Talk:Fast food/Archive 3

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Swiss Chalet

What's the say that Swiss Chalet is a fast food restaurant. Any opinions before I delete?

Bias/Lack of NPOV in Legal Issues section?

Call it my overly suspicious nature, but does the last line of the Legal Issues section seem slightly biased to anyone else?

"The bill arose because of an increase in lawsuits against fast-food chains by people who claimed that eating their products made them obese, disassociating themselves from any of the blame."

Maybe it's just me. --Sandblast 00:40, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Nah, perhaps it's just me + you, but it does seem to call for extra Neutrality, hold the B.S. Feel free to Supersize the impartiality by changing it, unless you want fries with that. dr.ef.tymac 01:02, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Fast Food Hoax...or not hoax?

The Famous Chicken Head Nuget http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4peC31MgLE —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.148.169.135 (talk) 23:49, 30 April 2007 (UTC).

Narrow focus

Unsurprisingly, this article leans quite heavily towards traditional American fast food: Hamburgers and fries. That's not a bad thing, these are both the most common kinds of fast food in the world and what normally springs to mind when the term is used. BUT, there is a fairly serious neglect of other kinds.

I suggest that sushi, the Subway chain, kebab houses, chinese takeaway restaurants and fish and chip shops all need to be incorporated somehow. These are not just regional shops, they all exist in varying prominence in most Western countries. The problem is: where is the best place to do that? The international section is focussed on international chains, which makes me think "not there".

I've restructured the article a bit. If you really want to contribute pursuant to your suggestion, I am all in favor of it. The section entitled "Service" might be a good place for you to start. If you still have trouble deciding where to add your contribution, let me know and I will try to help. Thanks. dr.ef.tymac 04:26, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Please make links to .....

Food safety and Food quality from the topic

change title and do a redirect to QSR

To properly do what one would expect the goal of this wikipedia article is, describing typical American fast food, it really should be under the more specific title Quick Serve Restaurant. There probably should be a small section with a redirect to American fast food aka QSR. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.16.76.11 (talk) 04:15, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

We need a split

This article is trying to do two things at once, and having made a shot at fixing it I think it's irreconcilable.

• Fast food in general. This should be a list-ish article covering everything from TV dinners to KFC but in a WP:SUMMARY style.
• Fast food restaurants (QSR), specifically covering mass-produced franchise restaurants.

Split shouldn't even be that painful. I'll get on with it when I've got the time. Chris Cunningham 11:27, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Hello Chris Cunningham your general rationale sounds reasonable, but there is one thing that concerns me a bit, it appears you are de-emphasizing the structural aspects of the article that made distinctions based on geography. Since there is clearly a tendency to omit non-USA-centric viewpoints from an article subject such as this, some editors may take this deemphasis as further justification to exclude non-USA-centric perspectives. This may be an unintended side-effect of some of the recent structural changes.

If you could explain a bit more your basic rationale for how you see this article changing, and your strategy for improving it, that would be much appreciated. Thanks. dr.ef.tymac 19:48, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

There's also a tendency to attempt to counter perceived US bias by artificially inflating the importance of non-US content. In this case, the term "fast food" originated in the States and refers specifically to the dining revolution of the latter half of the 20th century. That kebab stalls also sell food which is prepared quickly is irrelevant, and is detrimental to a merged article's readability.

The basic plan it to take anything which deals with the quick-serve restaurant genre and bundle it off to quick serve restaurant. The fast food article would then be little more than a list of dining concepts with low preparation time, and would not attempt to explore any particular theme (because there isn't one). At the moment, the article is trying to pretend that McDonald's and random kebab stalls have something in common, which is silly. Chris Cunningham 10:25, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, if the point you are making is that content in this article should be restricted to the U.S.-centric perspective of fast food, I respectfully, but vehemently, disagree with that. If you have a reference or authoritative foundation for your viewpoint, now would be a good time to bring it forward, to help substantiate your apparently restrictive interpretation of the scope of this article's subject matter. dr.ef.tymac 02:06, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I just said the exact opposite, which is that US-centric stuff should be punted to a dedicated article at quick serve restaurant. If you feel that "fast food" should be contrived to mean "any foodstuff prepared in advance and reheated to order", then feel free to maintain an arbitrary collection of said information at this location, fast food. Chris Cunningham 09:02, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Split finished

Okay, western-specific stuff goes here now. Please note that this is not a POV fork; the Western part of the equation here is deep and involved enough that it needs its own article to explore themes, trends and concepts specific to the kind of fast food which comes with a plastic tray and a drive-thru bolted on. Chris Cunningham 17:01, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Do you have a citation or reference to support your viewpoint? Is this just your "gut-level" feeling on how this article content should be treated? dr.ef.tymac 20:29, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Gut feeling. The article as it stood had serious focus issues, there's a clear theme which relates McDonald's-style restaurants, and I'd rather improve an article which I feel actually has some direction than waste time arguing over perceived problems with global viewpoint because somebody decides that Subway is the same thing as McDonald's. Chris Cunningham 07:01, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Wasting time = bad. Improvement = good. Direction = good. Gut feeling = fine, but not without its problems.

First off, let me say (IMHO) it's great if you want to improve this (or any other article) based on your own sense of how things should look. One problem, however, is unless there is a foundation of references or outside support for your editorial strategy, there's no general reason to conclude that anyone but you is going to understand (let alone agree with) the logical basis for your distinctions.

If you were to open up a textbook on managerial accounting for restaurants (just for a random example), and segment this article based on the same segmentation found in that textbook, that would be great, because anyone who didn't understand your segmentation could consult the textbook, and at least have a published "road map" to go by if they decided to further enhance your changes to the article(s), and ensure that their changes coincided with your master plan.

In contrast, the only person on this Earth who is guaranteed to have the same "gut-level" understanding of this material as you is ... you. That's not a problem when you are writing a personal essay, but it is a problem when you are collaboratively editing an Encyclopedia article.

That's really all I have to say on this at this time. If things go well, these remarks will make sense to you and you will consider them to whatever extent you feel useful. dr.ef.tymac 15:31, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Food Code laws

I hate to say this but I work in the industry and in the intro it is completely wrong about not having food code laws. That United States Government in 1999 took it upon themselves to regulate the food code law. As a result it applies to every restruant in the nation. They have updated this 3MB pdf file several times over the past decade. As a result the only issue is if the county you are starting up decides not to enforce the federal law which would not be in their best interests. Some counties do go above and beyond the federal law which does put more of a strain but not too much.--Mihsfbstadium 05:35, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

UK sitaution.

I've tried to make a start on expanding the historical stuff in relation to the UK. Anyone able to expand it or add appropriate sources? 62.56.76.71 (talk) 22:40, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Second sentence

Surely there's a better way of defining fast food than that. I can think of a few chains to whom this doesn't apply, as they cook to order without "keeping things warm." Nach0king (talk) 09:39, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree, I am removing it.

-- Jeremy (talk) 05:55, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

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