Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Liberty Dollar (second nomination)

Liberty Dollar

This article is an advertisement for a multi-level marketing scheme with a bait-and-switch component. I tried to fix it, and I have debated what to do with it over several days. I believe it needs to be deleted. It contains numerous links to articles singing the praises of this obscure numismatic company that produces this product. It also encourages people to pass NORFED's privately minted coins, which closely resemble some older official U.S. government issued coins. This article and the accompanying links, and as a result Wikipedia, come very close to encouraging illegal behavior like uttering, passing counterfeit money, fraud, and theft of goods and/or services by deceit. This is definitely something Wikipedia should distance itself from. BrianGCrawfordMA 22:52, 17 February 2006 (UTC) First nomination: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/NORFED mikka (t) 23:12, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

• Delete. There is too little neutral, verifiable information to prevent this from being an advertisement for the product. -Will Beback 23:03, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. I was one of editors who some time ago worked to clean the bullshit from the article. In my opinion it is financial snake oil and crookery, but it is notable snake oil, hence deserves coverage. If anything, it needs a heavy-handed POV control, but not deletion. mikka (t) 23:23, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. It's a bit more than MLM snake oil, it's an issue associated with the Libertarian Party (United States), the 3rd or 4th or so largest political party in the United States. Here, take a look at Libertarian Party of New York Economic Issues. It's also a well written, balanced article (not that that should decide whether the issue is worthy of an article at all), and we document many worse things than MLM here, see Bloods, Crips ...GRuban 23:35, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

• Keep. Assuming this is a pyramid marketing scheme is a paranoid reaction. I receieve over 600 scam e-mails a day and not one has ever mentioned this currency. The wikipedia page comes across as a factual description of a novelty item which nobody in their right mind would confuse with government issue currency, and the article in no way led me to believe that the NORFED coins were genuine government issue currency. The BrianGCrawfordMA user indicates that wikipedia is encouraging people to engage in "theft of goods and/or services by deceit" but I was in no way encouraged to do so by this article. Please examine:

http://www.treas.gov/education/faq/currency/legal-tender.shtml

Where you can clearly see that to be committing fraud there would have to be the suggestion these NORFED coins "are legal tender for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues" but there is no such suggestion and the wikipedia article paints them as a novelty item private individuals may if they wish swap with one another in exchange for objects or services.

If NORFED novelty coins were widespread and commonplace then the Federal Reserve would no doubt manipulate the LAW in any way it considered necessary to eradicate them. They however, are not - and this is almost immaterial as the wikipedia article is descriptive and not suggestive. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.10.172.204 (talk • contribs) and is the only recorded edit by this user.

• This seems to be a noteworthy topic (passes google and might just squeak media coverage) but the POV in the article is overwhelming. The article is obviously comprehensive and well written but is entirely designed to give an impression of these objects as valuable, sensible and popular... I would need to hear evidence from respected sources (not blogs, local papers and anecdotes) that assert this scheme is sensible and not just someone's pet nest-feathering project or a scam which claims to work on "libertarian principles" in order to rip people off. As is I'm going to abstain because although there is way too much POV here, the monetary system is inherently fraudulent and just plain wrong and anything that tries to give it a kick up the backside is fine by me, something I feel so strongly about that even my deletionism is pushed aside. If it can be proved to be a scam, delete. If the article is wikified, keep. It has to be said that the above unsigned post really tries my patience and I believe it's author should declare themselves and any involvement they had in the article or with NORFED if they want their opinion to be considered in this debate. ++Deiz 01:50, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
  • I am the author of the above opinion, I have and never have had any involvement with NORFED or with the article. I read pieces of wikipedia regularly but have never seen a discussion about if an article should be deleted or not before - hence my "unsigned" nature, I am not really a big part of forming the site nor intend to be. I am suprised my comment made ++Deiz emotional and I do not wish to be involved in a heated dispute about this. As to declaring myself, I do not know what you wish me to to declare? I came to the article looking for information about the Liberty Dollar and it provided me with the information I was interested in. I do not understand how shrinking the knowledge contained in wikipedia is to anyone's benefit, but I am willing to admit that perhaps I am simply hardened to MLM-style nonsense and my brain filtered out everything except the facts I was interested in. If you want to do something about the page, why not re-write it in it's entirety yourself, leaving the factual information about what the coins are, their weights, NORFED, etc, remove anything you find "salesy", add the comment many people consider this to be an MLM and the rational behind this - because to me (and I admit I did not consider the intention of NORFED in their manufacture - because it is immateral to what the objects are) they just came across as novelty coins that people could use in a "club like" fashion to trade with one another - should they be so disposed.
  • Could you please elaborate what exactly is POV in the article (in its talk page, not here), so that we could fix it? mikka (t) 02:05, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
    • I searched extensively for such sources, but could find almost nothing. See my vote above. -Will Beback 06:35, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
      • I had about the same success as Will Beback on this. I did several searches over several days, trying to find something written by someone who is not involved financially with this project, but I couldn't. With the exception of the news story that says that two men were arrested for passing one of these to a shopkeeper, which is linked in the article, all the stuff I found was written by people who had paid the $250 to become an "Associate" and thus, they had a clear financial interest.

I don't think this article can be made neutral without original research because of this very real problem, and that's another reason I felt it needs to be deleted. Compare Liberty Dollars with silver coins minted for circulation by the U.S. Government. The Liberty Dollars are cunningly designed to look like U.S. Government issues. Like U.S. coins, they have the word "liberty" spelled out on the obverse above the stylized head of a woman. Sound familiar? I guess what this comes down to is a lot of people think that the U.S. Government is irresponsible and should not have gone off the Gold Standard, regardless of the fact that it is one of the basic responsibilities of any government to completely standardize its currency and so prevent frauds like this. Now these people are willing to pay twenty dollars for a piece of silver they could get for eight, just to prove a point. Even worse, they want you to buy the overpriced silver to prove their point too. Wikipedia is not a soapbox. I would remind everyone that this is not the place to promote a personal agenda, but I fear this falls on deaf ears. There seem to be people involved with the Liberty Dollar who think this is a fine place to promote their product. This is an ad, it's hopelessly POV despite my substantial edits, and there's no reliable information to be found anywhere about the Liberty Dollar. To pretend that this article is neutral is to lie to every reader of this article. Please delete it. BrianGCrawfordMA 15:10, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

• Having read the raging debates on the talk page and done some more digging, I've come to the following conclusion: The article for this topic will never be NPOV, but this topic will always have an article. Catch 22. Is there a WP policy for this situation? BGCMA and others who are willing to police it, good luck... I'm going back to the safety of stoner rock and Korean baseball. ++Deiz 16:37, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
• Merge and redirect, changed from delete. In spite of how repugnant this scheme is, upon further research I have come to think that the material in this article should be made more concise and merged with either the article for "Commodity money" or "Private currency." "Liberty Dollar" and "NORFED" should be redirected accordingly. Maybe then this information would get the broader context it desperately needs. "Phoenix Dollar," a similar currency/program/movement should also be merged and redirected to one of these topics, but maybe that's a discussion for another time. BrianGCrawfordMA 18:39, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
  • I'll support a merge & redirect per BrianGCMA ++Deiz 20:01, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
  • I am afraid this is not how wikipedia works. A separate topic is a separate article, unless there is nothing much to write. mikka (t) 23:59, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
• Sorry, I'm still in favor of Keep. Make it Strong Keep. Three reasons:

1. The fact that most editors think it's a scam shouldn't influence whether or not we have an article on it - it should merely influence the tone of the article. If you think it's a scam, back your opinion with research, and put it in the article. Google gets 85,000 hits on "Liberty Dollar", it's pretty clearly notable, so if we don't have information on it, that's a gaping hole in the Wikipedia. We've got articles on Amway and Herbalife and Ghu knows what else, whether or not it's a scam is not a reason to either delete it or hide it as a subsection of something else.
2. Second, I'm not sure why people keep saying the article is an ad. Every section of the article has some pretty critical lines: "not endorsed", "not legal tender", "not widely accepted", "resulted in arrests"... What more could we want? The very fact that it's hard to find any criticisms of the scheme elsewhere is a reason to keep our article, it's one of the most critical articles on the subject out there! And it does have links to criticisms in the External links section, which otherwise would be quite hard to find.
3. Finally, unlike Amway and Herbalife and similar organizations, the Liberty Dollar is a political statement. Even if the MLMers are trying to make a fast buck, the actual users aren't in it for a buck, they're just doing their best to criticise the "soft money" policies of the US govt. That's worth expounding on. GRuban 00:08, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

• Keep. The article simply describes what LDs are, and doesn't encourage anyone to go out and get them. Furthermore, if the Federal Reserve, Department of the Treasury and the Secret Service all deem the LD to be legal, then it's legal. End of story. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.160.10.106 (talk • contribs) on 00:40, 18 February 2006 and seems to have been (hopefully unintentionally?) deleted by User:Will Beback on the very next edit.