Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Chuck Missler

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was No consensus, so keep. Looking at the arguments without trying to perform a strict "vote count", I see that the arguments and consensus to keep or delete is roughly 50-50. The allegations of meatpuppetry and solicitation are serious, so I wouldn't be against a re-AfD, but only after taking a breather first. --Deathphoenix 14:25, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Chuck Missler

ATTENTION! If you came here because someone asked you to, or you read a message on a forum, please note that this is not a majority vote, but rather a discussion to establish a consensus among Wikipedia editors on whether a page is suitable for this encyclopedia. Wikipedia has policies and guidelines to help us decide this, and deletion decisions are made on the merits of the arguments, not by counting votes. Nonetheless, you are welcome to participate and express your opinions. Remember to assume good faith on the part of others and to sign your posts on this page by adding ~~~~ at the end. Note: Comments by suspected single-purpose accounts can be tagged using {{subst:spa|username}}

This AfD process has been further disrupted by a suspected sockpuppet of Jason Gastrich (talk · contribs), Wiggins2 (talk · contribs). See his contributions: they consist almost solely of soliciting others to come to these AfDs and vote keep.

As a result of the serial disruption of AfD and other questionable behaviour, I have raised a user RfC on Jason Gastrich, see Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Jason Gastrich. - Just zis  Guy, you know? ^[T]/_[C] AfD? 12:02, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

• Rebuttal: Everything above was posted to skew the voting and make people turn against me and bias their viewpoint of the nomination and the entry. It's a pretty sick tactic. It shows they care little about the actual strength of the entry; which should be the only thing considered. Since the "warnings" have been posted, some people have even said that they've voted only because of the alleged misconduct. Consequently, they and the people who are engaging in this witchhunt should be ashamed of themselves. They've done irreparable damage to their integrity and to Wikipedia. --Jason Gastrich 01:05, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

• In a way that emailing people outside Wikipedia was not? - Just zis  Guy, you know? ^[T]/_[C] AfD? 10:58, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

A bible teacher. And he wrote some books, published by a missionary press, one or two of which break the half million in Amazon's sales rank, but not by much it seems. In this article we find out that he turned to God after a business deal went tits-up, he held un-named "prominent positions" with some big firms and got a PhD from an unaccredited university (bet you can't guess which one). So now he combines a background in cryptanalysis with 30 years of Biblical teaching. Which would be really handy if the Bible weren't printed in clear... OK, he might be notable. It's possible that those "prominent positions" are indeed prominent. In which case some citations and actual details would not go amiss. Otherwise this is just a garden-variety minister with added resumé padding. Just zis  Guy, you know? ^[T]/_[C] AfD? 01:40, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

• Delete As Branch Chief of the Department of Guided Missiles would he have been responsible in any way for the 39 Scud missiles that Jimmy DeYoung weathered? God moves in mysterious ways! Dlyons493 Talk 01:48, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

• Keep He has 11 published books and a radio ministry, and if you delete this article it will soon be "resurrected", so to speak, by a Calvary Chapelite. Ruby 03:13, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

• Weak Keep This one actually does seem notable, based on the wide variety of external links acknowleding the subject and his confirmed prolific publication. I still don't much like the trend, though. KrazyCaley 07:21, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
• Delete as vanity self awarded pHd nn. Blnguyen 04:28, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
• Weak Keep. Should a subject's education be the determining factor for an article's inclusion or deletion? I don't think so. This guy is fairly notable. I hate to say it, but I am detecting bias against ultraconservative Christians in these nominations for deletion. Logophile 07:19, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep -- Astrokey44|talk 11:28, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

• There's more than one person nominating them, and actually the bias is against the use of wikipedia as a way of boosting the profile of Southern "fundamentalists" (who are not "conservative Christians", that would be the Catholics). You'll note that I have given a fairly extensive rationale above, I did take the trouble to go out and try to verify the significance of this person (and the others). It's a walled garden: these people are "notable" by reference to others (people and institutions) who are "notable" by reference back to them. They all seem to come with a full set of minor books published by fundamentalist Christian presses, studio photographs, and a resume which includes degrees from (and teaching in) unaccredited universities. It looks to me very much as if the 'pedia is being used to promote something. And there is some evidence to support that idea, see [1]. So I apologise for the interruption to your encyclopaeding pleasure, but I think it's time we reviewed the whole lot, pruned the dead wood and stamped out what looks a lot like an infestation of fundamentalist ground elder. - Just zis  Guy, you know? ^[T]/_[C] AfD? 12:17, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I am a Roman Catholic, but I have friends in Real Life and on USENET who are in the Calvary Chapel, and this guy is as notable among them as Chuck Smith or Greg Laurie. Even the Bible Answer Man is ordained in the C.C. Your suggestion that we go on a rat hunt to root out leaders who happen to ascribe to the Five Fundamentals is disturbing to say the least. Ruby 12:28, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't recall saying any such thing. What I said was, we have an apparent invasion of cruft. A walled garden of people who are important only to each other. I absolutely do not discount (including in this nomination, explicitly) the possibility that some of them may be notable outside that community, on the other hand there is good evidence that several of them are not, and this is no different to Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam rooting out linkspam: the idea that just because someone is a Christian they won't abuse Wikipedia to push a POV or "sell" the product is naive. I am a Christian and if you see my user page you will see that I am quite open about my strong opinions. - Just zis  Guy, you know? ^[T]/_[C] AfD? 00:11, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

One of your objections is the low Amazon sales rank of Missler's books. Surely this method of determining notability only applies to recent books, since books written in, say, 1994, long before Amazon stated selling books, would only experience back-catalog sales on Amazon, introducing a bias into the test. Ruby 00:35, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I missed that comment at the time. See this [2] book published in 1985 and still hovering round the 100,000 mark on Amazon. I read it as a set text at school shortly after it was published, I remember it still. That is one of my personal benchmarks for a notable book (of any sort). - Just zis  Guy, you know? ^[T]/_[C] AfD? 11:05, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

• Keep. Religious writer. -- JJay 13:40, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. Needs cleanup to remove heavy POV and should probably be flagged as such. Saying someone is not notable only because they are notable within a Christian sect you don't agree with doesn't seem right. And this is coming from someone who thinks all religions are nuts. --StuffOfInterest 13:51, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Abstain. As soon as this started turning into a Christian vs. everyone else debate I lost interest. Unfortunately, many of those voting keep are claiming that everyone else is anti-Christian. This wasn't so, but if it is repeated enough it may become truth. --StuffOfInterest 21:08, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
• Strong keep. I dunno whether these nominations were researched outside of reading articles that might need cleanup. This guy is an internationally syndicated radio host [3]. --badlydrawnjeff 14:59, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
• Delete - Reviewing the syndication list (thanks badlydrawnjeff) shows that in fact the only place his radio shows are syndicated outside the USA is Australia, where he is broadcast on radio stations that cover areas with a population density of 1 person/square mile or less (Perth excepted). Indeed here in the US he isn't broadcast anywhere in my mountain time zone, and is probably on less than 30 stations nationwide. The rest of the article probably has the same puff factor. MNewnham 19:15, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
  • When did the US annex Canada again? He's on 42 US stations, for the record. Not a real valid comparison given the style of radio, but in 2004, Howard Stern was on 44 US stations. --badlydrawnjeff 20:10, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per the thorough nomination. --kingboyk 19:54, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
• Delete as per JzG. This attempt to include all sorts of people of highly questionable credentials and notability does not reflect well on Wikipedia. MCB 02:10, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
• ATTENTION

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/List_of_Louisiana_Baptist_University_people_%28second_nomination%29 "Something very funny happened today. I got two identical emails from Jason Gastrich through Wikipedia. You can make up your own mind as to whether this qualifies for meat-puppetry or stacking the vote. Here's the email. --Cyde Weys 16:32, 20 January 2006 (UTC)"

Hello,

I noticed that you were listed as a Christian Wikipedian. I am, too. I wanted to let you know that in the last 24 hours, someone has nominated 12 Christian biography entries for deletion. Not only does this seem like bad faith and an affront to a lot of hard work, but I'd like you to come and vote on the entries. These nominations seem peculiar because some people are even presidents of universities and well known authors.

Below are some of the links that need attention. Thanks for your consideration.

By the way, I recently started an organization called Wiki4Christ (see http://wiki4christ.com). If you’d like to join a network of Christians with a purpose on Wikipedia, please see our site!

Sincerely,

Jason Gastrich

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/List_of_Louisiana_Baptist_University_people_%28second_nomination%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/J._Otis_Ledbetter

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Ron_Moseley

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Mike_Randall

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Thomas_Ice

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/James_Combs

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Neal_Weaver

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Daniel_Dorim_Kim

• Strong Keep This is starting to get ridiculous. Chuck Missler is a household name in some circles. Also, fancruft isn't necessarily a bad thing.the1physicist 19:34, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
• Weak Keep, although it would need to have citations added and be expanded a bit. Let's see, on LBU alumni articles my score so far is: 3 weak keep, 2 delete. Grandmasterka 21:30, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

You just picked the wrong fundie this time. Ruby 00:02, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

• Delete, JzG makes an excellent argument. Minimal notability within small, sectarian groups isn't enough to make that same person notable on a larger scale. = WarriorScribe 01:27, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

• Delete, Agree with JzG on this. --Censorwolf 01:33, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Delete, Wikipedia is not a promotion tool for an unknown to sell books and videos. Arbustoo 02:44, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

• Strong keep. Missler is a keynote speaker at Christian Bible conferences, a very well known author, and a prominent prophecy scholar. Plus, he has a large ministry and a radio show. --Jason Gastrich 03:16, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

• Delete - nothing in the article implies notability. --Pierremenard 13:09, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

• Keep - not because I have any opionions about this guy, but only because I just came upon some published material by him and consulted Wikipedia to find out who on earth he is. I would have been disappointed if there was no entry. Having said that, I think the POV elements in the article need removing, but keep the basic factual information. I only ended up at this page after trying to find out who this Missler is - and I'm sure I'm not the only person in the world who will turn to Wikipedia for unbiased information when they encounter something about this Missler guy. And as for the claim that he is only known in USA and Australia, I'm writing from England - these days, information doesn't stop at national boundaries. Euchiasmus 18:03, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

P.S. Just been reading the guidelines (I'm a relative newbie) and tried the Google test - Google gives 106000 pages for "chuck missler" in quotes - but I'd rather read an unbiased account about him in Wikipedia! Euchiasmus 18:14, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

• Keep WP:POINT Jim62sch 19:19, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep]] - This case is someone who is notable. I've come across this name on Usenet:talk.origins before. -Harvestdancer 02:00, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep - discussion should be case-by-case. Charles Matthews 09:25, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
• Delete he published all but one book himself. Self-published is the same as not published as far as notability of authors go. KillerChihuahua^?!? 18:49, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
• Delete FeloniousMonk 06:26, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep'. Anyone who can generate this much controversy is worth keeping. Besides, I'm an anti-deletionist; as long as Cassie Newton has her own Wikipedia page, this guy may as well have one too. Lawrence King 15:05, 24 January 2006 (UTC) — P.S. I happen to find the meat-puppet solicitation quite offensive, and therefore I have no current plans to vote on the other deletions in this list. However, I am curious. Can someone explain why twelve similar pages were flagged for deletion all at once? I oppose meat-puppetry, but if there has been some sort of collusion between current active Wikipedians to coordinate their votes for deletion on several similar pages, I can understand why someone who put work into all those pages would feel that he is being ganged-up on. Lawrence King 15:13, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

• The reason they were nominated together was that Jason Gastrich (talk · contribs) created an article with a list of "notable" alumni from Louisiana Baptist University, an unaccredited university with which he is associated. Some of these articles already existed, some were created by Gastrich or known or suspected sockpuppets of Gastrich (see the RfC above). A.J.A. went through them all and nominated those which, in his view, were not notable per WP criteria. I checked Gastrich's contribution history and found a couple more, including this one. If you read some of the comments above,. and the nomination, you will note that I tried to verify the claims of notability (e.g. "prominent" positions) but did not find any reliable sources for them. I also checked the Amazon entries and sales ranks for his books, and found them to be way off the radar. Another editor has tracked them through to their publisher and found that they are self-published, which means that as far as WP is concerned they don't count (unless they prove to have unique authority, like Robert Gunther's self-published history of early science in Oxford). Gastrich called in the meatpuppets. We also have on here the usual smattering of inclusionists (nothing wrong with that) and tactical deletionists (remove-all-Godcruft), which more or less balance out in most cases. Does that answer your question? Or have I misunderstood what you are asking? - Just zis  Guy, you know? ^[T]/_[C] AfD? 11:15, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, this does answer my question. If I didn't have inclusionist leanings, I would probably have voted to delete most of these. As it was, I voted to include this one since it seems more serious, and ignored the others. Lawrence King 00:06, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.