Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/J. Otis Ledbetter

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 to delete. --a.n.o.n.y.m ^t 19:24, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] J. Otis Ledbetter

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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 00:56, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Very untrue. The comments posted above were to question the strength of your argument, as per WP:SOCK it is prohibited to use a sockpuppet to create a illusion of a broader support for your side of the argument. Your "campaigning" comes from you and your sockpuppet, and you even admitted that you use sockpuppetry to aid yourself in AfD. Sycthos^Talk 05:45, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

A man with a "PhD" from an unaccredited "university", article created by User:Jason Gastrich, prolific creator of articles on alumni of that university all of whom have, despite vital importance to the world of education, managed to escape the notice of other editors. Oh, that's not quite true: one or two were apparently created by a sockpuppet of Gastrich's. Anyway, this article is about a pastor. And, er, that's about it. On the plus side, we do now know that he has eight grandchildren, so the bytes consumed were not entirely wasted. Just zis  Guy, you know? ^[T]/_[C] AfD? 01:03, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Comment: There is no need to pepper your nomination with personal attacks and sarcasm. Furthermore, I didn't create all of the LBU alumni entries. Many were created long before I even came to Wikipedia. --Jason Gastrich 05:16, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

There are no personal attacks in that sentence. The word "many" is also misleading: most were created by you or a suspected sockpuppet. - Just zis  Guy, you know? ^[T]/_[C] AfD? 10:08, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

At least 5 out of the 11 alumni on the LBU page were not written by me. --Jason Gastrich 10:20, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

• Delete Non of the books appear to be from well-known publishers or have significant Amazon ranks. Dlyons493 Talk 01:17, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
• Strong keep. Very notable author and minister. --Jason Gastrich 01:44, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
• Delete as non-notable vanity gastrich-cruft from a holder of a fake pHd from a diploma mill.Blnguyen 02:33, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
• Speedy delete as per Blnguyen. Diploma mills have tarnished the reputations of many. Sycthos^Talk 03:06, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per nomination. KrazyCaley 03:30, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per nom. --King of All the Franks 03:31, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep with some sort of tag, pov - disputed etc. Seems fairly notable from google 1470 hits -- Astrokey44|talk 05:57, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
• Delete, non-notable, religious figure or no significance. - WarriorScribe 06:23, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. I really don't understand the "diploma mill" criterion. Are we to delete articles on all people who do not have degrees from accredited universtities? Think of the many notable people that would include. This person seems notable enough, despite the POV against his schooling. Logophile 06:57, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

• It's relevant because he claims to be an educator. - Just zis  Guy, you know? ^[T]/_[C] AfD? 10:11, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

• Shouldnt that mean the article be edited to say that rather than being deleted? -- Astrokey44|talk 10:33, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

• I agree. And I also don't see that he really claims to be an educator. The article says he has a Ph.D. in education but the claim is that he is an author and "pastor." It doesn't seem to depend on the Ph.D. for that. More importantly, I don't think it's our role to delete an article because we feel that his education is inferior for the position he claims to hold. Can't that be addressed by the article editors? Crunch 07:38, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

• Keep, published author. Alphax ^τεχ 07:18, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

• For some values of author. One or two of his books make it into the top half million in Amazon's sales rank, but others fail to break the million mark. - Just zis  Guy, you know? ^[T]/_[C] AfD? 10:14, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

• Keep per User:Astrokey44 ··· rWd · Talk ··· 07:22, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
• Weak keep. Not the most notable guy in the world, but this isn't a paper encyclopedia. If you have a problem with the claims of his being an educator, that's grounds to remove them from the article, not delete the whole thing. Rogue 9 10:38, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. Appears to be personal vendetta by someone. --StuffOfInterest 12:30, 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 15:16, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep, Popular Minister.Tvaughn05 12:31, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
• Delete as per JzG and Blngyuen --Deiz 13:14, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
• Strong keep For all the reasons above. Also because he's a real person, who has done many notable things (have any of you had books published?). It has an image, which is good. Where is this image going to slot in if this is deleted? This could well be a featured article someday. - 13:18, 20 January 2006 (UTC) The Great Gavini ^{lobster telephone}
• ^{Keep. He's a real person; enough said. Kerobaros 13:20, 20 January 2006 (UTC)}
  • ^{You're a real person; where is your article? --Calton | Talk 14:18, 20 January 2006 (UTC)}
  • ^{No, not enough said. Please review WP:BIO for criteria to decide whether someone living merits a wikipedia article. Note that "being a real person" is not there. --Pierremenard 09:18, 21 January 2006 (UTC)}
• ^{Strong Keep. Religious media personality and author. I'm also shocked by the sarcasm displayed here. -- JJay 13:37, 20 January 2006 (UTC)}
• ^{Delete. Non-notable religious figure. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Calton (talk • contribs) 14:18, 20 January 2006. Sorry --Calton}

• ^{keep We can't delete people because books aren't that popular on amazon (this is just not relevant as a criteria) or the publishers aren't well known. bio can be verified and individual is arguably notable. Ginar 14:25, 20 January 2006 (UTC)}
• ^{Strong Keep This is a perfectly viable encyclopedia article on a public figure that could very well be the subject of someone's research in the future. In such an event, wikipedia would come in handy. That is what wikipedia is for. I haven't heard a single good argument to why this should be deleted. Itake 15:00, 20 January 2006 (UTC)}
• ^{Weak keep, his books aren't self-published from the looks of it, including one book published by the seminary press Multnomah. --badlydrawnjeff 14:52, 20 January 2006 (UTC)}
• ^{Delete per nomination --kingboyk 14:57, 20 January 2006 (UTC)}
• ^{Keep Just because you don't like the guy doesn't mean he's not notable, and the sarcasm in the nom comes across as POV; his books make him notable, as Google shows. Walkerma 15:28, 20 January 2006 (UTC)}
• ^{Keep, if the article in its current state is fairly accurate, then he's got enough to warrant inclusion. The issues about his quality of education can be addressed in an NPOV manner in the article. Peyna 15:59, 20 January 2006 (UTC)}
• ^{keep this is a compact, well-written article with sources and links, and a man with enough books, whether one thinks it is notable or not. Gubbubu 22:46, 20 January 2006 (UTC)}

• ^{Delete: Non-notable. Justin Eiler 16:22, 20 January 2006 (UTC)}
• ^{Delete So he's a pastor of a church. Who cares? He's not notable. Also, someone should go through all these keep votes and see which ones were made by new users... -- Thesquire (talk - contribs) 16:28, 20 January 2006 (UTC)}

^{Comment Actually all the ones I checked seem to be established users. Couldn't find a sockpuppet in the lot of 'em. --Spondoolicks 21:57, 20 January 2006 (UTC)}

• ^{Keep As long as the article is NPOV. This is a factual biography of a published author. Wynler 17:20, 20 January 2006 (UTC) (added sig.)}
• ^{Strong Keep per Itake - Amazon10x 17:22, 20 January 2006 (UTC)}
• ^{Keep I see no reason to delete this article. --Shanedidona 17:39, 20 January 2006 (UTC)}
• ^{Keep same as above. --Yonghokim 17:41, 20 January 2006 (UTC)}
• ^{Keep Keep I see no reason to delete this article. Lerner 18:00, 20 January 2006 (UTC)}
• ^{Delete per nom Grimm 18:16, 20 January 2006 (UTC)}
• ^{Keep guy just barely passes my notability bar, he's clearly published multiple books, he's been on television... just squeeks by imo.  ALKIVAR™ 18:40, 20 January 2006 (UTC)}
• ^{Keep. As with (US) college professors, being a church pastor doesn't get you in or out. This guy appears to be one of the more notable ones, quoted for example by the NZ Focus on the Family website (so some international coverage). Google hits are predominantly Christian sites, hey we don't discount articles on astronomers just because they appear mainly on astronomy sites, do we? Andrewa 20:11, 20 January 2006 (UTC)}
• ^{Strong Keep--Hayson 21:18, 20 January 2006 (UTC)}
• ^{Delete per Guy. I am uncomfortable with the way this discussion is going, though. Also, Greatgavini, your signature is OBNOXIOUS. rodii 21:24, 20 January 2006 (UTC)}
• ^{Keep Inclusion is based on notability, not a person's background.the1physicist 21:35, 20 January 2006 (UTC)}
• ^{Keep, as per Peyna and Alkivar. Perhaps this is a close call, but it does meet WP:BIO guidelines for inclusion. Hall Monitor 21:45, 20 January 2006 (UTC)}
• ^{Weak Keep - just about passes the notability guidelines for me. --Spondoolicks 21:57, 20 January 2006 (UTC)}
• ^{Delete. Another non-notable from our most prolific creator of non-notable bios, Gastrich. FeloniousMonk 22:08, 20 January 2006 (UTC)}
• ^{Keep per Hall Monitor. --Idont Havaname (Talk) 22:13, 20 January 2006 (UTC)}
• ^{Delete. per FM. Jim62sch 02:05, 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}

^{Thats insinuating bullshit. There is nothing wrong with alerting users to the fact that a bunch of delete-wannabies are attacking articles and demanding they get deleted without having any good reasons at all for the delete except the POV rantings of a guy that for some reason got to be an admin. Itake 01:09, 21 January 2006 (UTC)}

^{Assuming that you are addressing those remarks to me, here is the "some reason". - Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/_[C] AfD? 10:44, 23 January 2006 (UTC)}

• Keep as an author. --Vizcarra 02:07, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
• Delete as per JzG. And note to closing administrator, please evaluate carefully for sockpuppets/meatpuppets. MCB 02:09, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

• Delete I don't see anything in the article that implies notability. He is a pastor...he appeared as a guest on some radio shows...so what? --Pierremenard 05:11, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. He seems to meet the notable author criteria. His affiliation with Focus on the Family is also somewhat notable. Whether or not we agree with his religious stand or tactics should be irrelevant, as should his Ph.D. from an unaccredited university. I don't think we're evaluating this on the quality of his education, but rather on his publishing and preaching which appears to pass the test. Crunch 07:27, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Why do you think his publishing passes the test? He gets a measly 10k hits in google. I don't see any circulation numbers for the books, so I don't see how you can say that he passes the test. --Pierremenard

Based on his contributions to Focus on the Family which is a very notable organization, like them or not. Cumulativel, the circ figures of books may squeek by, but it's his affiliation with Focus on the Family that put me over the edge on this guy. Crunch 13:49, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't get it. Do you think every person employed by Focus on the Family is notable? --Pierremenard 21:51, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

• Delete per nom. suggest admin verify legitimacy of all votes. Dbchip 07:59, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment: There are many ways to try to rig an AfD. Heh heh heh. Fortunately, they're all based on the assumption that the ungodly can outthink the admins. Heh heh heh. Contributors can make the admins job a lot easier by following the procedures and policies, and by not being drawn into irrelevant debates on AfD pages, and a (significant) little easier by doing some of the work (e.g. flagging suspect sock puppet votes with links to their contribution histories is something anyone can do, not just an admin). But don't stress too much. We're human, but we're not quite as stupid as some would wish. Heh heh... Andrewa 10:55, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep: I don't know what's going on here exactly, and it sounds like a personal feud between two people started this whole thing, but the fact that this man is a published author of multiple books and has worked with Focus on the Family makes him at least somewhat notable. Someone's degree status can't be made into a criteria of notability, as was stated above. In any case, Wikipedia has all kinds of articles on fictional characters , Internet trends, etc. It would seem hypocritical to keep them and yet delete biographies of peole who couldn't prove their academic credentials valid. Evan Donovan 17:03, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
• Comment. This is not a personal feud, and it's also not a vendetta against Christians, as some people would like to portray it. It is a conversation about what makes a person notable, and there is a serious issue about how, in such a highly polarized environment, to distinguish POV pushing and linkspam from honest, good-faith efforts to create encyclopedic articles. Vote-stacking, throwing around accusations of feuds and vendettas, and jibes about people's motives just serve to polarize things more. I think it's obvious that this many-headed hydra of an argument is not going to lead to an overall consensus here and now, but there's no reason to poison the well for future discussions. rodii 17:57, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
• Weak Keep. He's notable enough for me. By the way, this sort of POV pushing, especially e-mailing people to "rally to your cause", is unacceptable. The idea here is that people can make rational, non-POV decisions on whether this guy is notable enough or not. Rodii has absolutely the right idea. Grandmasterka 20:40, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
• Strong delete as POV-pushing Gastrichcruft. Stifle 00:30, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. If he's writen stuff then he should at least have a little slice of wikipedia? I mean, Wikipedia is huge, everyone can have a share can't they? Everyone thinks that because he isn't in the news, that he shouldn't be included in wikipedia, the so called "sum of all human knowledge". But how do we know he isn't influencial? He effects hundreds with his words..... Further Note: I was brought here, like many others by Wiggins2, or as he wants to be called, "Wiggie". I think we shouldn't be so quick to shoot him down, as I, & probably many others, are grateful for his post to draw our attention to this subject. I wouldn't mind if the other "side" did the same. But we cannot ignore the fact that this is defintely going to open wikipedia into two halves; Those who want to keep. Those who don't. I.E. Christians, & others. However, this should not be about religion. I would be ashamed of the christians on here if they only voted to keep the articles because they were christian orientated. This should strictly be business as usual, even though it does seem strange an editor would nominate so many christian articles. Maybe a hidden agenda? If an article's crap, then it should be deleted. Being an inclusionist, I will probably keep the most mundane article. However, the list of notable people list is like many others, & should not be here. To do so would be obvious bias. I ask everyone to not be drawn in with a strict "You're wrong, I'm right" situation, but be open & find a way to keep peaceful.... Spawn Man 04:20, 22 January 2006 (UTC). BTW, I hope my vote isn't discounted, I count myself as a influencial editor...

There are two reasons why your comment above is wrong. The first is, I am a Christian. Much as you might have been told that this is a vendetta against articles on Christians, that is the POV of one man - which brings me to my second point: Wiggins2 is a probable sockpuppet of Jason Gastrich (and has been blocked as such). In my experience the number of genuinely notable people whose articles rely on padding like the number of grandchildren is very limited. I checked out the books, they have Amazon sales ranks in the hundreds of thousands or, in some cases millions, none of them are by major imprints. This is just another pastor, just like all the rest, I see nothing special about him at all. - Just zis  Guy, you know? ^[T]/_[C] AfD? 14:41, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wiggins2

Click the link and learn [1] Jim62sch 02:05, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

• Strong Delete. Unnotable being promoted for people to buy books. Does not meet Wiki standards of notability, no sources, and as demonstrated with the vote stuffing, this is solely an article to promote a certain religious and a certain unaccredited diploma mill (Louisiana Baptist University). The vote stuffing is very serious and something should be done to protect this type of action. The stuffing throws the whole communal mechanism at Wikipedia into serious jeopardy. Arbustoo 02:53, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

• Keep The individual clearly exists. Kurt Weber 15:47, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

And? Arbustoo 00:26, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

• Delete not notable enough to merit inclusion.--Alhutch 00:57, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per above. Ashibaka tock 18:54, 23 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.