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Hey folks. There's been some off-Wiki admin discussion about the character lists on our Sesame Street season articles. To get everyone on the same page: the purpose of these character listings is not to list every single Muppet who might have appeared in an episode or insert. If you look at older seasons as models, they're to list main or recurring characters. Occasionally errors have occurred or a one-shot included on an older page, but the point isn't to be a laundry list. Individual episode pages are the place to handle that. Also, take a look at how older pages handle human character listings. It's main or recurring. Tracking which seasons Willy (human) or Sir John Feelgood (Muppet) makes sense, in a way that tracking one-time characters Dr. Sing or Fowler Scowler on season pages doesn't.
So we've developed some guidelines to help:
- Only list recurring or main *characters*. If a puppet is reused, it shouldn't be listed unless it's clearly the same character or consistent performer/personality. Lately, Sesame Workshop has gradually been introducing a lot of new characters, so press releases and performer bios will stress a character who only actually appears once in that season. As long as there's evidence of that intent for the character, the inclusion makes sense. Or if they previously appeared in a book, animated series, web video, coloring book, etc. before appearing as an actual Muppet on the main show (i.e. Bertina, Elmo's grandparents).
- Lists on Sesame Street seasons should only contain characters who have pages. While some of our book entries or other articles will have unlinked names for characters who don't exist outside of that book or for whom there's little to say, a text entry for "Jimmy" in a season overview doesn't indicate who it is or where they appeared. Sticking to rule one will mostly correct that. Redlinked names shouldn't be on the season overviews either (those are generally one-shots; they belong on the episode page); again, this could be exempted if it's a new character who's been announced, but typically those pages will be created before the season finishes airing anyway.
- Collectives. Look at older seasons, the first three decades, and in fact most until the last three to six seasons or so, and we don't try to track every single animal, mineral, or vegetable type who appears. We do list Anything Muppets. Since the Muppet Workshop and scripts typically attach "AM" to utility and incidental puppets whether they're actually made from a specific Anything Muppet pattern, admins have decided it makes more sense to just assume that encompasses those, as well as extras and one-shot speaking parts who are Anything Muppets. Even talking letters, numbers, shapes, etc. would fall under that. The exceptions would be for the following: Anything Muppets as said, AM Monsters, Grouches, Dingers, Honkers, Martians (it's usually the same duo anyway). Where the point is that it's the specific recurring species/group character rather than a random rabbit or even a group of cows. It's not really doable or helpful to try to adjust every season page to see if cows or horses were in them.
There may be logical exceptions that come up, but in general, sticking to these will help so the named or recurring characters or "hey, this character pops up for the first time in ten years" instances aren't drowned out by "Insects" and "Door." We have Category:Sesame Street Characters, the performer galleries, and the episode pages themselves to track the one-shots. — Jon (talk) 17:20, 9 July 2024 (UTC)