User:MuppetArchives/Current Events 31 (Jan-June 2009)

Archive of Current events.

User creation log
I've noticed a lot of new people joining lately, because I see something called the User Creation Log in Recent Changes. Is this a new way to join? I'm confused because normally somebody starts editing, and then they get welcomed, but I don't see any wiki activity by these new people, other than just setting up a new user account. -- Ken (talk ) 01:35, 29 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Yeah, we just upgraded to the new version of the wiki software (MediaWiki 1.14) last week, and that's a change in the software. It now tells us in Recent changes when a new user creates an account. The user creation log has always existed; it just didn't show up in RC. I'm not crazy about the change myself.


 * I was starting to leave welcomes for the new people, but then I thought that maybe it was better to wait for them to make an edit. That way, they get the automatic welcome message, and it's actually meaningful -- they're getting thanked for making an edit, which is more personal and interesting than just thanking them for creating a user name. -- Danny (talk ) 01:51, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Spitting Image

 * moved from Talk:Teddy Ruxpin
 * Speaking of Jim Henson getting involved with another tv show. The Museum of Broadcast Communications website claims Jim Henson turned down to take part on UK puppet show "Spitting Image".


 * "The pair quickly decided the show should use puppets, which, like the Muppets, required two operators, for the face and one arm. Jim Henson, in fact, turned down an offer to collaborate on the puppet workshop. The first puppet designs were bogged down by expensive, heavy electronics needed just to make their eyes move. After several months without any film being shot, Fluck cobbled together a simple mechanism using steel cable and air bulbs. They also picked up Tony Hendra of the National Lampoon (and later of Spinal Tap) as a writer, and their producers: Jon Blair, a producer of current affairs programming, and John Lloyd of the Not the Nine O'Clock News. Spitting Image, the pilot's title, exhausted the resources of several backers, including computer executive Clive Sinclair, before it was completed at a cost of 150,000 pounds, a record for a light entertainment program. Source : The Museum of Broadcast Communications"


 * Hope this helps-- ''MuppetDanny (talk ) 13:56, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Test site -- temporary talk page message snafu
Hi guys! There's a temporary problem with talk page messages -- I'm going to get it cleared up by tomorrow, but I want you to know what's up. Tor, one of our engineers, is helping me test a new feature. I asked him to set up a test site for me using Muppet Wiki as the base, so that I could see it working in content that I'm familiar with. He set up the site, tor5.wikia, using the live Muppet database.

Now I've found that there's a weird side effect -- when we get user talk page messages, that message is showing up both on Muppet and on Tor5. So it looks like you're getting the same message in two places -- Muppet and Tmp (the sitename for Tor5). We didn't realize that was going to happen. I'm going to get Tor to take the test site off the live database, which will make this go away -- but he's in Poland, so it may not happen until morning, Poland time. So -- please excuse the inconvenience tonight; I'll get it taken care of as soon as I can. Thanks! -- Danny (talk ) 02:58, 21 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Okay, this is fixed now... Please let me know if you see anything strange! -- Danny (talk ) 15:32, 21 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I mean, y'know... stranger than usual. -- Danny (talk ) 15:32, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

front page news
Since we started including pictures on the right side of the news on the front page, it's created a difference in how people are seeing the length of the news in relation to the length of the pictures depending on your screen resolution. A majority of our visitors are using the current web standard, 1024x768, so they see a more narrow column for the news and images than people with a wider resolution. I just set a fixed width for that section so everyone should be seeing it the same way, and no one should be seeing too many pictures for the short length of the text, or vice versa. Do we care enough that everyone sees the same thing, or should we go back to the way it was before I made the edit where the width is dependant upon your screen resolution? —Scott ( talk ) 18:39, 17 April 2009 (UTC)


 * It's a neat idea; I don't know if it's better or not. The fixed width seems small to me. Is that the largest it can be to fit 800x600? -- Danny (talk ) 18:46, 17 April 2009 (UTC)


 * That's the largest it can be to fit 1024, yeah. Another option I like is to scale the entire page to 1024 which is what our Marvel, DC and Delorean wikis do. Which has almost become a web standard these days. Not many sites, other than newspaper sites, don't have a fixed-width template. —Scott ( talk ) 18:57, 17 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I have a wider resolution (so I'm not in the majority) and it seems too narrow to me (there's a lot of whitespace). The fact that the pictures column and the news column didn't always line up perfectly at the bottom didn't bother me (they still don't line up perfectly for me -- the text is 10 lines, two full news items, longer than the pictures column). But that's below "the fold" for almost all browsers, however everyone with a wide browser now has a somewhat off-putting narrow news column with lots of white space. -- Brad D. (talk ) 19:08, 17 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Yup, that's what you're going to see in a wider view. So, my question is, what's more important: everyone seeing the same length in the news column, or no white space on the sides for the minority that have a wider view? —Scott ( talk ) 19:46, 17 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't think the length of the news column matters much at all. I think it's better to have more text than more pictures, so probably err a little bit on the side of more text. But I'd rather have a little white space below the last picture than have the fixed width. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 20:00, 17 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Okay, I moved it back. As an addendum to Brad's screenshot, here's what the news section looks like in 1280 (which now just recetly matches the percentage of people viewing the site in 1024). —Scott ( talk ) 20:55, 17 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Hmmm... maybe we should move some pictures to the format of Follow That Bird DVD. There is a lot of space. We could put new DVDs there since there are a lot coming out. Then, we can fit pictures for the Latest News section. Webkinz Mania "It's Me!" blahblahblah! Edit Like Mania 21:17, 17 April 2009 (UTC)


 * That's actually a different issue, Webkinz Mania "It's Me!" blahblahblah!, since images on the right doesn't affect the ratio of text to pictures in the way it does when they're on the right. —Scott ( talk ) 21:22, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

I know it doesn't effect but I think we should put new DVD releases or special ones with the format of Follow That Bird. We can fit in more images for news in the Latest News section. Also, I am Webkinz Mania (just made a siggie!) Webkinz Mania "It's Me!" blahblahblah! Edit Like Mania 23:48, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Twitter
I've started experimenting with a Muppet Wiki Twitter account, sending out occasional messages about cool stuff on the wiki. You can check it out at http://twitter.com/MuppetWiki. I've been sending one or two messages a day, mostly with something news-y. It's basically another way to do promotion for the wiki. It's a little mysterious how people find people to follow on Twitter -- some of it is through seeing who your friends follow, some of it is just stumbling across your messages when you're searching on Twitter. Anyway, this gives us a new little avenue to reach out to people who might not know about the wiki. Feel free to start following, and tell people about it. It's been a fun thing to play with so far. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 00:58, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Quality Articles
I have to tell some people that I nominated Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in the quality nominations. Webkinz Mania 22:26, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

bottom of page
Hey everybody! It's bothered me a lot for some time that our anchor links on articles that have citations in the footnotes have never worked properly. So it finally occurred to me that I can use a CSS trick to add some space to the bottom of the page, thus making the links go directly to the line you want to see. That's a big help on pages where there's a big list of citations and clicking the link for [8] takes you to the line for [2]. I don't think people pay attention to those numbers and they're just expecting to be taken to the line they clicked on. When you get to the bottom, and forget what number you're supposed to be reading, you have to scroll back up and find what you were reading, look at the number again, and click back down to the wrong space again. So I added 300px of space to the bottom of every page to solve that problem. The one drawback is that if you often CTRL-END to the bottom of a page, you're just seeing the Wikia spotlights and then some space below it. Do a lot of people do that, and is it important what you see when you do that? Please post here so we can figure out the best solution. —Scott ( talk ) 17:07, 3 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Yeah, Scott and I were just talking about this... I really don't like it. I use Ctrl-End all the time, to jump down to the categories -- and when I do that now, the thing I see is the spotlights and the Wikia footer, instead of article text and categories.


 * It doesn't bother me at all that the footnote doesn't appear as the first line when you click on it. I think this experience is more confusing than helpful -- you don't even see at first glance that there's a footnote there, because your eye is drawn to the colorful faces in the middle of the screen. I think it's actually harder to spot the footnote in that case.


 * So -- I very rarely say this -- but maybe we could take an idea from Wikipedia. :) They have a system of doing footnotes that highlights the footnote that you've clicked on. Check out the footnotes on the Muppet page... How do they do that, and can we do it? -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 17:20, 3 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I have never used Ctrl-End to get to the bottom of a page before, so while that's not an issue for me, it obviously is for the people who do. The footnotes thing has bothered me, too, and I seem to recall we once tried adding space at the blank bottom of the article which didn't really work.  But I quite like the Wikipedia solution. -- <font color="Blue">Peter  (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 17:37, 3 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I asked Kyle, who's my resident expert on everything, and he found the code in Wikipedia -- I just added it to our css, and it works! Go check it out. We should probably add this to the common.css for all of Wikia; it's helpful. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 19:11, 3 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Oh, that's great! I'll take the space out. Just out of curiosity, what do you press CTRL-END so often for? —Scott ( talk ) 22:11, 5 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Yay! I'm really glad this came up, because figuring out how to do the highlighting on the footnotes is something that's occurred to me off and on for a long time, but never strongly enough to make me go and actually find out how to do it. I think it's much better with the highlighting, so this is great.


 * And I use ctrl-end to jump down to the category tags at the bottom of the page. I don't know how everybody else gets to the categories, but that's how I do it. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 22:54, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

new welcome tool
Hey all! So, Danny came up with a great idea that recently went into production with Wikia's techs and was launched last week. This community's always been really passionate about keeping the lines of communication open with new people and making sure they know how to get around the wiki, so that's always been part of our philosophy on other wikis. Unfortunately, not a lot of wikis thought it was as important, and some communities were losing out on great new editors because they would come to a wiki and not know what to do.

So there's a new tool now that welcomes new users in a way that doesn't feel so much like a robot is doing it. About a minute after someone new makes an edit User:Wikia leaves a message for them and signs it with the most recently active admin's signature. We've been seeing really good results on wikis where it's been tested, and the feature is going live Wikia-wide probably this week. At first we thought we would opt-out because we've always been right on top of doing the welcomes ourselves, but User:Wikia works so well, we're thinking it would be a great thing to have during those times when new people don't get a welcome after a few hours, or even a whole day.

The feature is turned on and we can start wacthing it do its thing. One thing we'll have to do is make a slight shift in the way we monitor Recent Changes. Traditionally, we manually look over the list of red talk page links, look at their contributions and decide whether or not to welcome them or revert their vandalism. With User:Wikia at work, we'll have to look instead for red user page links and make our judgement call from there. So, not a big change. And if a vandal gets a welcome from User:Wikia, it's not a big deal so long as we catch them, a process we keep up with now anyway.

So, feel free to toss out any questions or report bugs here. —Scott ( talk ) 23:30, 16 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Actually, it creates a user page too, so: no red user links. There's one other way to see new contributors -- if you click "show bots" on RC, then you'll see the welcomes -- they have an edit summary that says "welcoming new contributor". There's also just plain ol' not recognizing somebody's name, but obviously that doesn't work all the time. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 23:54, 16 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Yeah, sorry 'bout that. I didn't realize a userpage was being created, too. So, for checking for vandalism, it just occured to me that we can use this link Special:Contributions/Wikia. —Scott ( talk ) 23:56, 16 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Oh, yeah, that too. I was hoping that I could figure out how to set it in preferences so that I always see bots, but I can't figure it out... Dumb ol' MediaWiki. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 23:59, 16 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I just added Special:Contributions/Wikia to my personal sidebar. If folks are interested in doing that themselves, feel free to take a look at my custom page: User:Scarecroe/Monaco-sidebar. —Scott ( talk ) 00:03, 17 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I figured out another way to do it -- right now, my bookmark goes to Special:Recentchanges. I can change that bookmark to: http://muppet.wikia.com/index.php?title=Special:RecentChanges&hidebots=0 -- the &hidebots=0 sets it to show the bot edits. Then I can scan down for the edit summary, or look for Nb on the left side... -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 00:16, 17 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm also gonna make my own sidebar; that's a good idea. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 00:18, 17 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Oh, yeah, that works great. I put this in my sidebar:




 * http://muppet.wikia.com/index.php?title=Special:RecentChanges&hidebots=0|Recent changes


 * That gives me a Recent changes button that shows bots. Neat! -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 00:21, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Whatever works best for you. The tiny little bs don't stand out for me as much as redlinks, so I'm sticking to Special:Contributions/Wikia. —Scott ( talk ) 00:45, 17 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Yeah, as long as we've got options. I'd forget to click on the contributions thing, but I'm always looking through RC. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 00:51, 17 March 2009 (UTC)


 * So, we've got ways that work for us. Are we now looking to ask the other admins to add a step to their routine? They either have to click Show Bots and refresh RC or use a special link to look for new users. Can we not list User:Wikia as a bot so everyone always sees it in RC? —Scott ( talk ) 01:13, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Sony Wonder VHS and DVD
If anybody has any late Sony Wonder editions of Sesame Street VHS's and DVD's (including Elmo's World), please contact me on my talk page. I'm trying to document all of the reissues, and the numbering system gets really weird before, during, and after the transition to Genius, so I can't tell from looking in library listings which company put them out without actually looking at them. If anybody's interested, let me know, and I'll explain more. -- <font color="Blue">Ken (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 02:48, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm also finding what appears to be confusing numbering on the Random House videos. So let me know if you have any of those, too. -- <font color="Blue">Ken (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 03:55, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Plush, Dolls and Toys
In another of my occasional efforts to standardize the merchandise pages, I've noticed that we currently use the words "plush" and "dolls" to describe the same thing. The categories are Muppet Plush, Sesame Street Plush, Fraggle Rock Plush, etc., but within those categories, we have both Muppet dolls (Fisher-Price) and Muppet plush (Disney Store).

Personally, I don't really care which one we use -- I go back and forth between them from moment to moment. But I'd like to pick one and make everything fit that, so... which one should we use?

While we're at it, I wouldn't mind combining some of the toy-related Merchandise categories. We've got Muppet Toys, Muppet Plush, Muppet PVC Figures and Muppet Games, and I find myself going back and forth between these categories whenever I'm working on toy stuff. I think these could all be combined into a more inclusive Muppet Toys category without much heartache. Ditto Sesame Street, Fraggle Rock, etc. What do people think? -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 06:20, 17 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I've always thought of "plush" as stuffed animals, and "dolls" as human-like figures. In the Disney world, plush would be a big stuffed Mickey Mouse, and a doll would be a Barbie-like toy of Cinderella.  But Muppet stuff gets complicated, because there are also hand puppets.  To me, those are more plush than dolls, except that the Miss Piggy hand puppet actually says "doll" on it.  Other than that, I would use plush.


 * Maybe Troy has some more thoughts on this. He's a used toy dealer. -- <font color="Blue">Ken  (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 06:39, 17 February 2009 (UTC)


 * We covered some of the problems with dolls as a term/mass grouping some time ago here, mostly because it was a weird scattershot collection. A page like the Fisher-Price one is a mixture of plush toys and puppets. Only the Barbie-style dress-ups at the bottom are more doll-like (and Scooter a little) but even they're stuffed. Right now, it's doublecategorized in plush and puppet toys. I'm a little confused by that page, in fact, since it's such a random assemblage, and Fisher-Price's Muppet Show Stick Puppets gets a separate page. Either way, plush is a more accurate designation for the mixture of dress-ups, puppets, and cuddlies currently on that page. But they're really toys, plain and simple.


 * I think Muppet Games is diverse enough to be worth keeping seperately, and definitely action figures (thanks to Palisades), but right now Category:Muppet Toys is actually just those which aren't otherwise categorized and with a see also to PVCs but to none of the other related categories, except through the overarching merchandise. I'm not sure just dumping everything together would work since there's at least one or two as mentioned where it would just make it harder to navigate, and I know you don't really want a "Miscellaneous Toys" category, but right now, what we call Muppet Toys is just a minute selection.


 * Most visitors probably aren't looking for Muppet dartboards and navigating to the right place when looking for stuffed animals or playsets is difficult. And then some of the items in individual categories are arguably not toys but collectibles; I don't mean Palisades (which even when collected, or done so by Muppet fans or *toy* collectors) but things like the photo puppet replicas, which aren't really intended to be played with and which may or may not involve plush at all, but they certainly don't fit the standard definition of stuffed toys.


 * So it's probably a matter of going through all the relevant categories and figuring out what to do. -- <font color="Blue">Andrew Leal (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 10:19, 17 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree that a Master Replicas photo puppet shouldn't be categorized as a plush/doll/toy. They are designed to be display items and are really more collectible than playthings. They are replicas of the official photo puppets - these are not just really nice stuffed animals, these are photo puppets. -- <font color="Blue">Brad D. (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 10:38, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Okay, this is very helpful. I agree with lots of things people said, so I'll get those out of the way first: I agree, photo puppets aren't toys; they should be in collectibles. I agree that the Muppet dolls (Fisher-Price) page should be split up into beanbags, Dress-Up Dolls, etc.; it's just something we haven't done yet. You're right about lumping in Games -- I withdraw my suggestion of Games.

And most of all, I agree that what we're now calling Muppet Toys is a weird catch-all for the stuff that isn't in any other category. I know I keep nudging these categories and playing around with them, expanding and contracting them, but I think that's part of the process of figuring out how to organize all this information. As we keep growing and adding more pages, parts of the system that made sense a year ago don't make sense anymore.

Another piece, which I think we can fix at the same time, is the confusion with Muppet Collectibles, Muppet Art Collectibles, and Muppet Figurines. I created Figurines two years ago, and Nate created Collectibles and Art Collectibles last year, and I don't think any of them work -- they still confuse me. It makes more sense to put those together, and then that helps us figure out the difference between Collectibles and Toys.

So then there are two big groups that we're talking about -- Toys / Plush / PVCs on one side, and Collectibles / Art Collectibles / Figurines on the other side. My suggestion is to combine the groups into a Toys category, and a Collectibles category.

The basic distinction between Toys and Collectibles is that Toys are meant to be played with, and Collectibles are meant to be looked at. When you're dealing with toy collectors, that distinction breaks down a little -- a PVC figure could be a toy or a collectible, depending on whether you intend to play with it or put it on display.

So I think it makes sense to add another element to the distinction, which is: Collectibles are fragile; Toys aren't. A PVC figure goes in Toys because you can display it, but it's also possible to play with it without breaking it. You can't play with a ceramic figure, a porcelain doll, a poster or a snowglobe; those are designed to be looked at and occasionally dusted. That's why the photo puppets also go in Collectibles -- you can play with them, but they're expensive and sort of fragile, so you wouldn't.

So that takes care of the category distinction -- now on to the articles. Within the Toys category, what do we call a doll and what do we call plush?

My suggestion is: Plush is fuzzy and squishy; dolls are plastic. Now, lots of toys have both fuzzy and plastic parts, but I think it's possible to say that a plush toy is mostly fuzzy with occasional plastic parts, while a doll is mostly plastic with occasional fuzzy parts.

For example: Muppet Treasure Island dolls are actually plush -- it's mostly fuzzy and soft, with plastic eyes. Ditto the stuffed animals and beanbags on Muppet dolls (Fisher-Price). On the other hand, Muppet dolls (Mattel) and the Santa Kermit doll are dolls, because they have plastic heads. Muppet puppets (Ideal Toys) are plush, Muppet dolls (Sababa) are plush, Muppet High dolls are dolls. And so on.

What do you guys think? -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 06:12, 18 February 2009 (UTC)


 * So far, it all makes perfect sense to me, especially merging the collectible categories and renaming those pages mentioned. With a clear definition, as you suggested, both a Muppet Plush and Muppet Dolls category would work, but the latter would be pretty small (and I think, as mentioned before, we'd really need to leave out colorforms kits and paperdolls and such), so it's another area where a merged toys would make sense.


 * I think my biggest concern is the very large Category:Muppet Action Figures, which due to Palisades, would kind of drown out everything, so I think that needs to be kept. We could just use a see also, but it would be nice to find a way to use Muppet Toys as a parent category while including any subcats which are justifiable and make sense, but not otherwise. I'm not sure that's doable, though, so it may have to be a mixture of categories and articles (as we've gradually begun doing more often but which still looks messy).


 * And looking around, there's things like Category:Puppet Toys, which is completely uncategorized and thus can't be found at all when browsing merchandise (and which is basically a mixture while most of the others categories are by franchise/universe, but strangely excludes Muppet Workshop Puppet Kits and includes things like plastic Fisher-Price figures with a stick, which were called puppets but were really plastic toy figures).


 * I'll look at it some more later, but we're definitely making good headway towards figuring out a better way to handle this stuff and clean up some of the odd old messes. -- <font color="Blue">Andrew Leal (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 07:12, 18 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I haven't mentioned Action Figures, because I agree they should be kept separate. Those are actually in a different format than the other pages -- if they were formatted like the rest, it would just be one big "Muppet action figures (Palisades Toys)" page. I don't want to reformat them, because I think those pages work great the way they are, so we might as well leave them in the Action Figures category and have a See also in the category text.


 * I don't know what to do with the Puppet Toys category -- Scott set it up, and wrote text on the category page explaining that it's a cross-universe thing. I don't have any particular love for it, but I don't think it does any harm. It depends on if Scott loves it or not. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 21:56, 18 February 2009 (UTC)


 * By the way -- I was thinking that I would check in on this stuff with Wendy, because she works a lot on the merchandise stuff. But I just talked to Scott, and he said that Wendy's away for a little while and she'll be back next week. If this was a controversial thing, then I'd probably say let's wait until Wendy comes back, but it seems like we're all agreeing about everything, so I may just go ahead and do stuff, and leave her a nice note about it for when she comes back. My guess is that she'll be just as happy as we are to have some clearer guidelines about this stuff. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 01:00, 19 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Yeah, guidelines are good. My issue with puppet toys is really just that it's there, isolated, not in any other category, so it's inaccessible to the casual visitor. So would it just go in Merchandise or would we try to somehow fit it into toys (the overarching toys is by universe, but it could probably house something like this)? I don't mind it being it's own thing, but anyone who wants to see all the puppet toys should be able to find it (since the items are double categorized, which wasn't initially apparent, a see also to the larger Toys category probably isn't an issue). Probably just plunk in merchandise as its own thing would be easiest. So we're probably looking at a bunch of merges, then, and at least one see also, for the Action Figures. -- <font color="Blue">Andrew Leal (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 01:14, 19 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Oh, okay, that's easy. I didn't realize it wasn't in Merchandise; I just put it in there. We've got similar categories in Merchandise -- Cookie Jars, Greeting Cards, Keychains -- so it fits in fine there. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 01:51, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I wasn't able to take part in this discussion. What's now the best way to look for plush on the wiki? —Scott ( talk ) 22:20, 19 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Once things are moved, plush toys will be listed in the Toys sections (Muppet Toys, Sesame Toys, etc). Plush toys with specific names (like Chicken Dance Elmo) are listed under the name; collections are listed as plush (like Sesame Street plush (Nanco)). There'll also be a clearer distinction between plush and dolls in the article names -- plush is squishy and furry, dolls are plastic or fabric.


 * Right now this second, things are a little messy because I just started moving things over. So you'll probably see some things that don't fit the guidelines yet, because the change is still in process. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 22:33, 19 February 2009 (UTC)


 * By the way, the tone of your question implies that you're not thrilled about the change... What do you think? I'll stop moving stuff until I make sure you're cool with it. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 22:37, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I just talked to Scott off-wiki a little bit. He hasn't had a chance to really participate in this discussion yet, but he has some thoughts about a different way to organize things. I was moving ahead with stuff because I thought this was non-controversial -- but now that I know there's some disagreement, I'll slow down.

As long as we're doing that, we might as well also wait for Wendy to come back too. So I'll take a break on moving things until we all get a chance to look at this and figure it out together.

Unfortunately, I did move some stuff out of Sesame Street Plush today, and I don't really feel like moving it back if we're going to end up moving it again next week. So if it's okay with everyone, I'll kind of leave things as they are (half-finished) for now -- then we can all talk about it and agree on what we're doing -- and then I'll go and change everything to the new system that we agree on. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 23:41, 19 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Hey all. I'm back again :).  I'm really glad this stalled a bit because I wasn't entirely agreeing (but my limited internet wouldn't let me post).
 * So I actually like having plush all in its own place and (particularly) PVC figures as well. Because if they're all lumped into one big category, the ones that aren't titled "Sesame Street plush (Nanco)" (or whatever), but eg. "Springtime Kermit" are going to be much less obvious and hard to find unless you happen to know the name ahead of time.  And I actually will see stuff and wonder what it is and just go click through everything in the right category trying to find it.  I'm just not sure if I'm the only one who uses the categories that way or not.
 * So anyhow, while I think it would be nice to have all the toys in a toys area, because I do see that it's frustrating if what you want is to see all the toys, I also think there is some organizational value to being able to look at just the plushes or just the pvcs or whatever. I could see either making those things subcats of the toys area, or double-cat'ing them.  Or some other scheme; I just don't really like the idea of only jumbling them all together.
 * I am, however totally agreeing with the definitions on dolls vs. plush :). -- <font color="Blue">Wendy  (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 02:00, 20 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Yay, Wendy's back! And sooner than I thought. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Scott was saying that it was important for him to have all the plush in one place too.


 * So maybe a way to do it is to have a Muppet Toys category, with subcats for Plush, PVCs, Action Figures and then whatever we call the other stuff. Now that we have a clear definition of what's plush and what isn't, it'll make sense to split things up -- but it would be nice to have it under the Toys umbrella.


 * So a question is: What do we call the other stuff? I don't want to create another Misc. category... Is there some sensible term we can use to describe the Colorforms, die-cast cars, Shrinky Dinks and View-Master reels? "Playthings" comes to mind, but I dunno. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 06:30, 20 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Couldn't each of those just be their own category under Toys? I think Colorforms, Shrinky Dinks and View-Master reels are well-known enough that people would look for them by name. -- <font color="Blue">Ken  (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 06:41, 20 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, some of them only have one article each. Check out the current Muppet Toys category -- there's six Colorforms sets, but just one article for Shrinky Dinks, one for View-Master reels, two sets of die-cast cars, a dartboard, a couple sets of Bend-Ems, etc. So we can keep slicing it up, but there's still going to be a set of extra toys that don't have a category. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 16:09, 20 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I would argue that it might be worth having the subcats and the shrinky-dinks articles in the Toys category together and not try to subcat further. I know we attempt to avoid that, but in this case, I can't think of a name that will cover any toy we happen to add, but not cover "plush" as well.  -- <font color="Blue">Wendy  (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 23:25, 20 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Sorry, this got stalled cause I went away and got busy. I think what we've come up with sounds good -- a Muppet Toys category, with subcats for Plush, PVCs, Action Figures and maybe something else. Anything we can't come up with a decent subcat for will just be in the Toys category. I'll start moving stuff around, and we'll see how it looks! Thanks to everybody for indulging me in my reorganizing spasms. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 17:49, 28 February 2009 (UTC)


 * As long as those spasms aren't painful. -- <font color="Blue">Ken (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 04:24, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

YouTube videos
I've been working on the Pro Wrestling wiki recently, and I've been learning about how to embed YouTube videos on pages. We've discouraged linking to YouTube, so I never really played with the video extension before. Now that I've used it, I like it, and I'm wondering if we could review our current stance on videos.

I'm finding lately that YouTube is becoming a really useful research tool. I've used it lately for researching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade page, and Miss Piggy's 2007 Today appearance for the Matt Lauer page. YouTube is becoming an amazing archive of old appearances, commercials and TV shows that aren't on video (and maybe never will be). Doing a quick search for "jim henson", I just found the 1990 Henson and Clash interview on Arsenio Hall, the first Wilson's Meats sales film, the first episode of Little Muppet Monsters and Tyra Banks and Elmo at the Daytime Emmys.

When we first started the wiki, it felt like YouTube was mostly a copyright-infringement tool that was helping people avoid buying DVDs. I think it's grown up since then, and now we have the opportunity on the wiki to present rare, interesting and relevant video clips to our readers.

It's true that YouTube videos get taken down sometimes, so the links might get outdated, but the same is true for any external links that we post. We sometimes link to dead pages, and when we catch that, we take the link out. I think embedding the videos makes it a lot easier to monitor them than just having them as links, so I don't think it would be the quality-control nightmare that we used to think it was.

Obviously, we would still have the guideline that we don't link to things that are commercially available, and we wouldn't use videos as a substitute for pictures or text. It would be more like a "see also" -- an extra way to add information to the page.

On Pro Wrestling, we set up a table format that lets us put captions under the videos; you can see it on the John Cena page. I just used that format as a test on the Tamagawa Takashimaya Shopping Center Halloween Festival page -- I think having that video on the page expresses something that I wouldn't be able to explain in pictures and text.

What do you guys think? Can we open up the discussion on YouTube guidelines again? -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 03:40, 18 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Our current policy on linking to videos is that we allow them so long as it's not for something commercially available or entire episodes or movies. So feel free to link away to your heart's content. Just be prepared to keep checking up on them every month or so as things disappear quicker than you can say account suspended and we end up with hundreds of dead links. —Scott ( talk ) 04:35, 18 January 2009 (UTC)


 * How would this work for something like the Ernie and Bert sketch page? Would we put the YouTube box in the picture box, or link on the right in the Online box?  Because some stuff is on YouTube, but other things are on SS.org. -- <font color="Blue">Ken  (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 05:25, 18 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't know if YouTube videos disappear as easily as we used to think. Of the four videos that I mentioned above, one was posted in February 2007 and another in June 2007. On the Macy's page, I linked to a video of the Fraggle Rock float that's been up since November 2006.


 * Yes, some do come and go, but that's true for external links to websites too -- I was just looking at the Muppets Party Cruise page, and noticed that the link to the game company's website is a dead link now. We don't make it a habit to go through the wiki and test out every external link once a month, just in case they've gone away. We just put them up, and if someone notices that a link has gone dead, we take it out. Embedded videos are actually easier to check up on than regular external links, because you don't have to leave the page to watch them. Plus, it's likely that a lot of people will click on them, so there are more eyes who can spot dead videos.


 * As far as how they work on the Ernie and Bert sketch page -- I have no idea, I'm not thinking that far ahead. :) I think that's too complicated to figure out at the moment, especially with some sketches available on DVD. I'm thinking more about special appearances and stuff, pages like The Tonight Show or Wilkins Coffee that would be amazing with a well-stocked video gallery. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 06:03, 18 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Yeah, the rare stuff would be cool. I was just thinking of taking the embedding feature and seeing if it would work with all of the stuff that Tony's working on.  But if we're just talking about YouTube and rare stuff that's not out to buy, we can talk about the other stuff later. -- <font color="Blue">Ken  (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 06:19, 18 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Yeah, it would be interesting to play with it and see what we could do... -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 08:05, 18 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Not directly related to embedding YouTube videos, but I've been playing around on sesamestreet.org a bunch recently and noticed that each video seems to have a unique URL. I don't think we can embed their player in our pages, but is there a reason we don't link directly to those videos when they exist?  For example, under Here Is Your Life (Sneaker), it says "Online: Web Video Player."  But instead of directing people to the page on the Web Video Player, wouldn't it be more useful to direct them to the actual video?  I don't know if we've had a discussion on this yet or if there's a very good reason we don't do it that I haven't thought of, which is why I'm bringing it up. -- <font color="Blue">Peter  (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 22:26, 22 January 2009 (UTC)


 * We actually can and do link directly to them, via Template:SSvideo. It's just not enough people are aware of it (so it is definitely worth bringing up), and in the section where we list online availability, it's difficult to include those links. It's easier to do in isolated instances or when we're using it as a kind of eka than in a larger sketch listing, plus it's not hard to find something like Here Is Your Life on the player (while it *is* hard to find, say, a Neil deGrasse Tyson narrated segment on the human heart). Plus we're changing a lot of aspects related to the site (i.e. linking to the website over the Web Video Player page). Tony's been developing an alphabetical list of available clips, starting with Sandbox:Sesame Street Video Player: Classic Clips A - G and including direct URLs (so far, complete through the letter B). So that's a good place to start and then later we can easily figure out the logistics in relation to other things. You might want to talk with Tony about coordinating efforts in that realm. <font color="Blue">Andrew Leal (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 22:43, 22 January 2009 (UTC)


 * One thing I've wondered about regarding embedding video: It seems like it would be redundant to incllude both a still image and an embedded video on the same page, but would it be good to do so, just in case the clip gets removed? The PBS promo featuring Kermit and Cookie Monster was recently embedded and then taken down (at least from the PBS page... Not sur eif it's still available online), and I don't expect any images to appear on any othe rpages. --Minor muppetz 21:45, 15 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Yeah, absolutely. Embedding a video is an extra; it shouldn't be a substitute for photos and text. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 22:54, 15 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Yeah, Michaelm that's the whole reason the link was taken off. The video was yanked from YouTube. Even when we're uploading directly to the Wiki, the issues apply. So we should definitely *not* be using videos as a substitute for pictures. The only case where it could work is with Virmup, where the videos are authorized and uploaded by the actual content/copyright owners, not fans. Right now, with the changes in how we're handling things and direct uploading, it's even harder to tell when a video has been yanked (the still image remains until clicked) unless someone is monitoring the videos, as Guillermo has done with a few of the Sesame ones, and we have to make sure we're not violating our own established guidelines from before: no uploading clips which are currently commercially available (and which are most apt to be yanked). Basically, as before, we need to be very careful and be aware that, quite bluntly, any content not put up by the copyright owners or original creators *and* which is not in the public domain is a copyright violation. The question is of degree and who holds that copyright if it still exists, and sometimes for what purpose, but "fair use" isn't applicable to YouTube the way we can use it on the Wiki. Commercials are hit and miss, show intros are often safe, full episodes never are, and again, it's all a question of the user account. Sometimes individual videos are yanked (PBS stations still own the rights to their material) but more often it's because an account is suspended/deleted. We may need to write up a policy page on this. YouTube is a neat expansion, but the issues really have *not* changed. What has changed is that more concerns (even Time's online magazine) are linking to YouTube, but they're usually not linking to videos they uploaded and own or can personally monitor, so the issues stand. Some videos remain for years, some barely a day (anything from Comedy Central or NBC is to be avoided like the plague). It's all much more ephemeral than even the rest of the internet (which is pretty darn ephemeral as is) and comes with inherent legal issues. The exceptions, videos where their lifespan isn't determined by a combination of chance and how active a given party's infringement lawyers are, is authorized videos, which fortunately for us, are increasing: Sesame Workshop, Virmup, Emmy Awards, People for the American Way uploading the Muppet bits of "I Love Liberty", and a whole bunch of interviews with Sesame cast and crew from the Archive of American Television (including Carroll Spinney, Bob McGrath, Sonia Manzano, and Danny Epstein, among others). There's always a slight chance they could be removed, but to date I haven't seen any changes and there's absolutely no copyright issues (and in general, those organizations concerned want to keep everything up as long as possible). Danny, is there a way to check or find all the uploaded videos (files with the "Video:" prefix)? That would help (and also be a wise idea should vandals start taking advantage of it, as has happened on rare but annoying occasions with images) and should in theory be possible (just as we do with image files), but probably because it's so new, I can't find anything in special pages. -- <font color="Blue">Andrew Leal (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 23:05, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, it's actually a lot easier than it used to be. All the videos are in Category:Videos. There is a temporary problem with the Video pages, which will be solved on Wednesday with the next code release -- right now, the Video page doesn't list the pages where the video is being used, the way an Image page does. But, like I said, that should be fixed by Wednesday. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 23:10, 15 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Yay, thanks for pointing that out. Even with the temp problem, it helps a load, since I'm also looking at what links to Template:YouTube. I'm trying to see what we're linking to and who from, which I think I'll try to work into a guideline page later. So far, with a couple exceptions, we're doing pretty well with videos we've uploaded. Danny added one to Rove Live which came from Rove's official YouTube channel, so it's safe legally *and* the kind of thing one would have a harder time finding on one's own (as opposed to looking for a YouTube clip of "Fur" or what have you). Another one is on James Galway; not from an official channel, but by Guillermo, which means one of our key members controls the content (and in general, I think Sesame Workshop is probably aware of what he's been doing with it and is leaving him alone). Looking through those which are linked via the YouTube template, there's a few where I think we can just go ahead and upload, like Bill Clinton appearing with Kami (authorized by Unicef). Others are dodgy; there's a link from "Act Naturally," to a user account which includes a mixture of unauthorized clips. It's still alive, with almost two years for that clip, but includes other Muppet Show segments on DVD and Beavis and Butthead (owned by Viacom, which is a huge watchdog). No news from Disney so far on a Season 4 set, but it's easy enough for users to find it if they want to, so I'd just as soon stay away from Muppet Show clips. Accounts have been nuked before for that, and those that haven't just slip by due to numbers. Would that make sense as a general rule? Plus it helps to think of the video capability the way we have transcripts. Does this add knowledge and serve as a useful resource or history piece? Is there a clear reason for adding this video, and if there's a legal risk involved, is it worth taking? I think most of the clips we've uploaded fit that criteria, but I'm not sure "Act Naturally" does (bits edited from the first season set would fit our criteria, but they're still a known risk so it would basically be on an "uploader's responsibility" basis, so to speak). Then there's The King of Eight, where we link to the YouTube page along with links to Hulu and Sesamestreet.org (and a redlink for Sesame's YouTube channel, which I'm not sure we need). It's authorized, and a link doesn't hurt, but it's so easily accessible (on multiple DVDs, on those websites, etc.) that I'm not sure there's a point to it. We could safely upload every video on Sesame Workshop's channel, but I'm not sure it's worth the trouble in cases like this (now, it might be with, say, a rare celebrity appearance not on video and since the key word searches and such on the Sesame website are still wonky at times). Just some blather as I look at this. On the whole, right now, I think the video function is a nice addition and is being used in a responsible way which improves the pages, but it doesn't hurt to be aware of the risks or to understand just what we want to do with it. -- <font color="Blue">Andrew Leal (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 23:33, 15 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Just wanted to add something that I've noticed. Some of the videos say "Embedding disabled by request" when you click once on them.  But if you click twice on them, then you get taken right to YouTube, and it plays like normal.  Is this a problem for anybody, and should we mention it somewhere, so people don't think the videos are broken if they don't know to click it twice? -- <font color="Blue">Ken  (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 02:47, 18 February 2009 (UTC)


 * If it says "embedding disabled by request", then we should take the video out... We don't want to have non-playing videos on the site. Is this happening with any of the videos on the site right now? -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 05:15, 18 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Never mind, I found the one you mean. Yeah, if someone adds a video that doesn't work, we take it out, same as if somebody adds a bad picture or a bad sentence. If it happens a bunch with the same person, then we have a word on their talk page. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 05:40, 18 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Is there a way of knowing whether a clip will do that before you upload it? -- <font color="Blue">Ken (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 06:56, 18 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Yeah, you can -- check out this video page. In the box at the top right, there's a field for Embed code -- and it says "Embedding disabled by request" there. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 21:58, 18 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Cool, I never noticed that was there before! -- <font color="Blue">Ken (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 07:13, 19 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I didn't either, until a minute ago. :) -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 07:35, 19 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Maybe it's just me, but I can't seem to get the video thing to work. And all the pages that has video on them don't show for me. Henrik ( talk ) 17:43, 22 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Yeah, it looks like there's a bug with the video feature right now -- I noticed it yesterday. I reported it to the tech folks, but it's the weekend, so I don't know if it's going to get fixed until the beginning of the week. It's annoying, but that happens with new features sometimes. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 18:51, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

DVD Series
To think ahead regarding the Video Boxes.. What can be done with DVD's that came in a series of 30 with books. I found out Spain and Portugal had series of DVD that came with a book. Its different then stand alone DVD's. How to categorize them.. All alone would mean a huge page in the Videography. The same counts for the new releases they made in The Netherlands.. Most of them are re- releases and only the covers change. (Pino 21:11, 5 February 2009 (UTC))


 * Hey, Paul! If they were all book and DVD sets that were sold separately, then each title deserves its own page.  Can you put up 1 or 2, so we can see what they're like?  I'm really interested to see them!  Thanks! -- <font color="Blue">Ken  (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 06:52, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Video boxes
I'd like to propose something. I've been taking a break from the records, and turning my attention to the Sesame Street made for video titles, issued on VHS and DVD from 1986 to the present. Since a lot of these titles have been released up to four times, I'd like to modify the boxes that contain their information. Using the records as a model, I've created a test page at Sandbox:Learning about letters test. Basically, we'd have the first edition at the top, with the infobox under it. Then, all other known releases would be in a gallery.

I'd also like to discuss what info is currently in our boxes. Template:Video has producer, date, format, discs, and region. Template:DVD has producer, discs, date, and region. I'm confused if Video was created for VHS only, or for either VHS or DVD. Since we have a DVD template, I'd like to rename the Video template as VHS, to make it clearer. Also, I wasn't sure if producer meant a person, or the video company. I think we should have the year, format, company and number. Then the DVD can have the year, format, company, number, discs and region. I was also wondering about the possibility of putting the ISBN in the box, but if that's too much of a hassle, we can drop that. I just wanted to mention it, because some people don't know that video titles have ISBN's.

I hope this isn't too confusing. I've been thinking about this for weeks, trying to make sure I can explain it well. I realize that it would be a lot of work, and I don't mind doing it. But I wanted to see how everybody felt about it. I was also thinking that we could just make these VHS and DVD templates apply to the Sesame Street section only, so we wouldn't mess up how the other video sections are organized. So any thoughts about what to put in the boxes, or what to call them, or anything else, would be appreciated. Thanks! -- <font color="Blue">Ken (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 06:58, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Personally, even with the Amazon experiment, I'd just as soon not mess with ISBN's just yet. As far as the two templates, looking at the history, it looks like Danny created Template:Video a year after the DVD template, no doubt forgetting the other one existed (one reason Category:Templates was a good idea). The majority of the video productions were reissued on DVD (those that weren't often don't have a box) and right now only the international titles (most of which are DVD anyway) use the other template (mostly added by Paul). So some clean-up is needed. Probably swap out the DVD template for video (since it includes the format specification which is useful) and specify or blank on the relevant pages, and thus use for all formats. It would actually be easier (in terms of the number of pages involved) to switch to DVD on the 50 or so Template:Video pages, add the format field to the DVD template, and use that for everything, but it would be inaccurate for any reissues and possibly confusing. Creating a VHS only template could work but again, most titles have been out there in more than one format (and at present, are often only available in one, as far as the Sesame non-movie stuff goes), and there's Blu-Ray, a few things like the Playskool Video Now Jr. stuff (smaller discs which only playable on their product, not a commercial DVD player, which we haven't even started to track), and at some point, Beta and Laserdisc stuff to factor, so probably the best bet would be to simply make the necessesary adjustments and use Template:Video. -- <font color="Blue">Andrew Leal (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 07:22, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Yeah, my thinking on this stuff is to copy the records, meaning the record is the main format, so it gets the box, and all parallel formats and reissues go down below. So on the Random House/Sony stuff, the tape is always first, then the cover changes and DVD reissues go down below.  For stuff that doesn't exist on tape (everything after 2005), then the DVD goes first.  I think SS stuff is the only stuff that was reissued so extensively on VHS and DVD, which is why I'm thinking about it like the records.  All the movies are on special chart pages like The Muppet Movie (video), so that would stay the same.  Everything else I can think of has season sets (Muppet Show, Fraggle Rock), and those are all DVD, so they wouldn't have to do this either.  I think the Disney 1990's Fraggle Rock episode tapes were on VHS and laserdisc, so that might be similar to this.  Just as a side question, do we need the region and disc lines?  If we took those off, then we could use this for all formats from Beta to Blu-ray.  But that might be confusing if we need to track stuff that's non-region 1, and I just found a whole bunch of SS DVD's from the UK and Australia that I didn't even know about before.  But those are foreign editions of our Sony/Genius titles, so they would be in the gallery anyway.  I don't know if what I said helps, but I'm just thinking out loud. -- <font color="Blue">Ken  (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 07:52, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I think it's a great idea. The current system is just haphazard; nobody's taken the time to look big picture and reorganize it. So this would be great. I agree that the initial release should be at the top, with reissues in a gallery.


 * I have one tweak to propose to the plan. I agree that the VHS goes on top when it was released on DVD later. In the cases where the DVD and VHS were released simultaneously (or at least in the same year) then the DVD should be the primary release, with the VHS secondary. VHS got phased out, so on those pages, I think it's fair to say that the DVD is the more "important" version. I hope that makes sense.


 * I think ISBN numbers would be cool -- I didn't realize videos had them. Andrew, why do you say we shouldn't include them? It seems just as legitimate/helpful there as it is for books. While we're at it, do CDs have ISBN numbers?... -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 17:08, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I just said it as my personal opinion. It's more extraneous and I was also thinking of template breakage, but if we're having to overhaul the system anyway, I suppose it won't really matter. It's just the work involved, but if someone wants to do it on videos and CDs, and again as long as the template breakage doesn't last long. It wasn't much of an issue with the books since the numbers were already there; here, it's adding a new field and the numbers for every relevant titles. Moreso, in fact, we can't use the Amazon method since there are in fact *no* ISBNs. Rather, they have the "ASIN", the unique Amazon number. For books (at least those with ten digits), they're usually the same and by now Amazon has it so there's a clear march up, but for DVDs and other merchandise which have ASINs it's a randomly assigned number whose purpose is just to tie it to Amazon. So it's useful as far as Amazon sales, and most sites use it for that purpose. But it's not going to help in researching old videos since it doesn't reflect the manufacturer's number. So really we'd be potentially dealing with either two fields, or just forgetting about ISBN (which is harder to find for our purposes in this case) and use the Amazon number. CDs pose the same issue, except there the original ISBNs are easier to find. I'm not saying don't do it, but I am saying it's a much bigger issue to mess with and needs to be examined and figured out, both as far as how to fix the template and again what our goal is, since the benefits to a curious researcher from ISBN linking to Amazon for books are diminished or even negated with the videos. If the goal is just to have the link and thus help with Wikia revenue, then ASIN only would be the best bet. There's still other aspects to it, but I'd need to compare Amazon with other catalogues (like libraries, which do use ISBNs or Alibris and so on) and then figure out what to do if in some cases we have an ISBN number (which won't work on Amazon), whether to leave it out entirely or note it elesewhere. That's why I said I'd jsut as soon not mess with this "just yet." -- <font color="Blue">Andrew Leal (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 19:35, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I think an overhaul of the videos/dvds would be great, and I'm glad Ken's willing to try it. I agree that in the case of a simultaneous first release on DVD/VHS it should be DVD first; but that's in reasonable agreement with albums which are released on CD/Tape at the same time -- we put up the CD and put the cassette in the gallery.
 * I think we can have one template; simply have a Format line which will reflect the original release as VHS/Beta/BluRay/DVD, and then have an "Encoding" field (or some more suitable name) which can be region # for DVDs/BluRay and NTSC/PAL for vhs.
 * I don't think it would hurt to put in an ISBN field at this point and start collecting the info. If we can link it through to amazon that's great, and if we can't that's just an extra piece of info for now.  But to me it makes little sense to overhaul everything now, and then again if we decide we're ready to add isbns.  The field will hide if we don't have the info anyhow.  -- <font color="Blue">Wendy  (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 20:04, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * We have some ASINs in the book boxes anyway... -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 20:07, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * If they're ten digits, they're the same (and should be the same in fact, unless you swapped some numbers, Danny? When last I looked they were all ISBNs), and there's also a system to decipher those. Not so with the videos. Ken, what ISBN info do you have? Even if we overhaul (and it seems like the present issue actually wouldn't be changing/breaking the template so much as simply swapping out one plate for another), if we have genuine ISBNs, they won't work with Amazon. So that's why we need to decide before we try to do anything. DO we want a number there or do we want to link to Amazon for consumers? Right now, we can't have it both ways unless we include more than one number or kill the link on certain pages (or just let the link go to a dead page). Or just leave it out entirely on the majority of pages via the equal sign but include the ASIN info only on the more recent and easy to manage entries and basically just forget about ISBN and focus on ASIN only. So that's what needs to be threshed out. -- <font color="Blue">Andrew Leal  (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 20:13, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

An example is Elmo's Guessing Game about Colors, which I edited yesterday. I couldn't find an ISBN for the English language version, but Amazon had an ASIN, so I put that in the box. I can't say how many of those are on the wiki right now -- I didn't know there was a difference until Artur explained it to me last week, so I've been posting them sporadically whenever that was the thing I found. When I've seen both an ISBN and an ASIN I've posted the ISBN.

So that would be my solution -- link to the ISBN if we have one, and to the ASIN if we don't. Either way, it's more information than we currently provide. So what's the harm? -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 20:48, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Not harm but complexity. Basically, if we have an ISBN and it links to Amazon, it will be a dead link since it won't recognize it (this applies to videos, not necessarily books, though those might bear with some checking as well). So as long as linking as an inherent part of the template, it means people will click and find nothing. So that's why I say we need to decide what we're going to use. If we just want to include ASIN only, I really have no problem with it (a lot of websites use that and it can be helpful financially). But I wanted to point out that it's not as simple as plugging in numbers or just adding a link to activate pre-existing numbers, as it was with books, and it's also not really adding new information in that case so much as a way to buy (which again, is not a bad thing). If we just include either ISBN or ASIN on different pages, there will be no way of telling just by looking at the page which is which (unless we include two fields, one for ISBN and one for ASIN) or which will lead to an Amazon page for the product and which will lead to an Amazon "number not found" or whatever message they give. -- <font color="Blue">Andrew Leal (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 21:06, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * By the way, my PC is giving me enormous problems (yet again) so I'm going to have to take it in for an emergency check-up, and probably won't be able to respond for at least a couple days. Another reason that I'd like to wait on this. I never said I opposed anything, I just said I wasn't sure if we wanted to mess with it as something that has to be done this instance, but rather take the time to figure out the special circumstances and how to approach it. Scott hasn't weighed in, but since he's kind of the tech guru here, he can probably find a way around these things. One option, as I said, is to have two fields, one for the ISBN, which won't be linked, and one for the ASIN. But it would help to also know exactly how many ISBN numbers we have access to (they usually exist but aren't as easy to find, outside of libraries and manufacturer/distributor catalogues or lists), since if the info is going to be so sparse, there's almost no reason not to prioritize ASIN and just note the ISBN number in the text or not at all. It also depends, as I've said, on our goals with this. The informational benefits which came from ISBN linking with books are pretty negligible with videos and DVDs. For anything not in print, Amazon's info is often scantier and less accurate than ours, though the in print CDs sometimes have track samples which could be nice. And the potential commercial benefits are definitely important, though I'm not sure whether ot not that applies to anything ordered through Amazon marketplace (maybe someone on the Wikia ad team can check into that). It's probably unintended and may just be me, but this discussion feels like it's taking on a sense of urgency, when I don't think it's something we need to go in and change today or this week, but take the time to fully examine what we're dealing with (especially since much the same issues apply to CD), and while some further adjustments are sometimes unavoidable, altering existing templates and correcting breakage (in contrast to fixing an article's text) is usually best done in as few swoops as possible. Pretty much what I said when the ISBN thing was first brought up with books is that the latter was a good idea and clearly an easy transition, but others pose individual issues that would need to be adjusted for, so I don't think it hurts to thresh that out at least a little further first. -- <font color="Blue">Andrew Leal (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 23:38, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Yeah, absolutely -- I'm glad you brought it up. Now that you've explained it, it makes sense -- I didn't really understand the difference, or that linking to ISBN numbers would give dead links.


 * So I think your idea is a good one... separate ISBN and ASIN fields for videos and CDs; the ASIN links to Amazon and the ISBN doesn't. Then people can add either or both, depending on what they have access to and interest in adding, and if it's blank then it doesn't show up.


 * I don't think there's been any particular urgency about this -- Ken brought it up, so we're talking about it. I think you might be feeling some urgency about it that the rest of us aren't, because you've got a ticking countdown on your computer access. Ken, I know you're excited about working on this, but is it okay to wait a couple days till Andrew comes back? -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 23:48, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * True, I do feel like the "this message will self destruct" voice will sound any second, so I'd definitely appreciate a temporary postponement (at least as far as final resolution goes). The fix-it shop closes at 6, so off I go. Farewell for the moment, all! Don't buy any invisible ice cream cones. -- <font color="Blue">Andrew Leal (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 00:00, 6 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Sure, guys, take all the time you need! I've been thinking about reworking the videos ever since I got here, but I wanted to tackle the records first.  I know it will be a major change, so I don't mind if we talk about this for a while.  And I'm nowhere near ready to fill in boxes.  I still have to find all the Random House numbers and Sony Wonder LV/LVD numbers, and we need tons of covers, too.  And I want to hear Scott's thoughts as well, so I don't mind waiting.  I'm a little confused about the Amazon numbers and stuff, but I'm going to play around over there, and I'll write some more later.  In the meantime, have fun at the Fix-it Shop, Andrew, and say hi to Luis and Maria for me!  At least you're not bringing them a toaster! -- <font color="Blue">Ken  (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 02:45, 6 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I just thought of some other stuff that might complicate things. First, some CD's have ISBN numbers, but others don't.  The Sony Wonders do, but the Koch don't, or at least they're not on the packaging.  By the way, if you haven't been to worldcat.org, you should check it out, because they have ISBN's for stuff from all over the world, if you can't find one any other way.  But even there, some CD's don't show ISBN's.  Anyway, the other thing I thought of is this:  Let's say we have an ISBN or ASIN for Learning About Letters.  Which one would we use in the top info box?  The first edition?  That's out of print.  The DVD?  That's technically out of print, but it may still be available until they're gone.  I think it would be inaccurate to put the DVD's ASIN in the VHS box just because it's first.  We could put a link on the current DVD of an older VHS title, but that would change how the gallery looks.  What if somebody wants to buy a used VHS original?  We could put a link on every edition (infobox and gallery), since each edition has a unique ASIN (and in some cases, every version has its own page, with links to dealers selling out-of-print copies), but would that be too much?  I'm starting to think that trying to put a place in the box for ISBN's and ASIN's of stuff that's been out a bunch of times is going to be more trouble than it's worth.  We could make a "Buy from Amazon" box on the article like the Wikipedia box, but I don't know if that would look good.  Anyway, I just wanted to put down my thoughts after seeing how things are laid out on Amazon. -- <font color="Blue">Ken  (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 08:01, 6 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, the way it works for books is that the box has the information on the original book -- date, publisher and original ISBN. Later editions are listed in the text, with a gallery. The ISBNs for those are listed there. Elmo Loves You is an example.


 * I assume we'd do the same with videos -- if the original was on VHS, then that gets the big picture and the infobox. The later releases would be in a gallery. The Amazon links are cool, but they're not the primary purpose of the wiki, and they shouldn't get in our way as far as providing accurate information about the books and videos. Does that make sense? -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 03:12, 7 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Thank you! I hadn't seen it done that way before.  I think we could work out something similar to that for video stuff.  I'll still wait until Andrew gets back and we hear from some more people, but I feel better knowing we kind of have a model to work from.  Thanks again! -- <font color="Blue">Ken  (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 05:13, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, my PC will be home on Monday, theoretically, but I'm on my Dad's machine for the moment. Since this has been kind of scattered, here's an attempt to summarize what seems to be the most workable approach so far. Use Template:Video over Template:DVD (so this will involve substituting on a number of pages, but if the whole category is being overhauled bit by bit, that's easily taken care of). Code one field for ISBN (unlinked) and one for ASIN; in cases where the original format of a reissued title was a VHS, prioritize ISBN and leave ASIN blank. The region/disc question was asked earlier. Probably keep those fields, since we do have some coverage other region or multiregion titles (mostly on the international front; outside of the foreign Sesames, there's some Mopatop's Shop titles and stuff like that we haven't gone into yet) and the disc number, while applying to series box sets or special additions, is also good info to have at a glance. Does that pretty much summarize where we're at? Just so it's clearer if anyone else jumps in. -- <font color="Blue">Andrew Leal (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 23:29, 7 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I think that's it, except that we don't have to leave ASIN blank. As long as we've got two fields, then we can put in whatever info we have -- either number or both, as the case may be. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 01:52, 8 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Ah. Your response to Ken about not favoring Amazon over information seemed to suggest otherwise, as far as including both when the box is emphasizing the original VHS edition. Which means that there also needs to be a way to specify that one number is for the original video edition and the other for a later reissue; not a problem with an unliked ISBN (one can just do it manually) but that means coding an optional field in parantheses after the ASIN. This shouldn't be a problem with stuff that debuts on DVD, of course. -- <font color="Blue">Andrew Leal (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 04:04, 8 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I think you might have missed a bit of the conversation; we're not quite connecting here. :) For an example, look at the page about the book My Name Is Elmo. The box is for the original edition, and that's the ISBN for that edition. Then the later reissues are in a gallery, each with their own ISBN.


 * On a video page, it would work the same way, except there would be two fields in the box -- an ISBN and an ASIN. The ISBN wouldn't be linked; the ASIN will. You can put in either number or both, depending on what info you have.


 * So if the video originally came out on VHS and was reissued later on DVD, then the original VHS edition would have the main picture and the box. The later reissues would be listed in a gallery, still with ISBN and/or ASIN as appropriate.


 * What I was saying to Ken was that we wouldn't list the later reissue in the box just because that's the current release -- we can be consistent, and have the original in the box and the reissues below. Does that make sense? -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 04:23, 8 February 2009 (UTC)


 * No, I read the whole conversation, and that's the problem. The ASIN in the scenario Ken described *would* be for a later DVD edition and not the original (unless we wanted to include the ASIN for the used Amazon Marketplace VHS editions, if there is one). So it would be consistent to omit the ASIN (at least from the box) in those specific circumstances (which is why I specifically mentioned that multiple edition scenario in my summary). If you want to include both anyway, then it needs to be clarified in that box that the ISBN and the ASIN are technically for different products. See what I mean? -- <font color="Blue">Andrew Leal (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 23:33, 8 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Okay, guys, I'm confused. All I was saying is that while VHS and DVD titles have ISBN's, Amazon doesn't show them on their page.  They have ASIN's.  Amazon does show ISBN's for books. Since I thought we could only put either the ISBN or ASIN (or both) in the infobox, and nowhere else, I was asking Danny which one should we pick, since SS videos have been out multiple times, and each edition has its own Amazon page, since each release is a separate item, and pages for out-of-print items stay there forever, even if there are no current new or used titles available.  Once Danny showed me the page for Elmo Loves You,  I was happy, since I saw how we could lay out a situation where we have a Random House VHS 1st cover on top, and then a gallery of a Random House 2nd cover, a Sony Wonder VHS, and a Sony Wonder DVD (and I hope Genius DVD).  The bottom line is that I want to link to all available Amazon pages, using whatever number will get us there.  So all my questions are answered; I was just waiting until your computer got fixed, and in the meantime, I've been collecting Sony Wonder LV/LVD catalog numbers. -- <font color="Blue">Ken  (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 23:50, 8 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Okay, I'll try to explain. Let's say that the VHS originally came out as Grover's Favorite Songs. Then it was released on DVD later as Grover Sings with Elmo. (Cause obviously Elmo has to be in everything.) The top picture and the box would be for the original, Grover's Favorite Songs.


 * Let's assume that we have both an ISBN and an ASIN for both products. The box would have the ISBN for Grover's Favorite Songs (unlinked) and the ASIN for Grover's Favorite Songs (linked). Then there's a gallery below that with a picture of Grover Sings with Elmo. In that gallery, there would be the ISBN for Grover Sings with Elmo, followed by the ASIN for Grover Sings with Elmo.


 * Now, if we don't have an ISBN for Grover's Favorite Songs, then it still works the same way -- the only difference is that there's no ISBN in that box. The box still has the ASIN for Grover's Favorite Songs. The ISBN and ASIN for Grover Sings with Elmo are still in the gallery.


 * Ken -- I added the ISBN and ASIN fields to Template:Video. It doesn't break any existing pages (as far as I know), because the fields are hidden when there isn't anything in them. Will this work for you, or do you want to change anything else in that box? -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 02:39, 9 February 2009 (UTC)


 * We should add the catalog number. Other than that, I think I'm fine, but let me just check what I was originally asking.  I'm sorry the ISBN discussion went on so long; that was actually an afterthought I had, just because you had mentioned that we could earn money from purchases that were linked to Amazon.  My original concern was that I wanted to see if we could come up with just one video box similar to the one we use that covers all audio formats, so we wouldn't have to remember which one to use for different formats and regions and other stuff.  I think we've done that, but let me look back over this discussion and the test page I made.  Can we eventually erase the DVD template?  I don't want to erase it yet, because there are pages where it contains info we'll need, but I was wondering if we could erase it after I'm done transferring everything to the new system.  -- <font color="Blue">Ken  (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 05:14, 9 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Okay, I added catalog number to the box! And sure, we can erase the DVD template once you've transferred everything over. Have fun! -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 07:14, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Miss Piggy as Cinderella
I found this video clip on Youtube, looking for more information on Disneyland's 35th Anniversary Celebration. It shows Miss Piggy as Cinderella, attending the ball and singing "Someday, My Prince Will Come". At the very end of the clip, she kisses Prince Charming, who suddenly turns into Kermit.

Now, in the 35th Anniversary special, Piggy wants to be Cinderella -- but as far as I know, only Piggy and Gonzo appear in that special. The person who uploaded the video says this is from a Euro Disney Christmas special from 1989, but in the comments, people are saying that isn't true. So, I've got nothing. Anybody know where this is from? It's great... -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 03:55, 1 February 2009 (UTC)


 * youtoobsuxx is actually our Scott and he made a page for this so me time ago: The Disney Christmas Special. The true power of Muppet Wiki in action. -- <font color="Blue">Andrew Leal  (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 04:12, 1 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Ah, genius! Thank you. And we inspired Julian to update the 35th Anniversary page, too. It's Disney magic! -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 07:17, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

ISBN links
Hi guys -- Artur and I are experimenting with something that might bring some revenue for Wikia, and also actually add some value to the wiki. Right now, MediaWiki is set up to link ISBN numbers to a page called Special:Booksources -- for example, if you type ISBN 0307010856, it automatically turns into a link to Booksources, which links out to Amazon, Barnes & Noble and two other stores. This is fine, but it's a clunky interface, and it doesn't help Wikia in any particular way.

Wikia has an affiliate account at Amazon, and if the ISBNs linked to Amazon through that account, Wikia would get a percentage of any purchases that people made after clicking that link. So we're working right now on converting Special:Booksources into affiliate links. We also want to tweak the way it works -- linking any 10 or 13-digit number, even if it doesn't say ISBN in front of it.

We just started looking at this today, so we're still testing out the concept. To do that, I added some code to Template:Book which turns the ISBN field into an Amazon affiliate link. So that's up on our book pages right now, if you want to try it out. (I'm also working with Kyle to get it to open up in a separate tab; we may be able to do that early next week.)

So this is sort of a first step. We're also looking at making a link that you could roll over and get product info from Amazon, or (as an alternative) possibly a small box ad at the bottom of an item's page with a picture and link to Amazon.

The basic idea is: Providing a link to Amazon isn't harmful to the wiki, and it does potentially add some value for a reader who's interested in buying the item that they're reading about. In the long term, Wikia needs to figure out ways to make money -- we're not a profitable company yet, and our bandwidth costs are going to go up as our traffic increases. This is a way to increase revenue that (in my opinion) is a decent fit with the purpose and mission of the wiki.

Ideally, if this was an overwhelming success, it would be amazing if Amazon affiliate links were enough so that we wouldn't have to have any other advertising at all. I have no idea if that's possible, but that's the general idea -- come up with a way to make money so that we don't have to have obnoxious ads that have nothing to do with the wiki.

So -- this isn't an emergency, and Wikia isn't in financial trouble (at least, not any more than any other start-up at this point in the company's life). We're just looking ahead, trying to find something that will sustain us long-term that makes sense for the wikis. This is the first step for the test; I'll give everybody a heads-up if it moves on to another step.

I hope you guys don't mind me using Muppet Wiki as my guinea pig for stuff like this... I only do it if I actually like the idea. If somebody wants to test something that I don't like, I tell them to go find another wiki to test it on. :) Anyway, let me know if you have any thoughts. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 23:26, 30 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I think it's awesome! My only concern would be that we'd have to change our policy on shopping links.  But to me, it makes perfect sense.  Since Amazon sells everything now, we can link to not only books, but DVD's and CD's, and even plush, sheets, and cookie jars!  It would be great if Muppet Wiki became not only "one-stop shopping" for Muppet information, but literally one-stop shopping for all kinds of Muppet items, without having to search Amazon for stuff like party goods, and have to sort through other stuff you don't want. Also, it could work the other way, if we find stuff on Amazon that we didn't know about, and that would lead to more and better pages! -- <font color="Blue">Ken  (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 02:42, 31 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Actually, in a sense, I think it gets around the no shopping link thing, since it's embedded in the template and serves a specific purpose and not simply "Here's a place to buy stuff." I mean there are other websites one could link to, but Amazon has the best basic info and is our single best resource (outside of the physical books) when it comes to gathering info on publishing dates and ISBNs. At the moment, I'm a bit leery about trying this with, for example, toys, since the informational benefit tends to be much more negligible, and so it would seem more like a "Muppet Wiki Sez Buy Stuff Here!" tactic. On the other hand, prior to the switch to random paid advertisers, Google ads were automatically generating "Buy Elmo Stuff" links, some of which were pretty dodgy, while Amazon is pretty darn unimpeachable; the whole pirate DVD ads issue we've had off and on would be eliminated, for example. Plus, as far as merchandise pages go, when you get down to it, outside of the real geeks like us, most people *want* to know where to buy it (I don't know how many pages s we've deleted or had questions moved because of that). That's a bigger issue to examine more closely when/as/if we branch off into the other areas. Right now, starting with books makes perfect sense, since financial aspects aside, it makes it easy to check whether a given title is in print or not, whether an in development title has been delayed or is already out, etc. -- <font color="Blue">Andrew Leal (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 03:02, 31 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Yeah, that's how I was thinking too. For right now, the ideas are all about items with ISBN numbers, because it's so easy to make that automatic -- if there's an ISBN on the page, then you can easily link to the Amazon page. I don't know how it could work with something like toys; it would have to be done by hand, which doesn't scale well. So at the moment, I'm just thinking about ISBN. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 03:28, 31 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I figured non-book items might be a little harder. I was just thinking ahead, as usual. -- <font color="Blue">Ken  (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 03:36, 31 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I think it's a great idea. -- <font color="Blue">Wendy  (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 04:21, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Oops -- I realized that the change I made to Template:Book means that we can only put one ISBN number in the isbn= field -- if we put in two, or another phrase, it sticks a bunch of code into the box. If the book was reprinted, then it needs to be in the text -- see I Want to Do That...

I've gone through and checked all the books in Bear in the Big Blue House, Big Bag, Fraggle Rock, Muppet Babies, Muppet Books and Wubbulous World. The only category left for me to check is Sesame Street Books (which is the big one). I'll go through that category too... Sorry for the temporary template-breaking. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 19:02, 31 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I just wanted to comment that I noticed that it even goes to items that are out of print or used, so it will always go to a real page, even if the item isn't currently being produced by the publisher. So I'm sure that used book collectors and dealers will appreciate the referrals, too! -- <font color="Blue">Ken  (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 06:39, 1 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Okay, I finished checking everything -- as far as I know, I've cleaned up all the broken templates. Please forgive me if I missed any... -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 07:52, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Jim in Britannica
Interesting little tidbit: I'm now an acknowledged contributor to the Jim Henson article in Encylopedia Britannica. EB just added a feature where anyone can create an account to their site, then hit "Suggest Edit". You're presented with the article in a Google Docs like format, where you can make suggestions to their content. They actually took accepted my suggestions and made the changes within a day, adding information on how the Muppets were sold to Disney (albeit removing my Bear in the Big Blue House mention), and vastly expanding on the experimental filmmaker paragraph I had added (I had only mentioned Time Piece and The Cube. The only objection is they made Time Piece one word, as it grammatically would be, if it were describing a watch.

Anyway, I'd suggest anyone here suggesting edits to their article, it seems to work. -- Zanimum 17:10, 29 January 2009 (UTC)


 * They're actually now one of the only reliable sources to outright debunk the Rudolf Nureyev and Miss Piggy dance sequence myth, in their article on Miss Piggy. They also have Big Bird and Kermit articles. (Surprising choice of article topics, honestly. Big Bird, but no article on Sesame Street.) --  Zanimum 20:47, 31 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Why don't they link to us? We're a more reliable source than they are. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 20:58, 31 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Why? Jorge Cauz. He paints the entire internet with a Seigenthaler brush. While he likes "a symbiotic relationship between editor and reader", he feels that 99% of the internet is junk, especially anything created on that evil MediaWiki software. --  Zanimum 20:45, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

The Muppet Newsflash
We've talked a lot on the wiki about using the Muppet Newsflash as a source. Scott and I have both been vocal about not using the site as a source of information, partly because Greg doesn't say what his sources are, partly because he's regularly signed his name to other people's writing, and partly because he comes off as kind of a tool.

The problem is, the dude does seem to have good sources. He's regularly got scoops about upcoming events and merchandise, and whenever he has something we want to use, we have to scramble around and try to find a corroborating source. I've just looked back over the last year of Newsflash postings, and pretty much everything that he said turned out to be true. There were a couple of dates that weren't quite right, but it seems like in those cases there was an unforeseen delay. It's irritating that he doesn't say what his sources are, but they seem to be reliable.

So... I'd hate to keep good information off the wiki just because I don't like the guy. What do other people think? -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 05:53, 26 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I have to admit, I've been checking there about once a week lately, hoping to hear news about more CD's coming this year. I know that he's been banned, but since the site has proven to be reliable most of the time, I think we could use it like we use any source on an "in development" page, with the understanding that things could change. -- <font color="Blue">Ken  (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 06:11, 26 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I'd think it would make the most sense to do it on a case by case basis. In other words, look at the specific Newsflash and measure whether it seems reliable. For example, for many of the home video items, his undisclosed sources seem to include press releases from Henson (and in some cases, possibly Sesame Workshop) and are generally reliable. However, many of his entries on, for example, on the Segal Muppet movie, contain a mixture of press statements and gossip and quotes from a wide range of sources, usually again unattributed (though he does tend to mention Variety), such that it's impossible to ferret it out and any first hand info is lost in the shuffle.


 * So, my view is, in cases where he has a reliable track record and supplies other firsthand evidence exclusive to his site (publicity images, official episode guides, preview clips, and all that), it would qualify. So, say, his entry on Dinosaur Train includes screengrabs and other statements and facts which are clearly derived from some official source (but again, not explicitly acknowledged), so I'd say it qualifies as a firsthand source. On the other hand, he also frequently parrots the "About the Company" line (plagiraizing it, really) from the Henson website listing "other projects currently in production and development" without really knowing *(since they don't update that part of it very often) and in other cases, as when reporting on iTunes releases, the post actually comes after he's read mention of it on a forum (sometimes weeks later) or a day or two after a sourced notice is placed on Muppet Wiki and things like that. He does that quite often, in which case it's pretty ridiculous to cite him as a firsthand source. Only a few times have I had to remove citations of Muppet Newsflash for that reason, mind, but it could easily happen again.


 * So all this blather means a cautious yes to citation as long as users take a close look at what evidence Greg James presents, with more skepticism when it comes to vague movie tidbits (which, looking at the blog, have mostly vanished of late anyway). Kind of treat it the way we do, say, IMDb and Wikipedia, in contrast to something like Street Gang (with the copious notes and sources): not reliable sources in and of themselves, but useful when specific entries contain enough evidence (even if it's not in the form of sourcing) to back up the claims. -- <font color="Blue">Andrew Leal (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 06:57, 26 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Yeah, that's good blather. I think he's proved to be reliable on merchandise and air dates, and overly optimistic on the subject of "in development" projects. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 17:41, 26 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't think a source is needed when posting news on an iTunes release. People can just go to the iTunes Store and see for themselves that a release is there. --Minor muppetz 14:53, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

HDPS Wiki
For those interested, there is now a HDPS Wiki on Wikia. The new wiki covers the technology and productions of The Henson Company's Digitial Performance Studio -- including Waldo C. Graphic, Tizzy the Bee, Horace D' Fly, Sid the Science Kid, Frances and The Skrumps. While Muppet Wiki covers the worlds of the tangible felt and foam puppets of the Jim Henson Company, this wiki dives into the productions of the virtual digital-puppets they’ve pioneered. This new wiki project is still very much in its infancy and we could use your help, input, creativity, ideas and expertise. So if you are interested in this topic, feel free to check the wiki out and pitch in wherever you feel comfortable. -- <font color="Blue">Brad D. (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 22:55, 22 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I've seen the HDPS wiki, and I think it looks great! It's a really good complement to this wiki -- going deeper into the Digital stuff than we would want to go, in the same way that Muppet Wiki goes deeper into Muppet stuff than Wikipedia would. Brad created a HDPS template to link pages here to the HDPS page last week... I just want to make sure folks know about it so we can use it on the relevant pages. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 23:16, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Avatars and stuff
Hi guys -- We've turned off the "social tools" profiles that we've had on the site for the last year and a half. That stuff was part of a test that didn't work out, and we just never turned it off. It put a lot of stuff at the top of our user pages and talk pages that nobody really used -- profiles, gifts, friends and that stuff. Scott and I were talking about it today and realized that we didn't like it and didn't need it, so why not turn it off? So I did.

The one thing I'll miss is the avatars -- it was cool having a little avatar. That actually might come back as part of an actual Wikia project, so we may see them again anyway. So that's what happened to that. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 01:52, 21 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Oh, okay. I wondered what had happened.  I enjoyed adding friends, and sending them gifts, and seeing where everybody was from, and when their birthdays were.  It was a fun experiment. -- <font color="Blue">Ken  (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 02:15, 21 January 2009 (UTC)


 * It's gone? No. I loved it. Webkinz Mania 13:02, 26 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Yeah, hopefully we'll have an actual working version at some point. What we had was kind of half-finished... -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 17:34, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Bullet Problems
Aside from the numbering problem, which continues, I'm also having problems with bulleted lists - the bullets are being vertically-centered along side the paragraph of text they are bulleting - this is causing weird results for bulleted items that wrap onto multiple lines or in all the places where we've use double asterisks to indent sub-items. A few examples of what I'm seeing:

-- <font color="Blue">Brad D. (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 22:53, 15 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Yup, I know about that one -- it's being worked on right now. Sorry for the bugs; they're getting fixed. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 23:18, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Freedom from Redirects
Hey folks! I'm happy to announce that we just fixed something that's been a thorn in our sides since we first started the wiki -- the need to create redirects because the search box was case-sensitive. We'd always assumed that was something that couldn't be helped, so whenever we create a page called "The Something of Something", we've had to create redirects for "The Something Of Something".

Well, I've been working on various ways to improve the Wikia search experience, and I found out that this problem was actually fairly easy to fix. I got somebody to fix it, and guess what! It works great now. Try a search for the bathtub of seville or this way to sesame street, and it goes straight to the correct page without giving you a search results page. This is now implemented Wikia-wide, ta da, so it looks like our days of obsessive redirects are over. Yay! -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 23:52, 14 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Cool! Can we delete any unnecessary redirects? -- <font color="Blue">Ken  (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 03:37, 15 January 2009 (UTC)


 * We can if we want to. We don't really have to, cause it'll work either way. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 05:25, 15 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I was just thinking that if the site needs more room, there's a ton of LP redirects that can be deleted, if we ever need to delete things that aren't needed. -- <font color="Blue">Ken (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 06:00, 15 January 2009 (UTC)


 * We don't need room as far as the database is concerned or anything; there's plenty of disk space. We can keep adding as much as we want. :) -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 06:08, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Numbering Problems
The pages with numbered lists are having troubles, and only show the number 1. An example:


 * 1) A loaf of bread
 * 2) A container of milk
 * 3) A stick of butter

The problem occurs as of this writing. -- MuppetDude 19:05, 14 January 2009 (UTC)


 * It looks okay to me. I see 1. 2. and 3. —Scott ( talk ) 19:07, 14 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Looks fine to me too. --MuppetVJ 19:42, 14 January 2009 (UTC)


 * That's odd. Why would it be different on my page and not others? -- MuppetDude 19:46, 14 January 2009 (UTC)


 * It's yet another browser issue. It's not just your page, but any page viewed in IE. I just ran Sandbox:Sesame Street Video Player: Classic Clips in Firefox, however, and it looks normal. It's an issue for the tech people. Some of these problems have been insurmountable, but since this one's brand new, they should be able to do something. I just uploaded a screengrab. -- <font color="Blue">Andrew Leal (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 19:49, 14 January 2009 (UTC)


 * So this was working before, and now it's not? Anybody have an idea when it started? Also: Which version of IE? -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 20:18, 14 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Yeah I'm getting all 1's now too - I'm on IE8. -- <font color="Blue">Brad D. (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk )


 * I've just talked to one of my tech-type pals in the office -- other people have been reporting this today too. He's filing a bug ticket, and they'll figure out what's going on. I can't say exactly when it'll be fixed, but it's being investigated. Sorry about the bug. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 22:13, 14 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Yay for Danny and his tech-type pals! -- <font color="Blue">Ken (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 03:37, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I've been told that this problem should be fixed by now, so folks shouldn't be seeing the numbering problem anymore. Please let me know if you're still seeing it or not; I don't have IE, and I want to make sure it's fixed. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 22:06, 15 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm still seeing it. I've refreshed by browser, cleared my temps/caches/cookies/etc., and I'm still seeing all 1s. It's not fixed (for me at least). -- <font color="Blue">Brad D. (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 22:28, 15 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Gah, sorry. It's been fixed and committed to code, but it's not live on the site yet. Sorry for the false alarm. The fix is coming. :) -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 22:38, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

V-me
I just wanted to mention, for those who don't already know, that next month's TV transition will include adding V-me as a free digital channel in some markets. It may also be available as a cable or satellite channel in other markets. I bring this up because they are broadcasting Plaza Sésamo, and these may be different versions from the episodes that are on US PBS and Spanish-language channels. Check out their official site on the V-me page to find out if you can get this channel. -- <font color="Blue">Ken (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 06:18, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I sure hope that's true. - Oscarfan 03:06, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

New images gallery
I was just looking at the new images gallery on Special:NewImages, and I realized that this would probably be something that readers would like to see -- it's like a more fun/accessible version of Recent changes. Unfortunately, it's hidden on a special page that even some wiki veterans may not realize exists.

So I think it could be fun to have "New pictures gallery" or "New images gallery" in the sidebar, under the Sesame Street tab. If we try it out, then I could look at the click-tracking stats and see if people actually click on it. What do you guys think? -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 18:13, 13 January 2009 (UTC)


 * That's a fun thing for people to know about. I always forget to look at it myself. —Scott ( talk ) 20:29, 13 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Cool, I put it up. There's probably a better phrase to use than "New pictures gallery", so if anyone can think of a different way to say that, let me know... -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 07:52, 14 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Looks collorful with al those party supplies ;) (Pino 21:41, 14 January 2009 (UTC))

News section
Should I delete Latest News once its at least two months old? We have some. Webkinz Mania 00:56, 12 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Yeah, good point. I wish we had something new to put in there! :) -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 02:41, 12 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Holidays or new appearances or hits? Webkinz Mania 22:48, 12 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Actually, we now have some new stuff -- the comic book, and some new DVDs... -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 22:57, 12 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Dinosaur Train show coming soon could be an article. Revert me Danny if you don't like my edit. Webkinz Mania 23:07, 12 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Yeah, Dinosaur Train is a good idea... We should try to make it a habit to put stuff into the news section any time we create an In Development article, or add something to Template:Upcoming. Ellis, thanks for making changes; feel free to keep going! It's helpful to have more people keeping an eye on this stuff. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 23:24, 12 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Maybe we should have jobs here. Like Main Page Editor. Sysops can edit if they want. The only problem is that we need to balance the pictures with the news. Webkinz Mania 22:02, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

We used to have the main page more job-based -- I was the person who updated the "Today on Muppet Wiki" bit, some other folks were doing the picture -- but the system kind of broke down during times when the person who was in charge wasn't available. I think it actually works great the way it is -- people can add and change stuff as they find news that they want to add. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 22:22, 13 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Yeah but we should balance the pictures. It could look a lot neater. Webkinz Mania 22:42, 13 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately, the pictures and text move around depending on how wide a person's browser is. For my current browser size, the pictures look balanced with the text -- but if I make my browser narrower, the text is longer than the pictures, and if I make it really wide, the pictures are longer than the text. Try moving your browser around and you'll see what I mean. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 23:15, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

New edit window
Hi guys -- If you've hit the edit button, then you've probably noticed that the edit window has changed! This is actually an improvement that I helped to design -- the idea is to get the save button up above the "fold", so it's always there on the page and you don't need to scroll down to hit save. This new design should make the save button more visible, and hopefully help new contributors understand what to do once they've hit the edit button.

Preview is also different -- if you hit preview, the bar floats with you, so you can scroll through the page, make sure that your edit works, and then hit save -- without having to scroll all the way down to the bottom, past the edit window.

So I hope this works well for everybody -- it's brand-new, so if you have any problems, let me know! -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 18:20, 9 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I have a problem. If you click the Save page that isn't highlighted green, it will just reload the page and show the preview.

UPDATE: Look below Danny's next talk. Webkinz Mania 23:09, 10 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Hmm, I don't understand... Can you say more about what you mean? There's a Save page button and a preview button on the green bar, and then a button that says "Show changes" underneath that... Maybe you're clicking the Show changes button? -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 01:36, 11 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Yeah. Sorry. I thought it said Save page. Webkinz Mania 22:04, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

When to use complete dates

 * discussion history

Danny and I were talking about when to use complete dates for Muppet merchandise, and we both seemed to agree that (unlike a TV show or movie) Muppet books, CD's, toys, etc. just kind of come out in stores whenever, rather than be released everywhere on the same day. However, I noticed that newer books like Street Gang have complete dates listed. How do people feel about this? -- <font color="Blue">Ken (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 07:25, 5 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, pretty much every new DVD, book, and CD has a specific official release date from the publisher/distributor. This isn't always true for toys or collectibles (which are often a stock-em when you get-em policy). The official release date for Street Gang was December 26, 2008 (there are press releases, publisher listings, and other official sources to back it up) – now there were some stores who put it out early (there are reports of people getting it pre-christmas), some put it out late (some places still haven't gotten it in), and some places wouldn't sell it until midnight on the 26th (no matter how hard you begged).
 * Now with a big high-profile releases, such as the final Harry Potter book, or The Dark Knight DVD, the publishers and distributors get real strict about keeping the date (and they will police it and fine/sue any place that release it early). And pretty much every store wants to stock it and sell it and everyone wants to have out as soon as possible on that day - they make a big deal out of it and the release date really is universal across the board. However when Pepe the King Prawn releases a book, no one really cares that much about enforcing the release date (the publisher don't have the money to police it... and if a store puts it out when their shipment comes in it won't really hurt sales or cause riots cause its out 2 days early... so really, who cares?). A low-profile book like that may sneak onto shelves in a shop in Boston a few days before the date, and there'll be a store in Denver who doesn't put it on the shelf until a week or two later; however the release date (which can be sourced back to the publisher/distributor) is a specific day.
 * I've lined up at midnight to buy DVDs or books, but I've also gotten titles days (sometimes weeks) before the official date too. I saw Muppets in Space in theatres 2 days before the official release date. I've had storekeepers tell me they can't put that Muppet DVD or Sesame book out until a specific day even though they have it in stock, while others have it on the shelves a few days before they should (it just depends on the retailer). Sometimes there is little fanfare around what retailers consider a "childrens" releases, and many stores won't even stock the latest Sesame or Fraggle titles until a few weeks after the official release dates (causing fans to hunt around for the new titles).
 * Now, for the wiki's sake, I would say we should track the date for upcoming "in development" releases (it can be sourced, usually to press releases or publishers statements) and can give people the idea if this will be happing at the beginning of the month or the end of the month -- now, sure someone may have been able to find Elmo Loves You! on shelves at their local Wal-Mart last week (December 2008), but officially the release date for the DVD (according to Genius Produts) isn't until Tuesday (1/6/09). And there might be some people who won't be able to find it at their local stores until sometime next month, when the store does their February Valentines Day promotions (and hey my local DVD retail has yet to stock the Muppet Show season 3, so in some places things are never released). But there is an official date, even if your local Wal-Mart puts something out early.
 * Now looking at items that have been released, I don't really care about the specific to-the-day release date. It's a specific piece of data which is kind of trivial. I don't care if Columbia Tri-Star officially set to release "The Muppets Take Manhattan" on DVD on November 29, 2001. Really, does it matter? And, as we know, some stores may have had it out in some stores on the 26th, or even the 22nd; while other places may not have gotten it onto shelves until the 30th. However if we have the "official" date whether it was followed by all retailers or not, what's the harm in listing in? I don't see listing "November 2001" as incomplete, nor do I feel we need to track down the specific day to complete things. But if we have a the officially announced/sourced release date from the distributor (and not just a date that one random retailer, like Amazon or Wal-Mart, started selling it)... why not? -- <font color="Blue">Brad D. (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 09:09, 5 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Yeah, you make a good point about stuff in development vs stuff that's already been released. I agree that for something in development, it makes sense to have a date on it, so that people know when it's supposed to come out. I'd like to source those dates when we can, so that we know whether a specific date comes from the publisher or from Amazon.


 * But I agree with you that specific dates once it's released are pretty pointless. So does that mean we take the dates off when an article moves from "In Development" to the actual category? That would be the convenient time to do it... -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 19:08, 5 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I think its useful on the in development stuff (if it's sourced). But once something is released is seems somewhat trivial and pointless to track. Especially since many times our only source for such information is just a place like Amazon (or some other retailer), and we've seen that sometimes they flawed in matching the "official" release dates (especially with older products, or non-major-party releases, or items with multiple editions or releases).
 * However, if we have good sources (official press releases, DVD trailers, etc) that give a specific date and its somewhat relevantly worked into the article somehow, I don't see us needing to forbid the mentioning of a specific date in regards to a product release; but I don't see the point in tracking the day just to more fully fill in the DVD/album/book info boxes or add more data to some other lists (like the Sesame discography or videography). But I wouldn't want to see the point passing a blanket "law" that says: in the eyes of the wiki, released items don't have a specific release days -- but I don't really see the point in tracking it in the info boxes, lists, etc. (especially since for many older items, or low-profile releases it may be pretty much impossible to ever find the true day).
 * Now for example, with Street Gang we have an official press release, the official book website and the publisher's listings that says the book's (and audiobook's) official release date was December 26, 2008. Now some stores started selling it on the 23rd, and some store didn't get it in stock until the 29th or January 1st, and some still don't have it on their shelves. But we mention (and source) the date in the text of our article, and I don't see the point in cutting that out. However with the book Abby Cadabby's Rhyme Time we don't have the specific day listed, there aren't many sources out there on that release (the closest I could get was with Amazon who lists July 15, 2007, but who knows the accuracy of that in regards to the official release date, and honestly who cares if it was the 15 or the 20th).
 * I guess what I'm saying is, for upcoming releases we should track (and source) as much as possible. For already released items there's no point in tracking the specific day in the info boxes, discographies/videographies, "other releases" listings, or just for the sake of having the day in there. However a full date can be mentioned if it's worked into the article and is well-sourced (with official statements; not random retail listings like Amazon or B&N or Wal-Mart). -- <font color="Blue">Brad D. (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 17:28, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

For the most part, you and I totally agree -- In Development articles should have (sourced) dates, articles on released items shouldn't.

So for Street Gang, I'm not sure I see why that should be a huge exception. I'm glad we had the specific date leading up to the release, but I'm not sure we need it now. We actually weren't linking to a press release or the publisher's listing -- up until a minute ago when I edited it, the page linked to Amazon as the source for December 26th.

I think it makes more sense to have a standard that everyone can understand and use -- In Development articles have dates, and we take the dates off when the project is released and moves out of the Development category. I understand why you'd want to make an exception for Street Gang -- it's a fantastic book, and important for us -- but so is Jim Henson: The Works. We only have 1993 listed on The Works, which is fine. A few years from now, the difference between December 26th, 2008 and June 11th, 2008 will be meaningless. So why make an exception? -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 18:24, 6 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I just used Street Gang as an example as I knew it was a product article with an officially sourced exact date on it. My point is, although the exact day is not nessesary information on such pages - if the data is included as part of a well-written and well-sourced article's main text, I don't wee the point in "outlawing" the inclusion of a full date on the product's page. Now just having a full date for the sake of having it, or tacking it in there because we found a date on Amazon or some press release is pointless. I agree that the exta numbers just becomes added clutter in the info box and are trival bits of data to track on a product list or catalog; but I think the inclusion of a full date in the text of a well-written (and sourced) article cold be fine; and I would hate to see us form a policy that overtime makes us blindly forbid any inclusion of a fuller date in regards to when a product was released. -- <font color="Blue">Brad D. (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 18:54, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Video vs. Online

 * discussion history

Scott and I had been talking here about whether to call the availability of a clip on sesamestreet.org a "Video release" or an "Online release". Any thoughts on it? -- <font color="Blue">Ken (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 02:21, 11 December 2008 (UTC)


 * "Online release" is a clunky phrase, but I'd like to keep a separation between video/DVD releases and a clip being available on a website. Those are really different things.


 * Maybe the "release" word is confusing -- possibly "Video releases" and "Available online"? -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 02:04, 12 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I think I like that. Otherwise, it is confusing and conflating rather distinctly different things. The internet isn't really a video format or a place for releasing videos specifically. It's online availability, when you get down to it, and with Sesame Workshop uploading the same material to multiple websites (sesamestreet.org, itunes, Hulu, YouTube, and so on) in a way that's not at all comparable to individual VHS or DVD titles, the distinction really is useful to maintain. I think "Online availability" is the best phrasing, though we may want to bring up whether we want to list multiple sites if they all have the same clip, or just go with Sesamestreet.org. -- <font color="Blue">Andrew Leal (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 02:12, 12 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, if it's really just something that we're using for Sesamestreet.org, then maybe having a heading isn't the right way to go. Maybe just include it as a sentence in the article, or make a little box for it or something? -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 23:04, 12 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, sometimes I wonder if we should even list online availability, since that could change at any time. Audio and video releases will always exist, even if they're out of print, and noting those titles is very useful to collectors to find what they're looking for.  But I understand if other people want to track a song or clip's online availability.  And as a side note, we already use "online" as an option in the sketch release box on pages like Ernie and Bert Sketches: Apartment, so I think to be consistent, we should also make a matching heading on stuff like the song pages.  So part of me likes keeping track of online availability; it's just a matter of what to call it. -- <font color="Blue">Ken  (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 03:18, 13 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I agree; I definitely want to keep the note about the online availability. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 06:07, 13 December 2008 (UTC)


 * If we're only tracking sesamestreet.org, I think a little box, in the style of our wikipedia box, would be great. -- <font color="Blue">Wendy  (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 01:20, 26 December 2008 (UTC)


 * My preference would be just to have a "Releases" header and list them all under that. Otherwise, we end up with three headers which I think is unnecessary. See for example, Healthy Food. —Scott ( talk ) 16:27, 6 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I think a "Releases" header would be confusing -- if you combined all those into one list on "Healthy Food", then you wouldn't know whether Monster Hits! was a video or an album. (At least, not without a click.) I think it's relevant to split up albums and videos... -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 19:04, 6 January 2009 (UTC)


 * What if we still sort by type (album, home video, Internet) but use just one "Releases" heading to keep things neater (see Take a Rest as an example)? -- <font color="Blue">Brad D.  (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 19:22, 6 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Also, on a somewhat related question, with "Online" releases, are we just tracking Sesamestreet.org videos? Or are we also including the now-defunct Sesame Street Video Player, the official Sesame Street Hulu channel, and the official Sesame Street YouTube channel too? -- <font color="Blue">Brad D. (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 19:25, 6 January 2009 (UTC)


 * See Letter B for how this would work. —Scott ( talk ) 19:33, 6 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Oh, okay... I'm sorry, I misunderstood. You're right, that looks great. I'll go with that. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 20:56, 6 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, both of those are slightly different. Which one are we going with? -- <font color="Blue">Ken  (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 03:38, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

There's a difference between Take a Rest and Letter B? They look the same to me. Maybe I'm missing something... -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 07:56, 7 January 2009 (UTC)


 * When I looked at them the other night, one of them had a heading of "Releases", and then subheadings of "Audio Releases", etc. in smaller type, but they're the same now. -- <font color="Blue">Ken (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 03:30, 10 January 2009 (UTC)