This research examines how problems with classification systems limit knowledge claims that can be made about compliance gaining message behavior. Strategies and their operationalizations from 74 compliance gaining message classifcation systems were previously integrated into a 64–category scheme that lists each strategy along with all definitions and examples located in the literature representing that strategy (Kellermann&Cole, 1991). Difficulties encountered during this cross‐taxonomy strategy integration motivated an assessment, reported here, of the nature and structure of these different classification systems. The findings of this assessment of compliance gaining strategy taxonomies are threefold. First, current classification systems for compliance gaining messages include strategies that vary in myriad atheoretical ways, producing lists of techniques that are neither exhaustive nor mutually exclusive. Research findings reflect the structure of chaotic classifcation systems rather than the essence of compliance gaining message behavior. Second, conceptual definitions of the strategies are unclear, nonspecific, nonexclusive, and nondelimiting; these definitions make understanding the nature of the strategies difficult and classfication unreliable. Third, approximately two‐thirds of the operationalizations used in the research literature are not valid representatives of the strategies for which they were initially generated. As a result, many “accepted” knowledge claims about compliance gaining message behavior are suspect, misstated, and/or of unknown