Talk:Mandatory tipping

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 19 August 2019 and 13 December 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Beccacole. Peer reviewers: Katjenkins0520.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 00:29, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Starting out
I'd just like to say I think this is a very worthwhile and notable article. But so far it looks like it needs some work. It's got a lot of name-dropping and the tone sounds... a tad emotional. Some of the factual parts might require greater explanation as well. For example, the concept that tipped employees can be paid below minimum wage needs further explanation, in that it is state-by-state labor law matter, and also varies by country. The implementation of the labor laws are also very different by state and involves more than just minimum wage.

It may also be notable to mention how Autograts can be abused or used inappropriately. I know of several local investigations where customers were being autogratted extremely high amounts because the manager felt they were "difficult" or an autograt was assessed based purely on race of the customer. I will help out where I can, but I will not interfere with editing for the moment because this is such a freshly made article.Legitimus (talk) 21:09, 6 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I added some information about the concept that tipped employees can be be paid below minimum wage. Maybe some of that local investigation material could be useful after all, Legitimus. It could help to get this article to achieve at least a B-class rating. GVnayR (talk) 15:28, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

This reads like an opinion piece
The General Summary section needs to be completely rewritten. The tone and POV are clearly skewed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.51.216.23 (talk) 01:23, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

While the motivation for creating this article may have been non-neutral, it is a verifiable practice and notable. I agree that it SOUNDS one sided, but that's because the practice is arguable one-sided and an unfair business practice. That shedding light on it with the verifiable truth happens to show the practice's inherent flaws doesn't mean this article is not NPOV. In other words, the truth hurts, but that doesn't mean it's not a valid article topic. 74.102.164.44 (talk) 21:08, 15 January 2012 (UTC)


 * WP does not and cannot asses truth or fairness. It can only assess whether or not all notable sides of an issue have been covered. This article is tagged to show that a number of editors feel that one side is being presented as unfair, and one as fair... rather than the sides being presented and the reader allowed to decide.Shajure (talk) 23:09, 15 January 2012 (UTC)


 * I replaced the paragraph under General Discussion concerning the United States with a better-researched paragraph with far more authoritative sources (laws, court opinions, etc.). It was never an issue in any of those laws or court opinions whether a mandatory gratuity was mandatory. They all assumed or said it was mandatory. I had actually hoped to find some law or court opinion that said a mandatory gratuity was voluntary, but found none, though I did find some that said (in certain contexts) that a mandatory gratuity would not be subject to sales tax (volunteered tips are not subject to sales tax) if the entire gratuity went to the service people and none to the establishment. So in one sense, my new paragraph is one-sided, but that is just because I could not find any authoritative source supporting "the other side". I did preserve the two links in the original version, with the accurate lead in of "arrested but charges dropped". I also pointed out that the opinion of a prosecutor untested in court carries no legal weight.


 * Perhaps someone could review the article and decide whether it still deserves the "neutrality" warning marker. DavidForthoffer (talk) 03:14, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I am not clear what you mean in this post or the article changes by "mandatory gratuity was mandatory." It sounds redundant.  I also note that the court cases you added as sources all are related to taxation, not the legality of a customer refusing to pay a tip.  It's quite difficult to document such a thing if the routine occurrence is: customer refuses to pay tip->police are called->police arrive and tell manager tipping is not enforceable as theft so there is no crime here, stop wasting our time.  I know that is definitely the case in Maryland, as labor law forces employers to make up the difference to tipped employees if that employee doesn't make enough tips to earn minimum wage.Legitimus (talk) 14:10, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

NPOV
General Summary section needs revisions for the sake of neutrality. While the information provided in this article seems relevant and (most of) the sources cited seem reliable, the general tone and word choice throughout the article don't seem particularly neutral.

"The discretionary form of mandatory tipping is extremely risky for businesses to use, as it allows for potential abuse or prejudice against the customer. For example, a manager might apply a large automatic gratuity to an elderly customer whom they predict will not look at the bill closely enough to be a savvy consumer. Another situation might have a server apply an autograt to a table that might stiff him or her on the tip because of the ethnicity of the customer(s)."

"While the restaurant may disclose the mandatory tipping on the menu, the concept is still ludicrous from a legal standpoint.[11] Restaurants that provide poor service are commiting economic suicide because of the late-2000s recession.[11] A gratituty is supposed to be a reward for good service, not a mandatory part of the bill.[11]"

-yamahasixstring(talk) 19 September 2011 —Preceding undated comment added 06:23, 19 September 2011 (UTC).

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 3 external links on Mandatory tipping. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20150510091858/http://tvnz.co.nz/content/607597/425829.html to http://tvnz.co.nz/content/607597/425829.html
 * Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.gov.mb.ca/labour/labmgt/resbr/wages/minwage.html
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070928060526/http://www.halifaxlive.com/artman/publish/printer_tax_230505_112.shtml to http://www.halifaxlive.com/artman/publish/printer_tax_230505_112.shtml

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 18:41, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Mandatory tipping. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20081208123200/http://www.emilypost.com/surveys/results/poll5.htm to http://www.emilypost.com/surveys/results/poll5.htm

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 03:04, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

Labor laws section
This section is mostly irrelevant. It is mostly a discussion of minimum wages for tipped employees, taxation and reporting. This information is relevant to the practice of tipping generally, but irrelevant to this article on mandatory tipping. Baller McGee (talk) 03:51, 7 October 2020 (UTC)