Talk:Butler/Draft

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	NOTICE, please do not remove from top of page.
	In lieu of WP notice: I wrote the original for WP between January and March 2005, and edited through 2006. There was very little imput from others, and so I am not ticking the WP box. The reference to the story of Joseph was not part of my original draft, but since it's biblical I feel no qualms about including it, and in any case I have expanded upon the idea and included the chapter. I intend to maintain this article.P
	Aleta Curry 18:07, 16 July 2007 (CDT)

APPROVED Version 1.1

Approved artictle, congratulations! Aleksander Stos 03:54, 18 August 2007 (CDT)

Discussion for Version 1.1 stopped here. Please continue further discussion under this break.

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Well Done!

Kudos to everyone who worked on this article, which definitely deserves consideration as featured article of the week. Those who still believe revisions and further refinements are necessary should make them and we can make it ready for version 1.2. Roger Lohmann 13:03, 18 August 2007 (CDT)

Toward version 1.2

I plan to work on material for subpages for this. I am hoping that will even include an image gallery of modern butlers in action, if a photo request in the Modern Butlers' Journal works as hoped. We should also add a Sidenote box on how Butler became a surname. There is a journal article that covers this, as I recall.  —Stephen Ewen (Talk) 04:49, 19 August 2007 (CDT)

Signed article for Butler

User:Steven Ferry might be willing to contribute a signed article, if approached. I think it'd be great to have an article on the specific attitudes and skills needed to be a quality butler. Thoughts?  —Stephen Ewen (Talk) 13:18, 20 August 2007 (CDT)

Certainly, why not?

As an aside, I also think that since SF is the most-quoted person in the article, it should say more about his expertise than "an author". I'd like to see an addition about his work regarding butlers in the hospitality field (as opposed to private service).

Roger has also suggested a signed article on "The Butler Did It!" - the butler in the classic murder mystery. I like that idea, too, if we can find someone. Aleta Curry 17:38, 20 August 2007 (CDT)

Layout on widescreen monitors

See Image:Butler.gif. Image:Pincera-schenker.jpg and the "Butlers in early America" sidenote box are forced into the middle of the screen. This should be fixed, possibly by rearranging the images and the sidenote box. Kjetil Ree 07:21, 19 August 2007 (CDT)

Kjetil, It's be great if you could fix this first on the draft article as soon as you can. I don't have a widescreen monitor so don't see what you see. The current layout looks perfect on mine.  —Stephen Ewen (Talk) 15:11, 19 August 2007 (CDT)

Emily Post...

...was long dead by 1997, so she didn't write anything. That should be changed *immmediately*, before this gets feature-of-the-week status. The original citation was correct for the edition by Elizabeth L. Post (Peggy, I think) If an updated edition is to be cited, please check a) the author (there are now several Post heirs writing Emily Post's etiquette) b) the date c) that the material quoted made it into this edition. Aleta Curry 17:28, 20 August 2007 (CDT)

If you look on Googlebook you will find several books with the same title. The one dated 1997 has Emily Post as author, along with Peggy Post. I suppose this means that the reference is not too bad, and we can be forgiven for omitting a second author of the same family name... But it should bge corrcted for the next version.--Martin Baldwin-Edwards 17:39, 20 August 2007 (CDT)

???? I know there were several books with the same title. The point is that at least two prior editions gave Elizabeth L. Post as the author; the books had many quotes from Emily's original work. Do you have a copy of the cover? Unless this was a reprint, or a special combined thingy--like that constructed video of Natalie Cole singing with her father--I don't care what Googlebooks said: Mrs Emily Post was deceased. Aleta Curry 17:49, 20 August 2007 (CDT)

Aleta: the date of publication has nothing to do with whether the author is alive or dead! This is a small problem, honestly.--Martin Baldwin-Edwards 18:04, 20 August 2007 (CDT)

I must've just gotten off the bus in The Twilight Zone. I'm questioning the authorship, Martin! I give up. Who *is* on first? Aleta Curry 18:50, 20 August 2007 (CDT)

Aleta, I have already told you that it is jointly authored. The fact that an author is dead has no relation to the date of publication. The book is an edited reprint of an earlier book by Emily Post, and is not correctly referenced on the page but it is a minor error which should be corrected in the next approved version. --Martin Baldwin-Edwards 19:43, 20 August 2007 (CDT)

All I can say is that I have held a different notion as to what an "edited reprint" is. This still has no bearing on your having dismissed what I think is the more pressing issue; that the 1997 edition may not contain the cited material. Then again, it may. I don't know. Do you? Aleta Curry 17:40, 21 August 2007 (CDT)

I have no idea. Who put the material here?--Martin Baldwin-Edwards 22:35, 21 August 2007 (CDT)

Starkey

I still object strongly to the wording of that sentence regarding complaints about Starkey. If there are "numerous complaints", there should also be numerous citations. If people with first hand knowledge are unwilling to put their names to their complaints, then why is CZ doing so, as if we had first hand knowledge? That is poor scholarship. Aleta Curry 17:41, 20 August 2007 (CDT)

Read the article cited. Count the number of former employees interviewed. This is not going to be the sort of story that national press picks up, because this is a specialized topic. It is covered only because the schol is in the region of the publication. It is the difference between making editorial decisions between an article on Oprah Winfrey, who is known globally, and Starkey who is known only to those in a specialized industry. One cannot apply the Oprah standard to the Starkey article--this should go completely without saying, as well as that some former employees would wish to remain unnamed due to retaliation issues, which are a very, very real concern at times, having lived through them myself as whistle-blower. Besides, if you know how the press operates, one outlet picks up on something and then the hundreds of others do, so it becomes more complex at evaluating "multiple articles". A CZ article I was interviewed for with Reuters--the article, or info from it, was covered in HUNDREDS of outlets, but I was only interviewed once. The core question is: is the article about Starkey credible? Very clearly, it is. If it were not, Starkey herself would not even appear in it to try to respond to the criticisms! Not recognizing that evaluating a source hinges on a complex of factors rather an simplistic "did they give their names?" criteria, and NOT making brief mention of the criticisms as if we were to say "we have knowledge better and on the contrary", is where poor scholarship comes in.  —Stephen Ewen (Talk) 02:15, 22 August 2007 (CDT)