A fact from Butler café appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 27 February 2020 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
Did you know... that in addition to its retail operations, Japanese used goods chain K-Books operates a butler café?
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The lead states that this is a "subcategory of cosplay restaurant found in East Asia, primarily Japan." The article however exclusively discusses Japanese establishments. Are the any verifiable instances of Butler Cafés in wider East Asia? --LukeSurltc10:34, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, I'm Kingsif, and I'll be doing this review. This is an automated message that helps keep the bot updating the nominated article's talkpage working and allows me to say hi. Feel free to reach out and, if you think the review has gone well, I have some open GA nominations that you could (but are under no obligation to) look at. Kingsif (talk) 00:47, 2 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Note: this represents where the article stands relative to the Good Article criteria. Criteria marked are unassessed
Images all licensed correctly, but I think that the first two should be swapped. Swallowtail is significant historically, and Chitty Mood depicts a butler café and should be used at the top of the article
Done
I've converted the English tea image to upright, so it's a bit shorter, but it's still quite long and so all but a few lines of text have an image alongside - this is quite packed, and removing one or two images would probably improve the article
Done
Copyvio check looks good - I don't read Japanese so AGF on those. Sources appear fairly reliable.
Is there a better source for Butlers closing than what appears to be a primary source tweet? Was there no reporting on it?
Unfortunately couldn't find one; the only information I could find about Butlers Cafe in recent years is several negative reviews on tourist sites, so perhaps it closed very quietly.
The History section has a strong first paragraph, but then only mentions the founding of two (presumably notable) cafés. Has anything notable happened in the sector since 2006? There's an image of a café in Taipei, but no mention of the cafés spreading out of Tokyo, so that seems like something that should get a mention, too.
Done Added info on other butler cafes both in and outside of Japan, though as Swallowtail and Butlers Cafe are the most notable example of butler cafes, they receive the bulk of the focus in the history section.
@Morgan695: The history shouldn't necessarily be about any examples, though, really. It's about the history, so why they were started is good and where they started is good, but then when did they spread to other places is not really touched on and only inferred, and why they spread elsewhere isn't included at all. Leaving the notable examples in the history is fine since the section is quite short. Kingsif (talk) 01:04, 3 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The ref for Paul Okada would be outside the bracket - but I also wonder if this could not just be part of the sentence, e.g. "For example, the menu for Swallowtail...", rather than in brackets.
Done
There's a lot of "this may happen"-style phrasing, which makes the information sound dubious rather than the intended "in some cafés, this does happen". However, the sources for these parts don't say that; it could be corrected to "in X café, this happens", unless some sources are found about other café's practices.
Done Rephrased some parts, let me know if there are any still outstanding
The same issue with "could take months", which is a very hypothetical phrasing
Done
The age range seems to be... any adult male. The way it's phrased makes it seem like there would be a more exclusive window; this could be changed to "Men employed as butlers can be as young as 18 or as old as 80" or something
Done
The analysis and impact also doesn't to mention anything beyond 2006. Perhaps the article needs an update perspective?
Becoming tourist destinations is something that could be mentioned in the History section. Did that overtake trade from locals, for example?
There's a photo of food from Swallowtail patisserie and the suggestion that the brand of this café has grown beyond the physical café, but zero mention of this anywhere.
Done For the three items above, I added additional info to the Analysis and impact section about Patisserie Swallowtail and collaboration goods it has done, as well as a pop-up butler cafe launched by the anime Beastars in 2019, to give more recent info and clear examples of how butler cafes intersect with otaku culture. I could not find customer figures more recent than those given in the article.
The Japanese word otaku is used throughout the article with no explanation or attempt at definition - while there is a wikilink in the lead, even a short description somewhere (first instance the body?) would be useful
Done
The 'external media' section can be consolidated into External links
On hold article seems to overly focus on two cafés in 2006. Other issues with images and phrasing explained above. Kingsif (talk) 22:31, 2 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks - I've added a comment above about History, but it otherwise looks good. I would expect there to be an article at least on Swallowtail, though, given the coverage, so this is just a note to encourage creation of that if you were thinking of doing so. Kingsif (talk) 01:04, 3 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Kingsif: I've added a bit more information to the history section, but I think I've scraped as much as I can as far as online sources can go. Ordinarily I'd check if NYPL had anything on the matter, but everything is of course closed because of covid. I hear your point re: expanding the history section, but I think the "why" in answered in the first graf about how butler cafes evolved in response to women seeking an alternative to maid cafes; the "when" is a little harder, since no new butler cafes of note have really opened since the mid-2000s. I hope what's there is good enough for a GA pass, because I think I've exhausted all sources. Morgan695 (talk) 01:52, 4 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Kingsif: Thanks for doing a reference search. I expanded the article using the Taiwanese fujoshi article, which talks extensively about differences between Japanese and Taiwanese butler cafes. The "Pursuing One's Own Prince" article is paywalled so I was unable to access it, and the book has just a passing reference about how some danso cafes have a butler theme, which is already included in the article. Morgan695 (talk) 22:10, 4 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Done
On hold article seems to overly focus on two cafés in 2006. Other issues with images and phrasing explained above. Kingsif (talk) 22:31, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
Kingsif (talk) 22:17, 4 May 2020 (UTC)