Muppet Wiki:Policies and Guidelines

This is a list of the Policies and Guidlines discussed and agreed upon by the Muppet Wiki community. We've been at this for almost three years, but don't have a whole lot of our "agreed upons" written down anywhere for easy reference. As a result, we're often scrambling aorund, trying to figure out when it was we discussed and agreed upon something especially it it was on a user talk page or unobvious talk page. As this article begins in the sandbox, feel free to add items without any attention to keeping things tidy. When at all possible, try to link to the conversation in which we came to a consensus on how we typically do things. If you can't find it, add the item and we can dig it up later. As the page grows, we can look at the possibility of breaking it down into sections if that makes sense.


 * Muppet Wiki:Style Guide


 * We don't link years unless it's relevant to the subject. (CE discussion)


 * An episode page must exist in order to cite it as an EKA. (no redlinked EKAs)


 * Due to the frequency with which videos are removed from YouTube, we try to keep links to that site at a minimum. Some exceptions include accounts owned by regular contributors who are keeping an eye on their own links or cases where wiki information is being sourced. We also never link to anything that's commercially available.


 * Capitalizing foreign language titles


 * Initials spacing


 * Spoilers


 * Embedding videos


 * In/On


 * 's - no consensus


 * Muppet Show guest bios


 * Quoting and bolding song titles


 * Edit summaries


 * Productions "In Development" stay only in that category until the product is released.


 * Character evolution pages should only be created for characters who have had a substantial amount of development


 * Article titles don't need to be described with additional phrases in parentheses unless they're being disambiguated from another article of the same name.


 * Some articles of the same name may show favor to the most prominent occurence of that name such as The Muppet Movie in contrast to The Muppet Movie (video) or The Muppet Movie (soundtrack). Another example would be Dorothy compared with Dorothy (disambiguation).


 * I'm not sure what to do with this, but we talked quite a bit about how to handle non-Muppet Henson stuff here


 * Celebrities for whom we created pages, and those we don't. Category talk:Celebrities


 * Performer boxes are for the main performer(s) of a character only. Performer histories are covered in the article. See Talk:Janice, Talk:Sam the Eagle, Talk:Dr. Teeth, and others.


 * When summarizing fictional events that happened in a TV show, book, or film, the present tense is used unless explicitly dealing with a character's backstory prior to the episode. This rule applies even if the production follows characters over a certain length of time. The exception applies to character pages with long and detailed histories over a span of several (real life) years and projects. To quote Danny: "The point is that the writing always takes place in the present of the moment that you're writing about. If the episode that you're writing about shifts from one sentence to another, then the present tense follows it."


 * There's a certain format we use to title merchandise pages, but I'm not sure what it is. Sesame Street finger puppets (Child Guidance) - good example?


 * Format for international categories -- keeping them separate from US categories -- not listing international releases in "Book appearances", "Audio releases", "Video releases".


 * Every click should give a reader more information than they had before they clicked. We shouldn't have a page that simply repeats information given on the page that links to it. For example -- if a puppeteer only performed in one movie, and the only information that we have about that person is that they performed in that movie, then we don't create a separate page for that puppeteer. (The link on the movie's page already says the name of the puppeteer and the character they performed. The puppeteer's page would only have the name of the movie and the character, so it wouldn't add any extra information to what the reader already knows.)


 * Pages for song composers aren't necessary unless they've worked directly on Muppet/Henson/Sesame projects, they're being referenced (as in Beethoven) or their material has had a significant impact on the topics covered in the wiki (i.e. Harold Arlen). (examples of previous discussions include Talk:Falco and Talk:The Coasters)


 * Lyrics are not allowed on the wiki.


 * Entries are expected to be made with proper grammar, capitalization and spacing.


 * We don't rely on memories for information, unless a considerable consensus can be reached. See more at Muppet_Wiki:FAQ


 * Talk pages are meant to be used as a discussion space for the community to determine the factual outcome of the corresponding article. This space doesn't lend itself well to social conversations about favorite memories or looking for merchandise. This sort of discussion is better suited for fan forums (such as Muppet Central, Tough Pigs, or the comments section of fan blogs such as The Muppet Newsflash or The MuppetCast).


 * Every article should have a Category.


 * Internet fan videos: Category talk:Internet Mentions


 * Article naming, see: Muppet Wiki:Character Naming Conventions, Muppet Wiki:Archibald's List, Muppet Wiki:Cecil the List and their associated talk pages.

Disambiguation pages
The purpose of disambiguation pages is to redirect the user to the page they're looking for. When other links are included, it tends to confuse that process. As such, only the articles being disambiguated should be linked, and any other discernable information should be kept limited to the point that a visitor can determine which of the articles they are looking for. All other pertinent information and wiki links can be found in the following article.
 * more on disambiguation

Sketch collections
Because so many sketches were repeated over the years, and there have been so many in so many episodes, it's hard to commit to saying that "xxx" first appeared in Episode "yyyy". Instead, we list the Earliest Known Appearances, so that if an earlier appearance is found, it can easily be added to the list of appearances, or swapped out as being the Earliest Known Appearance. Citing a season as the first time a sketch appears is not sufficient. Mostly this is due to particular claims of a contributor that "Ernie looked this way is Season xx." That sort of speculation is obviously not conclusive. This dialogue is encouraged on talk pages so that an episode number may be found, but the articles themselves must be supplied with irrefutable proof of date of origin. The best way this can be done is with an episode number so that the information can be double-checked.

Video appearances
On some sketch articles, we note that a particular segment was released on DVD. This should be done only for sketches that were released outside the context of the episode(s) they appeared in.