Talk:Dave Ramsey/Archive 1

message: All of the information about Dave Ramsey, from personal to his financial advice, and everything else, is also included as part of his radio show (he states several times that the book has the same information as he gives out to callers).  He also has most of this info on his website, and allows all of his podcasts for free download on ITunes and other places.  Therefore, none of this information should be considered breaking copyright, since he is actively encouraging people to share his teachings.
I agree, this article does seem to be selling his teachings, but that's a much different argument, not a copyright infringement.
~Saint Dmitri
This article is a biography of an individual,  not a sales point for his merchandise.  Nor is wikipedia allowed,  under copyright laws, to post comprehensive details of his literature.  (The man deserves to make his living by selling his books,  not having it posted here illegally.)  The posting of Ramsey's money guidelines, either in whole, or in part, or in summary format,  is no different from posting a pirated copy of the movie "Titanic" on wikipedia.  This is plainly wrong per WP:COPY and must be removed immediately.  170.252.11.11 15:26, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The problem was that it wasn't paraphrased. If someone (like yourself) did paraphrase it than it could be added. Personally i think it goes into too much detail about his teaching and pushes a article that is already very promotional sounding over the edge. People can find out about 'the plan' on their own if they want (we have links to it).harlock_jds 10:37, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Removal of Copyrighted Material

message: Comments removed per WP:BLP#Remove_unsourced_or_poorly_sourced_controversial_material--Arkcana 03:37, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Vandalism of Article

message: Arckana, before you go deleting everything you disagree with again, I challenge you to add a link to this article with any evidence of Ramsey's financials or the evidence requested.  If you can't find it (and you won't be able to,) then you need to stop vandalizing this article and leave the criticism about Ramsey's lack of documentation in place.  Just because *YOU*  disagree with something doesn't mean you have the right to delete it,  unless you can validate that it's a factual error.  Also, you shold read Wiki's policy on "weasel words";  then you'll see that weasel words are totally unrelated to the criticism you're making.
Well we have no idea who *you* are, considering you refuse to sign any of your comments. Second, I encourage you to read the warning at the top of the page. This is a biography of a living person, and should be treated as such. I have repeatedly deleted these comments, especially the one you made, because they cannot be verified either way. Therefor, they should not be there. On the other hand, there are a number of comments that have been made on this page that have been repeatedly deleted for the same reason (they cannot be sourced to an "internet" source), however anyone who has read "The Total Money Makeover" or listened to his show on the radio has heard these comments made repeatedly. Some of them CAN be verified online, such as MSNBC news.
The overall problem with this article is that it isn't even WRITTEN from the perspective of a biography of a living person. Granted the only written and verifiable material is from his books, but I don't believe that the way to make this article balanced is by adding criticsms that can't be verified. I mean obviously a lot of people think he's an overly-simplistic financial blowhard who pushes everyone to sell their new cars and eliminate debt at whatever cost. And maybe thats true. But from the perspect of the people he has created this material for, people who have gone so far into the hole that they don't see any hope what-so-ever, maybe a simple plan is what some people need. NOT EVERYONE. Some. But that is neither here nor there. You would like to add criticisms to this article for whatever reason, whether it be you hate Dave Ramsey (Which I could honestly care less) or because you think that criticism will make the article more balanced. Fine, I understand that either way. However, the point is this article is a biography of a person, and Wikipedia standards have stated "Controversial material (negative, positive, or just highly questionable) that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous." 
Therefor, I'd like to offer a compromise. Either we can go back and forth, me deleting your stupid comments and you re-adding them and messing with the rest of the article, which at some point I'm just going to report to the WK:BLP Noticeboard, or we can try to work out some sort of compromise. My initial suggestion would be to re-write this article from the standpoint of a biography of Dave Ramsey himself, leaving out his whole Financial Peace gag, and do possible one or more articles pertaining to his ideas and program, at which point we can work out an acceptable "Public Reaction/Criticism" section that everyone can agree with. Or, if you have a better suggestion, please present it. I am willing to work with you and anyone else on this point. Let me know.--Arkcana 19:28, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I question both the source of this objection and its NPOV. I understand the defense of Christianity and agree that any objection on that basis alone is more or less invalid but the testimonial here reeks of a self promotion or a corporate testimonial. The lack of signature brings it into deeper question.--Matt 06:17, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

text: I agree, it sounds too promotional. A couple criticisms wouldn't hurt either. Wesley 13:23, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

text: too many links to the dave ramsey web site.  The article looks like a commercial site promoting products and services.  We don't need so many links to his commercial site. I'm deleting some of them Caffeine USA 14:12, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Very well done. Mushroom (Talk) 14:16, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Controversy

message: Are probably deep in debt and in denial about it! :-)
Funny, but doesn't help our case any. To these guys, we're a bunch of "Pro-Ramsey Fascists out to promote the Ramsey Agenda." I've been trying to be fair about the whole thing, this is after all an encyclopedia... It seems like the only fair criticism of the guy I've found out there has more to do with his Republican affiliation, which is more or less moot after the whole Bankruptcy bill thing. Personally, I think he charges an awful lot for some of his products... On the other hand, I have at times seen him take huge cuts periodically. And I guess when you compare it to how much they charge for those "Zero-down Foreclosure listing" programs they sell on TV, its not that bad. But I think a lot of the resentment from these guys stems more from Ramsey's bolder statements, having to do with getting out of debt at all costs, living on less than you make, not using debt to invest, yada yada... And especially his pushing mutual funds and being against day trading and such. In that case, at least myself personally, I have two sources with which to form an opinion. There is Jim Cramer, who insists that Mutual funds are underperformers and you can't make money off of them, and then there is my grandfather who retired at 65 four years ago with a broad profile of investments, many of them in growth stock mutual funds, and has a net worth of like three million dollars. So as you can imagine, I'm having a hard time deciding who to believe on this issue. ;)--Arkcana 20:11, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: People who clearly dislike Ramsey here on Wikipedia

message: What on earth does this have to do with Dave Ramsey? I'm confused.--Arkcana 04:49, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: So am I, and apparently nobody has stepped forward to explain it. Template removed. EVula // talk // ☯ // 18:30, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

text: I agreed with Arkcana's 14 November post, and I took the bold initiative of removing it.Signof4 18:32, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Certainty series? 

message: In respect to the verify tag, I think its been up there for quite a while and I haven't seen anyone do anything about it. I'd like to take the opportunity to go through and verify as much as I can, but I'd also like to go through and do something of a re-write. Information has just kind of been added at a "bird fed" rate and the article seems really disjointed. The "Dave's Basic Teachings" section in particular needs a good re-write from a encyclopedic point of view. And I would think Trivia should pop up at the bottom of the article. I'm a little bit hesitant on the "Lampo Group" section. I'm not against having the information, but more or less the way the section is layed out. It kind of puts the importance on his company, when really its sort of this background thing. I think I'd like to see a more prominant section on his radio program, which seems more the core of his world. I'd also like to see more information on his authorship, what he's written etc. 
I'm going to try and verify as much info as I can, and I'd like to re-write the "Dave's Teachings" section. I think it might work better if we called it "Financial Advice" and gave a basic overview of some of the things he teaches from a more NPOV. If anyone has any ideas or objections, please let me know. --Arkcana 06:02, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Upon further research, the "Dave's Basic Teachings" section appears to be a word for word copy of the Juicy News Daily blog site here []. At this point a re-write sounds less like a good idea and more like an immediate necessity.--Arkcana 06:20, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok, I have just gone through and done a complete re-write of the article. Bear in mine that I've been working on this for the last 16 hours or so, I'm fairly sleep deprived at this point (which is good, supposed to have an eeg in like six hours...) so there may be some mispellings, but hopefully I got the NPOV right. Found a couple more criticsms worth adding, and a butt load of interesting information. Basically my goal was to completely re-write the previously plagairized sections and improve upon neutrality... I actually thought I was going to delete a lot of info. But upon researching I was surprised to find I could verify quite a bit. Anyway, I'm going to go take the two hours of sleep I'm allowed and wake up a drooling vegitable for the hospital like they asked.--Arkcana 09:44, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposal of Article Cleanup 

message: clearly this is someone using the speedy delete tag as a form of vandalism. It is debatable that the article is 'spam' and the anon user hasn't contributed to the current discussion we have on the subject of removing parts of the article that do sound more like an advertisement. At most we could remove the offending sections (something that would be perfectly acceptable to me in fact i may do it after this speedy delete tag is removed by an admin). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Harlock jds (talk • contribs) 16:23, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: speedy delete

message: Including large excerpts from published works is a copyright violation.  I have removed them.  Please do not add them back.  Short, quoted excerpts are acceptable if used for critical commentary of the work, but otherwise they do not go in the article.  Thanks --Spike Wilbury  14:08, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: looks good to me and removed a good chunk of stuff i thought was out of place hereHarlock jds 15:39, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

text: Good call. I'm pretty much under the assumption that his office is beefing up his article (COI). I'll actually be at his building later today; I could tap on the glass during the show and tell him to knock it off, if needed. :) EVula // talk // ☯ // 15:43, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Copyvio 

message: All of the information about Dave Ramsey, from personal to his financial advice, and everything else, is also included as part of his radio show (he states several times that the book has the same information as he gives out to callers).  He also has most of this info on his website, and allows all of his podcasts for free download on ITunes and other places.  Therefore, none of this information should be considered breaking copyright, since he is actively encouraging people to share his teachings.
I agree, this article does seem to be selling his teachings, but that's a much different argument, not a copyright infringement.
~Saint Dmitri
: It doesn't matter how he distributes his material; copyright automatically exists unless he explicitly releases his material into the public domain or licenses it under the GFDL, which he doesn't.  Additionally, Wikipedia is not the correct venue for Ramsey to "share his teachings". --Spike Wilbury  19:02, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: i agree copyright is copyright and Ramsey's works are not public domain. However i am wondering if the problem still exists on the page or not so we can remove the ugly header we have on it now. Harlock jds 19:15, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: oops never mind it's gone. Thanks Spike.Harlock jds 19:16, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Removal of Copyrighted Material

message: There was no reason given for the advert tag, so I removed it. I'm not saying the article is FA quality -- the lack of a criticism section is glaring, since there are plenty who disagree with Ramsey's advice and methodology -- but putting up a tag without any explanation doesn't help anyone. Feel free to list specifics here on why it reads like an ad. 66.69.88.148 23:38, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: the problem with a criticism section is that while a lot of people disagree with him none have done so in a mainstream media outlet (or really any media outlet) so we are stuck with the occasional blog post, original research, and people just makeing up stuff (like that stupid jacked and tivo crit that makes it's way in from time to time). I wish more mainstream articles were written about him and his advice since a lot of it is iffy but oh well.
as for the advert tone it's not as bad as it used to be personally i'd like to cut out a few more sections but i've been overruled in the past.harlock_jds 00:26, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Advert tone revisited 

message: I'm not a big Wikipedia editor, but a recent article - http://www.nashvillescene.com/Stories/Cover_Story/2007/05/31/The_Gospel_According_to_Dave/index.shtml - might be a good source for more info for this article.
yep some good stuff in that including a few things to add to the criticism section (that people find him arrogant, have problems with his right wing views and that many people think his information is wrong as well as criticism from the religious community). I'll add stuff over the weekend (or someone else can) thanks for the link.18:07, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Better source for stuff