User talk:Harlock jds

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[edit] Dave Ramsey Edits

Hello Harlock! Funny thing, the guy that helps me run my Battlestar Galactica website also goes by the handle Harlock. :)

I wanted to approach you about the Ramsey edits. You're probably miffed that I deleted a couple of them. Hopefully I can defray any hard feelings with some lengthy explanation. ;)

If you haven't been lurking for a while, the Ramsey page has gone through a whole lot of turmoil in the last few months. A lot of it was over the criticism section, the way it was written was pretty much an all out attack on Ramsey. Through a lot of arbitration, I was able to get a number of editors to come in and we came up with a concensus on the status of the comments. The comments are still being added every now and then, because the user is using an anonymous proxy and at this point its difficult to do anything about the guy. One of the editors has assured me that he is documenting the situation however, so I've rested a little easier since then. But you would be familiar with those comments because I noticed by the edit history you removed them one by one, giving a good explanation as to why. Bravo for that, but if I'd have walked in I'd have just gone to the last legitimate revision and hit Edit, then save. That reverts the article, saves time. Multiple reverting and revert wars are technically a bad thing around here, except in the unique case of a Biography of Living Persons article, which the Dave Ramsey page is. You might want to check out that section, it has a lot of rules about what can and can't be put into these types of pages.

I know I sure spent hours upon hours pouring over that page, and a lot of other policy pages trying to keep this article clean and defend my edits. The anon user was constantly calling me a "Dave Ramsey Lover," which while I understand and do admire his program, I would say some of it is a bit off. I don't know if you're familiar with his radio show, but today he had a comment that said it best. He said whenever they hire someone, part of their orientation is familiarizing the individual with what happens when they tell someone they work for Dave Ramsey, and that person says "Oh, I agree with everything that guy says except..." Which in reference to this article, there is relevence to that.

In all our articles we want to keep them as encyclopediac as possible, meaning as clear cut, fact driven and understated. In the case of a Biography of Living Persons we have to be especially careful because of libel issues. In choosing valid criticism for the Dave Ramsey article (because I'm not against valid criticism, but it better be that-Valid, Verifiable, and not pushing an opinion based on multiple sources that do not speak directly to the subject matter) I would find something online and have to ask myself "is this really valid." As you all ready know, blogs and Amazon.com reviews are out. :) But then I'd find something from somebodies website, that had a really good point, but what it really boils down to is this policy: If the criticism represents the views of a tiny minority, it has no place in the article. Which eliminates a lot.

I myself am still learning at this. One of my criticisms, which at the time I felt were valid, I just found a policy condemning because it is by a self-published author.

Ultimately it comes down to what Ramsey has said about himself. That seems to me to be the only verifiable content of criticisms that we know exist, but are not documented by other valid research avenues.

And that really brings in another point. Dave Ramsey is just not nearly as popular as some of these critics would lead us to believe. By adding some of these comments and assuming they comply with Wiki policy, they are basically saying they are majority held, relevent views. Yet if they were that wide ranging, they ought to be validated by some legitimate source like a newspaper or news site or something!

But I guess my point is, after you deleted those criticisms you added a couple of things that were a bit suspect, and unfortunately under BLP guidelines poorly sourced negative material must be deleted ASAP. Let me go a little more in depth:

Dave Ramsey frequently cites that Americans carry an average of 8,000 dollar in credit card debt which is technically true but paints a misleading picture of the prevalence of excessive credit card debt in American society. Only 1 in 20 Americans have 8,000$ or more in credit card debt and a majority of Americans have no credit card debt at all.

You've got two good sources here, unfortunately what you've done is introduced an argument that is not supported by either of the citations. You're point is valid, but it is not really a criticism. I guess you might call it an error in thinking? There was a similar criticism added related to his love of Mutual Funds, and the guy added a bunch of links that supposedly talked about how mutual funds really weren't that good. Actually his links had nothing to do with that, though I knew where he was going with it. I found a more valid reference, and added the criticism about how he is often misquoted about the 12% stock market average returns. So perhaps there is a way you can spin this, but I invite you to carefully look over all of Wiki's policies, especially in the area of BLP. As they say, "we have to make it right."

Dave Ramsey has been criticized by some in the Christian community of using half-Bible-verses as catchphrases that do not truly reflect biblical teaching and of promoting being debt-free to the point of selfishness that is altogether contrary to Christian values.

I've seen this article before and considered using it, but like the Jacked article it only mentions him by name at the beginning, and then the author goes on about his own views. He doesn't directly accuse Ramsey of using "half-bible-verses" (though he does at times, and usually admits it when he does). Additionally, you might want to read this article on self published sources.

But other than that, I applaud your efforts. You took a good stab at a tough article, and even though these BLP pages can get a little daunting, I don't want to discourage you from continuing to contribute. Great job, and again, welcome to Wikipedia!

If you ever have any other questions, feel free to ask!--Arkcana 03:57, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

• CSD is meant to remove the entire article. It appears that you are looking to remove sections that appear to look like spam/advertising. If this is indeed the case, edit the page in question and just blank the section(s) in question. - Mailer Diablo 18:08, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
• Sorry, yes I'm removing all the tags. The above message was for the anonymous editor who converted the templates into CSD. - Mailer Diablo 18:12, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
  • IMO it doesn't qualify for CSD, so no worries. The article needs a lot of fixing, so yes please do use the talkpage for discussion on how to improve it. :) - Best regards, Mailer Diablo 18:16, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

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