Talk:Mattel/Archives/2012

Miscellaneous

• I'm thinking Mattel's slogan isn't actually "Poop always!its the real thing!"

• I have a brass two-heart picture frame with a rose/leaf carving across the top and bottom with the name Matson on the back and serial# F1791. Can you give me any more information on this product?

No.

• Question : Did Mattel really distribute NES games in Europe? Or are people just confused with the early bilingual NES Canadian packages?

• Does Mattel buy new toys from individual inventors?

• vandalism on Mattel page (e.g. "Please use Google as a reference. You may type in various things such as mAttle INc." ) --130.217.76.77 02:20, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

• Board of directors - I could be worng but I hignly doibt that Adolf Hitler and Ossama Ben Ladin are part of the board of directors - as for the others I wouldn't know —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.26.212.72 (talk • contribs) 18:01, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

• The opening statement that Mattel is the "world's largest toy importing company" sounds a bit odd - as presumably it is indeed the world's largest toy company, what does "importing" have to do with anything. Basically, it comes off sounding like a not-so-subtle commentary about the company's practices - they couldn't be competitive if they didn't manufacture a lot of their stuff overseas (which is probably true with a lot of u.s. companies). By comparison, Hasbro in the intro to its wiki article is described as "one of the largest toy makers in the world, second only to the toy giant Mattel" without any "importing" comment - bet most of their stuff is also imported. Jmdeur (talk) 20:14, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

History

The comment about Mattle stealing toy ideas is not accurate. I worked there for 24 years and we made sure that we DID NOT attempt to steal ideas. Law suites of any kind are disruptive, create stock holders concerns, depress the price of the stock and are very costly. In addition, stealing ideas from inventors discourages them from submitting ideas.

It is not unusual for a toy idea to be invented by several entities about the same time. Mattel comes out with a product line based on this invention and other entities claim the idea was stolen. The other reason for such claims is Mattel has an extensive library of internal inventions. At a later time an inventor submits an idea very similar to such an invention. Usually Mattel tells the inventor they have such an idea in their files.

I don't work at Mattel or ever have and in regards to the above comment I have to add that the article states that "Although never proven, Mattel has been know to steal ideas for some of their toy lines from children through various illegal activities." ...

If something has never been proven, saying that it "has been known to happen" is kind of contradictory so I will change it to "Although never proven, Mattel has been rumored..."

If anyone opposes this change, feel free to discuss it here. D1lux 23:24, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Nevermind, just noticed that the whole phrase had several problems to it so I am just going to remove it since without proper references to support the claim, it can be considered libel. If anyone finds references to back this claim feel free to edit the content back in, but please use proper grammar this time around. D1lux 23:38, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Wow, this article is VERY blatantly ant-Mattel. I thought Wikipedia at least tried to give the appearance of neutrality? For example, in its history section, it starts off focusing on this non-proven claim that Mattel steals its ideas. The statement "Although Mattel has never accepted responsibility" implies that this company is trying to hide something and is shady. Then the summary goes into claims about fabricating reports. As someone who works in the toy industry, I can tell you that companies like this are very careful to document any and all ideas that come from outside sources so they don't get sued, just as the above writer stated. If these sorts of allegations are to be included, they really need to be referenced. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.231.218.187 (talk • contribs) 03:09, 10 October 2007 (GMT)

Please sign and date your comments by typing ~~~~ at the end.

The problems with this section have already been noted (hence the cleanup and unsourced tags). Wikipedia is user-driven, so entries are only as reliable as the people editing them. Generally articles maintain neutrality through the conflict of regular contributors.

Since this article doesn't seem to have anyone sufficiently interested in it to make regular contributions and edit it, it's fallen into disrepair. If you have an interest in this subject please feel free to create an account and edit appropriately. The History section has been tagged as unsourced since September, so it is now safe to delete any content considered to be doubtful (whether it is contentious or not) and I have done this. For future reference, unsourced contentious (including libellous) material can be removed without discussion or warning. It is easy to compare versions of articles and to add content back in where required and Wikipedia take the view that any potentially damaging material should not be treated as fact until proven.

Anyone wishing to add new content to this article (or any others), in particular factual statements, should please note that references are required.

CaNNoNFoDDa^Talk 18:19, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Fix up: removal of irrelevancies

I've removed the following as it was in the wrong section entirely, lacked references and was abourt the toy industry in general rather than specifically about Mattel:

65% of Mattel toys are made in China. The seasonality of toy products affects job stability, including irregular and fragmented work, unstable employment, and deprivation of long term benefits such as pension and progressive training. Peak production seasons are associated with long working hours that affect the health and safety of workers. Chinese toy factories lack adequate fire drills and fire prevention. Common cases have been reported on faints and deaths of workers. Lack of Occupational Safety and Health Rights policy is common. Chinese factories use physical check-ups as a screen test to remove workers without fair compensation or protection.All these issues have started gaining public attention. The public outcry against Mattel for the conditions in the Chinese factories has been rising. Altair 13 (talk) 09:28, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Also deleted the CPSC section as irrelevant/general:

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission

The CPSC's work to ensure the safety of consumer products - such as toys, cribs, power tools, cigarette lighters, and household chemicals. It is a very powerful government body in the US. Under the Consumer Product Safety Act, a company that distributes products in this country has an obligation to report and to recall potentially hazardous products. Product recalls can be enormously expensive and damaging to a brand image. On the other hand, failure to notify the Consumer Product Safety Commission of a potentially defective imported product will subject an importer to huge fines and penalties and even worse publicity.

Altair 13 (talk) 09:28, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Corrections needed, recalled items are not accurate in dates or quantities. The magnet recall started August 2006, and was expanded later in 2007. First amounts were 2.4 million and second amount was 7.3 million per CPSP page. What is the correct method fluid events? The mentioned website is very specific on injuries and events.

NPOV

This article seems to have a personally invested tone, and even sarcasm at some points. Needs to be cleaned up. Hayden120 (talk) 09:06, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Mattel Against Winx Club ??

I'll try to look this up, since there is no info on why mattel is against Winx Club since they released the toyline.(mich (talk) 18:32, 8 March 2009 (UTC))

Recentism

On Friday, September 3, 2010 a mini "Flash Crash" appears to have occurred in Mattel shares which plunged 22% in pre-market trade for no apparent reason, only to recover shortly thereafter.[6]

Since this is in the lead, presumably this means this is one of the six or so most important facts/events that has ever happened to this company? That seems unlikely...--86.161.2.228 (talk) 02:40, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

I agree that it's undue weight for that information to be in the lead, but my guess would be that the editor added it there because there is no general history section in which to put it. Restructuring the article in chronological order would open up for information like this to be incorporated in the main text of the article with better context and more appropriate weight. Siawase (talk) 11:42, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Stray book info

I noticed the following book info at the bottom of the page: "Kettelkamp, Sean: Chatty Cathy and Her Talking Friends; Schiffer Publishing (1998)". I have no idea if it's a stray reference or a "further reading" suggestion or what, but it didn't belong where it was so I've moved it here. 28bytes (talk) 22:21, 5 January 2012 (UTC)