User:MuppetArchives/Current Events 18 (March 2007)

Archive of Current events.

Format for album pages
A thought that I had today is that we should figure out how we're going to format the entire album information layout before I (and anybody who wants to help) start any major rewriting. If you look at the first few Sesame Street LPs, there are many different ways that people have been putting in the song titles, names of characters, composer credits, side numbers ("Side 1" vs. "Side one"), and one album even has the copyright year next to every song!

So I feel that we should decide how it should look, and then just basically clean it up. The info is mostly all there already, so it's like 75% done. I just don't want to have to do it again, if we decide something different. -- -- Ken (talk ) 9 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I just tweaked The Sesame Street Book & Record page to be my preferred format. I like having the songs and characters listed, with the writer/composer below in smaller type, and no copyright date. I also want to avoid using bold and all-caps as much as possible -- it always looks like someone's shouting.


 * For layout on the page, my preference is: Opening text description, Track listing, Cast, Production credits. In the case of reissues, the infobox has the information on the original release, and then the reissues are listed in a section under the track listing.


 * That page also has "Album notes" transcribed from the back of the record. Personally, I don't like those, and if it were up to me, I'd take them out. There were 13 albums released in 1974, and they all had the same album notes; I don't think we need to put the same thing on all those pages. I don't think they're that useful, anyway.


 * But that's just my preference. What do other people think? -- Danny (talk ) 15:27, 9 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I mostly like the format. I do wonder if composer info is a bit redundant, if it's on the song page. But it also keeps it consistent for cases where all song info is limited to the album, so I'm okay with it. I think the only question is how universal the format would be. That is, mainly just for Sesame Street and similar character-song based albums, or for movies too? For example, with Muppet Christmas Carol. The page could use some clean-up (I don't like having the track lengths), but I also don't know if we'd need to put Paul Williams' name under everything. -- Andrew Leal (talk ) 16:13, 9 March 2007 (UTC)


 * That's a good point. I think we could say that we'll have composer info unless it's the same composer for the whole album. (Which basically is just five Muppet movies anyway and a couple of specials; the others have all different composers like the Sesame albums.)


 * I think the composer info is notable enough to keep on the album page -- I can imagine a reader being interested in that, in the same way that they would be interested in the characters. Yeah, it's on the song pages, but so are the characters. But I don't think the copyright date is inherently interesting in the same way; that's just clutter to me. -- Danny (talk ) 18:10, 9 March 2007 (UTC)


 * That all makes sense to me. -- Andrew Leal (talk ) 18:21, 9 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Danny, I saw what you did with SS1, and did you NOT want to make the characters' names linkable? I liked having that on there.  I'm going to have to go back over there and make some notes, because it's too hard to remember what all the variations have been on the LP's.  And as far as album notes, it wasn't just the first series.  Pretty much the entire run of the label looked the same on the back.  But I like having all that on there, because if a person lands on a page, and the names are linkable, they can read about the cast and crew, and if I were coming here as a regular person, that's the kind of stuff I'd like to read about. -- Ken  (talk ) 06:51, 10 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I didn't unlink the character names; they must not have been linked in the first place. I agree with you, linking the character names is good. I'll go add those in on The Sesame Street Book & Record.


 * As for the album notes, I don't think they work at all. The cast and credits are already linked. If somebody wants to know about Matt Robinson, then we have a huge, awesome article about him, which is way more comprehensive (and more up-to-date) than the four lines about him from the back of a 1970 album. I really want to take those out. -- Danny (talk ) 17:47, 10 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm mixed on the album notes. They're not all identical, and are useful in showing how CTW was promoting the show and performers at the time (like albums where Fran Brill is "introduced" as a new performer). Some of the awesome info on Matt Robinson came from those liner notes, and it's good to have them to go back to. On the other hand, I agree with you that they don't really work on the album pages. I think they're useful artifacts, just like the stuff you've been digging up from the archives, but mostly for internal use in Wiki research by us addicts; they don't really help the casual reader or improve the album pages as articles of themselves, and can be distracting and cluttery. I'd be in favor of collecting all the ones which aren't directly repeating themselves in a Sandbox article, for our own use as reference, but taking them off the album pages. The exception should probably be for those where the notes are doing something different, like The Year of Roosevelt Franklin, where the notes are quotes from people and politicians about Roosevelt, and summaries of each bit in Roosevelt's voice. That's fun to read on its own, and gives the album a context and captures some of the flavor of it, in a way which an early Loretta Long bio doesn't. That's my take on it anyway. -- Andrew Leal (talk ) 17:58, 10 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree completely. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 18:03, 10 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Hmmmmm. I'm just thinking out loud here, but I was considering everything on the back covers as album notes.  Are you talking about leaving all cast and credits in each entry, but moving stuff like "Will Lee was on Broadway in 1929" somewhere else, or incorporating it into his bio page? -- <font color="Blue">Ken  22:29, 10 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Yeah, we're talking about the sections labeled "notes," the biographies, the "Messages from Sesame Street," etc. I think the cast and credits sections should stay; if it's decided they should be reformatted (currently, like the notes, they mimic their appearance on the album packaging, and not the way we handle credits on other pages), that's fine. But I don't think they should be excised. -- <font color="Blue">Andrew Leal (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 22:34, 10 March 2007 (UTC)


 * No, those are cool, although I wouldn't mind formatting them in a different way. I really don't feel like we need to mimic the back of the albums at all. What's on the back of the albums is information that we can use, nothing more. Actually, now that I think about it, posting the "Album Notes" is really weird. We don't reprint the back cover of books. Why are we doing that for albums? -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 22:38, 10 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Yeah, now that I look at it again, the "Production credits" don't make any sense either. The album credits Joan Ganz Cooney as Executive Producer, Danny Epstein as Music Coordinator... These aren't album-specific credits. This list also has Engineers on it, and folks like that, which we decided that we weren't going to list in this discussion from January.


 * Just to explain to Ken: The reason why we're just figuring this out now is that a contributor named Scotty J. created most of these Sesame album pages. He's a big albums fan too, and he did a lot of work early on putting those pages together. But that was back in January 2005, and the wiki style has evolved quite a bit since then. Nobody's bothered to go back and really look at this format until now, because you've come along and brought it up. So now we have to look at what Scotty set up, and see if it fits into the current style.


 * So I'm going to take out the "technical" production credits, and just leave the "creative" credits -- producer of the album, writer, cast. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 22:55, 10 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, I was going to say something after my Will Lee question, but I backed out to check something, and I lost my page. But oh well.  My post was probably too much opinion anyway.  I was going to say that it would be neat to preserve the Columbia albums as they were in one form or another, since for the first 5 years, they were all we had.  But now that I read Danny's comment that we don't copy the backs of books, he's right.  I'm sure the backs of early SS books had cool stuff to read on them, too.  I guess I'm just attached to early SS LP's, and I had no problem with having every last word on there.  The first thing I thought was, "Cool!"  I guess the bottom line is that this is an encyclopedia, not a fan site (and I keep having to remind myself of that).  So I guess we should use the relevant info as it helps to create articles about the people involved.  The main thing that I would use in coming to a site like this, is to see what songs were on which album, and what other albums a song was on, and we're already doing that. -- <font color="Blue">Ken  (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 23:07, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

New article box
We already have this on Help:New page, but one of our new contributors didn't see it, and I think that might be true for other new people. Is there a more prominent place we could put this? Would the bottom of the main page work? -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 13:56, 9 March 2007 (UTC)


 * The box is currently Help:New page. The problem is it's only linked from a couple of user pages and the Help:Contents, which itself is one link away from the FAQ. So it's not very accessible right now. I don't have any suggestions/preference on placement, but I agree that we should make it more visible. -- <font color="Blue">Andrew Leal (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 14:02, 9 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Sorry, Andrew and I cross-posted as I was figuring out that it's on that help page and edited my post... -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 14:03, 9 March 2007 (UTC)


 * The problem is that not enough new users read the help pages. Is there a way to make it more clear that Help means the place where you can seek guidance on wiki doings? —Scott ( talk ) 15:50, 9 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Maybe we should add it to that top bit of info on the main page, right after "Check out the FAQ"... -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 15:59, 9 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Actually, we should just replace that link with Help:Contents. The FAQ is a part of the Help section anyway. —Scott ( talk ) 16:11, 9 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I can dig it. Do you still think it's relevant to put that new article box anywhere? -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 19:48, 9 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't know if it's practical, both in terms of coding and space taken up, but a logical place to my mind would be below the search box, so users can find it easily. The help section is great, but then they have to browse topics, then click to find the box. It's not *that* much work, but many new users are probably in a hurry, and if feasible (i.e., if it doesn't wreck the set-up and just serve as an ugly distraction), I don't see anything wrong with making it a little easier for them. -- <font color="Blue">Andrew Leal  (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 20:20, 9 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't know if we can put it below the search box -- and I actually wouldn't want it to be mistaken for the search box. But it's good to keep thinking outside the box, so to speak. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 20:21, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

MSN Article
Not a great article by any stretch, but I though someone might be interested, if only for the ridiculous title: MSN: Is it Time for Big Bird to Die? --Cantus Rock
 * And I normally so like Martha's columns. =(  Powers 12:24, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Search test
Hi folks. The latest improvements to search are about ready, and we want to try it out on a busy wiki. But there may be glitches of course, so I wanted to see if you would volunteer as guinea pigs! ;) You can see what it will look like here.  Any objections to the test?  Thanks -- Sannse 08:30, 8 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi, Lisa! I don't know, I have such mixed feelings about this. I don't want to be a bad sport, especially when we're always asking for fixes and improvements. But I know that we're hoping to start another test soon, turning off anonymous edits, and I would hate for unforeseen search problems to get in the way of that test. What do you think about that? -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 14:10, 8 March 2007 (UTC)


 * It appears pretty and workable enough, however there are several functions that are broken. 1) I don't like that we can't split up search results into page title matches and page text matches. 2) If I'm on Muppet Wiki (or Lost Wiki or Star Trek Wiki, etc) why would I want to search Wikipedia? Already most folks confuse the two, and isn't the point to help build up Wikia rather than send people to Wikipedia? 3) The phrase "all wikis" might be confusing to some. That header should be more Wikia specific. 4) Searching within a template finally works, but not within a table. That's a huge problem for us as much of our content is within tables. 5) Searching for a page containing two words in separate parts of the article does not work at all. —Scott ( talk ) 16:10, 8 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I don't know if we're temperamentally the best guinea pigs. Because this is such a busy wiki, we need really good functionality, and if there's a problem with the search, it'll really frustrate our most active users. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 18:07, 8 March 2007 (UTC)


 * It's a busy wiki we need... it won't get a real test on a less active one. But no matter :) thanks anyway -- Sannse 18:38, 8 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Okay... Thanks for asking us, though. We always appreciate the attention. :) -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 19:35, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Scott, I'm sorry, I meant to reply to your comments. I've added them all to our (off wiki) bugs and feedback page. I think the only one I disagree with is 2. I search Wikipedia several times a day, usually for the same term I'm looking for on Wikia. Being able to do this while staying on the wiki I'm working on is very useful (like many, I use a tabbed browser). Hopefully others will find it equally useful and so stay on Wikia, rather than being distracted off. Either way, I think it's a useful feature to give our users. One of the bugs you found (no. 5) has been fixed, hopefully the others will be nicely fixable too. Thanks again for the feedback -- Sannse 12:52, 12 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I think the tabbed search is cool. It won't be useful for everybody, but if you don't like it, it's harmless. I like the idea of using the search to connect each wiki with the rest of the wikiverse, as long as the search for the wiki you're on doesn't suffer in some way. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 16:22, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

George Zima
Apparently this dancer, who was on Broadway for 14 years, was on Sesame Street as Pete the Street Sweeper. Does anyone with better knowledge of the earlier years than I remember a segment like this? (He also acted as the back of a dancing cow puppet for an Ethel Merman show, and was on Captain Kangaroo.) --  Zanimum 17:09, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

n@n: Jimmy Wales
This prominent podcast interviewed Jimmy Wales, and Jimmy mentioned this site. -- Zanimum 19:50, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Is that the same podcast from last month? —Scott ( talk ) 20:16, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
 * It is. -- <font color="Blue">Andrew Leal (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 20:25, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Yeah, we'd heard that one -- but thanks, Nick! If you find anything else, please let us know. It's cool to see the wiki mentioned out there in the world. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 20:41, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Did you also already see the Fortune magazine article? -- Zanimum 20:16, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Albums template
We've needed an albums box for a long time, to match our book and episode templates. I've created a first draft of an album template, which I'm testing out on The Sesame Street Monsters!, The Muppet Movie (soundtrack) and Grover Sings the Blues. What do people think? Is there information that should be in that box that isn't? -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 16:54, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm confused why they're being called "Songs From" whatever. Couldn't we just have it say, "Album Title"?  And are we going with British or American spelling of "catalog(ue)"?  I've been meaning to bring up what spelling we're using, since I've seen different spellings of words in various places.  Anyway, I would go with "Title", "Label", "Year", and "Catalog Number".  Or something to that effect, as long as those 4 items are in the box. -- <font color="Blue">Ken  (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 05:51, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
 * The thing is, titles don't actually belong in a template. The title is at the top of the article, and the first text. "Songs from" is to denote what it's taken from at a glance, in the same way the episode etemplate notes the series. If it doesn't work, I'd say remove it, but I don't think adding the title helps. And generally, we use American spellings, unless it's spelled that way in a quote. -- <font color="Blue">Andrew Leal (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 12:29, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I just looked up "catalogue" vs "catalog". It seems like either one is okay in the US. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 13:54, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I took the pound sign out. It's an odd character that could potentially confuse the code of any future enhancements we might want to make to the template. I can't think of any other info the template would need, but I'm sure I'll think of something once the template's being used on 100 pages. —Scott ( talk ) 20:14, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Okay, I understand about "Songs From" whatever, but what do we do with albums that are "concept" albums, like Kermit Unpigged, or Bert and Ernie Sing-Along, with either some or all songs not from a show? Other than that, I like the 4 items in the box. -- <font color="Blue">Ken  (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 03:52, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't know if we want to denote this in the box or just in the article itself, but the only other bit of information I could think of would be format(s) - LP, cassette, CD or whatever. -- <font color="Blue">Brad D. (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 04:00, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Ken, for concept albums containing original material the "Songs From" field would be left blank. Brad, a formats section might not be a bad idea. —Scott ( talk ) 04:10, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Oh, format is a very good idea. Let's add that. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 04:12, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Yeah, that's really cool, especially since sometimes albums were re-issued on CTW cassettes years after their original LP release. I'm finding that out now that I'm finally finding LP's from 1983-1984, with titles listed on them that I didn't even know had been released on cassette! -- <font color="Blue">Ken  (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 05:26, 7 March 2007 (UTC)