User:Aleal/Talk Archive 06

Archive of Andrew's talk page.

Name?
Hey, you said I should give you my name for the community portal? I'm really new to this, so if this isn't the right avenue, I'm sorry. My name: Aislinn Caverly Drakelah 20:39, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
 * That works, thanks! Yeah, we do things a little differently from Wikipedia. In general, responses are made on the talkpage, article or user, where the comment was made. Enjoy your stay! Andrew Leal (talk ) 20:47, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Paying attention
Yay, welcome back! It's great to see you again; I missed you! Oh, this is lovely.

I want to explain what I did with the attention tags last week... Michael got excited about the attention tags, and put up a whole bunch of them without explanation. I realized that that could become a problem -- you don't want people randomly tagging everything with attention tags. I think requiring an explanation means that the attention tag is used in a thoughtful way.

More importantly, if there's no explanation of what kind of attention is needed, then it's hard to know when you're finished. Let's say I add some stuff to the Mr. Callahan page -- but I don't take the attention tag off, because I'm not sure it's enough. Then somebody else comes along and looks at the page. The attention tag is there, but there's no explanation on the talk page. At that point, the person looking at the page has no idea what needs to be done -- after all, there's some text there now -- so they leave it alone. Therefore, the attention tag stays on that page essentially forever, and the category gets choked up with pages that don't need attention anymore.

So that was my rationale. Sorry, I know it was annoying to do that while you were gone... -- Danny (talk ) 12:43, 11 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Aha! Part of the problem with vacations is the Wiki is so active, only changes from the last two or at most three days show up in Recent changes, even with the 500 limit. Plus most of the detagged pages were added right off, since it was several days later when the talk box function was added, and now I'm trying to figure out what other lousy pages need the tag re-added (some may never be improved, perhaps, but it's worth leaving it on until it's clear that nobody knows or cares about Grandpa Grouch or whatnot). I see your reasoning now (I left the tag on France for example, for while it's now more than four words, it's still very much a stub, and a reminder to work on it later, but probably The Odyssey Channel can be detagged now). It makes sense (I still don't know what work Guillermo wanted done on Western), though it is a little tiresome for obvious stubs, on dial-up anyway. Almost makes me wonder if we *do* need a stub tag as well as attention tag, for pages where there's exactly one item of content (an image or a performer tag) and dash else. Andrew Leal (talk ) 14:54, 11 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Oh, and thanks for the welcome back! I wound up going to Disneyland after the believers convention, and saw Muppet*Vision 3D again, and thus can now actually say something about Muppet Labs involvement. Though I so wish there was a way to get pictures of Rizzo the Rat as Mickey Mouse. Maybe I need to take a digital camera or something next time. Andrew Leal (talk ) 14:54, 11 July 2006 (UTC)


 * We've all seen the amazing, seductive power of answering talk page questions. You and I have both had the experience of seeing a talk page question and then doing hours of work to answer that question, even though we were intending to work on something else.


 * So if I see a picture of Mr. Callahan's hands and no question, I sort of shrug and forget about it. If I see, "So who was Mr. Callahan? Where did he appear? Did he interact with any characters?", then I think, yeah, he interacted with Polly Lobster and Clueless Morgan, and he was in the UK skits on a few episodes... and before I know it, I'm adding that information to the article. The questions are the spur that inspires people to add to the article.


 * I also think it's important to remember that the "Pages that need attention" category is first and foremost for new contributors, and it needs to be newbie-friendly. We want people who are new and want to help to be able to look at that category and instantly understand what it is that they can help with. Just seeing a bunch of stubs with no explanation would be disheartening for them.


 * So I think it's helpful if the explanation also includes where people can go to find the information we're looking for. Is it in a book? Do you need to look at an episode? Can you find it with a Google search? Is it just a matter of looking at "What links here" and gathering information from around the wiki?


 * I would suspect that over time, we'll find that Attention tags with clear explanations get taken care of quickly, and the ones with vague explanations hang around in the category forever. Taking a minute to explain the Attention tag is the investment you need to actually get somebody to pay attention to the page. Says me. -- Danny (talk ) 16:37, 11 July 2006 (UTC)


 * It also leads to rambling "I don't know the answer, and I'm going to tell you in 500 words or more" responses, but that happens on the Wiki anyway. Would a note in the edit history be okay, or an attention-stub tag? We deleted a lot of them, but there's still a few Callahan/Grandpa Grouch pages around (pages which frankly, newbies with little to no Muppet knowledge or tapes and just enthusiasm can't really work on), and dial-up hates me. Opening all those talk pages when there's no real question, just letting someone know the page is akin to the motion of a vacuum cleaner, is a bit frustrating. Or of course, I could just give up and wait for somebody else to do it, since it seems like those are sort of dead spots anyway, and even the people who created the pages and by rights should know *something* are ignoring them. I never saw a UK Muppets Tonight spot, so Callahan is a complete mystery to me. Andrew Leal  (talk ) 16:47, 11 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Those are dead spots because nobody has asked the question yet. "I don't know the answer, and I'm going to tell you in 500 words or more" is way better than nothing. Even better than that is, "I don't know the answer, and here's how you can find out." I'll fix up the attention explanations a little, and you'll see what I mean. -- Danny (talk ) 16:53, 11 July 2006 (UTC)


 * That's the problem, the pages are so vague, I don't even know where to tell people to find out. Callahan, yeah, I'll mention the UK spots now that I know about them, which I didn't, but Grandpa Grouch? He has a performer and is in Muppet Characters, so he must have appeared on the show, but there's no clue as to where or when or in what context. Maybe I'm better off in these cases just forgetting about attention tags and leaving a pointed query on the page of the person who created the page and thus, in theory, has some clue as to what it's about. Andrew Leal (talk ) 17:02, 11 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Okay, I just went through and played with the attention tag explanations. Does it make more sense, now that you can see where I'm going with it? The idea is to make the attention tag as friendly and accessible as possible. "No info, needs expansion" just seems grumpy; nobody's going to want to help with that page. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 17:23, 11 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Also, I agree 100% that a pointed question is better in cases like Grandpa Grouch. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 17:24, 11 July 2006 (UTC)


 * PPS. I think your response on Talk:Max the Dog pretty much proves my point. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 17:25, 11 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I see where you're going now. I especially like Talk:Buster the Horse, with the pronged list, potentially allowing users to build up the article piece by piece, and crossing out items when done. <font color="Blue">Andrew Leal (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 17:29, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Swedish Sesame
Hey babe: I don't know when you're coming back from vacation, so I don't want you to miss Svenska Sesam (Sweden). A new contributor, Henrik, added a whole bunch of info, including the Swedish voice artists. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 21:23, 5 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Still on vacation, but at a public library for about a half an hour. That makes me happy, and will help the individual International pages. The Swedish Cookie was the only one I'd found, I think. The Swedish Wikipedia, I think, had some Fraggle voices I need to import as well when I get back. And there's Le Muppet Show, with a recent semi-controversial redub. <font color="Blue">Andrew Leal (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 23:29, 6 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Bev Sills in Italian: -- <font color="Blue">Scott  (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 23:46, 6 July 2006 (UTC)


 * You should also check out Fragglerne, the Danish Fraggle dub. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 21:15, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Batman
Will wonders never cease? -- <font color="Blue">Scott (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 04:17, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Jason Willinger
I learned two things from renting Zebrahead. #1: This is what Jason Willinger looks like. #2. Don't rent Zebrahead. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 02:46, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Ray Charles
Hey, I'm about to create an article for the "other" Ray Charles. How do you think I should disambiguate it? -- <font color="Blue">Scott (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 16:16, 30 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, he was born Charles Raymond Offenberg, though I'm sort of against using full names just for disambiguation if professionally they were known as something else. Wikipedia uses "Ray Charles (elder)," but that almost implies a familial relationship. So, unless you want to reflect the gag credits from productions like The Muppets: A Celebration of 30 Years and use "The Other Ray Charles," I'd go with "Ray Charles (music consultant)". <font color="Blue">Andrew Leal (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 16:33, 30 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Oh, and though it may not help the disambiguation issue, here's a mildly amusing essay on the Ray Charles Singers leader: "I'm doing an album with Ray Charles next week." "Which one? The one who's blind or the one who's deaf?" <font color="Blue">Andrew Leal  (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 16:34, 30 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Cute. Cute joke. I went with Ray Charles (music consultant). -- <font color="Blue">Scott (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 16:49, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

The Magic of the Muppets
Greetings,

My name is Tracey Walsh, I'm 29, and I live in the Seattle metro area.

I've been a fan of both Sesame Street and the Muppet Show, since I was a little boy. Born in 1977, there are a few shows that I recall from my early childhood days.

The Muppet Show was the one show that I clearly recall my entire family stopping to take a moment out of the day, to enjoy the magic of each new Muppet Show episode. The entire production, from the curtain opening, to the very end, was the highlight of my week.

Anyway, thanks for a great Wiki idea. I'll have to post the pictures of one of the rare items that I managed to get for myself, that was used in production -- a Jim Henson handmade original, the back-up Animal muppet.

Cheers,

Tracey

Vacation Pending
Everyone else is doing it, so advance notice that at some undetermined time on Saturday (possibly early morning), I shall be off to California for a week. Hopefully the Wiki will still be recognizable when I get back. <font color="Blue">Andrew Leal (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 22:27, 29 June 2006 (UTC)