Talk:Dave Ramsey/Criticism

Criticism Deletion by Dave Ramsey Fans
Dave Ramsey partisans, especially Arkcana, keep deleting anything and everything that criticizes Ramsey,  EVEN WHEN CREDENCE IS GIVEN TO BOTH SIDES OF THE ARGUMENT and EVEN WHEN THE CRITICAL VIEWPOINT IS PROPERLY CITED. If not vandalism, this is certainly malicious POV editing. As has been commented elsewhere, this is not the Dave Ramsey fan club web site,  nor is it the anti-Dave ramsey hate site,  it should rather describe where there is controversy while avoiding POV. I know Arkcana and others are immediately going to delete this comment as well as all the "controversy" bullet points again, and somehow claim that it is against Wiki policy to describe any kind of criticism... But to put it plainly, that's complete BS. See the ExxonMobil criticism section for a healthy respectful debate on BOTH sides of an argument, in which both sides views are presented fairly and honestly, and without the childish revert war which Arkcana seems so intent on fostering here. 70.129.156.204 18:34, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

(One other thought: Arkcana keeps using obscure acronyms and referring to mysterious Wiki policies that support his revert war without linking to those policies or posting any cross-references here.  If his comments are legitimate, which I doubt, he needs to link in the appropriate references instead of just spouting off cryptically.)  70.129.156.204 18:39, 14 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I have deleted my original response to this according to WP:CITE. I really don't even know what to say at this point. If you'd have bothered scrolling down, you'd see the Request for Comment on the section and the articles cited justifying the removal of your edits. Edits which were cited by an Amazon.com member review, two articles that were fairly complicated but had nothing to do with the argument you were making, another article that you cited out of context, and a link to a form on Dave Ramsey's website where people can enter to win a free TiVo. And you made another comment which you didn't even cite, that at the very least was rediculous, and almost certainly libelous. In case you're scroller doesn't work, here are the articles justifying deletion again: WP:CITE, WP:BLP, WP:RS. And in case you couldn't click on the link, Jimmy Wales is quoted as saying "I can NOT emphasize this enough. There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information is to be tagged with a 'needs a cite' tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced. This is true of all information, but it is particularly true of negative information about living persons." I dunno, did I misinterprete that somehow?


 * And as for the ExxonMobil article, that is not a biography of a living person. It is about a corporation, a particularly hated corporation in America I might add, and I can imagine there are LOADS of material that can be used to establish a proper criticsm section. The Dave Ramsey article is about a real person, and libelous comments must be deleted. If you find an article by Jim Cramer or some other financial guru about Dave Ramsey, that would be the perfect reference to use in the criticsm section. I haven't found one yet but that seems like the logical place to look, and I'll continue to look because I want to see a balanced article. I agree that the original state of the article was far too commercial, but what you've been doing is set out to find whats wrong with the guy at all costs, even if you have to invent it yourself.


 * And I refuse to validate this "pro-ramsey" crap anymore. Think whatever you want. I just want to see a good article.--Arkcana 03:33, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Criticism (Payday Lenders/Collection Agencies)
I have placed an edit that should effectively show both sides of this debate between 170.252.11.11 and Arkcana. I would like to have a reference to the payday lender note, but couldn't find anything outside of a few blog posts. Dave actually got deep into this subject last week, I want to say 6 October, but he hasn't written anything about it. Barring any more arguments about this section, I will drop in 3-5 days. --EazieCheeze 04:17, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree, the section is now very well written and I would say balanced, though there is only one word I'm a little hesitant on. The part about editing the Financial Peace University DVDs... It's kind of written to sound like he was FORCED to do it, and he wasn't, it was purely voluntary. Interestingly enough, when he made the comment (it's on the "Super Savers" DVD and audio tape) he actually says after he makes the comment that he hopes that doesn't end up happening to Irwin right after saying it, because "it would be a shame to have to go back and edit that comment out." I'll keep an eye out for anything written on the Payday loan stuff. I think he does have it somewhere on his site. But yeah, the big argument he had with the guy on air was October 6th. He got an email much to the same vein two days later. --Arkcana 14:59, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Criticism section should be removed
There is no basis for a section called criticism in this article. Here is why I feel this way line by line.

"Ramsey has been criticized in financial circles for offering misleadingly simplistic solutions to complicated financial issues.[1]"

Amazon.com is not a financial circle so this comment is just a lie.

cbmeeks: Not only that, but it just sounds stupid. Criticized for offering simplistic solutions? That's the idea. Would people prefer complex solutions?

''Agreed. Unfortunately, everytime someone goes to add the truthfull statement that this is a comment made by Ramsey himself, and include his usual response, it is reverted back to this statement.--Arkcana 15:15, 18 October 2006 (UTC)''

"Defaming various financial service providers, often referring to them (or their practices) as "scum," despite their legal standing. Specifically: Payday lenders, on the basis of their usurious APRs and fees, and Debt collection agencies, specifically those who fail to observe the behaviors required by the Federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. [2]"

This is stating a fact about Dave and his feelings about these people. He has clearly and completely explained himself on this issue many times. This would be like saying Person A doesn't like to shop at WalMart so that is a criticism of them. That doesn't hold water. People are welcome to their opinions.

''I would unfortunately argue that this statement has a right to be there. It isn't untruthfull by any regard, and he honestly is criticized about it even on his own show. A couple weeks ago and owner of one of these companies called in and they had a rather heated debate about it, and I missed a segment they did with MSNBC.com last month about it. Doesn't mean its wrong or not, the point is this is Wikipedia, an encyclopedia and theres a lot of policy written about how to deal with controversial subjects. My understanding is that it doesn't even have to be a truthful statment, it just has to be verifiable, and both sides of the argument need to be presented. What annoys me about the subject is that we aren't allowed to present the "pro-Ramsey" side of the arguement apparently because 90% of the material on the subject is either written by him, or from his website, or was on-air. I am actually unaware of how to cite on-air sources, perhaps someone can illuminate the issue for me.--Arkcana 15:15, 18 October 2006 (UTC)''

"In her book "Jacked: How 'Conservatives' Are Picking Your Pocket", Author Nomi Prins has criticised Dave Ramsey and other conservative talk radio hosts for "considering themselves "fiscally" conservative, but they don't get the irony of the financial mess they've made of this country's balance sheet during the past six years." [3]"

Dave Rasmey is not a politician. He has no connections to "this country's balance sheet". So the comment is ridiculous by nature. Also saying our country's balance sheet is negative is in fact a matter of partisan personal opinion and that opinion is not fact. So it doesn't belong even though it was in a book. This might be able to stay if it was in a trivia section or something like that.

''I agree, he's not a politician, though he has gone on record as saying he typically votes Republican, even though denouncing the party in 2003. The comment is somewhat questionable in that I'm not actually certain Ramsey is mentioned in the book at all. Actually, now that I'm looking at it, that comment is REALLY twisted from the truth. Ramsey is mentioned in the article, and in the interview they ask her about talk radio, and in that particular portion Ramsey isn't mentioned. In that quote above however, she is refering to conservative Republicans, and goes so far as to name several representatives and senators she feels the comment applies to. So by extension the article seems to apply as valid criticism, but the way this part is worded, it doesn't seem correct at all.--Arkcana 15:15, 18 October 2006 (UTC)''

"Ramsey had to remove all references to the phrase "When you play with snakes, you get bitten" from his materials out of respect to the family of recently deceased Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin."

Belongs in trivia. This is not a critism at all.

''This is true, though at the time Ramsey had mentioned on air that he had recieved a couple of emails from people criticising him for making the comment. Upon further review however, it does seem like he had been planning on making that edit anyway if in fact Irwin had met an untimely fate. I might also add that this comment was edited into a form that makes it sound a lot harsher than it actually was.--Arkcana 15:15, 18 October 2006 (UTC)''

"In 2004 Dave Ramsey's column was dropped from the Tennessean, and four other newspapers owned by Gannett, Co. after several question senders were misidentified in his column.[1]"

Again this belongs in trivia. This is the most poorly written criticism section I have ever seen. Wikipedia is not a place to air one's personal distain for someone else. I find most anyone who is thought of as being conservative, republican or chirstian get a criticism section on here yet very few democrats get them. Devil worshipper Anton LaVey has no critism section despite the fact that he is a plagarist. Ted Kennedy of all people has no criticism section. Let's stop making wikipedia a political battlefield. It is this kind of antics that will ruin this resource.

First, you might want to sign your stuff, especially on this page where when you don't, you get accused of being a "Nazi-Pro-Ramsey-Lover." Second, I agree. However that's the most civil I've seen that section written in the past six months, and compared to some of the other rediculous statements and profound lies people seem hell bent on adding to that section, I'd rather see something that the majority can agree with than leave it open for constant vandalism. I know thats not a "Wikipedia Policy," however if you read the edit history you might get an idea of just how tired I am of fighting this crap.--Arkcana 20:14, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

''Upon further review, I would suggest that the section be cleaned up just a bit. I would move the Tenessean and Irwin comments to trivia, and reword the Nomi Prins reference so that its a more correct summary of the article mentioned. (Because honestly, that is another valid criticism, not in that its something we'd all agree is true, but in that an arguement exists between liberals and conservatives... Which is almost an unneccessary arguement to begin with, but whatever) As for the first statement, we could continue adding his "I may be a simpleton kook, but I'm a simpleton kook with a paid off home morgage" comment, but editors are constantly asking for a citation. I have been tempted to pull off the "Prove your plan" comment from the TMM audiobook and use as a quote, but I'm not sure thats legal.--Arkcana 15:15, 18 October 2006 (UTC)''

I think the Tennessean comment should be moved to the criticism instead of trivia mainly because it does "raise questions about their overall credibility." (qouteing the cited web page). Perhaps a bit more from the article about Ramsey's response (like "I take responsibility for this business; my name is on it,'" and "As an actual mechanical truth I didn't cause this, but it's irrelevant." )could be added along with the fact he offered refunds for the duplicated articles.Harlock jds 00:51, 17 December 2006 (UTC)


 * This originally was in the criticism section, and written in a much more hostile indicting fashion, and was unreferenced. I did locate a credible reference, and rewrote the criticism adding that the person responsible for the error was terminated for an unrelated offense. This comment was later moved to Trivia by another editor who felt that the comment was a stated fact, and not something somebody was criticizing Ramsey of. (besides of course the original editor, and the anonymous user that seems hell bent on re-adding criticsms we have agreed through consensus do not belong in the article) I'm not sure why another editor deleted the part about the person responsible for the mixup, my feeling was that they probably thought it made it sound too much like "he did a bad, but it was because of this" and by removing it made the section more sterile and encyclopediac. Which I was honestly fine with. If you feel like something should be added to explain the comment more go for it, but I am against putting it back into criticism. There was no direct criticism of Ramsey in that article, and placing it there makes no sense.--Arkcana 03:00, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Request for Comment: Criticism
This is a dispute about arguments for and against Ramsey's teachings and the quality of source material used to defend said arguments. 07:12, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I question the validity of using someones member review on Amazon.com as a legitimate source on Wikipedia. I understand that some of these criticisms are valid, however the only time I hear about them are from Dave's mouth himself. In fact I have yet to come across a single article that is critical of the man. There was one that mentioned Dave Ramsey's radio show, and then later on harshly criticised a number of Republican politicians, and later sort of aluded to his show having "the same appeal to Americans as Dr. Phil." But that was it. I admit that there aren't a lot of written details or articles about him in any light that isn't from his mouth, but thats a different argument. (namely, just how much can we quote him personally, and can we quote the radio show, two other questions I'd really like to see answered one day) My main concern here is the validity of using this "member review."--Arkcana 07:37, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Random "wikipedian on the street" opinion here (just wandered in, and I have no particular knowledge of Dave Ramsey).

For an article to cite a "reference" from an Amazon.com review is patently ridiculous; for that citation to be made within "a biography of a living person" article is potentially libelous. The editors of this article have a duty to remove this material per WP:CITE, and a continued revert effort to restore this material should very quickly lead to a request for arbitration (WP:RFAR). IMHO. Mlibby 03:15, 13 November 2006 (UTC)


 * See also WP:BLP (note the part about warnings and blockings) and WP:RS. Mlibby 03:23, 13 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Thank you, good sources there. I had read the WP:BLP, but didn't see the arbitration page. I probably should have requested that months ago, as this thing has been coming back constantly. I have been hesitant to remove it because the statement it was initially attached to had I guess what you could call "common knowledge truth" to it, but its difficult to find a proper source for it. For now I've removed the reference and replaced it with an inline reference with a page number to where he talks about it in his book. I still wish we had a convention for referencing a radio show.

In case someone is wondering, I removed the other statement as well (which used the same Amazon review as a reference, imagine that). I myself have had the thought popped into my head as to why he charges a fairly large chunk of change for some of his products, which are aimed at people with no money. But thats an opinion, and has no place in this article.--Arkcana 04:49, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

No to Amazon.com as a source: I don't know anything about Ramsey and didn't even read the article. However, I don't have to read it to know that Amazon.com member articles are not worthy of citation (despite I being a contributor myself.) Anyone with an agenda can get on there and write a review (even the Wikipedian who may use a different username on Amazon.com.  Ludahai 08:06, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm coming in as a more or less third party. I made some edits yesterday, primarily to remove notably biased sources per WP:EL. Amazon's book reviews and content from Alternet.com certainly fall in that category. Whether or not criticism of Ramsey belongs in the article is moot. He is a public figure, and as there are criticism sections for others, certainly there is no reason it should not exist here. However, criticism that can be perceived as a person attack, or content from non-empirical sources (i.e., biased sources -- one way or the other) should not be present. I'm going to remove said references, and make note to the admins regarding this in the same vein. --Mhking 19:18, 17 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't have a problem with criticism, nor a criticism section (Though I admit, I would prefer a more structured article in which Ramsey's views are expressed in a more neutral matter; "Ramsey believes... etc", followed by the properly cited criticism; according to ____, etc.)


 * The problem we are having here is that the Amazon.com reference is just the tip of the ice berg, showing to just what rediculous extent this person is willing to portray Ramsey in a bad light. I can go and explain each one of them if you guys would like, however according to Verifiability, it shouldn't be moved to the talk page.


 * So I guess I'll say it like this. The first two points are cited by the Amazon article which we all agree is bogus. The first is a valid point, but I haven't been able to cite it besides his own book. If someone else can come up with a proper cite, I'd really appreciate it. Because this genuinely does belong. Point two however is complete opinion. I actually to a degree share it, but it just doesn't belong.
 * Point three is a lie. I established and verified Ramsey's degree in Finance in the background portion of the article. His book "Financial Peace Revisited" also talks about the many seminars he attended before becoming a financial counselor.
 * Point four implies that Ramsey accepts payments to push TiVo on people who can't afford it. While the first cite allows me to form that opionion (based on what Dave is saying, not what is said about Dave), the second cite is a link to Ramsey's site where you can enter to win a free TiVo, making the whole discussion sound rediculous. I'd be willing to include something alluding to the "fishieness" of the first cite, if not for No_original_research, namely the part about "viewpoint being held by an extremely small minority." I'm curious how you'd go about testing that, but as I've said I can't even find good criticism about Ramsey unless it comes from a blog.
 * Point five is flat out libel and not even cited.
 * Point six, about the mutual funds, it may seem like a valid argument at face value, however there are a number of problems with this. At face value, clicking on each link and doing a text search for the words "mutual, fund, dave ramsey, or growth stock" turned up blanks. The third link admittedly does talk about them, but does not denounce them as the point suggests. On an unrelated note, Kiplinger's Personal Finance in the last several months have repeatedly talked about Growth Stock Mutual Funds as GREAT investments, just certain ones as Ramsey actually teaches. And finally and most importantly, according to No_original_research " Citing sources and avoiding original research are inextricably linked: the only way to demonstrate that you are not doing original research is to cite reliable sources that provide information directly related to the topic of the article, and to adhere to what those sources say."
 * Point seven, *I* actually added this. Somebody else deleted it, I guess because they thought it broke NPOV. I *had* a reference for it, which was a video interview done on MSNBC, but I have been having trouble tracking it down. If someone else sees it, please let me know or go ahead and re-add this.
 * Point eight is the reason why I revert back to EazyCheeze's edit, the way he broke it down made sense and kept things more NPOV. In the form this anonymous user keeps pushing, they are saying that people are criticising him for criticising these "legal" businesses. I don't know of any vocal criticism in this manner other than one call and an email to the Dave Ramsey show. I honestly think if we were to source the comment, we'd find more criticism of these businesses rather than of Ramsey criticising them. Which is why I advocate the "Criticism of/Criticism from" version of this section. The point is somewhat valid, and this layout makes more sense. If anyone thinks I'm wrong though, please chime in, I'm willing to hear your thoughts.
 * Point nine, which cracks me up, is another point I added a couple of months ago after I found the article cited. In fact its in the same form I originally made. It was deleted by another user who stated that the article, while mentioning Ramsey, did not specifically criticise him but certain Republican senators. The comment about Ramsey's show was that its appeal was in the same vein as Dr. Phil, in that America was getting into the self-responsibility-type shows.


 * The rationale behind my reverts come from WP:BLP and WP:BLP. The thing is about this user, every time I add a BLP warning to their talk page, or try to even reach out to them to solve this, they change their IP address and revert back this criticism. I do not know what to do at this point. I'm hesitant to ask for page protection, because I'd really like to go through and kind of tone down the "pro-ramsey" bits of the article. (Like I said, more "Ramsey believes" and less "Ramsey says you should.") I'm not sure about arbitration, if this is what we need. I know I'm not the only one who realizes what viewpoint this guy is pushing (despite what this guy seems to think). I just want to see a more streamlined article. I'll admit I don't think that having a bulleted list of criticisms is the best way to approach this article, but if it serves the current format of it, then I think it's important and should stay. And if anyone else can find stuff for the section with the proper cites, I'm all for it. Hell at this point after this idiots constant BS I'd be frickin' ecstatic.--Arkcana 01:05, 18 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I can't argue with your points, Arcana; and looking at the changes you made to the section, I have to say that I agree with them -- they make sense to me, and do not appear as cheerleading as the anon poster previously insisted. --Mhking 02:05, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

I removed the comment that people find Ramsey's thoughts on wealth unbiblical as there was no such statement in the article cited and therefore was, in fact, uncited. Eastshire 11:56, 20 August 2007 (UTC)