Talk:Amy's Baking Company

Guidlines going forward

Let's try to keep this article focused on just the internationally broadcast TV episode and its direct consequences. Insofar as possible, let's try very hard to avoid straying into covering the living individuals involved. In particular, like the TV show, let's avoid mentioning last names. Let's avoid mentioning the personal background of individuals, any former names they had, their political affiliations, any "record" they may have, etc. Going forward, let's try hard to preserve the privacy of those depicted, particularly their past and their future. --HectorMoffet (talk) 07:38, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

• Ditto. This isn't a smear campaign. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 12:03, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

This article has massive NPOV issues, and has become a transcript of the episode rather than an encyclopedic piece of writing. Worse, the transcript represents, by default, Ramsay and Fox's perspective on the affair, which is designed to make the owners look like jackasses. Then we end with a bloated WP:UNDUE section on the owners' bad behavior afterward, again in a one-sided presentation. Someone needs to hack this down to what is encyclopedic, and broom the rest. --Drmargi (talk) 13:18, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Drmagi, I was asked to write a synopsis, and I did the best I could to try to convey the narrative of the episode, viewing it as piece of "art".

I deeply and sincerely welcome any additions that can help "balance" the narrative depicted by the reality tv show with reality. I don't trust a reality show one wit to be an accurate depiction of events. A synopsis of a work describes a work as it is presented within its genre. And we all know "reality tv" isn't the same as a "documentary".

You'll note a lot of the use of things like present tense and "we are shown" and other reminders to the reader that this is a summary of a tv episode, not a summary of reality. These sorts of "red flag" reminders are sprinkled throughout the synopsis. The episode tells as a compelling story, but we should not assume that the story is factual. I tried hard to use language carefully to convey that difference.

Incidentally, in writing the synopsis, the main goal was to minimize the online criticism aspect of the story, which has lots of notable reliable sources, but questionable news value. The episode, however, is a piece of cinema that has been viewed by millions and millions of humans. Disgusting as it may be, this episode is a "notable work of art".

I'm skeptical of the wisdom of creating this episode, but that's not my decision. The episode was created, and it caused a gianormous stir-- we wikipedians can't put our fingers in our ears and pretend the episode never occurred.

What we can do is show how we rise above the 4chans and the reddit, and stick to a strict interpretation of BLP: no last names, no past history, no on-going biography. Just the episode and things tied to it.

--HectorMoffet (talk) 13:34, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Art? Much less notable art? You can't be serious. This show isn't art. It's cheap, exploitative and formulaic "reality" television, and this article is a response to its already-fading notoriety. Worse, this article was started on the heels of an AfD in a headlong rush to find a place for this trash while its novelty value was at its highest. Three days later, everyone has moved on, what little notoriety the restaurant had has diminished, and we've got a pointless article with all manner of problems about a non-notable episode of a minor television series.

I don't doubt that you worked hard on it, and tried to do good work, but I'm unimpressed by your comment that you were "asked" to write the summary. You could have said no, and you chose not to, a questionable decision at best given your scruples. The article is over-long, and badly over-loaded with unnecessary quotes; they're one of the biggest POV problems in it. As the article gets longer and longer and longer, it gets to be less and less and less encyclopedic. If I act on it, it will be to pare it down to an appropriate length, not add to it.

This isn't a synopsis. It's vastly too long for that; it's almost a transcript. It's also a salacious recounting of the lurid events of the episode, peppered with juicy quotes. A bit of cautionary language is a finger in the metaphorical dam. That you espouse the episode having caused a "ginormous stir" as criteria for starting the article causes me to wonder about your basic understanding of the purposes and standards of this project. This article came about as the result of the poor judgment of one editor following the AfD, and continues to grow as the result of the poor judgment of many more, lacking any restraint and any adherence to a sea of policies: WP:ONEEVENT, WP:UNDUE, WP:INDISCRIMINATE and WP:NPOV, just to start. --Drmargi (talk) 17:56, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

"Art? Much less notable art? You can't be serious."

This is an issue that has come up a lot of in US free speech law. There's a popular misconception that saying something is "bad" somehow argues that it is not "art". This is not the case. "Bad art" exists-- hell, lots of bad art exists. Disgusting, borderline obscene art exists. Saying "I don't like it" does nothing to dispute that it's a work of art-- I don't exactly like it either, but art it is. Bad art, if you prefer.

I try to look at our job here as archivists and librarians-- it's not my place to look at this episode and judge it. A book is a book. There are good books, there are bad books, and we get into trouble when we think we can judge for ourselves which artworks (or which books) we think are so bad they merit deletion.

Returning to the objective measures, we have millions of viewers and thousands of news outlets covering the aftermath of the episode. We can't delete our way out of that. --HectorMoffet (talk) 22:09, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Oh, that's nonsense. The presence of this program on television does not render it art, nor is this a first amendment issue. Moreover, it does not make a qualitative evaluation of art. We are not archivists and librarians; we have a set of policies that govern the inclusion choices we make, at the heart of which is WP:NOTABILITY, something you've danced around thus far. I see nothing that established notability, just notoriety, and the two are not synonymous. Further, the media are not objective measures of anything; that this trashy little incident got the coverage it did isn't because of the episode, it's because of the crude behavior of the restaurant owners following the episode coupled with their clear violation of federal fair labor practices. More notoriety, but again, nothing that establishes notability. (I noted you also fail to address my concerns regarding undue attention and indiscriminate inclusion of material, but are very quick to remove elements of the change.org petition, which presents another view of the incident; WP:NPOV editing?) --Drmargi (talk) 00:29, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

"I noted you ... are very quick to remove elements of the change.org petition, which presents another view of the incident;" WP:SOFIXIT-- I removed the change.org petition because I worried it just reiterated the same view of the incident, but did so while asserting some claims as facts, with phrases like "[their] policy is 100% in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act"-- I personally don't know that to be a verifiable fact.

If you see something of value in keeping the extended petition language, please feel free to restore it. --HectorMoffet (talk) 00:44, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

As for WP:GNG, we have no trouble at all meeting that standard-- "has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject". We know it's been widely covered and recovered in the entertainment press, but it's also been covered in the business press. The petition for a DOL inquiry has been reported on by the the press. Local media covered the taping of the show six months before it aired because police were 911-called to the taping. It's been covered in French, Spanish, and German, it's been covered in Israel. --HectorMoffet (talk) 00:44, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Scope of coverage

Putting this here for now. The episode was covered by media in the US, UK, Canada[1], Australia, [2], Israel [3], Spanish-language [4], German-language [5], French [6]. --HectorMoffet (talk) 23:20, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Your point being? And what does the language of coverage have to do with this? --Drmargi (talk) 00:31, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Coverage in multiple foreign languages demonstrates significant coverage that is independent of the source (and independent of each other.) It demonstrates that coverage is not confined to the English-speaking world. --HectorMoffet (talk) 00:52, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Someone should add the info about Fox threatening to sue them for $100k each if they talked badly about the Kitchen Nightmares TV show: http://consumerist.com/2013/05/21/amys-baking-company-cancels-press-conference-under-lawsuit-threat-from-gordon-ramsays-production-company/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.6.190.102 (talk) 11:28, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Image suggestion?

It would be useful for us to have some image to remind readers that this is article about a tv show, not about the restaurant. Here are images we could theoretically use for this purpose:

• The title card of Kitchen Nightmares, my first choice.
• screenshot from the episode that shows Ramsay talking to the two owners (cropped, downrezed, with blurring added over one owner's face).
• A generic image of Gordan Ramsay
• A generic tv logo

Essential, no-- but anything we can do to keep the focus on the episode and not on the living persons is a good thing, promoting the spirit of blp). --HectorMoffet (talk) 01:23, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Trimming the aftermath section

It would be good if we could make the "online fights and aftermath" section more succinct. Ideally I would see it as a two or three sentence section that mentions the online dispute and how it went "viral".

The claims of hacking complicate the section greatly, but anything we can do to more succinctly summarize that section would be good.

The people depicted in this episode do not deserve "ongoing notability"-- I don't want us to start reporting on what they do six months from now or a year from now or two years from now. Insofar as possible, let's limit their 15 mins of fame to the 43 mins of their Kitchen Nightmares episode. --HectorMoffet (talk) 08:16, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

• That's a good idea- the big issue I ran into was that there was so much minute detail and I wasn't sure what to keep or remove. It'd probably be good to rename it- any suggestions? Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 10:23, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
• I agree... but the problem there is that the aftermath of the episode is arguably the most notable thing about it, considerably more so than the actual events of the episode. If that section is to be cut down, the rest of the article ought to be cut down as well. The current synposis goes into far too much unnecessary detail. Robofish (talk) 16:37, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
  • You hit the nail on the head. The aftermath is how the episode became famous, and nothing jumped out at me as being 'trimmable'. Perhaps a better way to say it is that the coverage of the aftermath needs to end at some point (unless the owners end up being notable people through future actions). --HectorMoffet (talk) 20:26, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
  • As for the synopsis-- yeah, I was flying blind on that. Ideally someone from the TV wikiproject will show up and harmonize it with how they usually write a synopsis. The main points needed to understand the episode, I thought, were (1) the past history of online disputes, (2) the physical altercation with a customer, (3) Ramsay reveals the tipping policy & the reactions from customer and owner, (4) the firing of the waitress, and (5) the episode conclusion (last meeting with owners, final monologue). --HectorMoffet (talk) 20:26, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Change.org petition

I thought this would merit its own section on this talk page. The reason I'd removed that was because there was no coverage of it and the way it was presented was pretty non-neutral. It came across like it was a soapbox for people to sign the petition. The thing is that even though the things these people supposedly did are pretty darn awful, we can't allow emotion to come through in the article. LAist isn't a reliable source. I did find mention of it on AZCentral.com, ([7]) but we need to have a lot of coverage for the petitions to really warrant mentioning them. That's the only mention of it in a RS that I could find and the thing about petitions is that they're a dime a dozen. Heck, here's one about the infamous Christian Weston Chandler, a petition to get Justin Bieber to die, and the Price is Right show on Change.org as well. It's not like it's hard to do. We need more than one source to show notability for a petition. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 04:23, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

There was a KTAR source that mentions the petition and made some sort of attempt at inquiring with the DOL and the AG, for what it's worth. Leaving to better minds than mine whether to include the petition or not. --HectorMoffet (talk) 06:00, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

• That's two sources then, but I'm still not sure that it would merit an addition if only two sources have commented upon it. If we can find about a few more we could mention it briefly such as "After the show aired, Amy's Baking Company received extensive negative feedback on their official Facebook page and a petition was written asking for an investigation over the Bouzaglos' tip policy." That's really all that we need as far as the petition goes, but given that this is such a hotbutton subject and a piece of the article that's being used as a coatrack against the Bouzaglos, we need to be careful about how it is included. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 06:21, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

I concur with your caution. WP:THEREISNODEADLINE on this. If they were genuinely in violation of labor laws, surely RSes will report that fact in short order. --HectorMoffet (talk) 09:17, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Owners' last names

I would really like it if we could adhere to the same conventions as the episode and not reveal the last name of the owners. Their full names are never identified in the episode, and the witchhunt against them makes their names ridiculously easy to find already. But should we, in this article, actually name them when the episode does not? --HectorMoffet (talk) 09:04, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

I realize this is a somewhat moot point as long as the Amy's Baking Company article exists, but if it gets deleted, that suggests to me that BLP should lead us to omit the owners' names.--HectorMoffet (talk) 09:04, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

• Hmm... but then what about the news articles that identify them? Would that make a difference or not? I don't particularly mind removing the last name, though. It's a relatively small detail as far as the article goes. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 10:30, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
• The article for the restaurant itself has been deleted and upon thinking about it, I think that you're right. They were never actually referred to by their last names in the episode and we lose nothing by removing the two instances of their last name in this article, so I removed them. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 16:15, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Grand reopening

There's no mention about the 2010 Yelp fiasco where the owner decided to respond to comments. She did make front page news back then. I also don't really see much info about the grand reopening.

Here's an account of the opening. Press wasn't allowed but someone went in anyways: http://www.scottsmarketplace.com/blog/business/amys-baking-company-grand-reopening/

Considering the article about the actual restaurant was deleted, it's okay if I put this information in this article?

EDIT: Also seems like it's downplaying the following events. Thoughts? RocketLauncher2 (talk) 06:20, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

Sensitivity and Neutrality

"Amy" and "Samy" are the only part of the names of the owners mentioned. There's a random image of Gordon instead of something relating to this particular episode. I don't see how ommitting this information would be insensitive. What would be sensitive, and I think you'd all agree, is that we shouldn't post anything about Amy's irrelevant criminal history.. and that has been left out. RocketLauncher2 (talk) 06:31, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

Yelp incident from 2010?

Why is there a discussion of the 2010 LaTondress incident? What does it have to do directly with the episode? Any opposition to cutting those sentences? Scarletfire2112 (talk) 07:28, 26 May 2013 (UTC) I just saw that RocketLauncher2 raised the issue of the Yelp incident earlier on the talk page. I just don't see the 2010 Yelp stuff as being directly relevant to this article; it would have been relevant to an article about the restaurant, but that was deleted. In terms of the "grand reopening" and the blog about it -- it's definitely humorous, but not sure if it's RS, let alone necessary for discussing the impact of the TV episode. Scarletfire2112 (talk) 07:33, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

The owners of the restaurant said they went on the show due to "internet bullies". It's worth nothing that part, I think. Also being that the article about the company itself is gone, does this mean that any discussion about the issue following the episode should be limited to a few sentences? She did multiple interviews and there was a lot of backlash against the company itself. I think the 2010 incident needs to go somewhere. RocketLauncher2 (talk) 07:50, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

There is a brief mention of the "lies" in the synopsis, day one section. Maybe there's some room there to expand on it. It seems that this article's editors are intent on keeping the focus narrow on the episode. Scarletfire2112 (talk) 08:29, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

Can someone here add this info in? Here's a link to the revision I made before: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Amy%27s_Baking_Company_%28TV_episode%29&diff=556831221&oldid=556655475 It seems the editors want to downplay the backlash with the deletion of the company's article. RocketLauncher2 (talk) 23:04, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

• I would be hesitant about any extensive commenting about the Yelp review because ultimately, we have to keep this focused on the episode. The article is about the episode, not the restaurant itself. What more can really be said about it outside of what Amy said in the episode without it turning into something that isn't about the episode? I think that it would probably be fine to use a link to the news article from 2010 as a reference for that portion of the episode that Amy discusses it or we could link to it in the external links section. But a section about the Yelp review? I'm not sure that this is really extremely pertinent to the episode. If you want to try writing another article about the restaurant, I'm more than happy to transfer a copy of the last few edits about the restaurant to someone's userspace. Right now the big issue is that we have to make sure that what is included doesn't go off into too far of a tangent from the immediate focus of the episode. If a section can be written about the Yelp review that gives a brief and succinct overview of the situation and keep it neutral, then I have no big problem with it. I just think that before we do any of that it should probably be hashed out here first. The problem here is that if we include too much information then we run the risk of getting off topic. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 23:41, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

Please retitle this article

Please retitle this article to Amy's Baking Company (Kitchen Nightmares episode), as referring to it as a T.V. episode sounds pretty vague, in my opinion - 203.211.76.9 (talk) 12:12, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

• It's generally considered to be relatively unnecessary to retitle an episode to a specific show unless there are more than one episode by that name. Usually we'd just label an episode with the basic name (in this case, "Amy's Baking Company"), but I know that I've recommended labeling this with "TV episode" to show that this is about the episode and not the actual restaurant. In any case, there are many episodes that are labeled just "TV episode" to set precedent with this. I don't think many people will really mistake this for anything other than a Kitchen Nightmares episode. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 14:06, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

PR Firm

I think if the article is going to mention that they hired a PR Firm to help with the backlash from the show, then we should mention that the PR Firm dumped them as a client[8][9]19:59, 28 May 2013 (UTC)