Talk:Tim Ferriss/Archives/2015

Spelling

"This involves breaking what he calls "outdated assumptions" and finding ways to be more efficient EFFECTIVE so that 'work' takes up less of people's time.[8]"

He focuses on effectiveness, not efficiency. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.82.8.149 (talk) 12:29, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

redirect

Shouldn't be a redirect so I've removed that.... also it can be added to the article that is appeared on both StyleLife and David DeAngelo interviews. Mathmo ^Talk 11:29, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

I disagree with giving free advertising to those two, so I'm going to remove the mentions of David Deangelo and StyleLife (unless somebody's already removed them). Dollarwizard (talk) 03:52, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Another author "Tim Ferris"

There's another author with a similar name who's had some bestsellers. Should this page have a reference to that one? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Ferris To many people, he's better known. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.234.189.161 (talk) 20:55, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

multilingual

His blog says "He speaks six languages". Do we have an independent source on that? 218.88.36.144 (talk) 11:27, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Independent Sources

Speaking of independent sources, are there any independent sources for his National Chinese Kickboxing Championship? Of the three in the article, two point to his own blog and the third points to a CNBC profile that sounds like it was provided by his publicist. 218.214.148.59 (talk) 09:50, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Agreed, this needs sourcing. Exactly *which* "national Chinese kickboxing championship," where, and when? Sounds dubious. This whole article reads like spam. Note that he admits to pushing his first book by hiring low-wage people to post on blogs, promoting it. Why wouldn't he do the same on Wikipedia? Note also the critique of him by a fellow blogger, Penelope Trunk. She concludes: "The idea of time management only matters in relation to how important the stuff is that's competing for your time. The stuff that makes time management the most difficult is relationships. Which Tim does not excel in. [...] Tim is all about time management for achievement and winning. But there are not trophies or measurements for relationships. There is only that feeling that someone is kind. And good. And truly connected. And Tim is not." [1] — Preceding unsigned comment added by Benefac (talk • contribs) 15:38, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Controversy and Claims

Ferriss makes several unsubstantiated claims in his book:

• That he is a National Chinese Kickboxing champion.
• That he has been a "Cage fighter in Japan, vanquisher of four world champions (MMA)" These fights are not sufficiently substantiated by Ferriss [2] and appear in no MMA databases.

According to the Antoverlord blog, Ferriss' book received numerous five star reviews on the day of its release, prompting the blog author to suspect inappropriate gaming of Amazon.com's rating system. The blog author further speculates that Ferriss has perpetuated a Confidence trick in the mode of Aleksey Vayner, but concedes that he has not actually read the book.

According to TED.com, Tim is a f r a u d who has lied about his swimming ability.

Why do people keep deleting this? It is all true--why do so many wikipedians hate Truth? Who are they working for?

The only thing I read about Tim's swimming ability is this: Here's a quote from 4HWW 2009: Pg 34, paragraph 2: "My body is designed to lift heavy objects and throw them, and that's it... I tried swimming and looked like a drowned monkey." And the TED talk is where he also referenced his fear and discomfort with swimming, while showing how learning pro techniques helped him overcome that fear. The TED site you cited promotes him. -Katya — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.129.29.2 (talk) 16:20, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

I just came to this article specifically looking for the "Controversy" section. It is very relevant and necessary, and fanboys should not be deleting any properly cited content. (Heroeswithmetaphors) talk 01:16, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

RFC

Saw this at RFC. The "criticisms" section that is the current subject of a revert war doesn't appear to be properly sourced. If you have a source calling Ferriss' claims into question, please bring it forward. Do you? Otherwise this information doesn't have a place in this article. It's not enough that someone who edits Wikipedia doesn't believe him. Wikipedia's standard for inclusion is verifiability, not truth. — e. ripley\^talk 17:03, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Verifiability is a glaring weakness in Wikipedia's accuracy. All one needs to do is have information published in a book, and presto! There's your verified source. If you followed the controversy regarding some Rush Limbaugh quotations a few months ago, there was the same thing. The sources of the racist quotations came from a book of dubious accuracy, but because they were in the book, they were able to remain in the article until Limbaugh finally threatened to sue.

I think it would be interesting to convince a Random House editor to have my own autobiography published, and I'll include some crazy things about myself in the book, and then I'll have my own Wikipedia article with "verified" sources. :P Hanxu9 (talk) 23:33, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

By the way, it is interesting that you quote Wikipedia's "Verifiability" policy. Check this out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SELFPUB Hanxu9 (talk) 23:41, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

You misunderstand. The verifiability policy works in conjunction with the reliable source policy. So, a fact must be verifiable AND located inside what is considered a reliable source, which almost always excludes things like self-published works that would be easy to game, as you note. — e. ripley\^talk 15:56, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Self published sources

Is linking to his blog really necessary for the best seller info? Same goes for the Loic Le Meur interview, wouldn't it be better to link to the youtube clip directly? Also, linking to his uStream account seems, to me at least, to be against WP:SELFPUBLISH/WP:BLPSPS. 85.24.132.48 (talk) 10:34, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

If the material in the self-published sources is solely about himself, then it's fine. If he's airing opinions about others, then that particular material and citations should be removed. Yworo (talk) 03:17, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Spent the 15 minutes needed to either find replacement references, or clean up the problematic passages. If you've never read WP:BEBOLD, you might want to consider it before using templates that distract from readability and add no information to an article. Hal (talk) 00:22, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Upcoming Books

Is there any information about upcoming books from this author? --voodoom (talk) 01:20, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Blog contributor list

This article is about a person. A list of luminaries who have written for a blog is not encyclopedic information about the person. Create the article about the blog if it meets the pillars. Also, WP:BRD. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:03, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Original research removed

I have removed a bunch of original research from the article that frankly seems irrelevant. If the sentence says that "he claims" something, there's no need to go on and say "but it's never been verified"; it's presented in the article as a claim, not a fact. The bits about websites not mentioning him are, again, pretty much a textbook example of original research. The inclusion of these "rebuttals" does not serve a purpose other than to paint him as a liar, which he may well be, but it's not for us editors to come up with the evidence for it. If there's some secondary source that specifically brings up these inconsistencies in what he says about himself, then by all means include this source. Otherwise, the article risks becoming a set of claims and counterclaims which is not encyclopedic at all. ... discospinster _talk 23:37, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. Interestingly, almost all of those edits have come from one person who contributes from various anonymous IP addresses that are all traceable to the Hartford, Connecticut area. Terence7 (talk) 18:06, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

I also agree, but I'd also be cautious about stating Ferriss's claims as fact if there is reason to doubt them, as User:Theo Buckley is attempting to do. We know perfectly well that even writers in places such as the NYT will happily repeat what they think are plausible claims from plausible interviewees without doing any fact checking, especially when the main subject of the piece is not (for example) martial arts, but "look how interesting this person is". – Smyth\^talk 03:54, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

OK, having checked the websites in question, I would not say there is any reason to doubt his claim, since those sites do not appear to mention any tournament which could be identified as the "1999 USAWKF national championship". The USAWKF's own website does not appear to have records going back that far. So "he claims he was" is too weak", "he was" is too strong, "he states he was" is just fine. – Smyth\^talk 05:35, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Theo Buckley - bad faith edits

The last 4 edits by "Theo Buckley" or whoever that Tim Ferriss fanboy actually is, are completely biased. They are an obvious attempt to whitewash the article, remove anything critical of Ferriss, and insert numerous poorly sourced supportive statements about Ferriss. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.72.203.165 (talk) 01:42, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

He hasn't removed anything, and I don't see anything to object to in what he added. – Smyth\^talk 13:33, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

Clean-up

I've been adding sources and wikifying a few things on this page, but it still has a ways away to go to become a "good" article. Which based on the number of references, we should be more than able to achieve. In particular, there is a lot of positive and negative criticism (and a few misplaced weasel words) interspersed throughout the article, when it should really be centrally located in a Reception section. I'll keep fixing a few things over the coming days - just wanted to let the editors who have been providing helpful edits know. Theo Buckley (talk) 21:21, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Seems kind of ridiculous that 1/3 of the 4-Hour Body section is devoted to a random question that Tim was asked in an interview. Makes way more sense on the 4-Hour Body page under "Synopsis" if there's no opposition. Theo Buckley (talk) 02:02, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. It is better in The 4-Hour Body rather than here. (Heroeswithmetaphors) talk 12:31, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Gaming Wikipedia

This Ferriss Guy managed to game Wikipedia as well. Despite the immense controversy around this guy and his extraordinary self-claims to greatness, the article sounds like a puff piece and an advertisement for this guy. 109.186.109.222 (talk) 15:56, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Ah another person who vehemently complains about unverified self claims yet does the exact same thing by claiming this entire article is a puff piece/advertisement for Tim and yet for someone so arrogantly certain he/she does not provide one citation or one iota of evidence that Tim has lied in his book or this article is advertisement for him. If you provided some form of evidence I for one and many others would not only agree with you but be happy to help you in your endeavors. Until then consider the following

There are many things about Tim which are substantiated and credible, most are in this article. To ignore all that and focus on your unproven claims is not only POV but an acute form of deluded psychosis. (77.100.152.52 (talk) 07:04, 11 February 2013 (UTC)) Deluded psychosis? I agree with both of you to a certain extent, but what? Deluded psychosis, really? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.77.227.70 (talk) 13:23, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

Amazon Review Manipulation Tactics

I have removed text from the Controversy section which suggested that Ferriss' aggressive pre-release solicitation of positive reviews from fans who had not read the book is supported by Amazon. Here is the deleted text:

   "In the New York Times piece, an Amazon spokesperson confirmed the acceptability of such an approach, which is common with authors.[18]"

Upon review of the referenced NYT article, the comment from the Amazon representative is limited to noting the acceptability of the practice of a reviewer making a comment on a product they have not used or experienced. It makes no statement about the acceptability of an author's methods in soliciting reviews, nor does it comment on the popularity of this tactic with authors. Here is the referenced article section text for consideration:

  The most controversial of Mr. Ferriss’ reviewers are not reviewers at all. These are fans who straightforwardly admit they haven’t read the book, but nevertheless give it four or five stars:
  
  “It baffles me how excited I am to have this book in my hands — Just arrived home and it was sitting on my porch waiting for me,” wrote one “reviewer.”
  “Just ordered this hope it’s as good as the other titles,” said a second. “I’ll write a review once I’m finished,” exclaimed a third.
  
  Surprisingly, Amazon says it is completely legitimate to do this. “We do not require people to have experienced the product in order to review,” Craig Berman, an Amazon spokeman, said.
  “Some people write reviews on why they decided not to buy, or write a review as a gift giver rather than the product owner.”

If there are other reference that specifically support the deleted text, please feel free to reference them and reinstate it. Shorn again (talk) 15:41, 15 September 2014 (UTC)