Hey Jgstokes, I just created a basic outline. You are a lot more knowledgeable in this than I am, and while you did give me plenty to go off of, I was thinking it might be better for you to draft it. I think I will be most beneficial in reviewing it for neutrality, from an outside standpoint, and from the perspective of the GNG and existing SNGs, in order to make sure it is compliant with the standards of notability guidelines. So with that said, would you be open to authoring it, with me in the secondary role of editor? –– FormalDude talk 04:10, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
I will respond more specifically in a few minutes to your new section and the scope and focus of these new guidelines, but wanted to say I appreciated your reiteration of Wikipedia policy that indicates there is no rush in attempting to resolve any issues. I am currently just over a month out from my first major medical procedure in 17 years, so between my current recovery from that and taking care of other things that need my attention, I've been fortunate enough to have the availability to weigh in on things like this here on Wikipedia as well. As far as what you called my "kind words" about your experience, I was honored to provide them. I've mentioned a lot in our recent exchanges that the —Wikipedia issues impacting articles about the Church had been a problem for years before I was able to address them personally by exchanging information with you. And in all of that time of trying to work towards the resolutions you've brought to the table, I've also had the unenviable task of being one trying to achieve the middle ground of respecting and advocating for the retention of existing guidelines, while getting nowhere near resolution, and being referred repeatedly to other avenues no matter what I have tried. I have also had to maintain personal neutrailities when it came to contributing to Church articles, since as a Church member, I consider the guidelines to be personally aplicable to me, but as a Wikipedia editor, i have also had to try and defend and advocate for the policies that have long seemed faulty to me despite my best efforts to resolve that question. And since John Pack Lambert and I have been frequent contributors to both Wikipedia articles about the Church and to the discussion threads of the Church Growth Blog, I also recognize the merit of the reasoning that led to his recent full block. In some of the Church Growth Blog comments, he has mentioned difficulty in trying to work with other editors, and I know from reading the history of the threads that led to his being blocked that he called out what he perceived as your anti-Church bias. The descriptions he used to characterize you do not in any way match what has happened in my exchanges with you. Additionally, for the initial years of my Wikipedia experience, my signature included the phrase that "we can disagree without becoming disagreeable." That is a motto I have tried (if not always succeeding) to use in all my interactions here. It didn't take me too long in my initial conversations with you for me to figure out your efforts were made in good faith, and since I had previously personally warned John Pack Lambert on the threads of the Church Growth Blog to not be so aggressive in his attempts to get Wikipedia to be compliant with the guidelines, his characterization of the intent of your edits was a 180-difference in comparison to my exchanges with you. So since you've been more helpful in addressing my concerns over the exchanges we've had, I definitely wanted to ensure you knew how much I appreciate the help you've given me on this matter. You've done at least a hundred-fold more in our exchanges thus far in terms of understanding and helping me work towards fixing the long-standing issues we've been having with these articles than had ever been done for me and for those articles in the 5-7 previous years by anyone whom I approached about fixing this issue. And that level of assistance deserves more praise than any words from me are able to sufficiently articulate and recognize that. It's been an honor, and one of the top highlights of my 1.5 decades of experience on Wikipedia to be able to work with you on meaningful fixes, and I hope that's sufficiently emphasized on my end. And it's something I won't take for granted at all as we continue to work on solving these issues. Thanks again. -- Jgstokes ( talk) 04:30, 31 August 2021 (UTC)
@
Jgstokes: Here's the start of my recommendations. I'll mention any more as I think of them.
The aim of this notability guide should be to promote the Latter Day Saint WikiProject's intent to provide recommendations regarding the notability of topics within the scope of the project. The other goal of this notability guideline is to convey what the Project's consensus is for the notability of LDS figures/people.
I think the guideline should be able to answer the following questions:
The fourth one would, in my opinion, go along with answering the problem the WikiProject has been experiencing with article being deleted even though they have sufficient primary sources of varying independence. –– FormalDude talk 03:12, 31 August 2021 (UTC)
Just a courtesy ping as I updated your suggestion. I just wanted to expand it and make it more concise. Let me know what you think, and feel free to revert or make more edits. –– FormalDude talk 05:43, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
In order to better suit the goals of the guideline, I think a section dedicated to sources would be beneficial. I've change the examples in the first section to be more on-topic, and moved the previous examples (which were more critiques of sources) to the new LDS perennial sources section.
You can create new lines in the table of this section in order to add more sources. The legend for the source status is located at
User:FormalDude/Notability_(Latter_Day_Saints)/Status, and all you need to do is place {{/Status|*}}
in the corresponding cell, replacing "*
" with the parameter from the legend that you want to appear (gr=generally reliable, nc=no consensus, gu=generally unreliable, d=deprecated). ––
FormalDude
talk 08:16, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
Pinging two users I've seen around the LDS WikiProject who we would benefit from being involved with here. FyzixFighter, P-Makoto. No obligation to participate, just a courtesy. –– FormalDude talk 00:36, 8 September 2021 (UTC)
FormalDude: I just wanted to check in with you here. I know I haven't done much work on this project since I last commented on your main user page. I have had some recent complications with my health that have required my attention, and have taken available chunks of time to deal with that. Nothing major or of concern, just some additional post-surgical symptoms and a minor recurring infection. I have been through more difficult things in terms of my health previously, so I am grateful to gradually be getting back to a normal level of participating on Wikipedia again. But I wanted to check in on some thoughts I've been having about these guidelines. IMHO, anyone who has served as a prophet, seer and revelator is inherently notable. By definition, that includes any Church President, any who have served as counselors in the First Presidency, anyone who has served as the President or Acting President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, any other members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles or (until the 1970s), the Patriarch to the Church.
That is because each of those men who served in each of those callings was sustained as such and each of them spoke at almost every General Conference held during their service in those assignments. Although significant coverage would be needed to establish notability of other Church leaders, I'd submit the idea that any current or former General Authority Seventy (including members of the Presidency of the Seventy), the Presiding Bishopric, and some of the Church's general officers are notable in view of the service they rendered. Of course, in cases where the main source of infirmation about the service of anyone not serving as apostles is a Church-endorsed or controlled outlet, there would need to be more specific parameters. With the exception of the General Officers of the Church, who serve part-time and keep their current vocations, all who are sustained as General Authorities render full-time service in those assignments.
For the apostles, those assignments are for the remainder of their lives. For most other General Authorities of the Church, the members of the Presidency of the Seventy serve until their releases (which for some does not occur until the year they turn 70), and all General Authority Seventies and members of the Presiding Bishopric serve until their release at the discretion of the President of the Church (most often until they turn 70). Is there a good way to word notability criteria for each of these groups? I'd be happy to provide any clarification you might need on anything I've said here. Thanks again for extending the opportunity to me to fill a key role in the drafting of these guidelines. I'm just sorry I haven't been able to do more in terms of crafting these guidelines. That being said, i believe what we have so far is very well put, and I wouldn't recommend any changes to wshat's there. Hopefully we catn figure out a way to craft notability guidelines for general Church leaders that will prevent future deletions of articles about Church leaders. hope all is well with you. -- Jgstokes ( talk) 07:09, 14 October 2021 (UTC)
–– FormalDude talk 06:30, 15 October 2021 (UTC)There are many types of Church officials, but only some are enherently notable for being a Church official. A person who holds any of the following positions in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is presumed to be notable:
- Prophets (example(s))
- Church Presidents (example(s))
- Members of the Quorum of the Twelve (example(s))
- . . .
As I've become familiar with these criteria, I think one of the major problems (outside of defining the policy) is letting other Wikipedia editors know in a way that assumes good faith. I'd be open to looking into creating a clean up template like {{AfD notice}} but specific for when people make additions to articles only sourcing links from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The cleanup box could be something like This article relies too heavily on sources from [[The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Please find reliable secondhand sources to supplement the article. Then the notification on the user's talk page could go into more detail explaining the policy. I'm willing to host the sandbox if anyone else would like to participate in creating the template - Jmjosh90 02:12, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
Hey Jgstokes, I just created a basic outline. You are a lot more knowledgeable in this than I am, and while you did give me plenty to go off of, I was thinking it might be better for you to draft it. I think I will be most beneficial in reviewing it for neutrality, from an outside standpoint, and from the perspective of the GNG and existing SNGs, in order to make sure it is compliant with the standards of notability guidelines. So with that said, would you be open to authoring it, with me in the secondary role of editor? –– FormalDude talk 04:10, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
I will respond more specifically in a few minutes to your new section and the scope and focus of these new guidelines, but wanted to say I appreciated your reiteration of Wikipedia policy that indicates there is no rush in attempting to resolve any issues. I am currently just over a month out from my first major medical procedure in 17 years, so between my current recovery from that and taking care of other things that need my attention, I've been fortunate enough to have the availability to weigh in on things like this here on Wikipedia as well. As far as what you called my "kind words" about your experience, I was honored to provide them. I've mentioned a lot in our recent exchanges that the —Wikipedia issues impacting articles about the Church had been a problem for years before I was able to address them personally by exchanging information with you. And in all of that time of trying to work towards the resolutions you've brought to the table, I've also had the unenviable task of being one trying to achieve the middle ground of respecting and advocating for the retention of existing guidelines, while getting nowhere near resolution, and being referred repeatedly to other avenues no matter what I have tried. I have also had to maintain personal neutrailities when it came to contributing to Church articles, since as a Church member, I consider the guidelines to be personally aplicable to me, but as a Wikipedia editor, i have also had to try and defend and advocate for the policies that have long seemed faulty to me despite my best efforts to resolve that question. And since John Pack Lambert and I have been frequent contributors to both Wikipedia articles about the Church and to the discussion threads of the Church Growth Blog, I also recognize the merit of the reasoning that led to his recent full block. In some of the Church Growth Blog comments, he has mentioned difficulty in trying to work with other editors, and I know from reading the history of the threads that led to his being blocked that he called out what he perceived as your anti-Church bias. The descriptions he used to characterize you do not in any way match what has happened in my exchanges with you. Additionally, for the initial years of my Wikipedia experience, my signature included the phrase that "we can disagree without becoming disagreeable." That is a motto I have tried (if not always succeeding) to use in all my interactions here. It didn't take me too long in my initial conversations with you for me to figure out your efforts were made in good faith, and since I had previously personally warned John Pack Lambert on the threads of the Church Growth Blog to not be so aggressive in his attempts to get Wikipedia to be compliant with the guidelines, his characterization of the intent of your edits was a 180-difference in comparison to my exchanges with you. So since you've been more helpful in addressing my concerns over the exchanges we've had, I definitely wanted to ensure you knew how much I appreciate the help you've given me on this matter. You've done at least a hundred-fold more in our exchanges thus far in terms of understanding and helping me work towards fixing the long-standing issues we've been having with these articles than had ever been done for me and for those articles in the 5-7 previous years by anyone whom I approached about fixing this issue. And that level of assistance deserves more praise than any words from me are able to sufficiently articulate and recognize that. It's been an honor, and one of the top highlights of my 1.5 decades of experience on Wikipedia to be able to work with you on meaningful fixes, and I hope that's sufficiently emphasized on my end. And it's something I won't take for granted at all as we continue to work on solving these issues. Thanks again. -- Jgstokes ( talk) 04:30, 31 August 2021 (UTC)
@
Jgstokes: Here's the start of my recommendations. I'll mention any more as I think of them.
The aim of this notability guide should be to promote the Latter Day Saint WikiProject's intent to provide recommendations regarding the notability of topics within the scope of the project. The other goal of this notability guideline is to convey what the Project's consensus is for the notability of LDS figures/people.
I think the guideline should be able to answer the following questions:
The fourth one would, in my opinion, go along with answering the problem the WikiProject has been experiencing with article being deleted even though they have sufficient primary sources of varying independence. –– FormalDude talk 03:12, 31 August 2021 (UTC)
Just a courtesy ping as I updated your suggestion. I just wanted to expand it and make it more concise. Let me know what you think, and feel free to revert or make more edits. –– FormalDude talk 05:43, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
In order to better suit the goals of the guideline, I think a section dedicated to sources would be beneficial. I've change the examples in the first section to be more on-topic, and moved the previous examples (which were more critiques of sources) to the new LDS perennial sources section.
You can create new lines in the table of this section in order to add more sources. The legend for the source status is located at
User:FormalDude/Notability_(Latter_Day_Saints)/Status, and all you need to do is place {{/Status|*}}
in the corresponding cell, replacing "*
" with the parameter from the legend that you want to appear (gr=generally reliable, nc=no consensus, gu=generally unreliable, d=deprecated). ––
FormalDude
talk 08:16, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
Pinging two users I've seen around the LDS WikiProject who we would benefit from being involved with here. FyzixFighter, P-Makoto. No obligation to participate, just a courtesy. –– FormalDude talk 00:36, 8 September 2021 (UTC)
FormalDude: I just wanted to check in with you here. I know I haven't done much work on this project since I last commented on your main user page. I have had some recent complications with my health that have required my attention, and have taken available chunks of time to deal with that. Nothing major or of concern, just some additional post-surgical symptoms and a minor recurring infection. I have been through more difficult things in terms of my health previously, so I am grateful to gradually be getting back to a normal level of participating on Wikipedia again. But I wanted to check in on some thoughts I've been having about these guidelines. IMHO, anyone who has served as a prophet, seer and revelator is inherently notable. By definition, that includes any Church President, any who have served as counselors in the First Presidency, anyone who has served as the President or Acting President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, any other members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles or (until the 1970s), the Patriarch to the Church.
That is because each of those men who served in each of those callings was sustained as such and each of them spoke at almost every General Conference held during their service in those assignments. Although significant coverage would be needed to establish notability of other Church leaders, I'd submit the idea that any current or former General Authority Seventy (including members of the Presidency of the Seventy), the Presiding Bishopric, and some of the Church's general officers are notable in view of the service they rendered. Of course, in cases where the main source of infirmation about the service of anyone not serving as apostles is a Church-endorsed or controlled outlet, there would need to be more specific parameters. With the exception of the General Officers of the Church, who serve part-time and keep their current vocations, all who are sustained as General Authorities render full-time service in those assignments.
For the apostles, those assignments are for the remainder of their lives. For most other General Authorities of the Church, the members of the Presidency of the Seventy serve until their releases (which for some does not occur until the year they turn 70), and all General Authority Seventies and members of the Presiding Bishopric serve until their release at the discretion of the President of the Church (most often until they turn 70). Is there a good way to word notability criteria for each of these groups? I'd be happy to provide any clarification you might need on anything I've said here. Thanks again for extending the opportunity to me to fill a key role in the drafting of these guidelines. I'm just sorry I haven't been able to do more in terms of crafting these guidelines. That being said, i believe what we have so far is very well put, and I wouldn't recommend any changes to wshat's there. Hopefully we catn figure out a way to craft notability guidelines for general Church leaders that will prevent future deletions of articles about Church leaders. hope all is well with you. -- Jgstokes ( talk) 07:09, 14 October 2021 (UTC)
–– FormalDude talk 06:30, 15 October 2021 (UTC)There are many types of Church officials, but only some are enherently notable for being a Church official. A person who holds any of the following positions in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is presumed to be notable:
- Prophets (example(s))
- Church Presidents (example(s))
- Members of the Quorum of the Twelve (example(s))
- . . .
As I've become familiar with these criteria, I think one of the major problems (outside of defining the policy) is letting other Wikipedia editors know in a way that assumes good faith. I'd be open to looking into creating a clean up template like {{AfD notice}} but specific for when people make additions to articles only sourcing links from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The cleanup box could be something like This article relies too heavily on sources from [[The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Please find reliable secondhand sources to supplement the article. Then the notification on the user's talk page could go into more detail explaining the policy. I'm willing to host the sandbox if anyone else would like to participate in creating the template - Jmjosh90 02:12, 19 April 2023 (UTC)