Talk:Nutrilite/Archives/2012

Unreferenced?
There are many statements/claims in this article that do not have references to back them up. I have noticed that the article has been extensively edited by anonymous contributors. I think certain sections and claims within the article should be deleted unless their veracity can be determined. In general, there are certain parts of the article that read like a PR release from the company in question. Notably: "Nutrilite is the world's leading and largest selling brand of vitamins, minerals and dietary supplements in tablet/capsule form" and other such statements. --Xaliqen 20:30, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

This is a wiki. What do u expect?
 * I expect submitters to back up the claims they place in the article with appropriate evidence. I also expect submitters to adhere to the NPOV policy.  --Xaliqen 01:07, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Can the disputed phrases be pointed out and substantiated as false?
 * It is the job of the submitter to substantiate the various claims in the article with appropriate evidence and references. --Xaliqen 01:07, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Statistics about Nutilite can be supported by Euromonitor. If somebody cares to do the research they should find the appropriate references and cite them in the article.Frade 22:29, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

References are better now, but it seems like much of the article has the character of an advertisement. I'm contemplating what might be the best way to improve this. In the interim, I've placed the 'advert' tag at the top of the article. Xaliqen 00:23, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Xaliqen -- although there's the bones of a decent short article about Nutrilite in there, it still reads very much like an advertisement with a bare caveat or two. I'm putting the 'advert' tag back at the top. The article needs work. -- ArglebargleIV 16:29, 1 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Most, perhaps all, of the material that was removed was sourced, written relatively NPOV, and notable. It should be returned to the article. In general, facts are facts, not POV, doesn't matter whether they make something look good or bad. --Insider201283 21:05, 2 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Its not a matter of looking good or bad. Unless something is approved by media, Wikipedia guidelines say that it should not be written here. If there is not enough media coverage of the company, any article about it will be treated as SPAM, even if the sale of the company is more than the total income of all TV channels combined. 75.73.188.53 04:22, 6 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Not sure what you are talking about here? The stuff that was removed was about the industry awards for their documentaries and infomertials. David D. (Talk) 20:34, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I would think that Industry and other awards would be notable, no? What guidelines were they violating, it certainly doesn't seem to be the "advertising" ones. --Insider201283 23:00, 6 September 2007 (UTC)


 * If the company has won awards as a company ("Best private employer in Waukegan County"), or for its products ("Multivitamin of the year") then those would be relevant. The achievements of its paid spokerspersons and promotional material is much less relevant. Its enough to say that "they have hired Olympic champions and record holders X, Y, and Z as spokespersons." Unless we want to say that Nutrilite is most notable for its films we shouldn't devote too much attention to its promotions. Doing so would make it look like the company is only interested in appearances. 250 words on promotion seems like too much in a 500 word article.  ·:· Will Beback  ·:· 23:14, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
 * You write that "Doing so would make it look like the company is only interested in appearances.". Interestingly, this is the very reason i thought it might be relevant. :) David D. (Talk) 02:24, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

NSF
While Nutrilite was the first line of dietary supplements certifeid by the NSF International, apparently it is no longer certified by them. Does anyone know the reason? If it really isn't certified anymore that should also be indicated somehow. -Will Beback · † · 00:00, 1 January 2007 (UTC) I'd imagine that if a product is reformulated, which Nutrilite does do every few years in response to new research/technologies, it would no longer be certified until being retested. I'll email NSF and Nutrilite and see if I can get an answer. --Insider201283 11:03, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Advertisement?
Not sure why there's the advertisement tag? Doesn't read at all like an advertisement. --Insider201283 (talk) 13:50, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Plans for a re-write
Just figured I'd throw it out there that I'm currently working on a re-write of this page. It appears as though nobody has really edited it in the past year, but I felt it would be nice to see if anyone has any comments or suggestions before I do said re-write. Infero Veritas (talk) 20:35, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Thought I'd resurrect this section since it's pertinent to the discussion below on notability. There's a few notable issues that I think need to be addressed in the article.
 * (1) History and founding. The company is reportedly the first multi-vitamin/multi-mineral product in the North American market. I suspect that makes it first globally too.
 * (2) The Nutrilite Consent Decree - this was a crucial episode in the history of the FDA and the field of nutritional supplements
 * (3) Nutrilite's role as (reportedly) the first company to use a "multilevel sales compensation plan", aka MLM/Network Marketing
 * (4) Nutrilite's role in the beginnings of Amway, and it's later purchase by Amway
 * (5) Nutrilite's organic farms and approach to supplements
 * (6) Info on product offerings, sales data.
 * (7) Research & Development, including the Nutrilite Health Institute and the Center for Optimal Health and the many conference and journal papers. (Both in agricultural and nutritional research)
 * (8) Awards and Recognitions
 * (9) Marketing, Sponsorships, and Endorsements
 * (10) Criticisms/Controversy
 * Thoughts? --Insider201283 (talk) 21:26, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

notability criteria
This company 'Amway' is Not a big company like Microsoft/IBM, whose reference should be quoted in Wikipedia. This is a Multi-level-Marketing company. The said product 'Nutrilite', should be sold under the Multi-level-Marketing scheme. This article has NO references because none of the doctors/scientific journal has evaluated this product in their lab. This is an Advertizement. Please take a right descision and delete this article. People trust Wiki information due to it's reviewers. --San25872 (talk) 15:08, 28 July 2009 (UTC)


 * San, you are incorrect in your claims. Amway is one of the largest private companies in the world and is rated a "global power in retailing" by Deloitte Touche. Nutrilite is the #1 best selling nutritional brand, as calculated by Euromonitor. Nutrilite products also have extensive clinical testing and Nutrilite scientists recently won an award for a research paper. Nutrilite works with major universities throughout the world. Having said that, as far as I'm concerned the more references the better. --Insider201283 (talk) 16:43, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Hello Insider201283,First of all I thank you for your quick response. Upon further investigation I found following facts. The article on this product is clearly an advertisement, none of the scientific journals has refered/analyzed this product and hence this article should be deleted. --San25872 (talk) 16:07, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
 * The company 'Amway' could be a big company (agreed), however its reference is quoted separatly in Wikipedia.
 * It's product 'Nutrilite' is Not analyzed by any scientific journals, if so please let us know the name of the journal, I work with a publisher who publishes major scientific & medical journals. I can re-check the reference.
 * 'Euromonitor' is marketing re-search company, it does not have to do anything with medical analysis of products.
 * Hello, well, Nutrilite actually has quite a few published journal articles, but that's beside the point. The criteria for inclusion in wikipedia is notability. Nutrilite qualifies on those grounds easily. Still, as I said, the article needs work. There needs to be more on history as Nutrilite precedes Amway by 25 years. It was one of the very first nutrition companies, as well as one of the very first companies to use "multi-level marketing", this all before Amway was even founded. I have some references around on that, when I find the time I'll add to it. --Insider201283 (talk) 18:00, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Dear Insider201283, Thanks again for the quick response, when you say "Nutrilite actually has quite a few published journal articles, but that's beside the point". It means it does Not have any references (pro or anti) in any sci/med journals. Please try and understand even the anti reference would be considered as a ground of notability. People are simply demanding third-party reference. Imigine here that none of the sci/med journals are quoting this product, it is completly ignored by these guys (which is claiming itself bestseller), how do we even call it Notable? That is the reason nobody is still Not able to quote any references here, and are just moving in circles rather than answering the straight n simple question of med journal reference. Thanks for your communicatiuons so far. it is clear that you / anybody does Not have any references of any medical journals. As you know (or may be you don't know) any research/medical product unless gets published in sci/med journal does not get recognition. This is also called third-party-review. The articals in sci/med journals get peer reviwed before publishing so that any 'advertisement' in the name of research can be caught and could be dis-missed. The authors of the articles have to answer questions of reviewers to get their article published. When your product passes such basic test, it would be good to add it in Wiki, till then this article should be clearly marked for deletion. --San25872 (talk) 10:42, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
 * San25872, you misread me. Nutrilite DOES have published papers - but for the purposes of wikipedia it wouldn't matter if they didn't. Please read WP:NOTABILITY --Insider201283 (talk) 11:19, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Dear Insider201283, The references are needed to satisfy the Notebility criteris. Following criterias needs to be satisfied as per WP:NOTABILITY Looking at these criterias this article does not satisfy Notebility criteria. Please note that a single source reference is Not enough for Wiki (unfortunatly the said source is also Not related to medical field), that is reason I am asking for references from any sci/med journal. Also please refer ''Subject's own site '' paragraph in WP:Articles with a single source
 * This article should carry the tag, since none of the papers/articles have noticed this product.
 * Article carries only single source of reference WP:Articles with a single source, which is Not allowed.
 * Please check the following Wiki criteria for Notebility Notability is not temporary: a topic needs to have had sufficient coverage in reliable sources to meet the general notability guideline, but it does not need to have ongoing coverage from news sources.

I Do Not find any reason to keep this article in Wiki. On a second thought I suggest to merge this article with the article 'Amway'

--San25872 (talk) 16:29, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
 * May I suggest that instead of trying to get the article deleted, you instead try to improve it? Google News alone reports over 2500 news sources referring to Nutrilite and over 700 book references. That's not including documentaries, such as one the screened on Discovery channel 5 years ago. Nutrilite is clearly independently notable (and it's the article subject that needs to be notable, not the references per se). Again, as I said, and there's already a ref tag on it, the article needs expanding and much better referencing. Feel free to contribute. --Insider201283 (talk) 17:41, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Dear Insider201283, I would be glad to do it but the very reason of deleting this article is because it none of the people are able to find any references of this product on any third party site. Instead of deletion, I have already sugested merging it into 'Amway' page, which is the right way. The Google news searches are Not centralized over the said product which is put in this article. Some sites references are missing and some references are made for some other meaning ofthe word Neutrilite (you know Google shows only for the word 'Nutrilite' and Not for your product). The only related source I found that there was a case filed against this product. There is no such information written in this article about this case. Surprisingly the references included in the article main page are not third-party references. hence it was a suggestion from my end that this article should be merged with the Amway page, because it does not qualify to be an article on any Wiki grounds. I am giving a title here because our discussion has gone a bit longer and we may need more space for discussion. I guess you would be okay with this. --San25872 (talk) 13:18, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
 * All belong to Amway website / Quixtar website (which is the part of Amway) / neutrilite website
 * The news reference does Not belong to this product but to the company Amway
 * 'Euromonitor' reference (which is still does not comply to be reference for medical product) is Not provided in the reference list. I see this discussion only on the talk page.
 * San, most of the articles in the google searches refer to Nutrilite, the company. The idea that the world's largest nutritional company, and one of the oldest, is not "notable" is frankly quite silly - it is clearly notable in it's own right. Agai, however, I entirely agree this article needs more sourcing. Since you clearly have no interest in doing so, I'll try to find the time in the next few days --Insider201283 (talk) 16:54, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Dear Insider201283, It would be great if you could provide Third-party references and Not the ones which are mentioned in the article. The product which does not carry any third party reference and still claims itself 'notable' is frankly quite silly. In the meantime this dispute is still Not resolved. The Third party references are still Not being produced. It would be fair idea to merge this article into 'Amway' page. --San25872 (talk) 17:25, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
 * You are not telling the truth. I provided you with links to a thousands of sources earlier. You falsely claimed they weren't about Nutrilite because some of them were not. Here's over 100 references from google scholer that are most definitely about Nutrilite.here's over 670 news articles referencing Nutrilite. Here's nearly 400 book references referencing Nutrilite. Nutrilite is clearly notable. What is needed is more and better references put in to the article - and the tag is already there for that. --Insider201283 (talk) 20:17, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Neutral Opinion
Someone recently posted for a third party opinion on the Third Opinion page. I am certainly not as grounded in the subject matter as the two main editors are, but I thought I would try and assist. First I would like to say that it appears both editors are very knowledgable and well-intentioned. It is good to see such strong advocacy for Wikipedia from both of you. On the actual content discussion, it appears that a solution to determine the notability of the company is needed. Perhaps Insider201283 could be given a few days to supply the independent secondary sources that he believes exist regarding the company. Perhaps it would be more helpful to have some specific example of significant secondary sources than to just have a link to a google search of the term. If these do exist, then I'm sure that San25872 and others will agree to keep the article active. However if such sources cannot be found, then likely we can all agree that a merger would be appropriate until the location of such. I can appreciate the sincere feelings of both parties, and hope this comment is helpful to constructive conversation.-- Matheuler 21:18, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the response, I wasn't even aware it had been refered to WP:3O. As evidenced by the links already provided, the number of potential references is enormous, so I'm rather surprised notability is in question. I'd been planning to do some work on this article for a while, I'll endeavour to have a look at it in the next few days. --Insider201283 (talk) 23:32, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Dear Insider201283 and Matheuler, I thank both of you for your contributation in this healthy discussion. Regarding collection of indepenent soruces, I agree Insider201283 should be given few days of time. Aftet all we want the information in Wikipedia to be reliable. Surely I would agree to keep this article in Wiki if third party sources are provided in the Reference section of Main article. Good to see that 3O is active in this case. Let us meet after few days, to discuss on the references section. A small correction in Matheuler's comments, which says Perhaps Insider201283 could be given a few days to supply the independent secondary sources that he believes exist regarding the company. The comments about company 'Amway' are Not needed here, The article on 'Amway' is already possessing such sources. Also I have checked on web and agree that the said company (Amway) is a notable company. The argument is going about the product/brand 'Nutrilite' (which is produced by 'Amway') is notable or not. Thanks once again to all. --San25872 (talk) 15:02, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the clarification. You're right that the question is regarding the brand Nutrilite, not the overarching company.  Glad to help out. -- Matheuler  17:11, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Just a note to say I've been too busy to edit the article this past week. I have however collected a stack of references. --Insider201283 (talk) 17:24, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the updates --San25872 (talk) 14:34, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Just learned today there's a book called The Nutrilite Story due out in December covering the history of this company. It will be a good resource so might be simpler to wait until then to use it as a base. --Insider201283 (talk) 20:38, 26 September 2009 (UTC)
 * From 13 August 2009 till date (4 months) is a good time given to 'Insider' to collect the facts. Unfortunatly he/she could Not do so. Clearly there are No proofs of third-party references here.The article should be removed now and should be clubbed with 'Amway'. San25872 (talk) 13:06, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Please scroll up, oh ... one or two lines ... where I said a book about Nutrilite was being published in December and it made sense to wait and use that as a structure. You did not respond to that suggestion and I assumed you thus agreed it was a sensible thing to do. As already outlined above there are many 3rd party papers and articles as well as peer-reviewed publications by Nutrilite. I would suggest if you're not willing to wait for the book to make structuring the article easier that you may instead want to positivly contribute and look at the many other references yourself. --Insider201283 (talk) 20:51, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
 * There are over 70 references to Nutrilite in google "recent news" alone (dec 13 search). How anyone can seriously suggest one of the world's oldest nutritional brands and current world #1 brand (source is already in article) it not "notable" is beyond me. If you think the article needs more work (IMO it does) then do it, please be constructive, not destructive. --Insider201283 (talk) 21:16, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
 * If there are so many secondary sources available then there's no excuse for this article being sourced entirely from Quixtar websites.   Will Beback    talk    21:48, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I entirely agree (well, mostly agree - not all of the current references are Quixtar as you claim). If you have some time, improve it! I'm not sure where the "if" regarding 3rd party sources comes from, since it's pretty indisputable if you spend a moments research. Unfortunately "a moment" is about all I have right now, so I can't dedicate any time right now to improving the article myself. How about we add the tag?--Insider201283 (talk) 21:13, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Duh - it's already there. --Insider201283 (talk) 21:22, 14 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I added the tag for a proposed merge with Amway Global as per the conclusions reached in the discussion here. --Xaliqen (talk) 05:12, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Be bold, merge it. Personally, I'd take it to AFD, but a merge is fine, too. --Nuujinn (talk) 00:37, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I've decided to take it to AfD with merge as a secondary option. All interested editors should take note. --Xaliqen (talk) 01:56, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I am opposed to merger. This article is notable in its own right because of its history of regulatory issues dating back to the 1940s and possibly earlier. I have begun a section on regulatory issues, and added text about a Supreme Court case and FDA seizure. There needs to be a lot more on this. Were it not for its history, I would certainly agree with merger, but this product stands on its own, though not for any reasons Amway would like us to know! Figureofnine (talk) 16:13, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks to your valuable contributions and the solid revisions of other editors over the past week, the article is significantly improved. Thanks for taking the time to bring greater depth to the material. --Xaliqen (talk) 06:24, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

In light of the consensus reached in the AfD proposal, I'm withdrawing the merge tag. The article still needs work (particularly due to the many Quixtar articles used as references), but, thanks to the valuable contributions of editors over the past week, is a much more solid and notable entry. --Xaliqen (talk) 06:30, 13 September 2010 (UTC)


 * At least one of those Quixtar links is dead, and are dubious when alive. Some of the writing in this article is promotional, too. I'll see what I can do. Figureofnine (talk) 14:01, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

New section on regulatory issues
I've begun a new section on the longstanding regulatory issues concerning this product, which date back to the 1940s at least. The product was seized by the FDA in 1948 for having false marketing materials, and the distributor fought this all the way to the Supreme Court (and lost). There is really no doubt about the notability of this product. However, there absolutely must be a substantial section on the horrid regulatory history of this product. What I've added is just the beginning. Figureofnine (talk) 16:10, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Can someone please provide input as to whether this is a reliable source or can be used as an external link? My hunch is "neither." However, it provides good background that might point town usable sources. Figureofnine (talk) 18:30, 13 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree with your hunch. As you say, the info looks interesting. I'll see if I can find anything related that would be usable. --Xaliqen (talk) 06:14, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Here are a few reliable sources I found through the article above and via news searches. Unfortunately, much of the information related to Nutrilite is published in the LA Times (Nutrilite is based in the Los Angeles area), which charges money for accessing each article older than five years or so. However, these LA Times articles should be freely available in archived LA Times newspapers at libraries throughout Southern California and on microfilm (if anyone happens to have a lot of spare time and lives in LA). Anyway, here are some of the sources I found that are freely available:


 * Sources related to court cases:


 * Sources generally related to Amway and Nutrilite:

--Xaliqen (talk) 07:03, 14 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I only found ~15 latimes articles in the past 15 years, but if someone has time to read and integrate them, drop me an email. tedder (talk) 15:04, 14 September 2010 (UTC)