Talk:Alain de Botton/Archive 1

Reviews & NPOV
The presence of a Brooker 'review' seems neither to further those who like or dislike de Botton. It is devoid of any attempt to point out what is wrong with de Botton's writing. It dwells unnecessarily on his baldness and his full lips, neither of which are in themselves sins. None of the positive comments on de Botton are ad hominem.


 * I think the Brooker review is inappropriate, as it is a humor piece more than it is a serious review. It's also a little offensive.  Surely WPedians who would seek to include some non-favourable reviews can do better than Brooker's rant, which is little more than name-calling. ProlixDog (talk) 17:32, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Just added a little on "The Consolations of Philosophy", not sure how NPOV I made it. I'm just using what I remember from reading it a couple of years back and a couple of reviews from websites that weren't trying to sell the book (links given). Number 0 23:00, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * The whole page reads like a PR puff from Botton's publisher (or - more likely - AdB himself), so I wouldn't worry about. It's riddled with hyperbolic BS and needs a good clean or more citations.

Rephrase Needed
"It is a mixture of a "self-help" envelope and analysis of one of the most revered but unread books in the Western canon."

I have no idea what this sentence means because it doesn't mention the book it's referring to. I can assume that it's "In Search of Lost Time", but that's a guess and the language is needlessly obscure in any case - using overly elaborate phrases such as "Western canon" and "envelope and analysis". It sounds very much like someone has just copied the blurb from the book and put it in this article. Blankfrackis (talk) 20:00, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

degree rating
I'm pretty sure that botton didn't get a double starred first. In actual fact i'm quite certain that he only achieved a third, as a read it in an interview he did for a higher education magazine. If anyone has a reference for the double-starred degree then i'm happy to change my mind, however in the mean time i'm changing the article to acknowledge third class degree status. 213.121.151.142 19:47, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
 * I read it in CAM magazine (for Cambridge Alumni): --ZephyrAnycon 01:24, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Or check out http://education.independent.co.uk/graduate_options/article994758.ece ... or any of the other sources that come up with a google search. Really -- this kind of thing is so easy to google, that before making changes I would suggest people simply google the issue and see if they can resolve it to their satisfaction in under 30 seconds.  Rather than put in an error, until someone else responds.--Epeefleche 07:06, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Director of Graduate Philosophy Program

 * He is Director of the Graduate Philosophy Program at London University.

I'm not able to locate anything called "Graduate Philosophy Programme" at the University of London website. AxelBoldt 18:04, 21 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I think that quote came from a review like this one and may not be accurate. There is no mention of it in his CV on his website --- it refers to his active involvement in "The School of Life".  So perhaps this needs an edit. ProlixDog (talk) 18:01, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

is there a slight error in the article?
Under the heading: Early life and education wikipedia reads "He is the only son of Gilbert de Botton"

However near the bottom: Personal life "He has one sister, Miel, who is a psychologist in Paris"

Isn't this a slight contradiction? In any case it's quite confusing and should be changed i think. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Lachlann87 (talk • contribs) 05:50, 28 April 2007 (UTC).


 * It's not a contradiction, but you're right that it's potentially confusing. It's also not remotely interesting or notable that he's the only male child of Gilbert de Botton, so I've removed the "only". Spandrawn 13:49, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Mass Plagiarism
The entire Writing section of this article is almost taken verbatim from de Botton's CV on his website. Has anyone got time to re-write this section? I don't, so if someone else does, please do so ASAP or I'll remove it all due to copyright issues. Fakelvis (talk) 11:44, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Also the list of review statements looks like something from a book jacket -- creepily promotional. Can you dice that too?  Julia Rossi (talk) 06:02, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

External Link Suggestion
He recently gave a very good talk which is now available on the internet in text, Real Media, MP3 and MP4 formats. 'The Question of Beauty in Architecture': http://www.gresham.ac.uk/event.asp?PageId=45&EventId=736 I think that this is a more in-depth and worthwhile link than much of what is already there. (I would add it myself but there is perhaps a potential conflict-of-interest). Jamesfranklingresham (talk) 15:01, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Merge proposal
The book pages linked from this page are stubs and always will be. Suggest we merge 'em all into this article. ► RATEL ◄ 14:11, 24 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Support merge . Status Anxiety seems to be one of its creator's most notable work, and the length of either article does not necessitate separation.  Even if he adds other notable things, there's room to include all in author biography.  No need to be separate unless or until de Botton has many more notable writings.  LotLE × talk  21:05, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Oppose. I've changed my mind based on Colonel Warden's comment, and actually from Ratel's response too.  de Botton's books might not be quite "best sellers," but they seem to be reasonably well read.  Moreover, I think now that the merge would only serve to assure the book descriptions remain stub-like, when Wikipedia would be better served by having the book articles expanded into something beyond stubs.  The book topics seem interesting and notable enough to merit more detailed discussion.  The old "author test" just asked for 5000 sales (which each book certainly had), not for "best seller list"... readers might very well be interested in learning more about any of the individual books on Wikipedia, there's no deadline for those non-stubs to be written.  LotLE × talk  05:37, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Most of de Botton's books have been bestsellers, see the Sunday Times bestseller lists for the years 1997 to 2009. Most recently, the pleasures and sorrows of work was no9 in he bestseller list. Pulling out Amazon.com rankings is not a fact. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hucklefish (talk • contribs) 12:25, 26 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Oppose The books are notable best-sellers and so the contention that our articles on them will always be stubs seems weak. In any case, the author and his works are different topics. Colonel Warden (talk) 20:47, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Hmm. "Bestsellers"? Not from what I can see, looking at their Amazon.com sales rankings. Which are:
 * The Architecture of Happiness #18,172
 * How Proust Can Change Your Life #18,268
 * The Art of Travel #30,898
 * The Consolations of Philosophy #42,293
 * Status Anxiety #94,620
 * The Romantic Movement: Sex, Shopping, and the Novel #50,871
 * On Love: A Novel #99,997
 * Kiss & Tell #108,759
 * Essays in Love #620,519
 * So no bestsellers in that lot. While the books are different topics, they are easily summarized and do not warrant separate pages. ► RATEL ◄ 00:35, 5 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Oppose. For reasons given. Merger is not in keeping with other comparable articles.  Suggestion that book articles "always will be" stubs is bootstrapping assertion not fact Zymurgy (talk) 21:41, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Remove reviews
I have taken out the whole reviews section, which seems entirely devoid of any encyclopedic relevance. Wikipedia isn't a random collection of fact, nor a link farm. Moreover, such use of excessive direct quotation with little context or commentary is a gross violation of WP:COPY. Past that, just throwing these various contrary opinions at the page is sloppy and lazy on the part of editors, and can never amount to anything other than a WP:POV edit war as editors find either praise or denunciation in various reviews.

If some particular commentary on de Botton is actually biographically relevant, we need to incorporate it into the flow of the article as a whole. A short quote framing some event (i.e. some particular book or other project) is OK, as long as it only contributes to the original wording that editors come up with. But surely not so very many quotes as we had, and definitely not such long sections of each one. Paraphrase of reviewers is generally better than direct quotation, in any case. LotLE × talk 17:54, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

What was there
Somewhat reluctantly, I add back the random collection to this talk page. If editors see some particular comment that is genuinely biographically illustrative, let's work it into the main flow. But neither vacuous praise nor snarky condemnation (which all the quotes seem to be, one or the other) is particularly relevant to an encyclopedia in itself. LotLE × talk 17:58, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

"Alain de Botton, the author of "How Proust Can Change Your Life", is described on the dust jacket as living in London and Washington, but his name and his passion for codification savor strongly of the Gallic. His curious, humorous, didactic, and dazzling book bears the subtitle "Not a Novel"; it contains, however, more human interest and play of fancy than most fiction... Botton, in emphasizing, with his amusing but straight-faced pedagogical foppishness, Proust’s healing, advisory aspects, does us the service of rereading him on our behalf, providing of that vast sacred lake a sweet and lucid distillation." — John Updike, The New Yorker, June 1997 "If you had to extract A Good Idea from Alain de Botton, it would be that literature and philosophy can offer ordinary people a richer, more complete understanding of their own experience. This has not been a fashionable line for a long time, which helps to account for the freshness of How Proust Can Change Your Life"—Robert Hanks, The Independent (3 April 2000)

"There's an easy charm to de Botton's writing, pleasure to be had in its intellectual order and civilized tidiness."—Melanie McGrath, Evening Standard (13 May 2002)

"All de Botton's books, fiction and non-fiction, deal with how thought and specifically philosophy might help us deal better with the challenges of quotidian life—returning philosophy to its simple, sound origins."—Annette Kobak, Times Literary Supplement (31 May 2002)

"I won't pretend that The Consolations of Philosophy changed my life, but it did ease me genially through the day I spent reading it; who can ask for anything more?" —Peter Conrad, Observer, (9 April 2000)

"[How Proust can change your Life] is an irresistible madeleine of a volume that ought to be devoured in one sitting." Julie Dam, TIME, 2 June 1997.

"[De Botton] has produced a meandering, pompous disquisition that betrays an autodidact’s haphazard sense of the field, but with little of the original thinking that might be expected from an outsider. ... The Architecture of Happiness would be an innocuous castoff if not for its proselytizing ambitions (it has so far spawned a PBS miniseries) and a set of rather insidious ideas camouflaged in its twee prose."—Mark Lamster, I.D. Magazine (January / February 2007)

"The Consolations of Philosophy purports to be a self-help manual of the annoying but lucrative kind that led de Botton to write How Proust Can Change Your Life. In both cases, he has pulled a glittering skein over his subjects' depths. De Botton's new book consists of obvious, hopeless or contradictory advice culled from great thinkers on how to overcome certain problems of existence." —The Guardian, 2000.

"I love Alain de Botton... His mind is generally original, and his prose both lapidary and easy to read -which is a terrific combination these days... The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work shows all too clearly that some projects are simply appallingly matched to their authors... De Botton often sounds as if he is poking at the idea of “work” with a gentlemanly stick, or peering at it under a bell jar; a curiosity of interest mostly to others, not a source of ambition or dread or survival - or money... It reads in many places as if someone had sent Oscar Wilde to investigate the meat-packing industry in Chicago. In short, this book examining “work” sounds often as if it has been written by someone who never had a job that was not voluntary, or at least pleasant."—Naomi Wolf, The Times (21 March 2009)

Hagiography
Every single critical word was removed by the recent spate of edits. It now reads like a hagiography, and I'll take it with something to reflect that. ► RATEL ◄ 08:51, 22 May 2009 (UTC)


 * WTF?! I looked at all the edits over the last month plus (or really just a diff between latest and April 20). I cannot see any change that is even vaguely similar to this claim by Ratel.  The only changes that in even the remotest sense remove "critical words" was the entirely proper deletion of a large mess of quoted reviews.  Throwing in every random review some editor(s) could find was amazingly ugly and unencyclopedic, and the article is 10 times better for their removal (some of those were praise, some condemnation, but none had any place in an encyclopedia).
 * This article is generally "positive" about its subject, as are the articles on almost all the intellectuals/writers in an encyclopedia. The point of a biography of this sort is to present the various achievements of a thinker.  Finding other folks who disagree with a given thinker should properly be secondary, or better tertiary, to presenting their own particular thought.  Remember, WP articles aren't here to decide the "truth" of any given thinkers arguments, but rather to present the historical/theoretical impact or significance a thinker has.  Maybe a bit of presentation of how X's thought is different from predecessors or contemporaries.  But absolutely NOT "Thinker X is wrong because..." Save that for undergraduate term papers.  LotLE × talk  16:07, 22 May 2009 (UTC)


 * There is a strongly critical theme running through all of the negative reviews of what De Botton does, and they all repeat the same basic themes. Yet there is no mention on the page of what sort of reception his works have had. It is entirely encyclopedic to document the broad gist of responses a writer garners from the critics. Do you not agree? If you do agree, I shall attempt to compose a paragraph or two, with sources, describing/listing the common themes in the negative critical responses. ► RATEL ◄ 01:51, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Damning with faint praise
It seems that Ratan really, really doesn't like de Botton's work. That said, I think the "critical responses" section s/he added is reasonable enough with a few improvements made. My main concern is that the "positive reviews" sentences seem far less positive than do the negative ones... making a really strong example of damning with faint praise. Do we really need to include reviews pointing out the good spelling of writers?! . Oh well, it's all in the touchup. LotLE × talk 17:43, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Positive reviews of de Botton's books mention the fact that he has made literature more accessible to the masses,[19][20] that the writing is ordered and tidy,[21] that the books impart a pleasant reading experience,[22] and that they can usually be quickly "devoured".[23]

Negative reviews often allege de Botton tends to state the obvious,[24][25] and characterize some of his books as pompous and lacking focus,[26][27] or as being detached from their subject.[28]

Leaving the playground
The thing is, I am probably the only active editor of this page who has a good basis to be annoyed at the superficiality of de Botton's philosophical work, since I actually did a doctorate close to the areas he writes about nonetheless. Nonetheless (or perhaps for that very reason), I am terribly annoyed at the puerile name calling that makes up most of the recent insertions into this article. We really don't need to run to the teacher (the readers) and tattle that de Botton said a rude word on a blog comment. And equally, it is not encyclopedic to stick in capricious snarky comments from various reviewers just for the sake of diss'ing the article's subject. As editors we should be trying to create the best encyclopedia we can, not engage in silly oneupsmanship about how much more clever we are than de Botton. You know who you are, editors, let's write in a professional style here. LotLE × talk 00:15, 12 July 2009 (UTC)


 * You seem to be referring to me. Putting your PAs aside here I need to make it clear that I saw the complete lack of any mention of the critical responses AdB's writing received as a lamentable hiatus in the page. I therefore took the positive and negative reviews that existed on the page a few months ago (added mostly by persons other than me) and summarised them into a couple of small sentences with quotes in the footnotes for those who are interested. The reaction I have obtained from you is comical. Please try to comment on edits and not editors. ► RATEL ◄ 01:29, 12 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I wrote above that I think your addition of some reactions is OK. The worst insertion was the nonsense that repeatedly got inserted about de Botton supposedly making some snarky comments on a blog comment (not even his own blog post, but a one sentence response to someone else).  Even assuming it's true that he wrote that, this is just so far below the level of even WP:TRIVIA as to be laughable.
 * There's a line to walk in academic biographies about WP:CRITicism sections. Unfortunately, they almost all tend towards the bad side of that line, and put in much too much arbitrary criticism out of a false sense of "balance".  This article is hardly the worst in this regard, but I'm sensitive to that issue.  Our goal isn't to "reveal the truth" about a thinkers deep merits, just to give readers a general sense of "he wrote this, this and this"... there are other places to discuss the pros and cons.  In all honesty, I agree that de Botton is a pretty "lite" thinker as these things go, but he really did write some books that have been pretty well read, and it's not our job on WP to write critical reviews, just to let readers know who he is.  LotLE × talk  01:59, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Inheritance details
Should we show details of the large inheritance this writer received from his father, a fact frequently mentioned in the media? ► RATEL ◄ 15:46, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Text under discussion: His father, Gilbert de Botton, co-founded Global Asset Management with Jacob Rothschild, 4th Baron Rothschild and Sir Mark Weinberg. When his father died, his family was left a trust fund of over £200 million, but for his part de Botton lives solely off the proceeds of his book sales. He has one sister, Miel, a psychologist in Paris.

Comments

 * Include — These facts have been reported ad nauseum in the media, and I can see no cogent reason to exclude them. The opposing editor has some notion that the information harms the subject, but surely he would not have made the information publicly available if that were the case. ► RATEL ◄ 16:07, 23 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Include — It is entirely reasonable that information about the financial state of a writer's family can be included if it is well sourced. The wealth of Tolstoy and Proust and the poverty of Charles Dickens and D H Lawrence are relevant to their writings. Although de Botton is not (yet) in the same league as these, Wikipedia should not be censored on the basis of the views of one editor about political correctness. The notion that calling somebody rich (or wealthy) is a term of abuse is new to me. I also note that there have been some violations of the 3RR rule this debate. Xxanthippe (talk) 00:12, 24 March 2010 (UTC).


 * The current phrasing seems reasonable and is not derogatory. I recall being a bit puzzled as to the exact terms of the subject's share in the family trust but suppose that the details are complex and so we need not dwell on them here. Colonel Warden (talk) 11:18, 26 March 2010 (UTC)


 * The suggestion has been made that the banned sockpuppets that have been contributing to this discussion may be de Botton himself. I don't believe that this is the case because de Botton writes much better. Xxanthippe (talk) 11:32, 26 March 2010 (UTC).

NPOV
What is drawing the vandals, in my opinion, is a certain departure from a reasonable consensus view in the article, by De Bottin advocate/editors. By denying that de Botton is a popularizer, the article takes a very specific and polemical view of the article's topic; I don't see how it can be objectively denied that the widespread sales of a work on Proust, or on the practical applications of philosophy, has the effect of popularizing the works' subject matters.

De Bottin, then, is a popularizer, whatever else he may also be; unfortunately, whoever wrote that he is not one:

A) thinks that being a "popularizer" is necessarily a bad thing (snobbishly, I suppose), and B) decided to rescue de Bottin from this label. Bustter (talk) 03:52, 30 December 2009 (UTC)


 * How is his name pronounced? Xxanthippe (talk) 03:12, 13 March 2010 (UTC).
 * Alã de Botõ, where ~ represents a nasal sound. Rothorpe (talk) 02:23, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks, but not all that helpful to me. There are so many sounds that one can make with one's nose. Any chance of an Ogg or similar? Xxanthippe (talk) 04:37, 27 March 2010 (UTC).
 * Sorry, I can't do Ogg. But both the A sounds in Alã are the same, as in 'cat', just that the second is nasal, and both the O sounds of Botõ are as in 'ought': again, the second is nasal. Let me know if that's not clear enough. Rothorpe (talk) 14:23, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
 * There is still a bit of an issue here. When people with names of foreign origin live in Britain they often anglicise their names to sound like, say, in this case, Alan Deberton. Does De Botton follow such a usage? Xxanthippe (talk) 09:26, 21 May 2010 (UTC).
 * Ah, c'est possible! Rothorpe (talk) 16:38, 21 May 2010 (UTC)
 * David Frost, introducing him on Aljazeera yesterday, pronounced Alain as French, and Botton to rhyme with 'Rotten'. Rothorpe (talk) 17:44, 22 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Family Wealth

There has been an enormous fuss surrounding the origins of Alain de Botton's family. The general principle on Wikipedia pages of authors that are living is that when it comes to biography you use biographical material sparingly and according to principles of need.

We live in a capitalist highly unequal society where the question of how much someone's family has in their bank account can seriously skew the picture one has of them. In almost no cases that I have come across on Wikipedia is there ever a mention of how much money an author's father or mother had. Whether they are poor or rich is not the issue. For example, an author like Nick Hornby comes from a wealthy family. His father was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II. This piece of information is in the public domain, but it doesn't appear on Hornby's entry.

Why? I believe that such a piece of information undermines Hornby's ability to create himself, to present himself on his own terms. De Botton never mentions his family background unless asked (that there is mention in newspaper interviews is not enough to say that de Botton is proud or boastful, all interviews indeed point out to his shame and discomfort), is evidently ashamed of his wealthy lineage and wants simply to be judged on his own work. Because of the Wikipedia entry, de Botton is now routinely referred to as 'the son of a very wealthy father...' - which is always taken to be an insult and derogatory.

This is damage that directly comes from Wikipedia and which the editors of this page should not be standing by. Judge a man by his work, judge a man by what he does. Do not judge a man by the financial status of his background.

The suggestion that de Botton's family's wealth is 'neutral' is simply not true. It keeps being re-added by people on this page like Rattel for the simple reason that Rattel cannot abide de Botton. For some reason, she bears a poisonous grudge - and there could be no better proof of how the financial issue plays to the gallery than that Rattel keeps adding the information in. If the information were neutral, she would be happy to ignore it. She doesn't ignore it because she knows it damages de Botton and she likes the idea. So far from playing a spurious advocate of 'the truth', she is really going out to inflict injury.

As Wikipedia editors, our duty is to be fair, generous and keen not to hurt the living. It is on this basis that the matter of whether de Botton's father was or was not wealthy should not - I believe- appear on this page. Yes, this detail may be true. No, it doesn't matter to de Botton 'in so far as he is a writer'. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cyrene12 (talk • contribs) 11:36, 23 March 2010 (UTC)


 * You have broken several rules above, see wp:NPA and wp:AGF. You also do not seem to understand how wikipedia works. We do not use information "sparingly" out of "principles of need"; we look at wp:V, wp:RS and wp:BLP. De Botton's inherited wealth is a significant part of his life, and his desire to style himself as a member of the proletariat, if that is what he wants to do, is not germane to our aims for creating an accurate and informative encyclopedia. ► RATEL ◄ 14:11, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Ratel: you really do have a personal animosity against Alain de Botton which makes you quite an unfit person to be involved in editing this page. This is not the place to try to denigrate someone. If Alain de Botton has offended you, take the case to him in person, don't use Wikipedia. You are breaking every rule in the book. de Botton has no intention of styling himself a member of the proletariat, what a peculiar line to be taking. I recommend that other members of this page group together to recommend that Ratel is taken off this page - she is clearly unbalanced in her analyses and views. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cyrene12 (talk • contribs) 14:39, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Ratel is starting to feel personally rattled: this is not the intention at all. The wish is simply that you leave off editing a page of someone you clearly despise. Do you admit or deny that you despise Alain de Botton? It seems evident you despise him - in which case, leave off. Stop ruining the good name of Wikipedia with your unbalanced reporting. You are bringing a tone which is quite inappropriate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cyrene12 (talk • contribs) 14:48, 23 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Edit warring will not work

I can see you're new to this, so let me give you a few pointers:


 * 1) Do not attack other editors, as you did me. That breaks a cardinal rule and can lead to a long ban if repeated again and again, as you have done.
 * 2) Argue your case on the talk page rather than edit war. If you can get agreement with other editors, your version will survive. Simply reverting again and again will lead to another ban (see wp:AN3)
 * 3) If you are de Botton yourself, please read wp:COI and follow the suggestions there closely. ► RATEL ◄  14:57, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Thank you Ratel. It seems strange that you are lecturing me on the dangers of Edit Warring when this is precisely what you are engaged with on here. I am not attacking you as a person, I am attacking your editing and the reasons behind them. You are indeed acting in an ad hominem way against the subject of this page - against the very rules you cite against me. No one wants to be banned, I don't want you to be banned, but please then adhere to the rules. A jury of a 100 honest and unprejudiced people would have no trouble at once spotting that you are not neutral towards your subject, in which case you should not be involved in editing the page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cyrene12 (talk • contribs) 15:02, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Moved from my Talk page:


 * Your tone

Both in your editing and now in your personal remarks to me, you show a high-handedness which frankly seems inappropriate. My basic point is that you are not neutral towards Alain de Botton. This is evident in your long history of activity on his page. Neutrality is THE one rule of Wikipedia, right at the heart of the site - and yet it is one which, despite all your advice to me, you refuse to accept. I understand you may not like de Botton. He has disappointed me in many ways - like many authors, he has his ups and downs. But this is not the point. You have a strength of feeling which militates against the fairness which Wikipedia makes its touchstone. I urge you to express your dislike of the subject you are editing in other ways. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cyrene12 (talk • contribs) 14:59, 23 March 2010 (UTC)


 * You are deeply confused. I was not the person who inserted the information about AdB's inheritance. However, it is well cited and most germane to his biography, and my reinstatement of that information, when you deleted it on specious grounds, has nothing to do with my personal feelings about the man, whose books I have read, and whom I regard as a so-so writer, and certainly do not dislike. Hope this helps! ► RATEL ◄ 15:02, 23 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Ratel: I appreciate your new tone civility and good humour very much. Thank you. And I also like that we can agree that we don't love de Botton, we don't hate him. He is sometimes good, sometimes bad. I am struck again by the remarks on the rule page:


 * 'Closeness to a subject does not mean you're incapable of being neutral, but it may incline you towards some bias. Be guided by the advice of other editors. If editors on a talk page suggest in good faith that you may have a conflict of interest, try to identify and minimize your biases, and consider withdrawing from editing the article.'


 * I am not saying that you and de Botton are close, but I was alleging a tone of bias. Forgive me if you think that was extreme, that was my sense though. I continue to think though that the reporting of this element of financial detail is seriously prejudicial to de botton and should not be included. I accept that you may not have put it there, but you are strongly objecting to its removal. I'm afraid I strongly recommend its removal; maybe we should let others have a go at this dispute and canvas others. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cyrene12 (talk • contribs) 15:11, 23 March 2010 (UTC)


 * That's not a problem at all. BTW, please remember to sign your comments with ~ . Thanks. Now let's get some comments from others with a RfC. I'll do it now. ► RATEL ◄ 15:41, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

De Botton's claims re: the De Botton family's "£200m trust fund"
Notwithstanding the above thread there is a basic NPOV issue here. That De Botton is a primary beneficiary of the De Botton family "£200m trust fund" is not in debate, as this is well documented in The Times Rich List, etc. The issue is as to his claim that he has never drawn on these funds, which may well be so, but this has never ben independently reported. The refs. as they stand refer to claims made by De Botton in interviews, and hence should be clearly indicated as statements made by the subject of the article and not included as independently reported. This assertion should remain, as the sbject's assertion, and this qualification can easily be achieved with the insertion of "he has claimed," or "he has stated," as I have amended.--Artiquities  (talk) 12:00, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Categorical Declaration
In the Archive, there is an authoritarian assertion by LotLE. It is in the "Leaving the playground" section. He or she contends that de Botton's work is superficial. Is it possible for LotLE to explain why he or she has made that judgment?Lestrade (talk) 16:52, 17 December 2010 (UTC)Lestrade

Reviews
Why are negative comments and reviews emphasized? A Wikipedia reader might assume that the author wrote poorly when, in truth, his books may be very well written, though not admired by philosophical academics.Lestrade (talk) 02:15, 22 March 2011 (UTC)Lestrade
 * I agree. there has been a lot of prejudicial editing. I have made an edit to the lede and removed a minor matter that was deal with in the text. An editor put it in and claimed that it was controversial but provided no evidence that it was. Xxanthippe (talk) 02:46, 22 March 2011 (UTC).

Careerist academics do not want philosophy to be seen as a popular, literary expression of opinions about life. That would endanger the philosophy department. Therefore they oppose non-academic writers like de Botton and accept only those who present philosophy in an objective, obscure, technical manner, as similar as possible to law, logic, and mathematics.Lestrade (talk) 19:35, 23 March 2011 (UTC)Lestrade

It is not up to you or me to assert that the negative reviews are right or wrong. It is incumbent on us all to fairly report how Alain is regarded among other philosophers, especially high-profile and widely published ones. A Wikipedia reader would assume, quite rightly, he is not held in high regard among his peers. It is not up to us to do original research or push our personal agendas. I put in his most recent review, but AC Grayling - who is as good as it gets - and the citation was removed. This is not acting as editors of an encylopedia, this is acting as publisher publicity agents.Viberunner (talk) 20:56, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

The academic long knives are out for Alain.Lestrade (talk) 21:04, 4 April 2011 (UTC)Lestrade

I'm no academic, but I've found everything I read by de Botton to be tedious schoolboy nonsense. The guy comes from a privileged background and has made all the right friends, so I'm not surprised that academics who have earned their positions are not pleased to see his schoolboy essays in print. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.24.42.85 (talk) 08:56, 14 August 2011 (UTC) — 86.24.42.85 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

Harvard University alumni category
At the bottom of the article is the category "Harvard University alumni". Nothing in the article suggests that he has any connection with Harvard University, although it discusses his formal education at Cambridge, King's College London, and London Univerity. Is it missing from the article, or is the category erroneous? I hope someone will fix this one way or the other. Sterrettc (talk) 03:40, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

fixed Bhny (talk) 21:16, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

External Links cleanup
While noticing that this talk for the RSA was missing http://www.thersa.org/events/video/archive/alain-de-botton it occurred to me that the WP trolls are on the hunt to remove the external links section. I propose creating a new section Audio under which the Radio section would appear, and then another for Talks where this link could appear along with selected ones from the ‘External Links’ section. Connectionfailure (talk) 04:44, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

BRD
Sorry, I meant the BRD cycle for 22 Oct edits. See also BRD misuse. Xxanthippe (talk) 22:01, 21 October 2013 (UTC).

Possible copyright problem
This article has been revised as part of a large-scale clean-up project of multiple article copyright infringement. (See the investigation subpage) Earlier text must not be restored, unless it can be verified to be free of infringement. For legal reasons, Wikipedia cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or printed material; such additions must be deleted. Contributors may use sources as a source of information, but not as a source of sentences or phrases. Accordingly, the material may be rewritten, but only if it does not infringe on the copyright of the original or plagiarize from that source. Please see our guideline on non-free text for how to properly implement limited quotations of copyrighted text. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously. Diannaa (talk) 01:12, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks for this edit. I have long suspected COI editing on this page. Xxanthippe (talk) 01:16, 1 March 2014 (UTC).
 * Another suspect edit by an spa IP. Xxanthippe (talk) 00:45, 7 March 2014 (UTC).