Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office

The following is an archived discussion of a featured list nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured list candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The list was promoted 13:13, 24 March 2008.

Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office

Self-nom It's a bit of a funny little list, but I think it meets the criteria, and not everything has to be so serious, eh? It underwent an AfD recently, the decision was to keep. I came across the list after that and worked on it. All comments appreciated and will be addressed. -- Matthew | talk | Contribs 03:55, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Cool. I like it. I never thought the word "incumbent" could be used to described a cat. I think the article looks pretty good, but I do have a few suggestions:

I know! It makes me want to grin like a Cheshire cat! :) -- Matthew | talk | Contribs 21:54, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved stuff from Drewcifer

The citations need a bit of cleanup. First, I'd recommend centering the ref column. Second, the publisher value should only be wikilinked the first time it's used. Third, I'm not so sure about the use of reprints. Why not just cite the original source? Fourth, the date of Ref #9 is a little crazy. Fifth, is 10 Downing Street actually a publisher? Do they have their own newspaper or something?

10 Downing Street is in the "work=" field of {{cite web}}, the "publisher=" is HM Government. Also, those two reprints are the only mention of the dates of Treasury Bill anywhere on the Internet. The official documents related to Humphrey released under the Freedom of Information Act only give his name as one of Humphrey's predecessors. At least the references are there, and if the original published work was ever to turn up the references can be replaced. I'd rather that than not include them at all. Everything else is Done. -- Matthew | talk | Contribs 21:54, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough. Drewcifer (talk) 22:10, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Using the same logic as above, Prime Minister names should only be wikilinked the first time they're mentioned.

Done -- Matthew | talk | Contribs 21:54, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure about the titles of the dates columns ("Entered" and "Left").

Do you have any suggestions? "Moved in" and "Moved out" doesn't sound good either. The cats are officially "civil servants" - the Humphrey papers show the Home Office returning gifts and turning down sponsorship requests for this exact reason, so maybe "Employment began" and "Employment ended"? -- Matthew | talk | Contribs 21:54, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe "Began employment" and "Retired"? Drewcifer (talk) 22:10, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Not all of them retired though. Some died while being employed. -- Matthew | talk | Contribs 22:37, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well death is the ultimate form of retirement, no? =) Well, howabout "Began employment" and "Ended employment"? Drewcifer (talk) 23:10, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That works!

Done -- Matthew | talk | Contribs 23:38, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm also not a fan of the wikilinked years. That's good for putting certain things into context, but a cat could probably care less about the state-of-affairs in the United Kingdom circa 1978.

~~{{not done}}~~ I'd rather leave those in for now and see what other reviewers think, if that's okay. -- Matthew | talk | Contribs 21:54, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I guess I can wait, but without some sort of argument in the other direction it'll still be a problem. So I can't support the nom until it's either addressed or I'm convinced otherwise. Drewcifer (talk) 22:10, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I just think that as the cats are "employees" of the Cabinet, and their work takes them within the close confines of the workings of the Government and politics, the years should stay linked.

Also, taking Humphrey, he was somewhat of a political scandal in the 90s. He was accused of murdering a nest of baby robins when Major was there, but the biggest stink was when the Blairs moved in. There was a big hoo-ha about whether Cherie wanted him to stay or not, with Blair at the time saying the decision to keep him was one of the most difficult he'd had to make, with regards to public opinion. And she eventually posed for photographers holding the cat. Then there was the nonsense when he was retired off; there was a whole discussion raised at PM Question Time about his whereabouts, if he was still alive and wotnot, with the government arranging a clandestine photo-op, with the cat surrounded by newspapers dated that day, hostage style. All this hit the headlines at the time. However, none of this is mentioned in 1997 in the United Kingdom and if that's the only thing that is stopping you from supporting, then I'll remove them. I'd personally prefer to see them linked to 2007 in British politics etc. anyway, but those don't exist. -- Matthew | talk | Contribs 22:37, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Done -- Matthew | talk | Contribs 22:40, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well that's definitely quite a story, but I'm not really sure if it applies to the UK at large, or if that kind of stuff is date/location specific in anyway. So yea, I think it's better without. If there's any opinions otherwise by other reviewers, I suppose I could be more flexible though. So, to allow for that possibility, we can consider this point taken care of, but I won't put it in the hide box. Drewcifer (talk) 23:10, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And that's about it. Short and sweet list, but I think that's why I like it! Drewcifer (talk) 19:12, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! -- Matthew | talk | Contribs 21:54, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Further comments All of my suggestions have been well-addressed. However, I think Scorpion brings up some good points. Namely, it seems on the short side. I don't mean to say that the FLC should fail because of it's length, but that it should be expanded to include all of the stories you've mentioned here. Perhaps have a little section of prose detailing the tenure of each cat, wherever info is available. And if you were to do that, the article may or may not cease to be a list... I guess what I'm trying to say is that I think this article has the potential to be much more than a list, and if it has that potential, than it's probably not as comprehensive as it should be. Drewcifer (talk) 11:35, 14 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I could move this to List of Chief Mousers to the Cabinet Office, and then start a completely new article regarding the history etc. Would that compromise get your support? -- Matthew | talk | Contribs 18:57, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know if the topic really warrants two articles. I mean, it would be very easy to attatch the (relatively small) list to a more prose-based article. My best solution would be to keep it as one, add historical stuff, and call it an article. Probably not what you wanted to hear, but I think this could be much more than what it is right now, and keeping is as a list is just holding it back. Drewcifer (talk) 19:35, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment It's a bit on the short side, and several FLCs in the past have failed due to lack of length. There also some big gaps, why was there no chief mouser from 1997 to 2007? Why were there two cats during some periods? -- Scorpion⁰⁴²² 02:20, 14 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I can't do anything about the length. Official documents have only been released into the public domain as far back as 1929 and mention the first Peter. Other documents mention Treasury Bill as one of Humphrey's predecessors, and another source dates him to the early 20s. So from that point, I would say it's complete and finite. Unless the government release more documents relating to cats, but I doubt it because the only reason there are documents beginning with Peter I is that a request was made to the Treasury for an allowance for food and a feeding schedule, so that the staff wouldn't feed him tidbits all the time, thereby filling him up and causing him to not be vigilant in his mousing activities. And I think if length was an issue, the AfD wouldn't have been to Keep. It would have been to delete or merge into Number 10.
There were no cats between 1997 and 2007 because reportedly, Cherie Blair hates them. She pushed for Humphrey to leave (see above). Also, as noted in the lead, the title of "Chief mouser" was only given to Humphrey, so even if there was a cat, it's unlikely he would have been the "Chief Mouser" officially. Sybil, has been called that in the press (the reference is there but I can be specific about it in the article), and Wilberforce and Treasury Bill have been called thatin the official Humphrey documents. The other cats are just "mousers", or pets. Some were strays, some were given as gifts, likely simply so as to raise the profile of the giver, which is why there are two at some periods. Also, I haven't read the book or journals that relate to Munich Mouser or Nelson. They were there when I started on the article.
All this could be added, but then it turns it more into an article and less of a list, don't you think? -- Matthew | talk | Contribs 03:59, 14 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
And short or not, it still covers all the point in the criteria. -- Matthew | talk | Contribs 04:03, 14 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

~~Conditional~~ Support - I corrected a typo (no thanks required...!) and enjoyed the article enormously, so I'll support dependent on the final sentence in the lead being worked on a little. Firstly I hate parentheses in prose (as you can see) and secondly I found that particular sentence a little clunky... The Rambling Man (talk) 08:01, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, do you have any suggestions on how to reword it? -- Matthew | talk | Contribs 18:51, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It looks fine now, support unconditional! The Rambling Man (talk) 14:49, 20 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Support Hehe, I love this page! I never knew there was an official resident cat... £100 a year as well! On the article-related note, I've no further comments. I noticed the last sentence was enclosed in parentheses, and it didn't look too bad, but I agree it could be reworked to get rid of them (like TRM, I also find them distracting, regardless of the fact that I use them outside of article space quite often. :)) Great work! PeterSymonds | talk 20:46, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've reworked the last sentence, so take a look and let me know what you think (revert if you don't agree with it). In doing so, I removed the reference to the Blairs living at no. 11, as it doesn't seem overly necessary to include it. You might not like this, of course, so feel free to change it. PeterSymonds | talk 20:56, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No, no. That works perfectly :) -- Matthew | talk | Contribs 06:22, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Nice. I made a few tweaks. I wondered what the difference is between "General" and "Further Reading", especially as I doubt David Irving found much scope in his work for dealing with this topic in depth! Could the two subsections not simply be merged into one list? --Dweller (talk) 14:40, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the edits. A suitable word instead of "employ" was stumping me. Per WP:CS, Further Reading "offers books, articles, and links to websites related to the topic that might be of interest to the reader …[not] used as sources in the article", and "All items used as sources in the article must be listed in the "References" or "Notes" section". At this time I'd rather go by the policy, though I do see your point as both secions are small. Anyway, there was no need to use shortened notes for the Irving book as it was only referenced once, although it can also be included in Further reading as it "covers the topic beyond the scope of the article, and has significant usefulness beyond verification of the article". I hope that these edits will address your concerns. -- Matthew | talk | Contribs 16:51, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Support Good stuff. Nice contender for April 1st main page content, I'd have thought. --Dweller (talk) 12:33, 19 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.