Talk:William Gillette

Identity of the subject
Is this the same "William Gillette" that invented the modern safety razor? According to this article from the BBC, the safety razor was invented in 1895 by an American named "William Gillette", which fits this guy's description. Any ideas? - DropDeadGorgias (talk) 03:42, Mar 10, 2004 (UTC)


 * I'm sorry, but it was invented by King C. Gillette. --webkid 08:03, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Quality of the article
Much of this article is not written in english or anything that even resembles english. It needs to be carefully worked over by someone who at least has a basic command of the written language! Cokerwr 17:43, 14 June 2006 (UTC)


 * As opposed to someone who doesn't know how to properly capitalize proper nouns or proper adjectives? Compared to the condition that the article was in, back in early April, it's quite readable now. --JohnDBuell 18:13, 14 June 2006 (UTC)



Fresh, cursory look

 * Hello! I saw your request for additional peer reviews on this article, and I thought I might throw in a comment.  I have not "READ" the article yet, I only looked over it for layout.  I think the section 3.1 etc could use indenting - this is something that actually irritates me about wikipedia, subsections don't have indenting.  I will look over the article a little more thoroughly right away. Em3rald 11:06, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
 * A second look, slightly less cursory. First, the language is a little bit clumsy.  It's definitely readable, no question, but there is just something odd, perhaps forced, about the way the article reads.  I can make some suggestions (and fix some myself) later.  Two other points:  First, red links = no good (in my opinion).  The easy way to fix this is to create stub articles about those subjects (such as actors, etc) which would induce others to contribute.  Second, wikification.  This article is in dire need of additional wikification (links, and possibly some templates) to give it a more overall professional appeal.  I don't know if there are any Wikiprojects that apply, but that would be a logical approach.  I'll post more in the next few days. Em3rald 11:13, 20 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I can't say I've ever heard of anyone indenting subsections on Wikipedia before. I can think of three FAs where this does not take place. There's not really anything on the subject in the Manual of Style. I'm not saying it's wrong, I just don't think that such an idea has been addressed, and current practice is not to indent, as you noticed. Second, I agree some of the language may still require rewriting. The article was largely originally written by a non-native speaker of English, and has been greatly revised by two native speakers of English, but at some point you just need to have someone else take a fresh look. Third, "to red link or not to red link" has been pretty hotly debated, at least over the last year or so (and some people have felt strongly against them even longer). I see them as "calls to action" - I don't know how much information can be found about everything with a red link in this article - I have a feeling that some real research in a library will be needed to provide proper references, which the article does still lack. The other alternative is to just remove the wikilinks altogether. Thanks for your comments! --JohnDBuell 11:35, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Gillette Castle
I removed the link to "Robert the Devil," since neither in Wikipedia nor elsewhere online can I find a reference to a Norman fortress by this name. The link within Wikipedia points to the story of an individual, not a fortress. If someone can provide a reference to this fortress, please do so. Septegram 15:19, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Gillette Castle Link
The link to the Gillette Castle State Park site maintained by the CT Department Of Environmental Protection was outdated so I found the correct one and replaced the old one. In addition the wording for this link was cumbersome so I changed that as well. Taglman (talk) 20:24, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Coins “Elementary”…
The section on “Elementary” is fairly ludicrous, as it stands. There is no sense in the statement Gillette formulated the complete phrase: "Oh, this is elementary, my dear fellow", which then somehow became the much quoted “Elementary, my dear Watson!” In The Dancing Men Conan Doyle included the exchange: “‘Excellent!’ I cried. ‘Elementary,’ said he. ‘It is one of those instances where the reasoner can produce an effect which seems remarkable to his neighbour, because the latter has missed the one little point which is the basis of the deduction. The same may be said, my dear fellow, for the effect of some of these little sketches of yours, which is entirely meretricious, depending as it does upon your retaining in your own hands some factors in the problem which are never imparted to the reader.’” The elements of both dramatic lines are there; Gillette may have been a famous Holmes, but his line is not the one which has stuck in the public imagination, and “formulating the complete phrase” (as if Conan Doyle had merely been groping about for words and hadn’t completed a thought) is a weasel-worded statement to suggest more of an influence than he had in that area. Even if the Clive Brooks film was an adaptation of the Gillette play, it’s hard to see that there is any more of Gillette than Doyle in the line, and the credit should go to the film’s adaptor. Jock123 (talk) 07:46, 3 October 2014 (UTC) 2) "one of the most famous expressions in the English language." Sezwho? This might well be correct, but a very short WWW search for '"most famous expressions" in English' brought up this supporting page, but is it  NPOV and cite-worthy? http://bakerstreetbijou.com/actors/famous-sherlocks-william-gillette/ 64.53.191.77 (talk) 14:31, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
 * 1) As to the above comments, whether one agrees with the reasoning or not, the claim is made (at least) in the Chicago Tribune of 24 May, 2015, p. 4 or A&E in a longish article on his movie.

Removing tag that says "Gillette Castle" section is too long and detailed.
A tag dated 2012 says "This section may be too long and excessively detailed. Please consider summarizing the material while citing sources as needed."

As far as I know, its a pure judgement call whether a section is "too long and detailed." I haven't worked on this article myself, so I think I'm reasonably objective. I just don't see the problem here. It's a good section. And, after all, Wikipedia is not paper, and it's not as if it were too much work to scroll past the section.

As it happened I was looking for something else, but I'd expect an article on Gillette to cover Gillette Castle and this section seems fine to me. There isn't any separate article on Gillette Castle, and despite the claim of a "main article" at Gillette Castle State Park, that article is only five paragraphs long and barely more than a stub.

And the tag has been there for three years and nobody has felt it was necessary to act on it.

Accordingly, I've removed the tag. Dpbsmith (talk) 18:20, 15 October 2015 (UTC)