Policy questionEdit

I'm confused. Do only fictional news shows and people go here? If so, why are real people like Anderson Cooper and Peter Jennings here? Should they go somewhere else? -- Ken (talk) 01:58, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

That's what the category definition has said since the beginning, and that was the original idea, especially since the definition of a real-life broadcaster is much broader and encompasses a ton of folks not here: Matt Lauer, Walter Cronkite, Willard Scott, etc. Granted, Category:Game Shows includes real game show personalities, but that's a smaller number and much easier to define. A few users stuck the real folks in, but only a few, and it wasn't noticed before. The original idea of the themes categories was to look at themes within their Muppet context, and in this case, even if they appeared with the Muppets, the real broadcasters don't fit that. Or we could jettison this alltogether (it was back when we were all a bit theme happy), though I think it is useful to track which episodes focused specifically on radio or TV broadcasting or newscasting and so on, plus those projects that were inherently about putting on a TV show (Little Muppet Monsters, Puppetman, Muppets Tonight, and so on). It would be considerably diluted if we kept adding Cooper, Jennings, MacNeil, et. al. (possibly keep those who are explicitly referenced or spoofed, which has been a good guideline for other categories, though that too covers a lot of ground). -- Andrew Leal (talk) 02:09, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

I was going to say something, but now I'm not sure how I feel about it. I never seem to be able to get a clear grasp of how certain things are categorized, so I'll just sit back and see what other people's thoughts are. -- Ken (talk) 05:34, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, when Nate added David Muir here, I figured that about any news anchor was fair game and went to add a few more. Now that I found this discussion I'm not sure how I feel about the addition anymore, thinking that it'd be nice to have a place like this, entirely devoted to the spoofs of the Muppetverse. What if we categorized the "real" folks over at Broadcasters and included them along the "broadcasting entities" that said category was created for? — Julian (talk) 23:17, November 13, 2009 (UTC)

I hadn't noticed this conversation before, and now I'm confused as well. I had seen a few people like Anderson Cooper listed here, and figured it was for anything Broadcasting related, I hadn't thought about what Andrew presented. -- Nate (talk) 23:33, November 13, 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure about Julian's suggestion, since there "Broadcasters" is specifically defined as networks, stations, etc. Hopefully others will weigh in, but while I'm not crazy about sticking in every real person or reference as well as their parodies (since it would seem kind of silly to include both Walter Cranky and Walter Cronkite, for example) and would raise the question of whether to include all the talk show hosts (Craig Ferguson) as well, or Alex Trebek, and so on. Jean Shepherd was a noted radio personality so one could argue he should go here, and it just becomes incredibly tricky, while limiting it to the fictional stations and characters and so in keeps the scope controllable (I just took out ABC News, which I noticed had snuck in here). I'd actually prefer, if someone really wants to categorize them (and don't forget, there's always the list option, which is better than a category, for grouping; since as far as actually searching, folks would find these via Celebrities) to create a "News Anchors/Personalities" category (which I guess could include the real and fake). But my own recommendation would be to just create a list and stick it here and not bother with categorizing the individuals. Right now, looking at the expansions, I actually find it much harder to find the real people or, for the more obscure to me, figure out which are real and which are characters. Cooper was basically an old error that wasn't noticed (I see Ken pointed out it and Peter Jennings, apparently the original exceptions, up there but both he and I forgot to detag them). I think we may need more folks to weigh in for a consensus of what they think this category should be (repurposing if most prefer it that way is always possible). Otherwise, if nobody can agree or understand the purpose of the category (that was the reason for the careful definition, but category definitions are often overlooked, people just see the phrase), then, though it was a fun idea, it might be best just to delete it. -- Andrew Leal (talk) 23:46, November 13, 2009 (UTC)

Looking at this again, since Alex and I were talking about it, can we rework the Broadcasters and Broadcasting categories? I was thinking of something like, have one category for the real networks, and also include celebrities when the Muppets were guests on their show, and then have one category for the fictional networks, and also include celebrites who were guest stars on different Muppet shows. That way we'd keep Muppet guest appearances together with real channels (both "real world", and then we'd also have human guest stars with fictional channels (both "Muppet world"). Thoughts? -- Ken (talk) 03:36, January 16, 2010 (UTC)

Looking at that discussion with Alex, it seems that, apart from confusing the two, it had more to do with items which didn't belong anyway (including songs just because of an MTV-intro, whereas articles on actual characters who are broadcasters or fake stations do). If you can think of suitable titles, though, to say subcat this category, then that would make sense. The guest appearances really shouldn't be in the same category as NBC, ABC, etc. since that category serves a different purpose (and really as I said at the beginning, I feel like we really should yank out anything that's real. The definition really is straightforward: "Episodes, characters, and fictional programs and stations related to television and radio in the Muppet/Henson universe.") We never did clean this up after that last conversation, so this just seems like a good time to do that, unless you can think of a suitable sub-category title to encompass solely real newscasters, guest spots, etc. I like that as an idea but I really have no idea what to call it, so right now I'd just as soon clean this up to match the category definition (which has clear see alsos). As for Category:Broadcasters, that's a subcat of companies and renamed just because "TV Channels/Networks" wasn't correct or broad enough. There's 30 items in there now though and some may merit deletion at some point (when there's nothing to say but "Channel Blank once aired show X," when that info is already on Show X) but I say take one step at a time; maybe eventually sticking Charles Gibson etc. in with ABC and NBC will make sense, but not with the current structure. -- Andrew Leal (talk) 04:08, January 16, 2010 (UTC)