaters’ positions. OTOH it appears quite short, and from the German ToC I gather the scientific issues (as opposed to ethics & policy) are mostly covered in the first few chapters.

Those are my initial thoughts, anyway. Sorry for the delayed response.—Odysseus1479 04:43, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

Input requested

Please see my comments at Talk:Sun#Formation_prose_structure concerning the FA prose in the formation subsection. Viriditas (talk) 23:06, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

Dude, just wanted to thank you again for one of the best explanations I’ve ever read. Is it okay if I bug you now and then for future help? Viriditas (talk) 21:41, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

Of course! No problem. jps (talk) 01:24, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

Great. I was looking for information on triggered star formation (TSF), in the context of the formation and evolution of the Solar System. Wikipedia has nothing except for a few sentences. There’s a recent paper that mentions a bit about it. I realize we have a star formation article, but I don’t think TSF is the focus. There’s also many theories that can be folded into a general article on TSF. Viriditas (talk) 22:49, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

It is outside my area of expertise to know whether a separate article on triggered star formation is worthwhile. Certainly a section in the star formation article makes sense, in my rough understanding. Maybe that's a good place to start and then spinout? jps (talk) 03:07, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Agreed. Viriditas (talk) 04:22, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

So how to approach this? I respect the OpenStax team for doing a pretty good job of summarizing at an appropriate level the state-of-the-art understanding of astronomy. They just updated with 2e, so we could start by seeing the differences in emphasis or character between our star formation article and their chapter. jps (talk) 11:58, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

I like this approach. In a related endeavor, I was reading off-Wiki about stellar jets and their role in star formation, only to find that Wikipedia’s treatment of the subject, which strangely appears in an article titled astrophysical jets, differs greatly with how others treat the subject. In a little bit of good news, I really enjoyed reading Barnard 68. It has engaging and informative prose that keeps the reader interested. Viriditas (talk) 01:10, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

In grad school you often have one or two classes on jets in your plasma and fluids class or something. I may even have had a hand in shoehorning a lot of stuff into the astrophysical jets articles some 15 years ago or so. In any case, most physical models for producing jets scale rather nicely, and so they're often all lumped into one like this. Compare accretion disk. jps (talk) 01:25, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

Related question: I couldn’t help notice multiple off-wiki sources constantly talking about how "inefficient" stellar jets are, to the point that they were boggled by the lack of efficiency. Why is this such a concern? Does this imply that they are fundamentally missing something about how stellar jets function if they perceive a wasted or useless process? For analogy in another discipline, would this be like the previous understanding of "junk DNA" in biology as a placeholder for not understanding its function? Per your link to accretion disk, that article says, "Jets are an efficient way for the star-disk system to shed angular momentum without losing too much mass”, but that statement is not true for stellar jets at the beginning of the formation of a star. Per Openstax, "Studies of Orion and other star-forming regions show that star formation is not a very efficient process. In the region of the Orion Nebula, about 1% of the material in the cloud has been turned into stars. That is why we still see a substantial amount of gas and dust near the Trapezium stars. The leftover material is eventually heated, either by the radiation and winds from the hot stars that form or by explosions of the most massive stars". If memory serves, a lot of this material comes from stellar jets. Viriditas (talk) 02:07, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

Most of the time discussion of efficiency is referring to the efficiency of star formation which is to say the efficiency of carrying angular momentum away from a system and the chances of creating a star. One of the big outstanding mysteries in astrophysical modeling is how you get from cloud to star. Under certain assumptions about the process you form way too many stars. Under other assumptions, it's basically impossible. Getting the efficiency of star formation just right would explain the number, size distribution, and distances between stars, for example. jps (talk) 12:42, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

Got it. The models in the literature that I’m looking at say there should be more stars based on the numbers, but there aren’t, so the models aren’t accurately predicting star formation. Is this correct? Viriditas (talk) 21:15, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

Seems to be. There are lots of "quenching" mechanisms that people invoke but so far no one knows what the right answer is. jps (talk) 21:18, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

Would you consider becoming a New Page Reviewer?

Chart of the New Pages Patrol backlog for the past 6 months. () Hi ජපස, I've recently been looking for editors to invite to join the new page reviewing team, and after reviewing your editing history, I think you would be a good candidate. Reviewing/patrolling a page doesn't take much time but it requires a good understanding of Wikipedia policies and guidelines; the new page reviewing team needs help from experienced users like yourself. Would you please consider becoming a New Page Reviewer? Kindly read the tutorial before making your decision (if it looks daunting, don't worry, most pages are easy to review, and habits are quick to develop). If this looks like something that you can do, please consider joining us. If you choose to apply, you can drop an application over at WP:PERM/NPR. If you have questions, please feel free to drop a message on my talk page or at the reviewer's discussion board. Cheers, and hope to see you around, (t · c) buidhe 20:30, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

HB

What in the world is driving this? Even claiming that an in-depth investigation is an opinion piece. FTN? Doug Weller talk 16:03, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

I think this is largely fall out from the Guerrilla Skeptic Arbcom case. One side learned the wrong lessons from that. jps (talk) 16:06, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

Dammit, I was named in that case, and I still dunno what you are on about!!. - Roxy the English speaking dog 18:44, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

Not to get all philosophical or anything, but Wikipedia has cultivated a culture that looks at policies as though they are gifts from god. I understand why WP:BLP is as stringent as it is. There was a time when Wikipedia was a literal defamation engine. But we've moved well past that era and there are nuances that were not captured when the policy was being formulated which have come to the fore. There is a culture here that it's okay to basically be a WP:JERK here at Wikipedia as long as it is in the service of keeping BLP sourcing to a "high level". The problem is, the editorial judgement of what makes a source "high level" is always contextual. And here we are. jps (talk) 19:13, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the invite to talk[2] jps. Don't worry, I didn't think you were accusing me of being a member of GSoW, I accurately interpreted what you meant to say. I've explained my side of things as I see them on Roxy's page[3] and if you (and perhaps @Doug Weller:) would share your perspective I think that could be really helpful for all of us. Also open to any questions you still have about me or why I made certain edits. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 22:22, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

I figured something like that had happened, but your actions were so brazen that it was really annoying for me to go through and try to undo so much of what you did (in part because bots helpfully ran after you). The effect of what you ended up doing was to shift a number of articles towards a state that basically removed major criticism. There is a party here at WP which would absolutely rejoice at this action and it isn't your group -- it's one that has been silently rubbing their hands together at the prospect of the regulars falling over themselves unable to handle the policies that had allowed for contextualization of fringe.

The problem really is that the obsession with declaring a certain source "reliable or not" as though it is a binary and not contextual as well as the generally laudable approach to be overly cautious with BLPs has driven us to be absolutely pedantic when it comes to how to write certain things here at Wikipedia. If I was going to write a textbook on UFOs (and I actually am doing that, truth be told), Colavito's work would feature as one of the better sources on the topic. This includes his blog which is flippant but accurate when it comes to this subject.

So that's what I see. The pendulum has swung a bit in an overcorrected direction of stringent sources. I'd be okay with that if it was accompanied by a removal of content that is dubiously sourced. But just removing Colavito from articles about wack-a-doodle ideas and not removing a lot of the ideas themselves just brings back awful memories of the bad old days. And the same patterns play out because while the motivations and interests have change, the software is basically as clunky and as conflict-inducing as it has ever been.

So no hard feelings, at all. I hope you can understand a bit where some of us old-timers are coming from here. And I am glad it didn't devolve into edit warring.

jps (talk) 00:24, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

I actually am doing that I'll line up to purchase a copy. JoJo Anthrax (talk) 13:58, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

You won't have to if it works out! I'm writing it using grants and intend it to be OpenSource when it is finished. I guess a little WP-philosophy has rubbed off on me. jps (talk) 01:17, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

I'd honestly forgotten that pseudoscience/skepticism was the "hottest" of the hot topics, next time I'l most certainly bring any skeptical source in question to RSN first so as not to trigger any old memories. We disagree on whether the ends justify the means in terms of using sources that don't meet our standards but I don't think we disagree on the rational response to any of the underlying topics. You do good work, next time just keep the WikiPTSD under control and start a conversation instead of going to 11 immediately. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 00:45, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

Well, if we're swapping advice here (and I freely admit that I do tend to overreact because of WikiPTSD), a quick note in the thread that you intended to go through and remove all references to Colavito's blog would have been just as brazen but would not have caused me to go to 11. Discussion is always preferable to articlespace action when it comes to something like this, I think. I don't in principle object to removing that blog where there are other better sources or where it doesn't add anything. I guess if you pressed me, I wouldn't necessarily object if you thought it was a BLP matter and there were ways of minimizing the fringe advocacy of the subject. This probably requires some patience and care and a bit of WP:NODEADLINE sauce. jps (talk) 01:11, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

It never occurred to me that you might be. But I don't think you've done your due diligence on Colavito who has had positive reviews in a number of peer reviewed journals (and many mentions in books that are RS, but it's the journals that show his credibility. Doug Weller talk 07:42, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

The assumption that when someone calls a senator a "loon" that must be a fringe opinion is, perhaps, the jumping off point. Sometimes senators really are loons. I remember this one senator who pumped his fist in the air at a group of people that he later ran away from. Pretty loony. I remember this other senator who ran for president and had a famous campaign ad where he threw a rock into a pond as a political statement. jps (talk) 10:58, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

Yes, speaking of “the bad old days”, I can recall a similar cycle back in the mid-2000s with 1. intense coverage in popular media, TV, etc. featuring credentialed “experts” representing new “scientific” investigation of paranormal claims, 2. Wikipedia bombarded with new users who felt that, given these “new developments”, scientific proof of the paranormal would rapidly be be forthcoming and Wikipedia should get onboard, and 3. little, if any expert analysis or critique except for self published skeptics. But #1 declined steadily as the paranormal fad was replaced by new sensational popular interests, and #3 was mitigated as academics and science educators became more active in addressing pseudoscience in the media. However, this all took time…a number of years in fact…so it’s a bit disappointing to realize we’re only in the beginning of this new cycle with UFOs. - LuckyLouie (talk) 16:50, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

You're telling me. And to have Avi Loeb leading the charge in a certain way is utterly disappointing. Well, those who forget history are doomed to repeat it, and we're really good at forgetting history. jps (talk) 19:05, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

I see remarkable similarities to 2000s-era amateur ghostbusters pseudoscientific gadget craze, e.g. O.S.I.R.I.S. Off-road Scientific Investigation & Response Informatics System. However the mode of profiteering has certainly evolved since then. - LuckyLouie (talk) 20:27, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

Earth Similarity Index: ESI Table

I would like to bring back the ESI Table in Earth Similarity Index article for research purposes. Nicholas Herak (talk) 15:36, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

I would recommend going through the [4] proposal channel if that's what you need. jps (talk) 20:05, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

Incident at Administrator's Noticeboard

Hello, there is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Specifically, we're trying to determine which laws dictate who can delete your comment on the Barbro Karlén talk page. Thank you. LightProof1995 (talk) 07:19, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

Thanks

I just wanted to stop by and express my appreciation for your work keeping the woo on Wikipedia to an appropriate minimum. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 13:55, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

The feeling is mutual. Thanks for all you do too! jps (talk) 14:06, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

Hey man, please calm down :)

Seriously, I appreciate your support at Talk:July–August 2022 United States floods#RfC about mentioning of climate change, but you're being a bit disruptive. Yes, some editors there have put forward very poor reasons, made obviously flawed statements, but I fear you might be getting close to the point where you might accidentally breach WP:NPA. I've explained there in a recent reply why I felt I needed to start that RfC, as the most neutral way to get attention to the issue. I know the whole thing became a discussion that is very frustrating to participate in, and even I resorted to some occasional cynicism, e.g. to deal with accusations that this was "off topic". But don't let this absurd discussion drag you into a useless fight! So let me give you some advice: Keep WP:COOL, spend some time away from the article and in other areas, and come back in a few days. It helps! (I know you are a much more senior editor than I am, but that won't stop me from giving you advice :P) I promise I will keep an eye on the page in the meantime :) -- LordPeterII (talk) 22:28, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

I appreciate that you have your own way of dealing with things, but I am concerned that this dispute may be a stand-in for a bigger problem. I have no doubt that we will end up with a solution that will be amenable eventually, but in my experience these sorts of problems tend to spread insidiously if we pretend that the shell game is not rigged. What is happening here, it seems to me, is agenda-driven editors are more-or-less gaming the system. They probably don't even realize that they are doing it. I have no doubt that certain political corners of the US are in such a bubble that they think that any mention of climate change is a leftwing POV. Sadly, having gone down this road before, I think that the only way to really deal with this editorial issue is to identify people who approach the situation this way whether wittingly or unwittingly. It does not seem to be something that the normal modes of operation on Wikipedia is equipped to handle.

I will wait till the end of the weekend, but I have to say I am not optimistic.

jps (talk) 03:09, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

Reliable Source Noticeboard Discussion In Progress

Hello. This is a friendly head's up that a discussion was started on the reliable source noticebaord to determine if the Journal of Park and Recreation Administration is a reliable source. You may be interested in participating in the discussion, so I wanted to let you know about it and say you may participate here. Have a good day! Elijahandskip (talk) 03:43, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

FYI

Regarding your edit here, and not that it matters much, but a quick analysis with Stellarium reveals for that date, time, and location that Jupiter was actually 9 degrees above the horizon. So thanks for removing those unsourced "facts." JoJo Anthrax (talk) 03:14, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

It is pretty amazing that this was allowed to slide. jps (talk) 03:17, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

Thank you

I appreciate your comment at my talk about my shepherding, but I also want very much to thank you for your contributions in that effort. Your input helped a lot, and it made all the difference. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:27, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

I didn't do much, only forced the issue. But it seems that something a bit more stable and close to a Hegelian synthesis and Socratic mean has emerged. jps (talk) 11:03, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!!!

		The Death Barnstar
		Hello jps, Thank you for your contributions to Reincarnation. Excellent contributions to articles about death earn this wicked award. "Only those are fit to live who do not fear to die; and none are fit to die who have shrunk from the joy of life and the duty of life. Both life and death are parts of the same Great Adventure." -- Theodore Roosevelt LightProof1995 (talk) 16:41, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

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Happy holidays!

Happy New Year!

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year, jps!

The other day, I was having a conversation with someone about holiday cards and social media. It occurred to me that, in the years since I left Facebook, the site I use most to communicate with people I like isn't actually a social media site at all. If you're receiving this, it's pretty likely I've talked with you more recently than I have my distant relatives and college friends on FB, at very least, and we may have even collaborated on something useful. So here's a holiday "card", Wikipedia friend. :) Hope the next couple weeks bring some fun and/or rest. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 18:46, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

Talk:Rhodes UFO photographs/GA1

ජපස, if you meant to fail this GA nomination in your review, you didn't finish the job. At the moment, the review remains open and unresolved. The discussion at WT:GAN at the end of September does not appear to have affected the review one way or the other.

To complete the failure process, please see WP:GAN/I#FAIL for the remaining steps. If that is what you wish to do, I'm happy to help if anything is unclear.

If you have another solution in mind for this GAN review, please let me know your intentions, and I'll see what can be done. Thank you very much. BlueMoonset (talk) 20:05, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

I don't know if I have another solution or not. Discussion is ongoing. jps (talk) 00:02, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for January 13

An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Gary Wilson (author), you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Depression.

(Opt-out instructions.) --DPL bot (talk) 06:03, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

What would J(PS) do?

Regarding your posts here and here, I favor inclusion criteria for both List of reported UFO sightings and UFO sightings in the United States such that the listed events/topics/things have their own, stand-alone enWiki article. That criterion should go far in improving the articles by excluding non-notable, stubby, some-guy-mentioned-something material. I am willing to do my part to keep the ball rolling, as you wrote, by starting the process, but I am uncertain how best to proceed. Would you recommend a full-blown RfC at one/both pages, or simple (yeah, right) Talk page discussions to achieve consensus? JoJo Anthrax (talk) 17:03, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

I think that a WP:BOLD move would be better and just revamp the page. If it could be done in one fell-swoop so people would see what the result would look like, that would be best. Then, if there is pushback, RfC. But I have a feeling there won't be the pushback and, if there is, it won't be substantive. jps (talk) 18:09, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) This also brings up the related issue of many UFO articles having misleading article names, Aurora, Texas, UFO incident being a prime example. Referring to reports of UFO sightings and claims of alien contact as "incidents" is a convention that books written by UFOlogists pioneered starting in the 50s. That many of our articles about UFOs follow this convention is no surprise, since most articles were created by UFO enthusiasts or editors deferring to what they believed was the relevant expert community for such things. Of course, there are a number of legitimate examples (like Roswell UFO Incident, etc.) where WP:COMMONNAME justifies the use of "incident", but there are too many others that need renaming IMO. - LuckyLouie (talk) 15:55, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

The word "encounter" is also commonly used in UFO article names, which also seems problematic. Do I assume correctly that boldly changing the titles (i.e., applying the JPS Model) is the best way forward? Or should a broader discussion be initiated, perhaps here? JoJo Anthrax (talk) 17:57, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

I think a discussion doesn't need to be initiated until you encounter resistance. jps (talk) 18:00, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

User:Feoffer/sandbox History of UFO lore

Hi, Isn't this worth a deletion? Yann (talk) 19:31, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

It might be. Feel free to propose it. @Feoffer: to see what the intentions are. jps (talk) 22:10, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

@Yann: why delete that? I'm using it / working on it. How did you even find it? Is it being linked to from somewhere? I thought public-facing search engines omitted works in progress of this type. Feoffer (talk) 23:38, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

I can think of a few ways it is discoverable through WP either through an internal search or through a contributions search, but I cannot speak for Yann. jps (talk) 01:06, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

There is a clear double standard here. You requested deletion of one of my subpage, while this has been here for more than 2 and half years. Yann (talk) 22:49, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

The double standard is baked in to Wikipedia: WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. As I said, feel free to nominate it. jps (talk) 22:55, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

It seems like a valid Userspace draft, but it might be a good idea to tag it with {{Userspace draft}}. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 22:56, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

All the cool kids want to know

Regarding If I was going to write a textbook on UFOs (and I actually am doing that from here, is there any good news on that front? A year-long, off-continent sabbatical is coming up in a few months (not mine, my wife's) and I'm lining up things to read/explore/drink. JoJo Anthrax (talk) 17:41, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

We just had a meeting about it today. My colleague is actually taking a sabbatical next year to work on the text which is likely to be more broadly on Astrobiology and include UFOs as a single chapter. I can e-mail you a copy of the in-progress chapter if you'd like (though it does need updating). Direct attribution to Colavito hasn't made it into the text yet, I must admit. jps (talk) 19:18, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

Sure, go ahead and forward a copy to me via email. I will treat it as confidential correspondence. If you are open to editorial/grammatical feedback just give me the high sign. JoJo Anthrax (talk) 16:50, 17 March 2023 (UTC)