Talk:Juice Plus

Noticed that there is a parallel stub of an article on National Safety Associates, the parent company that makes Juice Plus. The company is not notable in its own right and the NSA article should be merged with the JP article. Rhode Island Red (talk) 19:22, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

Agreed.Kerdooskis (talk) 20:18, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

Agreed. --Icerat (talk) 10:10, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

• Agreed, merge. Pianoman320 (talk) 04:18, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

Disagreed. I know NSA but never heard of Juice Plus. MemBrain (talk) 20:52, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

Closing, given no consensus for the merge, and uncontested opposition (as per WP:SILENCE). Klbrain (talk) 21:04, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

Re-opening, following request from Rhode Island Red (talk · contribs). Klbrain (talk) 00:29, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

Weak oppose on the grounds that NSA had a notable history before their transition to a nutrition-focused company in the 1990s. I was tempted to suggest a merge in the reverse direction, but the Juice Plus brand name seems to have more of a web presence, and they seem to be using the "Juice Plus+ Company" name, even though it doesn't seem that the company has formally changed its name. The NSA name does still seem to be in use, for example hitting the title of a 2016 peer-reviewed protocol publication indexed on PMC. Klbrain (talk) 00:40, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

As background, Juice Plus is not a company name and never was. It is a trademark name for a product. The company that markets it is and always has been National Safety Associates. Rhode Island Red (talk) 01:15, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

I'm curious as to what was significantly notable about NSA's history prior to Juice Plus. There is a total of one non-JP related reference in the NSA article (#2, with no online link) that refers to the company getting in legal trouble with their water filter sales. The remaining dozen or so references cited in the NSA article all relate to Juice Plus. The company has marketed a single product -- Juice Plus -- for the vast majority of its existence. Strip out JP from NSAs story and we'd be left with a single unlinked reference. Sorry, but I just don't see the rationale for opposition to merging. BTW, thanks for relisting the merger proposal. Rhode Island Red (talk) 00:59, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

@Rhode Island Red: As you know, notability is based on the existence of suitable sources, not on the state of sourcing in an article. So, the question is as to whether 20 years of selling water filters, air filters, fire-protection equipment; with a further decade of these businesses tailing off, is sufficiently distinct from the Juice Plus line. I'd argue that it is. There is interesting material for expansion, including the companies structure as alleged ponzi scheme,^[1] or illegal pyramid scheme, activities that relate to the sale of water filters.^[2] So, the corporate structure is also of intrinsic interest. Klbrain (talk) 11:58, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

The issue is that, based on the sources so far presented, NSAs notability seems to be predicated pretty much solely on JP. What I'm asking for is evidence, in the form of reliable sources, that would support your opposition on the basis that the company is notable for something else. If those sources don't exist, then that would support merging into JP. BTW, the 2 sources you linked to above would not meet WP:RS. Rhode Island Red (talk) 19:48, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

I agree the legal documents don't reach WP:RS, but non-routine newspaper coverage does,^[3] as does a book chapter (for example).^[4] Klbrain (talk) 20:40, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

The single news article you linked to above referring to NSA pre-JP would not be considered in judging the company's notability as per WP:ILLCON; i.e., the news article (and the book you linked to) refer to a single litigation event. As for the book, I'd take a pretty firm stance that it's also not WP:RS in this context -- or probably any context. So I still don't see convincing evidence that the company is notable for anything more than JP; at least not enough to justify a separate page. If NSA were truly notable as a company, it would have received significant coverage in trade/business/financial articles, etc. There's probably a hundred sources that discuss JP/NSA together and maybe 1 or 2 that refer to NSA for anything else. It would be easy to roll that into the JP article. Otherwise it still strikes me as a needless fork. Have a look at WP:CORPDEPTH and WP:ILLCON. I would argue that they make a pretty airtight case for the current merger proposal. Rhode Island Red (talk) 01:11, 21 January 2018 (UTC)]]

It is true that it easier to find sources for recent events rather than those from 30-40 years ago, when the company was founded, but that does create an article imbalance due to recentism. The 1991 episode doesn't appear to be isolated, as there were similar concerns in 1993, which relates to structures established in '86, as already discussed in the article. So the ponzi/pyramid issues does seem meet the test of multiple independent sources required in WP:CORPDEPTH. The WP:ILLCON argument argument is a good point, but the company's notability doesn't rely on the allegedly illegal activity; rather, it contributes to the case, in addition to the wider range of products and as a case study in multi-level marketing. The company seem to have drifted from there to the use of franchising, but those franchises seems to small that I wonder what the difference is! Overall, I wouldn't object to a merge; it just wouldn't be my recommendation as it seems there is scope for expansion of the NSA article independent of its most important modern product line. Klbrain (talk) 03:01, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

Again, this boils down to there only being one or so articles that discuss the company outside the context of JP, demonstrating that the company’s notability is predicated, essentially, on JP solely. This does not seem to be a case of WP:RECENTISM as almost all of the articles on NSA relating to JP have spanned more than 2 decades and none are recent (it’s also possible to search news archive for older material but nothing has been offered up in that regard). Everything in the NSA article that does not pertain to JP could be rolled into the JP article in a single paragraph under a sub-heading for NSA. BTW, the company does not engage in franchising. They operate as an MLM, which is distinctly different. I appreciate you rolling back your objection to the merge proposal. I think that’s clearly the right way to go. Rhode Island Red (talk) 16:21, 21 January 2018 (UTC)