Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Former user 20

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(Jason Gastrich | talk | contributions)

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Statement of the dispute

This is a summary written by users who dispute this user's conduct. Users signing other sections ("Response" or "Outside views") should not edit the "Statement of the dispute" section.

Description

Jason Gastrich, director of Jesus Christ Saves Ministries () is disrupting Misplaced Pages by repeated edit warring, open use of sockpuppets and now use of meatpuppets to stack AfD debates. He is also creating a walled garden of articles whose significance is questionable, resting in some cases on other articles whose significance rests in turn on the original articles. These articles are uncritical in tone, and attempts to make them more neutral (e.g. by noting that doctorates are nonorary or awarded by unaccredited universities) are vigorously resisted.

Gastrich's edits repeatedly fail WP:NPOV (and suggest m:MPOV); he also violates WP:OWN and WP:NPA. He accuses those who revert his edits of being motivated by opposition to his faith: this is true up to a very limited point: his personal faith is at the extremes of fundamentalist Christianity, so many sincere Christians could easily be offended by what he says (that would be me).

What this is not about: This is not about Gastrich creating articles on his pet subject. If that was wrong, then I'd be on indef-block. It's about him imposing his POV, and using dubious methods to skew coverage of his pet subject towards a highly selective subset of it. The Christian fundamentalist viewpoint is a minority viewpoint - much of it is a minority viewpoint even within the Christian community; Gastrich's efforts strongly suggest an attempt to assert otherwise.

Just zis Guy, you know? / AfD? 11:24, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Evidence of disputed behavior

Sockpuppetry

See Category:Misplaced Pages:Suspected sockpuppets of Jason Gastrich
No serious attempt has been made to conceal the fact that blocked Big_Lover (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and Jason Gastrich (talk · contribs) are one and the same (unless you count this, which is pretty weak). This says it all. The blocked status of Big Lover indicates that Gastrich is well aware of the policy on sockpuppets.
Gastrich excuses his sockpuppetry here as a way of evading the instant reversion of his edits, due to his known controversial opinions. If this is the case, why did he use his sockpuppet account Big Lover (talk · contribs) to create the article which now forms his user page before he had established a reputation on Misplaced Pages? How does he account for the assertion of a Wikistalker from the inception of his first account, if indeed this was his first? And given that both accounts are now known to be him, why is he still using the sock accounts and his main account interchangeably? Given the number of edit wars in which he is involved this could easily lead to oversight of 3RR violations. There are good reasons why sock accounts are frowned on, and using two accounts interchangeably in making contentious edits to common articles (as per and numerous other examples) clearly does not fit any of the accepted uses of sockpuppets.
Wiggins2 (talk · contribs) has been alleged to be another Gastrich sockpuppet, with this edit looking particularly suspicious to some ; here Gastrich says that Wiggins2 is not a sockpuppet but "just happens to be of the samne mind". Whether Wiggins2 is a sock or a meatpuppet is indeed unproven at present, but the chances of a like-minded but independent person making those contributions as their first actions in Misplaced Pages is, I suggest, low.

Meatpuppetry

Gastrich organized an offsite group, Wiki4Christ.com, where he solicites people from his ministry to influence the AFD process, as he describes it: "Voice our opinion on the inclusion of Christian entries." (cached) and . He thanks people for attempting to swing a vote here. A person claims that Mr. Gastrich repeatedly lobbied him to come and swing votes here.
These diffs , , , , , , show very clear evidence of vote stacking. Note how the links are weblinks not Wikilinks, so they do not show up in "What Links Here".
A minor example:
This diff refers to the Wiki4Christ mailing list and a mail-out. Shortly afterwards, hordes of keep votes appeared on AfDs for Gastrich articles, none of whom were editors on the article, or AfD regulars. The majority of these followed correct AfD procedure (many AfD newbies do not). Here's a random sample: , , , , , , - as far as I can tell none of these were contacted on their Talk pages by gastrich, and none of them are the kind of people you'd expect to suddenly start voting on large numbers of AfDs. Note: I haven't singled these people out for any reason, they've probably been told that this is some kind of attempt to purge "Christian articles" (as above) and are acting in good faith (and indeed Faith). Several of them prominently self-identify as pro-life, Christians or protestants, again this is not a problem (so do I up to a point) but it is a possible marker for those likely to be contacted outside Misplaced Pages, which is the case at issue.
Per : WP:SOCK says "Do not use multiple accounts to create the illusion of greater support for an issue, to mislead others, or to circumvent a block; don't ask your friends to create accounts to support you or anyone, either".
The contribs list of Wiggins2 (talk · contribs) includes, to 09:16 UTC 21 January 2006, almost nothing except solicitations to vote on AfDs for Gastrich-related articles. If this account is not a sockpuppet then it is clearly a meatpuppet.

Neutrality

This shows the Gastrich version of an article on an institution run by an alumnus of Louisiana Baptist University, an unaccredited institution with which Gastrich is associated. This: shows some important information which anyone familiar with the institution should have known about and included.
Farrell Till is nominated for deletion by Gastrich, who admits elsewhere to have forged an email in an attempt to defame the subject . Gastrich socks Big Lover (talk · contribs) and Bobby Lou (talk · contribs) also have an edit history on this article
See also Benjamin Franklin and deism (under vanity below), where Gastrich asserts his own agenda against authoritative sources.

Civility, attacks and ascribing motives

This diff accuses another Wikiepdian of "deceit" and gives a real name (which may or may not be accurate, and is in any case a violation of Wikiquette unless the user chooses to reveal it), and calls him a "known liar". In a splendid example of irony,. Gastrich states that this person is "very single-minded".
This diff says of another Wikipedian voting to delete one of Gastrich's articles that the subject has "likely written more books than you have read".
This diff shows him once again naming another Wikipedian, contrary to wikiquette.
This diff (statement of interest: it was me he was having a go at) describes the removal of a second linkt within a site already included in an external links section as "encouraging ignorance" (the link caption was Free Prophecy Videos - Some featuring Pack (Pack is the article subject, the website was the subject's own website, already linked as a source)
Here he accuses Duncharris (talk · contribs) of "invention".
"rv. There ya go monkey."
"He (Daycd) can be a single-minded troll and you exposed him."
Here he accuses me of "anti-Christian bias", a patently absurd claim (I am a practising Christian), including a veiled threat.
Although Gastrich is not above recruiting people to vote keep, he doesn't like people to vote delete ()
Here we see him ascribing motives contrary to WP:AGF - the assumption that everybody who does not accept his narrow version of Christianity is anti-Christian is implicit in this message.
This edit summary says "there ya go, monkey" and Gastrich then left this on FeloniousMonk's talk page. The source cited is http://www.adherents.com/largecom/fam_christian.html - I do not know if this site is considered a reliable source.
Left on Jim62sch's user page User_talk:Jim62sch#Your_comments to which Jim responded with . This item was deleted by Jason, contrary to advice given at User_talk:Jason_Gastrich#Vote_stacking, at 03:13, 22 January 2006.
Here he taunts AJA for failing to nominate some articles
In this diff Gastrich leaves a message on Itake's talk page which can only be interpreted as stating that WarriorScribe will go to Hell for his contributions to Misplaced Pages and actions on Usenet.
Gastrich sock Bobby Lou (talk · contribs) attacks another person for the removal of a Gastrich site added to an article
A user with a LGBT-supportive userbox gets this tirade; the word "queer" appears only in the userbox.

Ownership and edit warring

Gastrich's user page sets the tone: (see the header).
in this page history between 13:31 on Jan 20 and 09:21 on Jan 21 an edit is reverted by 207.200.116.11 (talk · contribs) twice and Wiggins2 (talk · contribs); the article is then edited by Gastrich under his own account. Given the nature of the edits (removing a critique of Gastrich's work and adding Gastrich's work) there is no other plausible explanation than that this is Gastrich. A neutral editor would more likely remove both. This is a WP:3RR violation (checkuser requested, data not in yet).

Self-promotion

Jason Gastrich was created by Big Lover (talk · contribs), an openly admitted sockpuppet.
This diff sees Gastrich adding a link to his own site without acknowledging that it is his site; it uses a different domain from his own site.
This appears to show evidence of Gastrich having previously tried to astroturf his own vanity article during its AfD debate.
Here Gastrich points to Amazon reviews of his own work as demonstrating its authority, but this suggests that, despite his specific assertion otherwise here
Here he ascribes motives for behaviour.
Here, a Gastrich sock adds a link to Gastrich's user page from the main article space , note that the subject is Farrell Till, against whom Gastrich admits using forged emails as an attempt to defame.
Here Gastrich represents as authoritative his own analysis of the deism or otherwise of eight historical figures, at least one of whom is unambiguously a deist per authoritative sources .

Disrupting Misplaced Pages to make a point

Prominent atheists nominated for deletion as apparent revenge:

Applicable policies

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Evidence of trying and failing to resolve the dispute

(provide diffs and links)

I left a polite but firm note here:
I attempted to speak to Mr. Gastrich about the problem with soliciting votes: . He indicated his belief that he had done nothing wrong, and said that he would take my remarks "under advisement".-Colin Kimbrell 14:01, 22 January 2006 (UTC) I see now that the vote-soliciting by the accused sockpuppet Wiggin2 began a little over an hour after I brought the matter up with Mr. Gastrich. This reinforces my belief that he will not willingly renounce these practices, but rather seek newer and more obscure ways to try to "game the system". -Colin Kimbrell 15:45, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
Last Malthusian posted this to request Gastrich to stop. Gastrich subsequently removed this, as he removes many unsupportive comments (bad practice); archives are not created. This is not unacceptable, but it is questionable when actively debating contentious topics.
Warning against personal attacks from FeloniousMonk
Warning against vote stacking, recruiting by FeloniousMonk

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Response

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Outside views

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Outside view by Endomion

It is true that Jason nominated a number of biographical articles recently, on charges of non-notability, in a manner that appeared he was attacking their atheism or association with Ayn Rand. Sometime he did this without bothering to carefully read the articles, such as when he nominated a former president of Angola. However, a number of people contacted him on his user page, including one person who shares his religious world-view, and there was a positive response on his part. He continued to nominate atheist biographies, but at least the new nominations were justified on the grounds of non-notability. This indicates that Jason is amenable to expressions of concern by other people. Jason was mistaken in his actions to avenge the series of nominations of religious figures the other day, but he did recognize his mistake and I do not believe he will continue this behavior.

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Ruby 15:12, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Response to Endomion

I agree that Gastrich probably won't continue nominating articles for deletion as a WP:POINT. He isn't stupid.

However, to me Gastrich appears to follow a pattern of abusing policies until it's clear that he can't abuse them any more, then finding a new one.

He used sockpuppets, then when he couldn't use sockpuppets anymore he used meatpuppets (see 'Meatpuppetry' and 'Sockpuppetry' above).
He couldn't create a self-promotional article about himself, so he started trying to whitewash the article on his alma mater (see 'Neutrality'). addendum: not to mention inserting links to his book in various articles via sockpuppets; see Durova's outside opinion --LM 19:35, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
And most of all, he used talk pages to recruit voters (see 'Meatpuppetry' again), then when he started taking flak for that he started emailing people instead. At least one person (Cyde Weys) reprinted his email , otherwise we would have thought that Jason had, to paraphrase Endomion, recognized his mistake and was not going to continue his behaviour.

Now, we can keep whittling Gastrich down until he's violated every single policy, been warned for it and stopped, but I think his disruption of Misplaced Pages should end here and now. Assuming good faith does not mean we have to let ourselves be played for chumps. --Malthusian (talk) 18:09, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Outside view by Crunch

Apparently in response to a number of deletion nominations of articles related to Christian broadcasters and other Christian-related articles, Jason nominated a lengthy string of biographical articles of people who were either listed as atheists or had affiliation with Ayn Rand, stating in each case that there was no basis for encyclopedic content and that the person did not appear notable. This culminiated in the seeming absurd nomination of the first president of Angola. While some of these nomations naturally did reveal biographies that some people found worthy of deletion on the grounds of questionable encyclopedic value, it was obvious that the primary reason the articles were nominated was in retaliation for the earlier nomination of biographic articles of Christians. In short, Jason perpetuated a Christian vs. Atheist AfD war. Further, the justifications for the deletions were generally not related to the content of the article, which seemed to fuel the fire. While some of the votes in response to the nominations may have been reactionary and made solely because Jason was the nominator, I think this was understandable given Jason's track record and his rapid rate of nominating what appeared to be every identified atheist biogrpahy in Misplaced Pages. Also adding fuel to the fire was Jason's "do not edit" statement on his User page. While I understand that it is generally understood that User pages are the domain of each User, this statement seemed unecessary. I am not at all confident that Jason will not continue this behavior. I believe he views Misplaced Pages as a venue on which to spread his Christian evangelism and he will use confrontational tactics if necessary.

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Outside view by Durova

Last month's edit war at Talk:List of deists and the recurrent edit war at Talk:The Skeptic's Annotated Bible may be relevant to this discussion. In the first example he removed several names of United States patriots and proposed questionable methods for qualifying entries to that list. The second example is more complex. Mr. Gastrich has published a criticism of The Skeptic's Annotated Bible called The Skeptic's Annotated Bible Corrected and Revised. AfD removed an article about Mr. Gastrich's book last fall. To my outsider's perspective, Mr. Gastrich appears to be attempting to use the remaining article for self-promotion. I view the recent AfD incidents within the framework of a sincere yet deeply problematic editor. What I hope Mr. Gastrich comes to realize is that his tactics do a disservice to his beliefs.

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Discussion

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