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SOme editor tried to remove this under NPOV and RS ground:
Another criticism of MLMs is that the odds of breaking even or even making money are far worse (less than 1%) than other types of businesses.(Taylor, Jon M. (2002). "Comparing Recruiting MLM's with No-product Pyramid Schemes, and with Gambling". Consumers Awareness Institute. Retrieved 2009-06-25.)(FitzPatrick, Robert L. (August 4, 2002). "The 10 Big Lies of Multi-Level Marketing". Consumers Awareness Institute. Retrieved 2009-06-25.) "The vast majority of MLM’s are recruiting MLM’s, in which participants must recruit aggressively to profit. Based on available data from the companies themselves, the loss rate for recruiting MLM’s is approximately 99.9%; i.e., 99.9% of participants lose money after subtracting all expenses, including purchases from the company."(Taylor, Jon M. (2002). "Comparing Recruiting MLM's with No-product Pyramid Schemes, and with Gambling". Consumers Awareness Institute. Retrieved 2009-06-25.)
Several things.
1) This is in the CRITICISM section and is there for covered under NPOV.
2) Jon M. Taylor has an MBA as well as a PHD. This makes him as an expert and therefore a RS.
Ergo NO LEGITIMATE grounds for removal of this material.-- BruceGrubb ( talk) 08:18, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
I applaud your efforts in finding suitable sources to back Taylor's credibility as a reliable source...However, my concern with the Taylor source referenced in the article is the actual nature of the content itself.
While Taylor may have been referenced in other third party publications, when looking at the site in question (the one cited in the article) I did not see any mention of any place in which that information was published. In addition, there are no real raw data given and even if there were, again, this is the work of an individual who may or may not have a bias and which is not mentioned to be published or reviewed in any fashion. On top of this, only final numbers are presented. Nowhere is there any mention or description of the data gathered or how they were analyzed or interpreted to come to those conclusions.
There are only two things included that even come close to this. One is the mention that "Gambling statistics were obtained from Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas, April 6, 2001." Again, we just have to take his word for that...but even if that is true a) there is no proof offered to support it and b) it has no real bearing on the information being referenced in our article here. The other is:
The estimates are based on our careful analysis of reports published by the MLM companies themselves. These extraordinary loss rates were derived by removing three sources of deception from the reporting of these MLM’s:
(1) the practice of not counting ALL who signed on as distributors (agents, consultants, etc.) in the population of recruits who attempted to make the program work for them, but instead counting only those still “active;” i.e., deleting all dropouts in the calculation,
(2) not subtracting expenses, especially products and services purchases from the company to "do the business," and
(3) assuming legitimate sales of products (to customers not in the network) that did not occur.
So, here Taylor claims to be gathering data "published by the companies themselves" but offers no other information as to where they were published, where one might find them, or even what those data are. He goes on to say that the numbers he arrived at were reached by "removing three sources of 'deception'." From the list of what those sources are he implies that he was able to 1) obtain the exact number of all who signed on as distributors (despite the fact that this information was left out of the published sources he claims to have used), 2) obtain the exact amount of expenses accrued by every one of these distributors as a result of "doing the business", and 3) derive exactly how many reported sales were not actually sales (i.e. they did not occur).
How any single person (or organization for that matter) could obtain information like that is a mystery to me. Short of every single distributor who signed up keeping a detailed log of business expenses and then Taylor obtaining such data or interviewing each person, there is no possible way to know how much any one person spent to "do the business". Not only does he not mention how he got such information, he neglects to even give a hint as to what that information is.
And finally, this of course all assumes any analysis was done in the first place. Again, no proof has been offered for this.
Do any of the sources you provided detail (or at least reference) the actual data from the web page in question? -- JohnDoe0007 ( talk) 11:41, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
Bruce, given you have access to and have apparently read all of these journal articles, it is quite obvious that THEY should be being used as sources, and not a personal website. Wikipedia policy is clear that SPS like websites should be avoided if possible. Given Taylor and FitzPatrick have easily provably false misinformation on their wesites (eg "70% retail sales rule") they obviously are not reliable sources and have some issues. Use the better sources and avoid self-published personal websites, particularly on a topic that can be controversial. -- Insider201283 ( talk) 11:47, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
I neglected to mention earlier that it would appear that the original argument was that this man and his personal website qualify as reliable sources simply because he has some letters that follow his name, and that the information provided does not need to be neutral because it is provided in a "criticism section." This is not so.
A criticism section is meant to provide information on the criticisms raised by others...not present them as facts or to allow for non-NPOV content. A NPOV can be maintained throughout a criticism section. An encyclopedia is supposed to deliver information about subjects. If a certain subject garners criticism in the outside world the encyclopedia can provide a documentation of such criticism from a neutral point of view. It is in this context that such unreliable sources can be used (i.e. when speaking about those individuals or opinions). In other words, one might be able to use the sources in question as examples of individuals who have criticized, but not necessarily as legitimate criticism of the subject of the article. WP:RS, WP:PSCI and WP:V all touch on this.
However, WP:SPS is quite clear in this situation. The information provided and presented in the way it was in this article goes against official English Wikipedia policy. The source is not only self-published, it is shoddily presented and offers no real credence to itself while treading in the realm of fringe theory...not necessarily there, but along those lines. This, plus the "statistics" it provides offer nothing to the use of any formal scientific method or verifiability.
I will attempt to rework that section of the article so as to keep some of the information in it, but even then the community may very well reach a consensus that Taylor (or FitzPatrick) or any of their criticisms are widely-enough held to garner a mention in our encyclopedia. -- JohnDoe0007 ( talk) 12:59, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
<---Ok, let me get this right. One of the reasons Taylor's website is a good source is because he calls one of his writings a whitepaper. Another reason is because, along with every other person who commented, his comments about a proposed business opportunity rule were published on ftc.gov. A third reason is because he's cited in a self-decribed opinion piece in a student run journal - an opinion piece that declares a number of companies to be illegal pyramids, despite the fact they have been legally investigated (in the case of Amway, for years) and found not to be. Ouch, reality hurts. Yeah, some strong reasoning there Bruce. On the other hand, the reason why you want to use Taylor's website as a source and not one of the many actual peer-reviewed papers, or even the FTC itself, is because .... because .... nope, you still haven't answered that question.-- Insider201283 ( talk) 01:50, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
(remove indent) While I have not had time to read these a quick search produced some references that should be usable and give this article its badly need reference material (if I found an actual online version I have provided a link):
Herbig, Paul 1997,; Rama Yelkurm "A Review of the Multilevel Marketing Phenomenon" Journal of Marketing Channels, 1540-7039, 6:1 Pgs 17–33
Nat, PJ Vander ; WW Keep (2002) - "Marketing fraud: An approach for differentiating multilevel marketing from pyramid schemes" Journal of Public Policy & Marketing pg 139-151
Cahn, PS (2008) "CONSUMING CLASS: Multilevel Marketers in Neoliberal Mexico" Cultural Anthropology, 23:3, Pages 429-452 (This I have read an even though I am an anthropologist I'm not sure of his point in it.)
Muncy, JA (2004) "Ethical Issues in Multilevel Marketing: Is it a Legitimate Business OR Just Another Pyramid Scheme?" Marketing Education Review
Sparks, John R. (2001) and Joseph A. Schenk "Explaining the Effects of Transformational Leadership: An Investigation of the Effects of Higher-Order Motives in Multilevel Marketing Organizations" Journal of Organizational Behavior, 22:8 pp. 849-869
Micklitz, HW; B Monazzahian, C RÖßLER (1999) "Door-to-door selling—pyramid selling—multilevel marketing" Study commissioned by the CEC.
I also got a few clunkers like: "The Failure rate with multilevel marketing is very high" Michie, Justin "Street Smart Internet Marketing"
"What’s more frightening is if your network marketing opportunity fails (and over 90% of them do), this “once-in-a-lifetime” opportunity may haunt you for a lifetime, as friends, family, co-workers, remind you that your big dream turned out to be nothing." Harris, Cathy (2006) "Multilevel Marketing aka “Pyramid Schemes” – Good or Bad?"
So there is a lot of Wheat and some chaff.-- BruceGrubb ( talk) 15:43, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
Higgs, Philip and Jane Smith (2007) Rethinking Our World Juta Academic uses [MLM Watch website http://www.mlmwatch.org/] as well as Fitzpatrick as references. "Juta is respected as South Africa's pre-eminent academic and law publisher". So here we have yet another scholarly reference not only showing Fitzpatrick is a reliable source but giving us MLM Watch as one as well. The more I dig the more it looks like what little scholarly information there is regarding MLMs is negative.-- BruceGrubb ( talk) 10:38, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
"Multi-level marketing carries negative connotations and is illegal in special forms known as pyramid selling, snowball systems, chain-letters, etc." Schmidt, Andreas U. (2006)"Multi-level markets and incentives for information goods" Information Economics and Policy Volume 18, Issue 2, June 2006, Pages 125-138
The abstract on this one is a very interesting read: "The wake of the recession has witnessed a boom in direct selling schemes also known as pyramid selling, multi-level marketing or network marketing." Sarker, Rinita (1996) "Pyramid Selling" Journal of Financial Crime 3:3 Pg 266 - 268. If the main body has similar text then the effort to say these are different things just took a major hit to the head.
Business students focus on ethics By Leo V. Ryan, Wojciech Gasparski, Georges Enderle has an article by Angela Xu of the China Europe International Business School goes over the problems with MLMs (including a lack of a good definition) and states "For this reason, the MLM is also called Pyramid Sales" showing even more problems with separating MLM from pyramid selling.
This fragment I found is interesting: "Multi-level marketing is a pyramid scheme in reverse. An operator will sell large quantities of something to the target and they are expected to sell these on to their friends at a mark-up." Ahmed, Tanzila; Charles Oppenheim (2006) "Experiments to identify the causes of spam" Aslib Proceeding 58:3 Page:156 - 178-- BruceGrubb ( talk) 02:49, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
Are you kidding me? All I did was change it from saying "it has been proposed that article X should be merged into article Y" to the less specific "it has been proposed articles X and Y should be merged."
During my additions to Network marketing I realized that if anything, it might be more appropriate the merge Multi-level marketing into the Network marketing article, as the latter is the one that is the more general term (i.e. it encompasses more facets of marketing and speaks to an overall strategy as opposed to a specific structure of compensation within a strategy, which is what multi-level marketing is). This, in addition to the explanation of multi-level marketing that is now included in the network marketing article, made me consider the possibility that members may end up deciding to merge the others the other way...so I adjusted the tag to be more general and open that for the discussion. I personally believe they each warrant their own article, but I felt the diaogue should at least be opened.
And again, I didn't remove the tag...I didn't even reverse the statement of the tag...all I did was to remove the specificity so that "which should be merged into which?" could be part of the discussion....and I was the one who put the original tag there in the first place.
Not all changes on Wikipedia require discussion and consensus before they are made. In fact, most don't. Please understand the edits I make are in the vein of WP:Better and I ask that you use common sense and do not revert due to lack of prior consensus or discussion. That type of activity is counter-productive to the evolution and progression of the encyclopedia and can discourage individuals from contributing...especially newer ones...and especially when those actions come from an administrator. -- JohnDoe0007 ( talk) 07:13, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
(remove indent) Gummessonm, Evert (1994) "Making Relationship Marketing Operational" International Journal of Service Industry Management 5:5 pg 5-20; Vander Nat, Peter J. and William W. Keep (2002) "Marketing Fraud: An Approach for Differentiating Multilevel Marketing from Pyramid Schemes" Journal of Public Policy & Marketing 21:1 pg 139-151 and Bloch, Brian (1996) "Multilevel marketing: what's the catch?" Journal of Consumer Marketing 13:4 pp. 18-26 all identify network marketing as another name for MLM. Bhattacharya, Patralekha and Krishna Kumar Mehta (2000) "Socialization in network marketing organizations: is it cult behavior?" Journal of Socio-Economics, Volume 29, Issue 4, Pages 361-374 identify Amway, Mary Kay, Nu Skin, Shaklee and the like as Network Marketing Organizations or NMOs and this is the same term Cruz uses. I think five different peer-reviewed articles should be enough to demonstrated network marketing and MLM are the same thing.-- BruceGrubb ( talk) 01:54, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
BruceGrubb in sections above has given numerous sources to be used for the article. I thought I'd setup a separate section just to provide sources for discussion. I haven't read all the sources provided by Bruce, but he seems to think they're primarily "negative" and says there doesn't seem to be many "positive". I thought I'd help him out. The books I've listed are only from recognized publishing companies and not self-published. As such they are considered good sources under Wikipedia guidelines WP:RS and WP:V.
more to come ... -- Insider201283 ( talk) 11:57, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
I've listed a lot more potential sources here. In addition I believe the following sources clearly DO NOT qualify under Wikipedia standards.
All of these are self-published websites. Most of these are self-evidently not allowed, a few may garner argument. MLMWatch is run by Stephen Barrett of QuackWatch fame and that site has been much discussed on controversial on wikipedia. It passes as a sometimes source because he's a doctor, the site is about medical practices, and many reputable sources cite him. With regards MLM, Barrett has zero qualifications and the site is not cited by many reputable sources. As such IMO it's a poor source. Skeptic's Dictionary suffers from much the same problems. The Babener source on MLM compensation plans is debatable, I think we need better. -- Insider201283 ( talk) 18:46, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
Not all of these may meet the requirement of WP:RS
Yarnell's book is by Prima Publishing better known through their Prima games division and is part of the Random House Information Group. We are using a game manual publisher as a RS on MLM who is owned by a printing company that is all over freaking map in terms of meeting WP:RS guidelines? You have GOT to be kidding!
The ...for dummies books are good for basic reference material but their quality varies too much to be considered reliable across the board. Now if they refer us to original material that is reliable sourced that is something else.
Xardel's book is through Blackwell Pub who is now a part of Wiley. Now Wiley InterScience is "The leading resource for quality research" but this is not under that imprint. This is a maybe. We need to know the quality of the different divisions.
Clements' book is by Prima Lifestyles another division of Prima Publishing. So same problem as Yarnell.
Robinson's book is put out by Three Rivers Press which is own by Crown Publishing who is owned by Random house. So same problem as Yarnell.
Rubino's book is put out by Wiley so this another maybe.
Kiyosaki is by Cashflow Technologies which he owns. Self published and given the questions regarding the quality of the information in his Rich Dad, Poor Dad has been put forth by none other than John T Reed (whose credentials are back up in such publications as MSN Money) these are totally useless.
The papers are another issue.
The Alturas, Santos & Pereira talks about direct marketing and customer satisfaction feed back. It barely mentions Multilevel marketing and only in terms of customer acceptance not distributor success.
Grayson's paper is to "develop, analyze, and calibrate a dynamic decision model of the growth of a retail NMO." He does give us statistics but they are so insanely complex they look like the kind of stuff you see for quantum physics. Also on the distributor side of things not every thing is a bed of roses either. It useful but will give most people who read it a headache.
Grayson's chapter is good solid easy to understand read and is by a publisher (Sage Publications) that has good credentials. This is a good one.
So out of this list we get six that are not really usable (two of which are self published questionable material), two maybes, a paper that at best tangentially touched on the topic, another that looks like it belongs in a physics book, and one understandable by mere mortals chapter by a scholar publication. Not exactly the best of beginnings.-- BruceGrubb ( talk) 16:59, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
<----Bruce, I haven't even read the "Dummies" book, I've no idea as to it's quality. I'm collating suggestions for sources that look prime facie OK but each would have to be taken on their merits. Peer-reviewed articles by experts on the topic are generally the "gold standard". Self-published websites are generally somewhere at the bottome of the pile as to what we should be looking for. Books by acknowledged experts in the field are clearly closer to the top of the pile than the bottom. A number of the articles that both you and I have posted I think may be best used to check their reference lists to find other sources, rather than be used by themselves. Just because I've listed something doesn't mean I think it's the bees knees of references, it means I think it should be looked at. I plan on ordering some of these references that I don't have. The Grayson article I think has some very interesting findings with regards the sponsoring/retailing balance and I think most definitely has a place. The very fact that academics are doing such studies speaks towards the legitimacy of NWM, and with respect, I think that's part of your POV challenge here - it's clear you believe the entire industry is somehow bogus and that virtually by (your) definition, if something isn't a mouthpiece for the theories of FitzPatrick and Taylor then it must be suspect. The reality is that they verge on WP:FRINGE. They've been rejected by virtually every officially body that has considered their claims, including numerous courts, the FTC, and SEC. Since they claim pretty much every MLM is a pyramid they get it right occasionally, but to claim that large multi-national companies like Amway and Herbalife are illegal and have somehow hoodwinked the lawmakers of dozens and dozens of countries over decades is simply ludicrous. The fact is their sites contain many easily disproved falsehoods (like the 70% "retail sales rule" mentioned on this page above) and are highly POV and misleading. -- Insider201283 ( talk) 21:16, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
((interpolated break)
I still don't understand how you can discount entire publishing companies (some of the largest in the world, no less) and concurrently argue for the validity of personal websites as sources for Wikipedia. It really doesn't matter if the author/owner of the website is used as a reference in "peer reviewed" sources (as mentioned before, your use of the comment/rebuttal petition to the FTC is useless...as Insider201283 pointed out the FTC published EVERY comment, and rebuttal, that was submitted. That's like saying a classified ad in The New York Times is a reputable source because of where it could be read.) If actual valid sources exist that detail any factual (i.e. provable) findings determined by Taylor or Fitzpatrick, then use those. There is no reason a personal website (especially one as rudimentary and that makes such strong claims without any detail or evidence of any actual research as that one does) should be used as a source for our encyclopedia. -- JohnDoe0007 ( talk) 10:48, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
Also, in the Kiplinger article you reference ( "They say they want you to be rich") as a reputable source against Kiyosaki...after bashing the book with no real concrete critique, the author Thomas M. Anderson goes on to recommend instead that "If you are genuinely interested in learning more about real estate investing, which is not for the faint of heart, check out 'Investing in Real Estate,' by Andrew James McLean and Gary Eldred," a book published by...Wiley. So that must discount that entire writer as well as anything he has written...including that article, yes? -- JohnDoe0007 ( talk) 11:03, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
Bruce, you're really starting to lose credibility with nearly every post. I did not say anything about the size of the publisher equaling quality or validity as a reliable source. I did however point out that the author of a source you referenced as a valid one (in it's negative claims against another) actually recommended a book published by Wiley...so which is it? Is your first source no good or can Wiley publish quality material? You can't have it both ways.
And even more importantly, we are not talking about citing a paper that was referred to in a peer reviewed paper. For the fifth time, we're talking about a personal website that includes zero references to any real sources of any kind, zero evidence and details concerning any research or reports conducted but which does include many incredible claims despite that. Are you actually attempting to claim reputable peer reviewed sources reference Taylor's personal website as a source for anything with merit? -- JohnDoe0007 ( talk) 12:42, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
Bruce Grubb continues to add a multitude of self-published sources to this article, as well as other generally unreliable claims - such as allegations made in a court case against Amway - a case Amway won. The latest SPS violation is a self-published article by Bill Berkowitz. Bruce, I've essentially been ignoring your edits because as per Talk:Network_Marketing these articles are essentially going to need to be rewritten from the ground up. -- Insider201283 ( talk) 12:39, 12 July 2009 (UTC)
-- Insider201283 ( talk) 09:42, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
"The False Lure of Multi-Level Marketing" By David John Marotta (various papers) Aug 3, 2009 is yet another slam at MLMs. When basics mathematics shows the model cannot work as promised t time to realize the smoke and mirrors for what they are...smoke and mirrors.-- BruceGrubb ( talk) 14:24, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
(remove indent)Insider201283, you have a real weird idea as to what is a reliable source. Just because it conflicts with your perception of history doesn't mean it isn't reliable. Sure there are articles in the Western Journal of Communication that claim the 1940s were the start but then you have articles in Business students focus on ethics that claims the 1920s while some articles in Journal of Small Business Management say lat 1960s while an article in International Journal of Service Industry Managemen pointed to the 1970s. Clearly how you define Multi-level marketing has a large factor on when you put it starting at.-- BruceGrubb ( talk) 11:19, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
I should mention that USAtoday pointed to the DSA itself saying direct salers on average (medium) income is only $2,400 a year. Not your year is it?-- BruceGrubb ( talk) 14:01, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
Response on RS/N are that these sites do not pass muster under WP guidlines. To further confirm this, I noticed over on the Monavie article a WP admin removed a whole bunch of the article that had pyramidschemealert as a source. He said Talk:MonaVie#pyramidschemealert.org in the talk it was not WP:RS. I will remove it from this article shortly. -- Insider201283 ( talk) 21:44, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 |
SOme editor tried to remove this under NPOV and RS ground:
Another criticism of MLMs is that the odds of breaking even or even making money are far worse (less than 1%) than other types of businesses.(Taylor, Jon M. (2002). "Comparing Recruiting MLM's with No-product Pyramid Schemes, and with Gambling". Consumers Awareness Institute. Retrieved 2009-06-25.)(FitzPatrick, Robert L. (August 4, 2002). "The 10 Big Lies of Multi-Level Marketing". Consumers Awareness Institute. Retrieved 2009-06-25.) "The vast majority of MLM’s are recruiting MLM’s, in which participants must recruit aggressively to profit. Based on available data from the companies themselves, the loss rate for recruiting MLM’s is approximately 99.9%; i.e., 99.9% of participants lose money after subtracting all expenses, including purchases from the company."(Taylor, Jon M. (2002). "Comparing Recruiting MLM's with No-product Pyramid Schemes, and with Gambling". Consumers Awareness Institute. Retrieved 2009-06-25.)
Several things.
1) This is in the CRITICISM section and is there for covered under NPOV.
2) Jon M. Taylor has an MBA as well as a PHD. This makes him as an expert and therefore a RS.
Ergo NO LEGITIMATE grounds for removal of this material.-- BruceGrubb ( talk) 08:18, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
I applaud your efforts in finding suitable sources to back Taylor's credibility as a reliable source...However, my concern with the Taylor source referenced in the article is the actual nature of the content itself.
While Taylor may have been referenced in other third party publications, when looking at the site in question (the one cited in the article) I did not see any mention of any place in which that information was published. In addition, there are no real raw data given and even if there were, again, this is the work of an individual who may or may not have a bias and which is not mentioned to be published or reviewed in any fashion. On top of this, only final numbers are presented. Nowhere is there any mention or description of the data gathered or how they were analyzed or interpreted to come to those conclusions.
There are only two things included that even come close to this. One is the mention that "Gambling statistics were obtained from Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas, April 6, 2001." Again, we just have to take his word for that...but even if that is true a) there is no proof offered to support it and b) it has no real bearing on the information being referenced in our article here. The other is:
The estimates are based on our careful analysis of reports published by the MLM companies themselves. These extraordinary loss rates were derived by removing three sources of deception from the reporting of these MLM’s:
(1) the practice of not counting ALL who signed on as distributors (agents, consultants, etc.) in the population of recruits who attempted to make the program work for them, but instead counting only those still “active;” i.e., deleting all dropouts in the calculation,
(2) not subtracting expenses, especially products and services purchases from the company to "do the business," and
(3) assuming legitimate sales of products (to customers not in the network) that did not occur.
So, here Taylor claims to be gathering data "published by the companies themselves" but offers no other information as to where they were published, where one might find them, or even what those data are. He goes on to say that the numbers he arrived at were reached by "removing three sources of 'deception'." From the list of what those sources are he implies that he was able to 1) obtain the exact number of all who signed on as distributors (despite the fact that this information was left out of the published sources he claims to have used), 2) obtain the exact amount of expenses accrued by every one of these distributors as a result of "doing the business", and 3) derive exactly how many reported sales were not actually sales (i.e. they did not occur).
How any single person (or organization for that matter) could obtain information like that is a mystery to me. Short of every single distributor who signed up keeping a detailed log of business expenses and then Taylor obtaining such data or interviewing each person, there is no possible way to know how much any one person spent to "do the business". Not only does he not mention how he got such information, he neglects to even give a hint as to what that information is.
And finally, this of course all assumes any analysis was done in the first place. Again, no proof has been offered for this.
Do any of the sources you provided detail (or at least reference) the actual data from the web page in question? -- JohnDoe0007 ( talk) 11:41, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
Bruce, given you have access to and have apparently read all of these journal articles, it is quite obvious that THEY should be being used as sources, and not a personal website. Wikipedia policy is clear that SPS like websites should be avoided if possible. Given Taylor and FitzPatrick have easily provably false misinformation on their wesites (eg "70% retail sales rule") they obviously are not reliable sources and have some issues. Use the better sources and avoid self-published personal websites, particularly on a topic that can be controversial. -- Insider201283 ( talk) 11:47, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
I neglected to mention earlier that it would appear that the original argument was that this man and his personal website qualify as reliable sources simply because he has some letters that follow his name, and that the information provided does not need to be neutral because it is provided in a "criticism section." This is not so.
A criticism section is meant to provide information on the criticisms raised by others...not present them as facts or to allow for non-NPOV content. A NPOV can be maintained throughout a criticism section. An encyclopedia is supposed to deliver information about subjects. If a certain subject garners criticism in the outside world the encyclopedia can provide a documentation of such criticism from a neutral point of view. It is in this context that such unreliable sources can be used (i.e. when speaking about those individuals or opinions). In other words, one might be able to use the sources in question as examples of individuals who have criticized, but not necessarily as legitimate criticism of the subject of the article. WP:RS, WP:PSCI and WP:V all touch on this.
However, WP:SPS is quite clear in this situation. The information provided and presented in the way it was in this article goes against official English Wikipedia policy. The source is not only self-published, it is shoddily presented and offers no real credence to itself while treading in the realm of fringe theory...not necessarily there, but along those lines. This, plus the "statistics" it provides offer nothing to the use of any formal scientific method or verifiability.
I will attempt to rework that section of the article so as to keep some of the information in it, but even then the community may very well reach a consensus that Taylor (or FitzPatrick) or any of their criticisms are widely-enough held to garner a mention in our encyclopedia. -- JohnDoe0007 ( talk) 12:59, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
<---Ok, let me get this right. One of the reasons Taylor's website is a good source is because he calls one of his writings a whitepaper. Another reason is because, along with every other person who commented, his comments about a proposed business opportunity rule were published on ftc.gov. A third reason is because he's cited in a self-decribed opinion piece in a student run journal - an opinion piece that declares a number of companies to be illegal pyramids, despite the fact they have been legally investigated (in the case of Amway, for years) and found not to be. Ouch, reality hurts. Yeah, some strong reasoning there Bruce. On the other hand, the reason why you want to use Taylor's website as a source and not one of the many actual peer-reviewed papers, or even the FTC itself, is because .... because .... nope, you still haven't answered that question.-- Insider201283 ( talk) 01:50, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
(remove indent) While I have not had time to read these a quick search produced some references that should be usable and give this article its badly need reference material (if I found an actual online version I have provided a link):
Herbig, Paul 1997,; Rama Yelkurm "A Review of the Multilevel Marketing Phenomenon" Journal of Marketing Channels, 1540-7039, 6:1 Pgs 17–33
Nat, PJ Vander ; WW Keep (2002) - "Marketing fraud: An approach for differentiating multilevel marketing from pyramid schemes" Journal of Public Policy & Marketing pg 139-151
Cahn, PS (2008) "CONSUMING CLASS: Multilevel Marketers in Neoliberal Mexico" Cultural Anthropology, 23:3, Pages 429-452 (This I have read an even though I am an anthropologist I'm not sure of his point in it.)
Muncy, JA (2004) "Ethical Issues in Multilevel Marketing: Is it a Legitimate Business OR Just Another Pyramid Scheme?" Marketing Education Review
Sparks, John R. (2001) and Joseph A. Schenk "Explaining the Effects of Transformational Leadership: An Investigation of the Effects of Higher-Order Motives in Multilevel Marketing Organizations" Journal of Organizational Behavior, 22:8 pp. 849-869
Micklitz, HW; B Monazzahian, C RÖßLER (1999) "Door-to-door selling—pyramid selling—multilevel marketing" Study commissioned by the CEC.
I also got a few clunkers like: "The Failure rate with multilevel marketing is very high" Michie, Justin "Street Smart Internet Marketing"
"What’s more frightening is if your network marketing opportunity fails (and over 90% of them do), this “once-in-a-lifetime” opportunity may haunt you for a lifetime, as friends, family, co-workers, remind you that your big dream turned out to be nothing." Harris, Cathy (2006) "Multilevel Marketing aka “Pyramid Schemes” – Good or Bad?"
So there is a lot of Wheat and some chaff.-- BruceGrubb ( talk) 15:43, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
Higgs, Philip and Jane Smith (2007) Rethinking Our World Juta Academic uses [MLM Watch website http://www.mlmwatch.org/] as well as Fitzpatrick as references. "Juta is respected as South Africa's pre-eminent academic and law publisher". So here we have yet another scholarly reference not only showing Fitzpatrick is a reliable source but giving us MLM Watch as one as well. The more I dig the more it looks like what little scholarly information there is regarding MLMs is negative.-- BruceGrubb ( talk) 10:38, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
"Multi-level marketing carries negative connotations and is illegal in special forms known as pyramid selling, snowball systems, chain-letters, etc." Schmidt, Andreas U. (2006)"Multi-level markets and incentives for information goods" Information Economics and Policy Volume 18, Issue 2, June 2006, Pages 125-138
The abstract on this one is a very interesting read: "The wake of the recession has witnessed a boom in direct selling schemes also known as pyramid selling, multi-level marketing or network marketing." Sarker, Rinita (1996) "Pyramid Selling" Journal of Financial Crime 3:3 Pg 266 - 268. If the main body has similar text then the effort to say these are different things just took a major hit to the head.
Business students focus on ethics By Leo V. Ryan, Wojciech Gasparski, Georges Enderle has an article by Angela Xu of the China Europe International Business School goes over the problems with MLMs (including a lack of a good definition) and states "For this reason, the MLM is also called Pyramid Sales" showing even more problems with separating MLM from pyramid selling.
This fragment I found is interesting: "Multi-level marketing is a pyramid scheme in reverse. An operator will sell large quantities of something to the target and they are expected to sell these on to their friends at a mark-up." Ahmed, Tanzila; Charles Oppenheim (2006) "Experiments to identify the causes of spam" Aslib Proceeding 58:3 Page:156 - 178-- BruceGrubb ( talk) 02:49, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
Are you kidding me? All I did was change it from saying "it has been proposed that article X should be merged into article Y" to the less specific "it has been proposed articles X and Y should be merged."
During my additions to Network marketing I realized that if anything, it might be more appropriate the merge Multi-level marketing into the Network marketing article, as the latter is the one that is the more general term (i.e. it encompasses more facets of marketing and speaks to an overall strategy as opposed to a specific structure of compensation within a strategy, which is what multi-level marketing is). This, in addition to the explanation of multi-level marketing that is now included in the network marketing article, made me consider the possibility that members may end up deciding to merge the others the other way...so I adjusted the tag to be more general and open that for the discussion. I personally believe they each warrant their own article, but I felt the diaogue should at least be opened.
And again, I didn't remove the tag...I didn't even reverse the statement of the tag...all I did was to remove the specificity so that "which should be merged into which?" could be part of the discussion....and I was the one who put the original tag there in the first place.
Not all changes on Wikipedia require discussion and consensus before they are made. In fact, most don't. Please understand the edits I make are in the vein of WP:Better and I ask that you use common sense and do not revert due to lack of prior consensus or discussion. That type of activity is counter-productive to the evolution and progression of the encyclopedia and can discourage individuals from contributing...especially newer ones...and especially when those actions come from an administrator. -- JohnDoe0007 ( talk) 07:13, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
(remove indent) Gummessonm, Evert (1994) "Making Relationship Marketing Operational" International Journal of Service Industry Management 5:5 pg 5-20; Vander Nat, Peter J. and William W. Keep (2002) "Marketing Fraud: An Approach for Differentiating Multilevel Marketing from Pyramid Schemes" Journal of Public Policy & Marketing 21:1 pg 139-151 and Bloch, Brian (1996) "Multilevel marketing: what's the catch?" Journal of Consumer Marketing 13:4 pp. 18-26 all identify network marketing as another name for MLM. Bhattacharya, Patralekha and Krishna Kumar Mehta (2000) "Socialization in network marketing organizations: is it cult behavior?" Journal of Socio-Economics, Volume 29, Issue 4, Pages 361-374 identify Amway, Mary Kay, Nu Skin, Shaklee and the like as Network Marketing Organizations or NMOs and this is the same term Cruz uses. I think five different peer-reviewed articles should be enough to demonstrated network marketing and MLM are the same thing.-- BruceGrubb ( talk) 01:54, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
BruceGrubb in sections above has given numerous sources to be used for the article. I thought I'd setup a separate section just to provide sources for discussion. I haven't read all the sources provided by Bruce, but he seems to think they're primarily "negative" and says there doesn't seem to be many "positive". I thought I'd help him out. The books I've listed are only from recognized publishing companies and not self-published. As such they are considered good sources under Wikipedia guidelines WP:RS and WP:V.
more to come ... -- Insider201283 ( talk) 11:57, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
I've listed a lot more potential sources here. In addition I believe the following sources clearly DO NOT qualify under Wikipedia standards.
All of these are self-published websites. Most of these are self-evidently not allowed, a few may garner argument. MLMWatch is run by Stephen Barrett of QuackWatch fame and that site has been much discussed on controversial on wikipedia. It passes as a sometimes source because he's a doctor, the site is about medical practices, and many reputable sources cite him. With regards MLM, Barrett has zero qualifications and the site is not cited by many reputable sources. As such IMO it's a poor source. Skeptic's Dictionary suffers from much the same problems. The Babener source on MLM compensation plans is debatable, I think we need better. -- Insider201283 ( talk) 18:46, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
Not all of these may meet the requirement of WP:RS
Yarnell's book is by Prima Publishing better known through their Prima games division and is part of the Random House Information Group. We are using a game manual publisher as a RS on MLM who is owned by a printing company that is all over freaking map in terms of meeting WP:RS guidelines? You have GOT to be kidding!
The ...for dummies books are good for basic reference material but their quality varies too much to be considered reliable across the board. Now if they refer us to original material that is reliable sourced that is something else.
Xardel's book is through Blackwell Pub who is now a part of Wiley. Now Wiley InterScience is "The leading resource for quality research" but this is not under that imprint. This is a maybe. We need to know the quality of the different divisions.
Clements' book is by Prima Lifestyles another division of Prima Publishing. So same problem as Yarnell.
Robinson's book is put out by Three Rivers Press which is own by Crown Publishing who is owned by Random house. So same problem as Yarnell.
Rubino's book is put out by Wiley so this another maybe.
Kiyosaki is by Cashflow Technologies which he owns. Self published and given the questions regarding the quality of the information in his Rich Dad, Poor Dad has been put forth by none other than John T Reed (whose credentials are back up in such publications as MSN Money) these are totally useless.
The papers are another issue.
The Alturas, Santos & Pereira talks about direct marketing and customer satisfaction feed back. It barely mentions Multilevel marketing and only in terms of customer acceptance not distributor success.
Grayson's paper is to "develop, analyze, and calibrate a dynamic decision model of the growth of a retail NMO." He does give us statistics but they are so insanely complex they look like the kind of stuff you see for quantum physics. Also on the distributor side of things not every thing is a bed of roses either. It useful but will give most people who read it a headache.
Grayson's chapter is good solid easy to understand read and is by a publisher (Sage Publications) that has good credentials. This is a good one.
So out of this list we get six that are not really usable (two of which are self published questionable material), two maybes, a paper that at best tangentially touched on the topic, another that looks like it belongs in a physics book, and one understandable by mere mortals chapter by a scholar publication. Not exactly the best of beginnings.-- BruceGrubb ( talk) 16:59, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
<----Bruce, I haven't even read the "Dummies" book, I've no idea as to it's quality. I'm collating suggestions for sources that look prime facie OK but each would have to be taken on their merits. Peer-reviewed articles by experts on the topic are generally the "gold standard". Self-published websites are generally somewhere at the bottome of the pile as to what we should be looking for. Books by acknowledged experts in the field are clearly closer to the top of the pile than the bottom. A number of the articles that both you and I have posted I think may be best used to check their reference lists to find other sources, rather than be used by themselves. Just because I've listed something doesn't mean I think it's the bees knees of references, it means I think it should be looked at. I plan on ordering some of these references that I don't have. The Grayson article I think has some very interesting findings with regards the sponsoring/retailing balance and I think most definitely has a place. The very fact that academics are doing such studies speaks towards the legitimacy of NWM, and with respect, I think that's part of your POV challenge here - it's clear you believe the entire industry is somehow bogus and that virtually by (your) definition, if something isn't a mouthpiece for the theories of FitzPatrick and Taylor then it must be suspect. The reality is that they verge on WP:FRINGE. They've been rejected by virtually every officially body that has considered their claims, including numerous courts, the FTC, and SEC. Since they claim pretty much every MLM is a pyramid they get it right occasionally, but to claim that large multi-national companies like Amway and Herbalife are illegal and have somehow hoodwinked the lawmakers of dozens and dozens of countries over decades is simply ludicrous. The fact is their sites contain many easily disproved falsehoods (like the 70% "retail sales rule" mentioned on this page above) and are highly POV and misleading. -- Insider201283 ( talk) 21:16, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
((interpolated break)
I still don't understand how you can discount entire publishing companies (some of the largest in the world, no less) and concurrently argue for the validity of personal websites as sources for Wikipedia. It really doesn't matter if the author/owner of the website is used as a reference in "peer reviewed" sources (as mentioned before, your use of the comment/rebuttal petition to the FTC is useless...as Insider201283 pointed out the FTC published EVERY comment, and rebuttal, that was submitted. That's like saying a classified ad in The New York Times is a reputable source because of where it could be read.) If actual valid sources exist that detail any factual (i.e. provable) findings determined by Taylor or Fitzpatrick, then use those. There is no reason a personal website (especially one as rudimentary and that makes such strong claims without any detail or evidence of any actual research as that one does) should be used as a source for our encyclopedia. -- JohnDoe0007 ( talk) 10:48, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
Also, in the Kiplinger article you reference ( "They say they want you to be rich") as a reputable source against Kiyosaki...after bashing the book with no real concrete critique, the author Thomas M. Anderson goes on to recommend instead that "If you are genuinely interested in learning more about real estate investing, which is not for the faint of heart, check out 'Investing in Real Estate,' by Andrew James McLean and Gary Eldred," a book published by...Wiley. So that must discount that entire writer as well as anything he has written...including that article, yes? -- JohnDoe0007 ( talk) 11:03, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
Bruce, you're really starting to lose credibility with nearly every post. I did not say anything about the size of the publisher equaling quality or validity as a reliable source. I did however point out that the author of a source you referenced as a valid one (in it's negative claims against another) actually recommended a book published by Wiley...so which is it? Is your first source no good or can Wiley publish quality material? You can't have it both ways.
And even more importantly, we are not talking about citing a paper that was referred to in a peer reviewed paper. For the fifth time, we're talking about a personal website that includes zero references to any real sources of any kind, zero evidence and details concerning any research or reports conducted but which does include many incredible claims despite that. Are you actually attempting to claim reputable peer reviewed sources reference Taylor's personal website as a source for anything with merit? -- JohnDoe0007 ( talk) 12:42, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
Bruce Grubb continues to add a multitude of self-published sources to this article, as well as other generally unreliable claims - such as allegations made in a court case against Amway - a case Amway won. The latest SPS violation is a self-published article by Bill Berkowitz. Bruce, I've essentially been ignoring your edits because as per Talk:Network_Marketing these articles are essentially going to need to be rewritten from the ground up. -- Insider201283 ( talk) 12:39, 12 July 2009 (UTC)
-- Insider201283 ( talk) 09:42, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
"The False Lure of Multi-Level Marketing" By David John Marotta (various papers) Aug 3, 2009 is yet another slam at MLMs. When basics mathematics shows the model cannot work as promised t time to realize the smoke and mirrors for what they are...smoke and mirrors.-- BruceGrubb ( talk) 14:24, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
(remove indent)Insider201283, you have a real weird idea as to what is a reliable source. Just because it conflicts with your perception of history doesn't mean it isn't reliable. Sure there are articles in the Western Journal of Communication that claim the 1940s were the start but then you have articles in Business students focus on ethics that claims the 1920s while some articles in Journal of Small Business Management say lat 1960s while an article in International Journal of Service Industry Managemen pointed to the 1970s. Clearly how you define Multi-level marketing has a large factor on when you put it starting at.-- BruceGrubb ( talk) 11:19, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
I should mention that USAtoday pointed to the DSA itself saying direct salers on average (medium) income is only $2,400 a year. Not your year is it?-- BruceGrubb ( talk) 14:01, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
Response on RS/N are that these sites do not pass muster under WP guidlines. To further confirm this, I noticed over on the Monavie article a WP admin removed a whole bunch of the article that had pyramidschemealert as a source. He said Talk:MonaVie#pyramidschemealert.org in the talk it was not WP:RS. I will remove it from this article shortly. -- Insider201283 ( talk) 21:44, 13 July 2009 (UTC)