Talk:Young Living

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Contested deletion

This article should not be speedily deleted for lack of asserted importance because it has already been to AfD once, and been kept - which unless I've misunderstood policy makes it ineligible for speedy deletion under CSD A7. There may well be good arguments for deletion (I'd probably !vote for it myself if another AfD was started), but summary deletion of an article in such circumstances would seem inappropriate. AndyTheGrump (talk) 06:26, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

Merger proposal

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

No consensus in 1 year. Only supporting editor withdrew support. AlexEng^(TALK) 19:36, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

---

This section is to discuss User:Rhode Island Red's proposed merger of Donald Gary Young to here.

• Support There is much info about Young out there, but he doesn't quite seem to meet WP:BIO to me, so merging seems like the best solution. As discussed above, his past legal troubles make this a WP:BLP minefield. Grayfell (talk) 23:22, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure what is being proposed here - I don't see how we can 'merge' a biography of an individual with an article on a company without creating an unfocussed hybrid. Which is supposed to be notable, the individual, or the company? I'm not convinced that either are independently, and notability is an attribute of article topics, rather than being something that can be concocted by running together not-quite-notable subject matter. And yes, biographical material on Young is problematic - and will remain so, if added to an article on the company. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:35, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

If the legal problems are worth mentioning at all, and I honestly don't know if they are, then maybe the bio should remain as an article. After Young Living was founded, most sources (out of the few reliable ones) cover them as closely related topics. From the Daily Beast article: "It must be noted that in the company's literature, there appears to be an uncomfortable cult of personality around Young..."[1] If there's no article on Young, then a brief summary of his personal history seems like it would make sense here. How brief that summary should be is debatable, but the article seems incomplete without mentioning something about him. Grayfell (talk) 01:06, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

The article about Donald Gary Young has expanded with enough content unrelated to this company that I no longer think a merger is appropriate. Grayfell (talk) 22:08, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

2015 Sales report is not credible

CoolKoon inserted this source as evidence that Young Living had $1 billion in 2015 sales. However distinguished (or not) the Utah Daily Herald may be, this report is not journalism providing convincing follow up and secondary confirmation by an independent source, but rather extracts quotes and accepts the dubious claim of billion dollar performance from a press release by Young Living itself here. The Daily Herald report is just a blog repeat, as is evident from the thin reporting of two other events on the same page. One would have to be quite gullible to believe that Young Living sales number, but in the interests of an objective WP article on the company, we need a secondary financial source that meets WP:RS. Consequently, I reverted the content and source as simply not credible until supported adequately and independently. --Zefr (talk) 13:53, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Young Living Therapeutic Grade

Can we discuss the "Therapeutic Grade" claims made on Young Living essential oils? According to the YL website, they make a claim that their oils are Therapeutic Grade. The FDA and any other governing body does not recognize this as a real grading method. According to these sources [1] [2] the term "Therapeutic Grade" is a made up marketing trick. I suggest we add some language that clarifies this since Young Living prints "Therapeutic Grade" on the front label of each essential oil bottle they sell. Thanks. --H McCringleberry (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 19:09, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

I recommend we don't address this. Their information can't be trusted. This company is well-known for quackery. Any discussion about their products is not encyclopedic per WP:PROMO. --Zefr (talk) 20:42, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

Agreed, for now. It does indeed appear that "Therapeutic Grade" is marketing nonsense. If it were used in the article it would likely have to be removed. Since it's not currently used in this article, mentioning it would require reliable, independent sources specifically linking it to Young Living.

I don't know if the National Association of Holistic Aromatherapy is a reliable source, but that would have to be determined before citing them. Likewise, Aromaweb appears to be a blog source, which is of limited use. It's commendable that the author calls on the site's advertisers to stop using the term "grade", but that's not enough to make this reliable by Wikipedia's standards.

While I have no doubt that Young Living coined the phrase, neither of those other sources actually call-out Young Living by name (for some reason). We need to be cautious of original research, specifically synthesis of sources. Without a reliable, independent source specifically linking Young Living to this misleading phrase, it's difficult to add to the article in a neutral way. Grayfell (talk) 20:57, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

Requesting edits

I am from Young Living and part of my duties here include updating the Wikipedia page about the company. I read the notice at the top of this page about disclosure and have made such on my userpage. I would like to ask that someone review the disclosure to ensure I am in compliance prior to me requesting any specific edits to the Wikipedia article. --MarSureMa (talk) 02:08, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

You should not edit the Young Living or Gary Young articles, as you have an inherent conflict of interest; please read WP:COI. Wikipedia has this purpose, which does not include advertising for a company or updating its article based on internal news. Secondary independent sources, WP:RS, are used for the encyclopedia. It would be ok if you notify this Talk page of a verifiable secondary source on information not currently in the article, but you should have no role in writing it. --Zefr (talk) 02:22, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

• Hello, @MarSureMa:. Thank you for disclosing your conflict of interest. As Zefr says, you should not edit the article. If you notice any discrepancy with the article, you can propose changes here for consideration, but please be succinct and patient. Please also consider using Template:Request edit (you may find the show preview feature helpful). I will leave a boilerplate message on your talk page providing links to additional information on editing with a conflict of interest. Please review these links for everyone's convenience, so we can avoid rehashing old discussions. Thanks. Grayfell (talk) 05:38, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for the talk page information. I read through COI carefully and believe I understand what I need to do (as well as what I should NOT do). I fully understand that I am not supposed to edit these pages directly and will not do so. For the most part, we are just trying to introduce more information about our history as it seems to be lacking. I have taken to the time to read through information related to reliable sourcing and put together an initial edit request which I will post shortly. If at any time I am not doing something correctly, please let me know. --MarSureMa (talk) 03:28, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

Request Edit

I would propose adding a section for company history and start it by adding the following which documents some of the early history and how the company got started.

In May 1992, Donald Gary Young purchased a farm in St. Maries, Idaho where he began growing lavender, clary sage, peppermint, and thyme while also testing new distillation methods. He founded Young Living Essential Oils in 1993 and incorporated the business the following year. Young and his wife, Mary, established the first headquarters in Riverton, Utah. In 1995, they purchased a 160-acre farm in Mona, Utah where they would also grow plants for distillation.

There is additional history which I will propose in a few days as I am trying to find more reliable sources to include. Thank you for considering this request. --MarSureMa (talk) 03:48, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

References

Reply 04-DEC-2018

  Already implemented  

1. The salient point proposed in this edit request—that D.G.Y. started the company in 1993—is already included in the current version of the article.
2. The remainder of claims within this edit request are part and parcel of the Young Living creation story, making them notoriously difficult to anchor in reliability (the quaint farm in Mona, Utah used for distillation purposes, for example). To that end, please advise if any newer references are found.

Regards,  Spintendo  09:23, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

The founding information is a single sentence in the opening paragraph of the article. The opening paragraph should be more of a summary, yet there is nothing about the founding or other history in the body of the article. The references I used are very reliable as well so I am not sure what additional sources are needed. I know this was only a snippet so I created an entire history section (below) which has more context and sources. Could you please review and implement the edits if they meet Wikipedia standards. --MarSureMa (talk) 02:22, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

In May 1992, Donald Gary Young purchased a farm in St. Maries, Idaho where he began growing lavender, clary sage, peppermint, and thyme while also testing new distillation methods. He founded Young Living Essential Oils in 1993 and incorporated the business the following year. Young and his wife, Mary, established the first headquarters in Riverton, Utah. In 1995, they purchased a 160-acre farm in Mona, Utah where they would also grow plants for distillation.

In 1996, the company acquired property in Payson, Utah with the intent of developing a new 100,000-square-foot headquarters. After demolishing an existing building there in 1997, the company eventually sold the property pack to the City of Payson in 1998 because it had already outgrown the planned development. Its headquarters remained in a remodeled school building in Payson. In 1999, Young Living was named the second-fastest growing business in Utah.

In 2001, the company opened a 200-acre western-themed tourist attraction called Young Living Heritage Park at its farming facility in Mona. The visitor center at the farm also featured the Whispering Springs BBQ restaurant. Around 2002, its main headquarters moved to a 59,000 square-foot facility at the Thanksgiving Point Business Park in Lehi, Utah. In 2004, the company started expanding into international markets like Europe and Japan. By 2005, the firm claimed to have 250,000 distributors throughout the world.

In 2006, the company began construction on a 110,000-square-foot production and distribution center in Spanish Fork, Utah. That year, it also purchased a 2,300-acre farm in Ecuador, its first outside the United States. The company opened the Young Living Academy in rural Chongon, Ecuador in March 2008. In 2011, the company was listed at number 3,833 on the Inc. 5000 list of the fastest growing companies in the United States. By 2013, it had annual revenues of $230 million with offices in Australia, Ecuador, Peru, and Japan.

In January 2015, the company started a 100,000-square-foot expansion of its distribution facility in Spanish Fork. Later that year, Mary Young was named the company's CEO after her husband voluntarily stepped down from the position to pursue writing and philanthropic endeavors. In 2016, Young Living began working on the construction of a new headquarters near its current Thanksgiving Point base. It officially broke ground on the 263,000-square-foot project in May 2017. Between 2015 and 2017, the company posted annual revenues of over $1 billion. In May 2018, Young Living's founder and former CEO, Donald Gary Young, passed away.

Some of the details proposed seem OK but overall seems liked excessive detail about facilities, bordering on trivial. As for income claims, are they based on public filings? Rhode Island Red (talk) 15:11, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

References

New structure

Hi all,

It seems to me this Young Living article is too short and too biased (the lede and all 3 main sections are "negative" -- about controversy, bad press about the FDA, etc:

The current structure is:

• 1 Company
• 2 Prohibited marketing claims
• 3 Litigation

I suggest the article be modified to imitate a similar company such as Herbalife

• 1 History
• 2 Products
• 3 Business model
• 4 Criticism (or "controversy")
• 5 Litigation

This new structure would be (a) more informative and (b) still able to present negative, or critical information in context.

The sections about the USFDA's warning against Young Living and DoTerra not to suggest that their products cure disease, and the litigation against DoTerra, are important. But they should not be 80% of the article.

What are your thoughts?

Disclosure: I am not a Young Living distributor, but I use the products and know several distributors who have made me familiar with the company. CircularReason (talk) 04:19, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

The content dictates the structure, not vice versa. The content itself is dictated mainly by what has been published in independent WP:RS. It's not a platform for company advertising. The reality is that the majority of in-depth press coverage that the company has received has been unflattering. As unbiased editors, it is our task to faithfully capture that, not to attempt to artificially "balance" articles or inject our own POV. FYI, being a product advocate and chummy with distributors would be enough to cloud your vision and constitute a WP:COI. Rhode Island Red (talk) 06:55, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for your thoughts, Rhode Island. While I don't appreciate the insulting special pleading ('mangled grammar' and 'clouded vision'), I certainly agree that the Wiki is not a platform for company advertising. Neither is it a platform for disinformation. Your previous reversion concisely stated that "WP:SECONDARY are preferrable for income statements;" the New Yorker article cites (as "public records") the same Young Living income disclosure as my revision. The only difference is that the New Yorker cites one from 2016, and my revision the more accurate one from 2017. Can explain why outdated primary source is preferable to a current one? Our common goal is to make Wikipedia accurate. CircularReason (talk) 04:27, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

The issue here is that you are inserting your own interpretation of a WP:PRIMARY source (the income disclosure statement) into the article, and it contradicts what the secondary source (The New Yorker) wrote about the income disclosure statement, which emphasized that “94% of Young Living's active members made less than a dollar that year". Your original interpretation, shown in the examples that follow, was at odds with the New Yorker’s focus, and therefore it constitutes a violation of WP:NPOV and WP:OR.

“Top earners in the "Diamond" ranks earn a median average is $27,000 per month and up.”[2]

“The 2017 disclosure reports earnings ranging from $15 per month to upwards of $20,000 per month.” [3]

“According to 2017 public records, 33% of active Young Living distributors made $15 per month and 41% made $58 a month, with smaller percentages earning more.”[4]

In addition to the POV violation and WP:OR, there's also an emerging concern about WP:EDITWAR and WP:COI. Rhode Island Red (talk) 16:09, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

I've added further context from the source that, I believe, mitigates some of CircularReason's valid concerns without stumbling into any of the problems noted by Rhode Island Red. 73.59.67.130 (talk) 04:43, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

The edit in question, which was improper WP:SYNTH, was reverted.[5] Rhode Island Red (talk) 15:55, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

As is, the current Company section inappropriately synthesizes two different sources to imply that Young Living members are members for the purpose of earning commission, but that the vast majority of them never do, in direct violation of what one of those sources clearly states. The additional Monroe quote eliminates that misconstrual without obscuring the point of the 94%-statistic, that most members don't make money. You're right that the reverted edit was in danger of violating WP:SYNTH, but it was a step in the right direction of presenting the sources accurately rather than editorializing selectively combining disparate citations. So I propose the following version of the Company section. If anyone has issues with it, please provide a version that you think is appropriate, as it would be better to remove the 94%-statistic from the article than continue misusing it. Alweth (talk) 17:29, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

As a multi-level marketing company, Young Living recruits "thousands of independent distributors who can sell directly to customers and earn commissions on sales to distributors recruited into a hierarchical network called 'downlines'."[ref in original] According to a public income statement from 2016, approximately 94% of Young Living's active members made less than a dollar that year. However, "many distributors who don’t make a substantial income nonetheless stick with it, in part because the benefits are more than just monetary."

References

That's the exact same WP:SYNTH by the anon IP that was reverted.[6] Clearly not a viable option. Rhode Island Red (talk) 22:25, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

The issue of income and number of profit-earning members is moot and WP:V unverifiable. So-called "public" income statements from Young Living can't be trusted or verified because the company releases to the public whatever exaggerations it wants; it doesn't file to an independent body like the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that would hold its financial statements to federal penalties if violated. The New Yorker author Monroe was reporting what Young Living sources gave her. Unless a source for the article is reliably WP:SECONDARY, comments about company members and finances should be removed. --Zefr (talk) 17:51, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

I am not conversant enough with the nuances of WP:V to evaluate your claims, but if there's questions about the verifiability of the 94% statistic, I agree that just eliminating it is the simplest way to improve this section of this article while mildly addressing CircularReason's concerns about negative bias in the Company description. Alweth (talk) 21:32, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

There is no relevant question about verifiability with respect to the statement about 94%. It's published in a reliable secondary source (New Yorker). The goal here is WP:NPOV, not to placate the "concerns" of product advocates (and certainly not by using WP:SYNTH). Rhode Island Red (talk) 22:19, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

Also conspicuous that a WP:SLEEPER[7] would suddenly awaken from a 5-year hibernation to support the whitewashing proposed by a product advocate[8] and an anon IP WP:SPA.[9] All sorts of concerns here: WP:TAGTEAM, WP:SOCK, etc. That's a warning. Rhode Island Red (talk)

As for the verifiability of the 94% claim, I'll let you and Zefr argue about that. The concerns expressed by CircularReason have a certain amount of validity and to that extent I share them. The Company section is currently not true to its sources. This is a problem. The edit I suggested is not a violation of WP:SYNTH. Please see WP:What_SYNTH_is_not. Specifically, "If you want to revert something on the grounds that it's SYNTH, you should be able to explain what new thesis is being introduced and why it's not verified by the sources." Also, "If a putative SYNTH doesn't constitute original research, then it doesn't constitute SYNTH." The suggested edit simply juxtaposes two claims made and juxtaposed in the same source. Alweth (talk) 23:14, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

I agree with Alweth. The recent proposed edits do not violate SYNTH. The article previous iteration of the articleis misleading. What must be understood by all parties is that the New Yorker's quote is from Young Living's 2016 Income Disclosure. The current public records has the exact same validity and reliability as the New Yorker article, except it is more current. And, the 2017 records contradict the letter and spirit of Wikipedia's current iteration article.

P.S. Rhode Island, Reminder: "Assume good faith, and keep in mind that in almost all cases it is better to address other editors' reasoning than it is to accuse them of being on a team. Unsubstantiated accusations of tag teaming are uncivil." I wonder if you have an animosity towards Young Living or MLMs that might make it challenging to have NPOV? The proposed changes are not whitewashing but increasing accuracy, which is everyone's goal.

Prohibited marketing claims

For accuracy, I think we need to be clear that the FDA did not accuse Young Living of directly marketing their products as a cure for Ebola and other illnesses. The FDA letter, available here, states that they:

"... reviewed websites and social media accounts (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest) for several Young Living essential oil consultants that your firm refers to as “Young Living distributors.” ... [and] a 2012-2013 product guide found on your website http://www.youngliving.com"

They then listed the violations on "some of [Young Living's] consultants’ websites that establish the intended use of ... Young Living Essential Oils products". These are all consultants per the FDA - they didn't identify any violations that they listed in Young Living's product guide. They warned Young Living because they were permitting their consultants to make these claims, and the websites then linked to Young Living to make a purchase, but they didn't specifically state that Young Living were directly marketing their products as cures. This is not surprising, as generally these companies are very careful about their wording to avoid these issues, but potentially don't police (or perhaps want to police) claims made by others. - Bilby (talk) 22:46, 28 January 2019 (UTC)