Talk:Market America/Archives/2012

Reference Instructions
Okay, here's the basic instructions on how to format your references: WP:REFB. DS (talk) 20:01, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Controversy
How is there no controversy section? MLM (multi-level-marketing) companies are by nature controversial. I would contribute to this section, but I too am biased : I have a family member involved in Market America and have experienced the "family as customer" relationship that many people on the web have complained about. Again, I too am biased. Editors & Content curators take notice, NPOV will be VERY hard for this article. Thin line between proselytizing and advertising, market america encourages fervent behavior. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.234.132.61 (talk) 07:04, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Category
Market America employs a binary compensation plan, which is a type of compensation plan in multi-level marketing. Whilst it is not incorrect to say Market America is a Direct Selling company, for categorization purposes, MLM companies is a subset of Direct selling companies, and thus per WP:SUBCAT, is the correct category for this article.  Leef5  TALK &#124; CONTRIBS 18:07, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia Policies
The Market America company wikipedia page was recently stamped with breaking policies such as neutral point of view. Is there anyway I can get someone to edit my page so that it doesn't sound like I'm advertising this company? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mjchipol (talk • contribs) 14:31, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Hopefully some more editors will come by and make some of the wording more neutral. There is quite a bit of content that contains puffery, and could be construed as promotional in nature.  What is your position with the company?  Do you work for them, or are an independent representative for them?  If you do have a personal affiliation with this company, I may suggest reading WP:COI if this applies to you.
 * One more thing - the "controversy" section should be integrated into the text at the appropriate places per WP:NPOV  Leef5  TALK &#124; CONTRIBS 14:49, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I have no position with this company it was an assignment over the summer from my journalism professor. We were suppose to create an article for a local company in our area and our grade depended on whether or not it would stick along with creating our article to be strictly factual.  I'm hoping such content that may be misconstrued as advertising be stricken from the article by editors who view the page.  Apologies for the tone in my first response to changes u made I had some random IP address trying to advertise in my products section which was clearly going to be in violation of the wikipedia policies. I'm still new to this wikipedia posting world. — Preceding unsigned comment added by  Mjchipol  (talk • contribs)   15:35, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for clearing that up - How about you take a stab at integrating the criticism section into the text into the appropriate areas. I'll remove the COI tag for now based on I'm assuming your good faith in your explanation of your non-relationship with this company.  Leef5  TALK &#124;  CONTRIBS 16:18, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
 * The author is lying about who he is: He works as the "SEO Analyst at Market America." 67.170.248.84 (talk) 19:00, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I have removed the links by request of Mjchipol. The original links contained recent FourSquare check-ins to Market America HQ, and the LinkedIn account revealed that he has been working for Market America since August of 2010.  It also showed that he had an internship with them from March 2010 until August 2010. 67.170.248.84 (talk) 21:12, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

I was confused as to what integrating the controversy means. When I created this article and read the policies of creating a company article it occurred to me to do my research on similar companies. I looked at Amway's article page and they structured their "Controversy" section similar to what I've done. Any help on guidance as to what I can do in order to fulfill the wikipedia requirements are welcome. If I integrate the information from Controversy into the article itself I feel like it will mess up the flow of article's information. Thoughts? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mjchipol (talk • contribs) 14:14, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
 * The community consensus is to integrate controversies into the appropriate sections per WP:NPOV - You will find a few articles that have controversy sections, but the manual of style recommends we integrate this into the main text. Also, when you post messages to talk board, please add four tildes like this: ~ after you put comments on talk pages so that it automatically signs and datestamps your messages.  Leef5  TALK &#124;  CONTRIBS 15:02, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

NPOV
As I read this article, I found that it read like a PR person wrote this. In the discussions, original author, mjchipol, stated that he has no relation with the company. Upon further investigation, I found his twitter account here, which lead me to his LinkedIn account here. He is, in fact, the "SEO Analyst" at the Market America. 67.170.248.84(talk) 19:00, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I have removed the links by request of Mjchipol. The original links contained recent FourSquare check-ins to Market America HQ, and the LinkedIn account revealed that he has been working for Market America since August of 2010.  It also showed that he had an internship with them from March 2010 until August 2010.67.170.248.84 (talk) 21:12, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

My affiliation with that company is no longer. As for me having worked for them yes which is why I found it easy when taking this article on my hands to do a company I had already known some background on. As for the comment about this reading as though a PR person wrote this I'd hardly say that since it was my objective to make this article direct and to the point about all factual findings behind the company's information.

For you to make assumptions based off my LinkedIn account which hasn't been updated for a career and to say my tweet about +1ing this article makes me a COI then so be it. But I'd like for it to be noted that I have gone through this article to help make it as Wikipedia friendly as possible. I'm always welcome to edits on the article and have only undone two edits one being someone with an actual COI to the company trying to advertise a new product line update and the other was just a confusion with categorization that was resolved. I would like for this article to be noted for its good content and ask that if there is a need for me to actually go through the COI procedure then I'm ok with that.Mjchipol (talk) 14:32, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Considering you checked into Market America HQ via Foursquare 3 weeks ago on July 25th, you may want to stop digging the hole deeper, admit the deception, and declare your COI officially.  Leef5  TALK &#124; CONTRIBS 15:03, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Having worked for the company should not hinder my article's representation of a factual submission into the Wikipedia community. Declaring a COI is ok by me if that means my article can continue to be edited for the betterment of the community. Will need more details on this process.Mjchipol (talk) 15:09, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

After the large revisions made to this article can the COI tag be taken down off this article finally?Mjchipol (talk) 16:11, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
 * If other editor's don't make any additional changes, we should be good to remove the COI tag soon-ish. There is still some cleanup work to do with references, and lot of references used in the article are press releases.  PRs can be used for non-promotional basic facts, but shouldn't be used for points that could be construed as promotional.  Overall, an article should be mostly sourced from 2nd party reliable sources (i.e. newspapers, books, magazines, etc.)  Leef5  TALK &#124;  CONTRIBS 16:42, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks look forward to finishing this up.Mjchipol (talk) 16:55, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

users concerned about age-related issues
In this edit I changed
 * Market America’s Prime anti-aging line consists of 12 targeted supplements and is geared toward a growing demographic of supplement users concerned about age-related issues.

to
 * Market America’s Prime anti-aging line consists of 12 targeted supplements and is geared toward older people.

Should this instead be
 * Market America’s Prime anti-aging line consists of 12 targeted supplements and is geared toward people worried about ageing.

? -- Hoary (talk) 00:50, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Good question - I think the last one is grammatically more accurate - although I would change the word 'worried' to 'concerned'  Leef5  TALK &#124; CONTRIBS 00:59, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Done. -- Hoary (talk) 01:47, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Vagueness
Here's a typical sample of this article:


 * Market America’s Isotonix line of nutritional supplements was introduced in 1993 and today contains more than 20 products that focus on a number of areas, including cardiovascular system health, antioxidant protection, blood sugar maintenance and immune system support.

(My emphasis.)

Let's take the first one. Can somebody please specify a particular product for "cardiovascular system health" and say what this product is claimed to do?

As it is, this article gives me the impression of attempting to give a vague impression of beneficient effect without actually saying anything that might be testable.

(One giveaway is the mention of "chromium". The article Chromium suggests that even the "complementary medicine" industry poohpoohs anybody's need for supplements of this.) -- Hoary (talk) 01:47, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Improper cites to PR/COI
It is the consensus of editors on wikipedia that links to public relation services such as PRweb, marketwire and etc, are not considered reliable sources. This article has several, and I do not have time to go through them all. It is requested that editors stumbling on to this page to make corrections.

I also am interested in going over this article to repair issues cited above and a possible rewrite as I have done to Avon Products and will be doing so in a couple of days. Phearson (talk) 16:54, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually cites to press releases are acceptable, as long as puffery has been removed and its only stating basic, non-controversial facts. In general, we need to keep PR cites to a minimum in order to keep the article neutral.  Leef5  TALK &#124;  CONTRIBS 12:00, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Market America growth to other countries
First, Conflict of Interest - I'm a "UFO" (unfranchise owner) in this company. Market America arrived in the United Kingdom in March 2012, and has amassed quite a team here already. It is also growing in other countries under slightly different names (IE, UK is called Market United Kingdom) does this require a new article, or should it be a subsection of this one? Also, the founder and CEO JR - would he have notoriety for the creation of a biographical page? Christophermiller1981 (talk) 08:34, 23 December 2012 (UTC)