User:MuppetArchives/Current Events 03 (Feb 2006)

Archiving discussions from Current events. For more archived discussions, see the Current Events Archives category.

Vote for Muppet Wiki
Joe nominated Muppet Wiki to be the Featured Wikicity on the Wikicities main page. We've got a lot of active users, so if a bunch of people here vote, then it would be pretty easy for us to get enough votes to be featured next month. You can vote on the Featured Wikicity vote page. -- Danny Toughpigs 18:56, 22 January 2006 (UTC)


 * So, did we win? How does that work? -- Scott Scarecroe 15:34, 2 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, it doesn't, at the moment. It looks like the last time somebody looked at the page to confirm the votes was January 21st. At some point, they'll figure out that it's not January anymore, and they might want to change the Featured Wikicity. We have more than enough votes to win, so I assume we'll be next, whenever they get around to it. -- Danny Toughpigs 15:49, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Sesame Street Cast category
There's been some discussion on this on Stockard Channing's talk page, but I think the issue goes way beyond Stockard. What qualifies an actor for the Sesame Street Cast category? Obviously, if they appeared as part of the regular street cast, they should be there. But what about people like Paul Benedict, who played the number painter, and Ms. Channing, who played his victim? It seems to me the Noodle actors should be there, because they've appeared multiple times on a regular segment. But do the actors who played Buddy and Jim count, as they were only seen in inserts for the first couple of seasons? I'm not sure what I think about that. And what about the kids? What about John-John, and that awkward teenage boy from the late 90s, and the girl in the wheelchair? The category would get really unwieldy if we included every human actor who's appeared on the show more than once. -Ryan R PrawnRR 22:11, 1 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I would actually include all of those people in the Cast category. What else would you call them? You'd have to make a distinction between the Cast and then Sesame Street People Who Appeared In Recurring Segments. I'd rather just call everybody a cast member and have done with it. Even William Wegman's dogs could be cast members, if anybody knows their names.


 * I know what you're saying about Buddy and Jim -- the spirit rebels against putting them in the same category as Loretta Long -- but at that point I think we're using categories to express our personal taste, which isn't a good idea, no matter how correct our personal taste is. Like it or not, they were cast members. -- Danny Toughpigs 22:19, 1 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Danny, you took care of a lot of the issues I had, far more succinctly (though still not sure what to do with the growing issue of human performers in general). Oh, and William Wegman's main dog was the late Fay. (I'm not sure myself whether to create a page on her, though, or just one on Wegman, with a brief paragraph specifically about the dogs). --Andrew the Wiki Addicted, Aleal 22:33, 1 February 2006 (UTC)


 * [Note: The following two posts were written before Danny's stalled by edit conflict, but I still wanted to put them out there]]. One aspect of this to consider is billing. The girl in the wheelchair, Tara Lynn Schaeffer, was used regularly, and received billing as a cast member (albeit as "Child Cast," with the kids then playing Miles and Gabi). The awkward boy, Carlo Alban, received full cast billing during his tenure. So by that standard, they should probably be counted. It makes it harder when dealing with earlier cast members, though. Raul Julia was a regular for one season (but unless anyone has the Sesame Unpaved tapes, it's hard to know whether he received billing or not). Should he be listed? And the issue with John-John, who hasn't been added, when the page *is* created (Sesame Street Unpaved had some good info on him, as I recall), is if he's not listed as Sesame Street Cast, where would he go? A seperate Sesame Street Kids category is a possibility, but seems potentionally problematic as some folks might then want to add *every* kid who was on the show at any time, possibly regardless of whether they even spoke or not. On the other hand, though I think John John probably was in the main street at some point, his enduring (endearing?) legacy is in those little inserts, randomly telling Grover to count a penny, and so forth. So perhaps a "Sesame Inserts Cast" category, specifically limited only to those who appeared in recurring inserts (i.e at least a set of 5 to 6 segments, perhaps), may help (Noodles would probably be exempt because, while confined to Elmo's World, they're not self-contained sketches, as they also interact with Elmo, and always appear for a sort of boy at the end of Elmo's World).


 * A related issue is human cast members in general, outside of the street. I recently created a Muppet Specials Cast category to deal with folks who acted in specials, weren't celebrities, and didn't fit anywhere else, but whither Gerry Parkes? At such time as someone adds folks from Big Bag or even the recently discussed Puppetman pilot, where would they go? And what does one due to prevent, or should one prevent, individual entries for every person in Gulliver's Travels or "Policeman #3" in Muppets Take Manhattan? (Been considering entries myself on the two main Follow That Bird kids, but since they have decent sized roles, character names, and were actually used in books that "Big Bird Goes to the Farm" text for the Talking Big Bird], I *think* they'd be safe). I know the general Wiki motto is "be bold," but how bold dare we be before there's clammer for a "Muppet Stuntmen" or "Muppet Caterers" category? --Andrew, Aleal 22:29, 1 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I can dig the idea of listing Carlo and Tara as cast members. I didn't realize they received billing like that.  But I remain unconvinced about the likes of "Fay the Weimaraner" going in the same category as Bob McGrath and the like.  So I could get behind a "Sesame Inserts Cast" category separate from the cast category.  Or is that silly?
 * Gerry Parkes, eh? It sure seems like he should go somewhere, but seeing as how he was the only human regular on Fraggle Rock... I don't know.  As for the Muppet Stuntmen category, I get what you're saying... It would be crazy, but there might be somebody crazy enough to do it.  How much is too much?  -Ryan R PrawnRR 22:38, 1 February 2006 (UTC)


 * It's funny, you guys are going through the same thing I was in December, when we were first setting things up. I had a bunch of arguments with Scott and Peter, because I was worried that there were too many categories. I had the same "How much is too much?" questions. I even deleted my own "Muppet Lunchboxes" category, cause I thought, okay, I'm going too far. Well, the lunchboxes category is back, along with PVC Figures and Video Games and everything.


 * It turns out that the wiki is big enough to handle whatever people want to put into it. If somebody wants to add a page for every kid who's ever been on Sesame Street, then why not? When you think about it, that would be kind of cool, and I hope somebody does it someday. Bring on Floyd and Ruthie, bring on John-John, bring on Policeman #3. To paraphrase Oprah: Everybody gets a page.


 * Obviously, some pages are going to be developed more than others. I'm sure that over time Loretta Long and Bob McGrath will have bigger and more informative pages than Carlo or Tara. There's more to say, and people care about them more. I agree that we want Loretta and Bob to have a special status that's higher than random kid cast members, and that status will be reflected in the quality of their pages. We don't need to protect that status by keeping out kids, or caterers, or weimeraners.


 * So this is the thing I figured out: Categories are a navigation tool. When somebody's looking at a particular entry, and they want to see similar entries, they click on the category and browse around. But it's just a navigation tool, it's not a Top 25 list. So the Muppet Characters category has Miss Piggy and Big Bird, and it also has Afghan Hound and Alvy Mellish, the Muppet equivalents of Policeman #3. We're big enough. -- Danny Toughpigs 01:17, 2 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't know if this is the right place to point this out, but in Sesame Street: 20 and Still Counting, John John said that his real name is John Williams. --Minor muppetz 01:41, 2 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, inspired and empowered by all this discourse, John John now has a page! A first draft, anyway, with info from a 1998 article with the odd yet endearing title "Grover San Antonian's 14 years on 'Sesame Street' influenced his life." It could use a photo, though. Right now, John John's in the cast. If we do decide a "Sesame Inserts Cast" is needed for organization, it should definitely be a subcategory, as otherwise it would confuse rather than aide, unless someone went down the category lists. Unless we want to have another voting poll: "Are Buddy and Jim Cast Members, or Creatures?" --Andrew, Aleal 02:13, 2 February 2006 (UTC)


 * No Buddy or Jim yet, but we've added Ward Saxton, Carlo Alban, Barbara Dana (aka Phyllis), and that mysterious fruit peddler Chet O'Brien. And what about Doc? Minormuppetz started a Non-Famous Actors category for Gerry Parkes and co. Personally, I'm not so sure. For one thing, and maybe it's the pessimist thing, I can foresee some wags moving Ashanti or some other celebrity they don't like in as a whim. More than that, it's an awkward and in some ways demeaning title. I'd favor either "Muppet TV Cast" or just plain "actors" myself. Do we continue the discussion, or is it at the point where this, and the question of whether a Sesame Inserts Cast is needed to keep Barbara Dana from breathing over Roscoe Orman, should go up for voting? ---Aleal 01:48, 3 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Sweet! Now I want somebody to come up with an episode guide for all his inserts. And maybe someday that somebody will be me. -- Danny Toughpigs 02:38, 2 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, I listed some of his skits in the Sesame Street Muppet & Kid Moments section. --Minor muppetz 13:39, 2 February 2006 (UTC)