Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Minions

This is an offensive user subpage written to target Mike Church, a mostly extinct Wikipedia editor.

Some of these "sock puppet" claims may be true, but a number of proven false ones are included on the page. Some of these users don't even exist; for example, User:521 has zero contributions. Most of these alleged sock puppets use distinctly different writing styles from Mr. Church's. A number of them seem to be anonymous accounts of Wikipedia users who wished to express opinions on controversial matters without it affecting the rest of their Wiki-lives. Others were new users who were turned away from Wikipedia from the ugly politics that emerged as soon as they commented on hot-button issues and were accused of being other users.

The page is inaccurate and defamatory, and is damaging to the working environment of Wikipedia. It ought to be deleted immediately. Maradox 17:10, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• Question: Have you contacted Isomorphic and asked if he or she will remove the page or why he or she believes it to still be necessary? I agree that people are very quick to label sock puppets and that the local politics can be off-putting, but I hope we can get an amicable solution before VfD. Geogre 17:16, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Comment: The fact that User:Maradox's second edit was to mark the page for deletion somehow makes me suspect an ulterior motive. Also I would like to note that 521 has in fact made edits, though to a deleted page. —No-One Jones 17:23, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Delete: Mike Church is easily one of WP's most controversial users. Most people who support him do so anonymously (like myself) because they don't want to see the disruptive wrath that was inflicted upon Mr. Church earlier this year. For example, a poster with six hundred edits, dating back to October, was once accused of being a "sock puppet" for Mike after writing a very cautiously pro-Ambition post. This kind of crap only adds to that environment. The sad fact of the matter is that no one would argue that Ambition was worth an article; Mike just made the mistake of writing the article himself. If he'd been older and wiser (he's what, 23?) he would have known that this would be bad form and lead to automatic rejection of his contributions. Neither Mike nor any of us can erase the blemish that mistake has given his Wiki-reputation, but we can erase the petty crap that comes out of these long-stale squabbles. Blue Dragon 19:50, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• Oh, please. Mike Church is hardly "one of WP's most controversial users", much as he might like to think so. At the very most, he's an annoying self-promoter (and not the only one of those, might I add, Mr. my-first-edit-was-to-an-obscure-VfD-page). 24/142.177.etc/whatever he calls himself nowadays, who's carried on a two-year crusade against Wikipedia in any forum that won't kick him out, is "controversial"; most of the users on Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration are "controversial"; Church is strictly a small-time pest. —No-One Jones 21:32, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• Keep; anyone poking around on user sub-pages should realize the limitations of private work product and of guesses about sockpuppetry, so accuracy is not required. But it provides valuable clues to anyone willing to use it with that understanding. --Jerzy(t) 04:21, 2004 Aug 8 (UTC)
• Keep. Ambi 10:23, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Keep. No case to answer. Andrewa 12:10, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Delete. I'll also comment that User:Maradox is an unlikely candidate for Church-ness given that s/he quoted Ayn Rand on his/her user page. Also: Blue Dragon, Mr. Church is either 20 or 21, according to his user page. 259 17:38, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • The evidence suggests that this is yet another M.C. sockpuppet. —No-One Jones 18:08, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Delete. Mike doesn't seem to want to be on Wikipedia, Isomorphic and his herd don't want him here, and keeping this page is just going to provoke regular rashes of vandalism. It's not worth the time that will be wasted. Unattributable 17:58, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Sock puppet. —No-One Jones 18:03, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)
    • Your mom. Unattributable 18:37, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Keep. —No-One Jones 18:08, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Delete. Part of one of the more clever but most petty smear campaigns in Wikipedia's history, one that has turned away hundreds of users and is mentioned in several disparaging reviews of Wikipedia. Zzzzzz 18:40, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Sock puppet. —No-One Jones 18:45, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• Keep: I hope the users in question can sort out their differences. I haven't seen convincing arguments that the user pages violate Wikipedia policy, and therefore they stay. I understand that they might be upsetting, but our user pages should be places for us to work through out Wikipedia-related thoughts, even if they're wrong. Geogre 19:41, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Comment: Well said. Two quibbles. One, I don't think it's really a case of working out differences as one side has absolutely no case to answer IMO. Two, I'm unconvinced that this is all a particular user. It may be, but a number of people find it amusing to disrupt our activities. There was a similar deletion debate about one of Tim Starling's user pages a little while ago. And I can understand why most (not all) sock puppets dislike being identified, how would you like to have the whole logical basis for your being removed? (;-> No change of vote. Andrewa 20:56, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Flip reply: Happened to me a long time ago. It just left me wondering why I was here, and then I discovered Wikipedia. :-) (Truthfully, I think the only possible response on these matters is to not engage the issues, but only to assess flatly on deletion criteria. Anything else means that VfD gets to be another forum for airing grievances, and we'll see more people settling scores here.) Geogre 04:10, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)
    • Comment: Yeah, exactly. It's a balancing act between being proactive on one hand and avoiding trouble and time waste on the other. Andrewa 10:08, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Keep: What Jerzy said.--Bishonen 20:13, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Jesus H. Christ. How many users have been registered solely for the purpose of voting to delete this article? Whoever keeps doing this (Mike Church?), please cut out this stupid sock puppet crap; it isn't working, and I'm sick of liars. Vote and argue under your own username. Keep. --Ardonik 20:48, Aug 8, 2004 (UTC)
• Delete with haste; there shouldn't even be a debate. I'm sick of this fucking childish, inane bullshit. I made some mistakes early on (like, February) in the overzealous promotion of my game and my ideas and people never forgave me. Why? Because they're petty, egotistical, and inherently negative. I've accomplished things-- for one, invented a well-respected card game-- through my talent, toil, and yes, some luck. Isomorphic et al, rather than investing time into their own accomplishments (and I'm sure many of these people are quite talented, some probably smarter than I am) spent hours upon hours attacking me for their own childish amusement. Why? It's hard to accomplish stuff; much easier to sit back and shit-talk others' achievements. Since then, they've done everything they possibly can to annoy or insult me, taunting me to get me as riled up as they possibly could; it was a source of humor for them. This is not good for my health, to be regularly angry. I left WP in disgust last May hoping I could end it, but then people began using the remaining Ambition page (which I wanted deleted) to insult me, both in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. So, yes, I'll admit I did a little bit of "sock puppetry" on Ambition (card game); I wanted it either deleted or modified in ways that were not insulting to me. The page was deleted, as I wished. And yet, this insulting, highly inaccurate page against me persists, and I will have it and any like it gone at all costs. My desire is to erase every trace possible of my existence on Wikipedia, for good. I have spent enough time on Wikipedia to know its fatal flaw: The massive egos of a few overzealous contributors dominate, and ruin the experience for everyone. Knowing this, I want no part. Furthermore, the highly inaccurate and, in many cases, provably slanderous statements on here about me and my supposed "sock puppetry" ought to be removed, and will at any cost. This page and all other slanderous claims about me ought to be removed now, so I can peacefully leave WP as I wanted to a long fucking time ago. Mike Church 22:32, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Oh, and some reading for ya. It explains much more.User:Mike_Church/72804 Mike Church 22:38, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Sock puppet. —No-One Jones 23:10, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• Delete No personal attacks. The Steve 17:37, Aug 9, 2004 (UTC)
• Delete. There should be no debate. It should be a speedy deletion. It clearly violates # 4 on the list of what Wikipedia is not. Skyler 19:50, Aug 9, 2004 (UTC)
  • Comment: Try as I might I can't see how you can get even a debatable violation of what Wikipedia is not out of this. It's a user page, so it doesn't need to meet the article guidelines, just the general ones, and it does. Whether the page is a personal attack is an opinion I guess, it seems to me that it's accurate and commendably dispassionate. There's a bit of humour in the wording which is helpful IMO seen in the context of the whole messy story of Ambition (card game), Mike Church's now deleted article about the game he wrote and promotes rather aggressively at times. No change of vote. Andrewa 00:53, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Delete. It's a vanity page. User:Isomorphic is an alternate screen name of Mr. Church, who created the page to glorify himself. Mr. Church created a lot of the users who have attacked him, to bring as much drama and press to his game as possible. I hung out with him a bit last winter and he had this all planned out, that he would create as much drama as possible, phase the page out in August or September, then people would wonder where it went. And he'd become famous, the story went. User:Isomorphic will fiercely deny being a sock puppet of him, as will others, such as Mr. No One Jones, but the fact is, they are. You have all been pwned. The troll you summoned 01:56, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • The troll you summoned - Contributions!
• Keep: Church is a serial liar and an admitted puppet master. Isomorphic's page is a public service, quite apart from being a user page. --Tagishsimon 01:58, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Sigh. Creating this page was, admitedly, not my brightest moment on Wikipedia. I let Mike's behavior get to me. However, his comments above (all of them, not just the ones he made with his own account) give a pretty clear picture of what got me to that point. I don't really care if the page is deleted eventually, since I can recognize Mike pretty easilly under any name he chooses. Still, I don't think I could take the irony of having it deleted at the request of one of Mike's sockpuppets. Isomorphic 02:02, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)