Template talk:The Muppets

Ordering

So why is it a big deal if the "The years are not consistent"? Powers ^T 20:48, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

To be clear, I think it's more useful to keep Follow That Bird together with Elmo in Grouchland than to maintain strict chronological order. Powers ^T 14:37, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

I would ask for people who insist on strict chronological ordering to please discuss this issue instead of blindly reverting. Powers ^T 23:46, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Why not just sort the Muppet Movies from the Sesame Street movies using a sub-section? Rtkat3 (talk) 7:06, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

That would work, too, but I don't know that it's necessary. Powers ^T 12:42, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Requested move

• This template covers more than just the films, it covers the entire "The Muppets" franchise

Template:Muppet films → Template:The Muppets — This template covers more than just the films, it covers the entire "The Muppets" franchise 70.24.248.23 (talk) 07:44, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.

Discussion

Any additional comments:

•  Done Alarbus (talk) 08:03, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

The Muppets - portal for deletion discussion

Please see Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Muppets. — Cirt (talk) 20:05, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Please collapse this box

Can someone please set the box to automatically collapse, so it doesn't take up a huge amount of space at the end of articles? Thanks! -- Ssilvers (talk) 04:42, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

Or we could revert it back to a shorter version. Powers ^T 19:01, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

True purpose

Is the template being used to organize articles related to only The Muppets or any general article about the products The Walt Disney Company, The Jim Henson Company and Sesame Workshop have done? If we are going to maintain a template for The Muppets (which I assume we are doing, considering the category is linked to this template and The Muppets are a separate Disney-owned franchise from either Sesame Workshop or the Jim Henson Co.) then we should remove anything indirectly related to the Disney-owned Muppet Show characters.

Almost all of the Jim Henson Company and Sesame Workshop links should be removed and placed into their respective templates; for example, a Sesame Workshop production (such as CinderElmo) should be moved to this template, as it is remotely connected to The Muppets characters. However, something like Sesame Street is fine, because The Muppets characters have been involved in some capacity with that show.

The characters section is fine, along with the Muppeteers and discography sections, but the television series, television specials, direct-to-video and (namely) the Henson Alternative sections are plagued with productions that have nothing to do with The Muppet Show characters. Cutting out the unnecessary links could also shrink the template's large size by nearly half as much.

Thoughts? ~ Jedi94 (talk) 22:44, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

I've expanded on the existing template for Jim Henson and instead re-purposed it to serve a broader purpose for The Jim Henson Company. Thus, I have moved the Henson Alternative section from this template to there because of its little relation to The Muppets brand and as an attempt to shrink the massive size of this template. Any suggestions/comments? ~ Jedi94 (talk) 19:11, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

I too believe that this template should be for "The Muppets" as a franchise/particular set of characters, not all Jim Henson puppetry projects. Sesame Street specials and feature films should be in the Sesame Street navbox. I'm moving them there now. oknazevad (talk) 01:56, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Okay, not just yet. Looking at the template, it also includes many other non-Muppet (but still Henson) things, like The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss. This is not the Jim Henson Company navbox; it shouldn't contain items that don't involve the set of characters now owned by Muppet Studios. It would take some time to figure it all out. oknazevad (talk) 02:23, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. I tried sorting it out at one point and it got very confusing when it came to deciding on some particular things like the television specials. Anyway, this template should eventually get organized and contain articles relating to characters owned by Disney/The Muppets Studio. Hopefully, we'll get there piece by piece. ~ Jedi94 (talk) 17:47, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

I've removed more than half of the television shows that have no or little direct correlation to The Muppets franchise and added them the Henson template. ~ Jedi94 (talk) 18:40, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Comics

The list under Other Media currently includes "The Muppet Show Comics", referring to the comic-book series of that title and its affiliated mini-series titles (Muppet Robin Hood, Muppet Snow White, etc.) published by Boom! Studios from 2009 - 2011.

The template omits any reference to another Muppets comic series which pre-dates the above by twenty-plus years. Muppet Babies (based on and named for the children's animated series) was published by Star/Marvel Comics from 1985 to 1989 (with separate editions in the UK and Germany) and re-issued by Harvey Comics from 1992 to 1994.

(I avoid editing templates, etc. outside my own WikiProject areas, but I wanted to throw this out for consideration.) ~ TampAGS (talk) 08:40, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Shortening names?

Firstly, why should we shorten names? I suppose in some cases it's fine, such as Jim Henson's Muppet Babies and that sort. Of course, a typical reader should know that the links found in template devoted to The Muppets should be related to them, but is that the real reason behind simplifying? Should it even be a reason? Are readers too lazy to read a whole name? Are we saving space in the template?

If this is the case then what's the criteria for shortening? I'll provide some examples.

• Why is Muppet Treasure Island and The Muppet Christmas Carol truncated to Treasure Island and Christmas Carol, respectively, whereas The Muppet Movie and The Muppets Take Manhattan are still fully intact? Shouldn't they be changed to Movie and Take Manhattan?
• Why isn't "The Muppet Show Theme" shortened to simply "Show Theme" or The Muppet Show to just Show.
• Why are titles with "the" in the preface being dropped? We can't we use The Mike Douglas Show, The Ed Sullivan Show and The Muppets Studio, but we can use it sans "the"?
• The Jim Henson Hour changed to Henson Hour? How does that make any sense? Is Jim Henson Hour or Hour not valid candidates?

Secondly, according to the revision history at Template:The Muppets, it has been claimed "that hovering will give the full title" would be sufficient enough to provide readers with the correct name. Well, about mobile users? Are we supposed to alienate them?

Edits will be reverted until there is a firm consensus with logical reasoning presented that explains the sudden change. The issue is open for discussion. ~ Jedi94 (talk) 23:01, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Shortening article titles is to shorten the vertical length of the template (WP:NAV). The larger the template, the longer to wade through it. The longer to wade through it, the more likely hood of a WP reader goes away. Besides, the whole name can be read when hovered over; I am sorry you can not grasp that function.

Criteria is that the "shortening" must make reasonable sense but to a degree it is an art.

You answer your own question about Treasure Island and Christmas Carol as they amount to the Muppets' versus of those stories, etc.

The Muppet Movie and The Muppets Take Manhattan could be shorten to "Movie" or "Take Manhattan"; those are the more tricky ones. Those types of shortening where the art comes in. Perhaps, we go with Take Manhattan"

"The" is the easiest one to do as people mentally included it even when it is not there.

So Jim Henson is not the primary Henson that you connect with the Muppets? Which Henson would you primary assign to the Muppets other than Jim Henson? Are there tons of other shows with "Henson Hour" as part of its title? I think not. Jim Henson Hour (or "J.Henson Hour") is definitely valid while "Hour" not as much as the title is not "Muppets Hour" as being in the Muppets template implies that title.

Show me what policy that indicates that we must use the full title of an article at every mention/use. Do you insist that every one always address you by your full name each and every time? Spshu (talk) 00:36, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

You haven't addressed several key issues:

• Readers on mobile devices, where functions such as hovering are non-existent.
• "The longer to wade through it, the more likely hood of a WP reader goes away" - Are you serious? By that logic, why don't we just make every article on Wikipedia two sentences long then?
• The claim of Jim Henson being the primary person of the surname is an assumption, not a verified fact. Sure, there are few shows that share that name, but what if the readers aren't familiar with that?
• You can't enact edits that transform the majority of information without giving reaching a consensus or posting a warning on the talk page first, so other users can be informed. You just did it out of the blue. That's another reason why your edits were reverted.

Now...

If we are going to continue to shorten names, I propose these suggestions:

• Keep the names the concern "art", such as The Muppet Movie and The Muppets Take Manhattan. The Jim Henson Hour should only have "the" dropped. ~ Jedi94 (talk) 01:10, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

First of all, Spshu, I'd like to thank you for your years of editing WP, and providing content for people to read. However, I have to say that your logic here doesn't resonate with me, and i don't see it resonating with others. There is absolutely no reason to shorten names in the template, especially inconsistently. You say "show me what policy that indicates that we must use the full title of an article at every mention/use." well as far as i know, there is no policy that says we should be inconsistent and confuse readers either. WP should be about everyone having equal access to information, and they should be able to have equal understanding. Omitting parts of the title to a movie, is quite misleading and useless. Also, Jedi94's argument for mobile users is sound, as I browse WP on my phone quite often, and templates are my main navigational tool. I think we can all agree, for consistency's sake, to leave it as it was before the superfluous edits. Celestial Reader (talk) 01:20, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Neither of of you readed WP:NAV (which I cited) did you as it states in regards to templates: "They should be kept small in size as a large template has limited navigation value." An article of course is not to be two sentences long unless you want to hold the WP site hostage to mobile users. (Sorry, I over look the mobile issue before. But is generally covered in that the article is about Muppets and the "the" argument.) Second, how can you consider, Celestial Reader, the more non-art consistent dropping of the "The" or "Muppets" to be fully inconsistent? How is it misleding in a Muppets template to omit "Muppets" when it makes sense? Is or isn't the navbox about Muppets?

Well, neither of you never responded to a compromise of using ellipsis "..." or Tilde "~" in place of Muppets.

"You can't enact edits that transform the majority of information without giving reaching a consensus or posting a warning on the talk page first, so other users can be informed." Jedi94

No, that is completely incorrect, Jedi94, as editors are to "be bold" which means I don't have to ask your permission nor make notification. Nor does it "transform the majority of information" as the navbox is still about Muppets nor distrupt the ability to navigate as you can still get to the articles.

The claim of Jim Henson being the primary person of the surname is an assumption, not a verified fact. Sure, there are few shows that share that name, but what if the readers aren't familiar with that?

You have twisted what I said. You don't know that primary Henson affiliated with the Muppets is Jim Henson? Is it really that hard for a reader to click through Henson Hour (particularily if they don't have hover) to see that the full title is "The Jim Henson Hour" then back out. Doing a WP search turns up no other Henson Hour. A search via Bing and Google on Henson Hour only turns up The Jim Henson Hour in first few pages.

Of course, Jedi94, you seem to have a hard time with basic Acronym like TV for Television, since you seen fit to reverse that obvious abbreviation in The Jim Henson Company template. I really dislike this "our readers are dumb" theme that the both of you are pushing.

Another option is to split the navbox up. Spshu (talk) 18:30, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm glad you finally realized that you overlooked mobile users. How do you plan on splitting the navbox template up? ~ Jedi94 (talk) 20:14, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

It's not about this, our readers our dumb thing. It's about allowing people to freely obtain information with no background knowledge. It's one thing to not understand acronyms, but it's something else entirely to not know the full name of a person. A title is made a certain way for a reason, and changing the name of a title goes against their artistic view, just because our artistic view is in conflict. We should assume they knew what they were doing when they created the title, or else we wouldn't be writing articles about them... Celestial Reader (talk) 20:43, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Celestial Reader makes a valid point about readers with no previous background knowledge. I'll use a hypothetical to elaborate:

Let's say I've never heard who Jim Henson is or who The Muppets are (Not everyone is born with such facts). I'm trying to learn about these characters, so I stumble across The Muppets navbox and the phrase Henson Hour shows up - what is that? Is that an hour-long show based of a character named Henson? Maybe a location called Henson? A network name? Just a word?

Now let's say it said; The Jim Henson Hour. That name sounds more like a person's actual name. Maybe the show is based/produced/hosted by such a person. Maybe this person is a guy by the name of Jim Henson. Maybe this Jim Henson has something to do with the Muppets. And, voilà, a connection is made. That's one of the fundamentals of any encyclopedia such as WP; it's to inform, not cut corners. ~ Jedi94 (talk) 20:59, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

←If they have no background knowledge then any way we list articles won't mean a thing to them. The articles are what inform the reader anyways, not the navbox, so long as how they are listed are not ambig. We are not here to inforce some one's artistic view not even with the article title, WP uses common names (it can be the official name too). I didn't know about the Henson Hour when I first came across the navbox, so click on it and found out. Is that so difficult for readers? do you expect every one to address you by your full name (first, middle, last) plus your address title (mr.,mrs., etc.) everytime they say a sentence to you? You are here on WP using a login name not your full on legal name as your parents were making an partly artistic decision in naming you. Spshu (talk) 14:36, 4 April 2013 (UTC)