User talk:Aleal

Show tense
When we make pages about shows, is it "Dragnet is a TV show", or Dragnet was a TV show"? I'm seeing it done differently. -- Ken  (talk ) 01:06, January 25, 2010 (UTC)


 * Good question. We had a discussion waaaay back as far as tense for Muppet/Henson series and concluded that we used the present ("Fraggle Rock is a TV show.") "Was" seems most appropriate for pilots that failed to sell or projects that were abandoned. I think originally, with Dragnet and other shows, the idea was to distinguish if a show is on the air or not, but that becomes moot. Looking at it, it may depend on structure. Dragnet uses is and fits the phrasing (it *is* a pioneering police procedural etc.) whereas Gunsmoke uses was, but it ends with the fact that it was one of the last radio dramas (where present tense doesn't work). So generally, is, and especially in simple statements ("Blank is a show which ran"), was only if context demands it ("Blank was the first show to feature Jim Henson's Muppets as well as juggling armadillos.") In a case like Gunsmoke, we could probably reword easily to standardize (first sentence, "Gunsmoke *is* a Western series which began on radio and went to TV. It *was* one of the last network radio dramas, ending in...") Does that make sense? -- Andrew Leal  (talk ) 02:19, January 25, 2010 (UTC)


 * Yeah, reading a few pages, it looked like shows that are still on the air use "is", and old TV shows use "was", but if we use "is" all the time, then whenever they get cancelled, all we have to do is update the years. I'll clean up stuff as I find it. -- Ken  (talk ) 02:46, January 25, 2010 (UTC)

The woods, as usual
Jeez louise. Did the asylum let out early today? -- Danny (talk ) 06:04, January 21, 2010 (UTC)


 * Yeah, it broke out in a veritable rash. I've mostly been working on the wartime book proposal today (nearly done, but had to step away from it) so I'm glad you took care of some of it (especially the kid; that was a nice message, since I do kind of feel bad when it's obviously not just some nut or jerk but an over-eager kid, in actual age). I finally realized what was, sort of, up with that Zippo guy (who's done weird stuff before anyway); apparently it's because the 40 Years book quotes Fierlinger as saying "I made my first film for Sesame Street in 1971," and he assumed that somehow referred to Teeny etc. So apart from the big violation (ignoring messages and correction), he didn't know how to read/digest information properly either. -- Andrew Leal (talk ) 06:12, January 21, 2010 (UTC)


 * Just a question. Shouldn't we give a talk page message to the kid who's too young?  I don't think she'll know to look in the Block Log for the reason. -- Ken  (talk ) 06:45, January 21, 2010 (UTC)


 * I missed Ken's question before -- people see the reason for their block the next time they try to make an edit, so the young kid saw it. It's a shame that we had to block that kid; they really were adorable edits. -- Danny (talk ) 02:29, January 25, 2010 (UTC)

Birth year format
Hello! Say, do you know if there are certain guidelines on birth years articles, such as what the format is? For instance, when a celebrity has a stage name, is "(b. 19XX)" placed after/before the bolded stage name (i.e. on Ice-T)? Thanks, Matt H.  ( talk ) 21:14, January 20, 2010 (UTC)


 * Hi! Good question, and I may try to say more later (I'm trying to work on something else off-Wiki), but yes and no. There are certain loose guidelines but never formally ratified, so to speak. In general, the rules on celebrities is only birth and death years, not full dates (we save those for the major Muppet Wiki-relevant people instead, the puppeteers, designers, Sesame regulars, Jerry Juhl, Joan Ganz Cooney, etc.) Not all celebrity pages note their stage names (and a lot of them had them) but usually two bolded names is to be avoided (right now Frank Oz is like that, but while it can be debated, it makes more sense as an exception since he's a major topic for us and it's the leader text before several long subdivided sections). My own preference is usually to either a) work the birth name into a narrative format (like on Slim Pickens) if the article warrants it (since by now Pickens is more obscure to most Muppet Wiki visitors than Ice-T) or have it follow the main name used for the article title. Bob Hope works well, for example, while Tony Randall in my opinion should be reworked so it's clearer. There's also inconsistency, as you can see, as to how many dashes or spaces to use when separating birth and death dates, so i twould be worth bringing up at Current Events, but in general, the format currently used on Ice-T is messy and ugly (the fact that he's a rapper and the stage name is more obviously not what he was christened at birth is a minor complication, but it can and should still be reworked to avoid the double bolding). That's more than I intended to type now, actually, so I should get back to other things, but I'd say feel free to play around with what looks better on Ice-T (you might also look at Mark Twain; different since he's deceased of course and was more apt to maintain a distinction himself between his birth name and penname, but still useful) and then bring it up on Current Events (then if we can get agreement on firm guidelines, we'll add them to the Policy and Guidelines or Style Guide pages for future reference). -- Andrew Leal (talk ) 21:40, January 20, 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the answer! However, I was kind of hoping for an answer about the "(b. XXXX)" being placed before or after the celebrity's real name. The Ice-T article currently reads: Tracy Marrow (b. 1958), better known by his stage name Ice-T. Would the year be placed after Tracy Marrow, or after "Ice-T"? I might have been asking for the wrong thing, but who knows? :-) Thanks, Matt H.  ( talk ) 01:41, January 22, 2010 (UTC)


 * That's why I pointed out Mark Twain. The format would work there if you reversed it: Ice-T is the stage name of rapper and actor Tracy Morrow (b. 1958), or however you want to word it. <font color="Blue">Andrew Leal (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 01:54, January 22, 2010 (UTC)


 * I've fixed it. Hope it looks better now! Matt H.  ( talk ) 00:16, January 23, 2010 (UTC)


 * It looks good! The main logic in my suggestion, by the way, and reason I approach it slightly differently than say Bob Hope (who changed his first name) is that the subject was definitely not born Ice-T. One could argue that "Ice-T" as a persona was born on such and such date, in the way "Mark Twain" didn't exist until Samuel Clemens wrote his first book under that name; that may sound picky and of course we have tons of cases of stage names, but only a few that were specifically chosen *as* stage names for such a specific purpose or sound but never intended to be confused or assumed to be the subject's birth name, compared to many who say chose something that was less "ethnic" sounding or whatever, and more often than not those names were legally changed as well (which again doesn't apply to Ice T or, say, a wrestler and so on). -- <font color="Blue">Andrew Leal (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 01:38, January 23, 2010 (UTC)

Andrew's talk archive

 * Muppet Wiki Talk Archives