Forum:Master tape slates

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Anyone in favor of deleting [[Sandbox:Sesame Street master tape dates]]? The information is not relevant, and they're being mistaken for the actual in-studio production dates, which we have sources for anyhow. The Season 7 ones we're only using because the episodes have no actual onscreen numbering, but all the others we don't need. - Shane (talk) 21:22, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

The page was only started by someone else when I removed the surplus of images from our existing tape slate page. It's not a bad page idea and I appreciate the intent of preserving those images, but if we can't make the distinction clearer, then yeah, it should probably go. — Jon (talk) 21:59, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

I vote for taking a pass at clearing up the language in the lead before deciding its final fate. —Scott (talk) 22:04, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

I agree with Scott; find a way to salvage them before removal. -- Tony (talk) 22:10, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

I don't get what we'd do with them, though. Taping dates are useful for things like when Kevin Clash took over for Elmo, or Stephanie D'Abruzzo's first day on set, or whenever Frank decided to show up. What relevance does the date an episode was edited together have for our purposes? - Shane (talk) 22:18, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

I'm in the camp of thinking that they do have historical value, while also making an introductory distinction between dates of tapes to air and dates of street scenes themselves. I'd be in favor of keeping images of the plain text tape images with the tape slates, that is, if I knew for sure that with including such a distinction that our readers could visually put two and two together. -- Splurge (talk) 13:10, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

There seem to be a lot of these popping up lately, so I'd thought I'd chime in again. Visually they're quite repetitive, and I think one or two of the slates marking the time period that they were used could be kept. (The "Big Bird" ones started in season 20, the "slate" ones in the '80s, etc.) There may be someone out there interested in edit dates or master reel numbers, but I don't really see any value in keeping the page anymore. I think the few that are left over (415, 573, 1452, and a few other later ones) could be moved to the behind-the-scenes page. Maybe there could be text denoting when they were used to add some more value to them? -- Tony (talk) 03:54, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

I still stand by the notion that we don't need them; nothing presented on them is relevant to our needs. And yes, now that there's even more of them on there, it's visually bending together. - Shane (talk) 04:12, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Knowing what date an episode was edited or finalized feels like the kind of information we don't know what to do with right now, but could be useful in the future when trying to pin down a date for something. I don't see any reason why this needs to come out of the sandbox until then. —Scott (talk) 11:17, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Well, they should be useful for behind-the-scenes, so keep the page. Though, I have to change "dates" to "slates". We don't know for sure about the "slate" ones, they may have debuted in the late '70s or something. And the last season with the "Big Bird" ones must be season 26, which could be the last season in monaural audio. The next season would be in stereo audio and have the introduction sequence playing during the slate. And the Sesame Street logo, first seen in show 1915, is seen on the slates from seasons 20-29, even after it stopped appearing at the end of every episode after season 26.Cheril59 (talk) 17:01, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I still don't get it. - Shane (talk) 17:41, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

Cheril, in what way are they useful? —Scott (talk) 20:56, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

Well, if there were a site full of master tape slates for different TV shows...I mean, Sesame Street's appearance was the tenth episode of Evening at Pops.[[1]]Cheril59 (talk) 02:32, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

That's not really an answer. - Shane (talk) 03:07, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

My chewing gum loses its flavor overnight. Which is to say, I don't understand that sentence at all. In regards to the topic of this thread, I tried to give it the benefit of the doubt, thinking maybe those dates might be useful for something we're not thinking of right now. But I'm with Shane in that I can't see any value in them at the moment and I don't think there's a reason to maintain this even as a sandbox page. Which is not to say we might not think of something in the future where we would have to reference edit dates, but for now I think they need to Go bye-bye!. Cheril, feel free to keep collecting them on your hard drive in the event that they need to be referenced for something. —Scott (talk) 11:14, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

Just as well 'cuz now, Dean Onessimo took down the episodes from archive.orgCheril59 (talk) 19:50, 6 October 2021 (UTC)