Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Jason Gastrich

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Case Opened on 10:16, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Case Closed on 18:49, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Please do not edit this page directly unless you wish to become a participant in this request. (All participants are subject to Arbitration Committee decisions, and the ArbCom will consider each participant's role in the dispute.) Comments are very welcome on the Talk page, and will be read, in full. Evidence, no matter who can provide it, is very welcome at /Evidence. Evidence is more useful than comments.

Arbitrators will be working on evidence and suggesting proposed decisions at /Workshop and voting on proposed decisions at /Proposed decision.

Contents

[edit] Involved parties


Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
  • Jason Gastrich has been informed on his talk page [1]. JzG initiated the RfAR. Cyde, Jim62sch, and Stifle have already made statements and/or evidence. Notice of the RfAR has also been given on the RfC [2].

[edit] Requests for comment

[edit] Statement by Jason Gastrich

The recent explosion in revert wars by "apparent Jason Gastrich sock puppets or impersonators" has not been my doing. Although I disagree with JzG and Arbusto's viewpoint that a link to one of my web pages or a link that I agree with should be discussed on the talk page first, in fact I find this downright unfair and wrong, I haven't been contributing under the huge number of impersonators we have seen, lately.

For what it's worth, I see this place as hostile to what I believe in, and even the truth in general, causing me to have serious reservations about even inviting others here and certainly about promoting this place in any way.

My most important goal is to glorify God and to lead others into a relationship with Him. I've been working hard and doing this online, although some may not see these efforts reflected on Wikipedia. Therefore, I need to go where I'm needed the most, because that is where the fruit is at.

Finally, I value the concept of having and following rules in a community. If and when I decide to return to Wikipedia, I will follow the rules. However, due to its current state, I don't anticipate that being any time soon.

--Jason Gastrich 01:36, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by JzG

Jason Gastrich is an evangelical minister who runs "Jesus Christ Saves Ministries". From the outset, his creation of an autobiography - see AfD debate - he has exhibited a consistent pattern of use of sockpuppets (e.g. BigDaddy (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) and meatpuppets ("Uncle Davey" in the AfD). He was initially open about this and appeared eventually to accept it was wrong. More recently he made a series of articles and edits involving Louisiana Baptist University (LBU), an unaccredited university with which he is associated, and its alumni. A number of editors have contributed to providing neutrality and balance in these articles often against opposition from Gastrich. Importantly, this group includes Christians, agnostics and atheists.

A number of articles were nominated for deletion, and this appears to have acted as a catalyst for considerable astroturfing. This included emailing of known inclusionists and self-identified Christian Wikipedians about AfD debates, emailing users, contacting the pastor and the father of one editor, and the setting up by Gastrich of an organisation - wiki4christ.com - purportedly to encourage the expansion of Christian articles on Wikipedia. Many newly registered accounts made their first edits in unexpected places such as deletion review, these exhibited consistent use of language and many were rapidly identified as puppets. Gastrich appears to have violated WP:CIVIL, WP:HAR, WP:NPA, WP:NOT, WP:NPOV, WP:OWN, WP:SOCK, WP:AGF, WP:AUTO, WP:CON, WP:POINT.

To be fair, some others (me included) also undoubtedly strayed over the WP:CIVIL line.

An RfC was raised, certified by over 50 and opposed by only one despite the RfC being notified widely to solicit input from both sides of the debate. Efforts were made to bring both sides to this RfC. After a while I brought a motion to close with a strongly worded notice to Gastrich that he should abide by policy; this may exceed the "powers" of RfC although it was within my reading of action based on community consensus. I take full responsibility for this although this was also supported by strong consensus.

It is impossible to say with certainty absent the requested checkuser reports (fact, not criticism) precisely whether these are sockpuppets or meatpuppets, but only one recently identified sock has denied it, and that from an email address at wiki4christ.com, which is owned by Jason Gastrich, is otherwise currently inactive, and is not known to have been publicly offered as an email address facility.

I have come to the view from recent evidence re hooba (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) that Gastrich is unlikely to abide by consensus, and am therefore escalating to arbcom. I have come to suspect that an initial comment that Gastrich be given the bum's rush from the project may have been smarter than trying to get him to "play nice." Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] 22:43, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by Jim62sch

Jason Gastrich has been nothing but a sower of discord since he first joined Wikipedia. He is a man on a mission – a mission to create Wikipedia in his own likeness, that of a very POV evangelical Christianity. In the process, he once commented that Wikipedia’s editors are trying to “silence someone who is preaching a gospel that condemns them to Hell if they don't repent and trust Christ for salvation” . Wikipedia is here to neither praise nor disparage Christian theology – it is here to present a neutral viewpoint on all subjects. That is the interest that those Wikipedia editors maligned by Gastrich have at heart. Additionally, the condemnation to Hell is a very clear indication of his uncontrollable bias. [3]

In addition, Gastrich made the comment that he “could also notify numerous Wikipedia users about this RfC and have them post their thoughts and feelings”. This statement was quite troubling and at odds with his claims that “some of the hoopla about my "vote stacking" and "meatpuppetry" is false” (this, I assume means that more than some of it is true); and that he has not told them how to vote, but”… “simply notified them that there is a vote in progress”. In fact, his statement does appear to be a veiled threat to unleash a flood of like-minded people upon this page. [4]

His comments regarding sockpuppetry may strike some as a “mea culpa” of contrition, but the more troubling implication is that a man who in essence states that he represents Jesus is dishonest in his methods, and sees no problem with this dishonesty. [5]

His comments regarding Warrior scribe who he accuses of having come “to Wikipedia with the admitted, expressed intent to follow me around and revert my contributions” and his statement that “many of the names on these lists are people who have a history of hating me (and/or following Horn) before and/or after coming to Wikipedia and trolling me” are unsourced, and therefore of little real value in determining a cause for Mr. Gastrich’s behaviour (other than, perhaps, paranoia). [6]

Mr. Gastrich then states that he is “an honest and valuable contributor to Wikipedia”. Value is not an issue here, but honesty most certainly is. The admission and justification of sockpuppetry casts a dim light on his claim of honesty. [7]

The bottom line is that Gastrich does not even seem to realize that he is in violation of more policies than we could probably enumerate. He portrays himself as an innocent victim of the evil designs of other. He brings nothing of value to Wikipedia, but rather he causes dissention at every article he touches, and causes Wikipedia’s editors to waste time that could be better spent on improving the overall project. Simply put, Gastrich needs to be shown the door. Jim62sch 01:47, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by Cyde Weys

I became involved in this matter when I stumbled across some of the AfDs of Jason Gastrich's biographies. I voted keep on some and delete on others, depending on whether or not I thought they met WP:BIO. I proposed a resolution to the AfD on List of LBU people such that the notable ones be merged into the main LBU article, as is standard for these situations. Gastrich refused to accept it, saying Harvard had a "List of Harvard people", so why not LBU? (The analogy in this case is absurd, by the way, comparing an unacreditted school to Harvard?! C'mon!) Then I became aware that Gastrich was attempting to astroturf the various AfDs by sending users messages on their talk pages. This really did not sit well with me and I told Gastrich that he should stop this at it clearly goes against Wikipedia policy. My opinion of Gastrich's intentions only turned more negative once I saw that he had a sockpuppet sending out the notices as well as setting up a website with the sole intention of disrupting Wikipedia. The low point was when I received a Wikipedia email from Gastrich because apparently I had a link to the Christian infobox on my userpage. It had links to all of his articles up for deletion and encouraged voting to keep. I reproduced this email on one of the AfD pages and someone else copied it to the rest of them to be used as evidence. This whole experience has really soured me with Jason Gastrich to the point that I no longer believe keeping him around would be in the best interests of Wikipedia. He has demonstrated that he is willing to ignore all rules and all due process in order to further his agenda. He repeatedly violates WP:CIVIL and seems to be trying to frame any Christian-personality-related AfDs as a war between Christians and non-Christians, which is extremely damaging and unproductive to Wikipedia as a whole. What is perhaps most scary is the astounding number of sockpuppets we've seen from Gastrich (up to over twenty by now). --Cyde Weys 04:35, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by Sunfazer

Jason Gastrich and his Gastroturfing appears to be a form of evangelism, similar to User:Danielle Cunio. This user seems to have caused edit wars frequently. He appears to breach WP:SOCK, WP:NPOV WP:BEANS, WP:CIVIL, WP:NOR, WP:POINT and WP:NPA frequently. Maybe a month-long block is necessary. Luckily I have avoided getting into a dispute with this user. I believe that his abuse of WP:SOCK should be investigated. Also, he breached WP:POINT on a number of occasions on various aFd's. If he really wishes to carry on his campaign, he can use WestmareWiki as a means of doing so. That wiki is more tolerant than Wikipedia, and he would probably get away with what he is doing now if he did it there. I believe he should be blocked for as long as User:Iasson for abuse of WP:SOCK. This remedy would probably satisfy the Arbitration Committee. --Sunfazer (talk) 23:16, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Preliminary decisions

[edit] Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (7/0/0/0)

[edit] Temporary injunction (none)

[edit] Final decision

[edit] Principles

[edit] Edit warring

1) Edit wars or revert wars are considered harmful, because they cause ill-will between users and negatively destabilize articles. Editors are encourage to explore alternate methods of dispute resolution.

Passed 8 to 0 at 18:49, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Courtesy

2) Users are expected to be reasonably courteous to each other, see Wikipedia:Civility and Wikipedia:No personal attacks.

Passed 8 to 0 at 18:49, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Disruption

3) Users may be banned or otherwise restricted for editing in a way that constitutes clear and intentional disruption.

Passed 8 to 0 at 18:49, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sockpuppets

4) Abuse of sockpuppet accounts, such as using them to evade blocks, bans, and user accountability–and especially to make personal attacks or reverts, or vandalize–is strictly forbidden. See Wikipedia:Sockpuppets.

Passed 8 to 0 at 18:49, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Writing about yourself

5) Editors should avoid contributing to articles about themselves or subjects in which they are personally involved, as it is difficult to maintain a neutral point of view while doing so. See Wikipedia:Autobiography.

Passed 8 to 0 at 18:49, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia is not a soapbox

6) Wikipedia is not to be used for advocacy or self-promotion. See Wikipedia is not a soapbox.

Passed 8 to 0 at 18:49, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Meatpuppets

7) A new user who engages in the same behavior as another user in the same context, and who appears to be editing Wikipedia solely for that purpose, shall be subject to the remedies applied to the user whose behavior they are joining.

Passed 8 to 0 at 18:49, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Findings of fact

[edit] Sockpuppetry

1) Jason Gastrich (talk · contribs) has used several proven and suspected abusive sockpuppets to make AfD votes, lend support in discussions, and make reverts. These include Big_Lover (talk · contribs), Big_Daddy (talk · contribs), Wiggins2 (talk · contribs) and others listed here. Also see Category:Wikipedia sockpuppets of Jason Gastrich and Category:Suspected Wikipedia sockpuppets of Jason Gastrich.

Passed 8 to 0 at 18:49, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Meatpuppetry

2) Jason Gastrich has used his personal website to invite outside users to support his point of view at AfD, and to insert POV into Christian articles. The website's objectives regarding Wikipedia include to "Voice our opinion on the inclusion of Christian entries" and to "Glorify Jesus Christ". He has solicited non-Wikipedians to support and "praise" him on Wikipedia [8].

Passed 8 to 0 at 18:49, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Discourtesy

3) Jason Gastrich has frequently engaged in personal attacks against other editors, and been generally uncivil to others. Examples: [9], [10], [11], [12]

Passed 8 to 0 at 18:49, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Disruption of the deletion process

4) Jason Gastrich has made several bad faith nominations to Articles for deletion of biographies of persons he personally disliked, giving logically faulty, incomplete, and even dishonest reasons. More than a dozen such nominations were speedily closed and kept, by the practice that bad faith nominations can be closed early. See the list here: Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Jason_Gastrich#Disrupting_Wikipedia_to_make_a_point

Passed 8 to 0 at 18:49, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Self-promotion

5) Jason Gastrich (and his sockpuppets) has repeatedly used Wikipedia as a vehicle for promotion of himself and his views. This includes the creation of Jason Gastrich and his ministry Jesus Christ Saves Ministries, and [13].

Passed 8 to 0 at 18:49, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tendentious editing

6) Jason Gastrich and his many sockpuppets/meatpuppets have engaged in many sustained agressive edit wars in an attempt to rewrite articles to fit their point of view. See, for example, [14], [15].

Passed 8 to 0 at 18:49, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Remedies

Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.

[edit] Jason Gastrich banned from certain articles

1) Jason Gastrich is indefinitely banned from Louisiana Baptist University and The Skeptic's Annotated Bible.

Passed 8 to 0 at 18:49, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Jason Gastrich placed on Probation

2) Jason Gastrich is placed on Probation for one year. This means that any administrator, in the exercise of their judgement for reasonable cause, documented in a section of this decision, may ban them from any page which he disrupts by inappropriate editing. Jason Gastrich must be notified on his talk page of any bans and a note must also placed on WP:AN/I. He may post suggestions on the talk page of any page from which he is banned from editing.

Passed 8 to 0 at 18:49, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Jason Gastrich placed on personal attack parole

3) Jason Gastrich is placed on standard personal attack parole for one year. If he makes any edits which are judged by an administrator to be personal attacks, then he shall be temp-banned for a short time of up to one week. After five such blocks, the maximum block time is increased to one year.

Passed 8 to 0 at 18:49, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Jason Gastrich placed on revert parole

4) Jason Gastrich shall for one year be limited to one revert per article per week, excepting obvious vandalism. Further, he is required to discuss any content reversions on the article's talk page.

Passed 8 to 0 at 18:49, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Jason Gastrich limited to one account

5) Jason Gastrich shall edit under that username and no other. Additionally, other accounts or anonymous IPs which due to area of interest, style, manner, or IP corroboration, can be reasonably ascribed to Jason Gastrich, shall be banned. Violation of these remedies under another username or IP shall result in the the penalty being applied to the main account, User:Jason Gastrich, as well.

Passed 8 to 0 at 18:49, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Jason Gastrich banned

6) Jason Gastrich is banned from Wikipedia for one year for causing serious disruption.

Passed 8 to 0 at 18:49, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Enforcement

[edit] Enforcement of Probation and paroles

1) Should Jason Gastrich violate any ban imposed under Probation, or his personal attack or revert parole, he may be briefly blocked, up to a week in the event of repeated violations. After 5 blocks, the maximum block shall increase to one year.

Passed 8 to 0 at 18:49, 21 March 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Log of blocks and bans post RfA decision

Here log any block, ban or extension under any remedy in this decision. Minimum information includes name of administrator, date and time, what was done and the basis for doing it.

I have blocked Jason Gastrich for one year as per the outcome of this RFAr. --Cyde Weys 22:16, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

I have blocked Jason Gastrich indefinitely as a community-imposed ban, which was endorsed by multiple users at WP:AN. Stifle (talk) 13:58, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Log of proven violations and resulting blocks

[edit] Log of proven and suspected puppets post RfA decision

Note to blocking admins: remember to add the template {{sockpuppet}} or {{sockpuppetproven}} to the User page, to add them to the relevant categories, include the reference to the evidence (CheckUser or contribs) and subst the {{block}} template to user Talk with reference to the relevant policies & guidelines (usually WP:SOCK or WP:NPOV). The template {{Jason Gastrich}} also works.

[edit] Likely / proven per WP:RFCU

[edit] Likely / proven per WP:RFCU in 2006

[edit] Proven per WP:RFCU in 2007

Gastrich cybersquated Michael Newdow's name:

[edit] Per contributions, not verified by WP:RFCU

[edit] Not verified by WP:RFCU, but likely March to April 2006

[edit] September 2006

[edit] Violations in 2007

[edit] Wikimedia and Spanish wikipedia

  • September 2006 meta:User:Jason Gastrich
    • [35] Spamming user page at meta wiki
      • Most likely not a violation but given that Jason is currently under an indefinite community ban (not just the Arb Ban) this is relevant to his recent attempt to ask permission to come back here. This is a convenient enough place to keep this sort of info anyways. (If anyone disagrees, you should probably feel free to remove it). JoshuaZ 02:20, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
  • 12 April 2007 Wikimedia His links blocked as spam and used a sock puppet.
  • October 2006 Spanish wikipedia Usuario:Jason_Gastrich

[edit] Offsite attacks

[edit] Appeal to unblock