The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus. There is broad agreement from all participants that Bert and Ernie are notable. The question posed by this AfD discussion is whether they are notable as independent characters or only notable as a duo. Our process does permit contested (or likely to be contested) redirects to be nominated for deletion so this is an appropriate venue for the discussion. The fact that several partcipants suggesting seperate articles come in with a bolded oppose (compared to a more standard !vote of keep) is suggestive of the emotional impact this discussion has for some editors. Editors in favor of keeping point to other notable duos who have seperate articles, however those advocating merge/redirect suggest some of those duos are different by virtue of being real people as opposed to fictional characters. Editors in favor of keeping also point to independent appearences by each character, and in particular by Ernie. Some editors in favor of keeping also point to a variety of WP:IDONTLIKEIT type reasons. Editors in favor of redirecting/merging suggest that there is limited outside content which could be contained in a joint article and that notability on the whole is jointly achieved as opposed to independently achieved. Ultimately after two relistings there is enough policy based reasoning opposing a merge/redirect to prevent such a closure here, especially because there is some disagreement about whether Bert & Ernie should be merged into a joint article or whether the joint article be merged into the two seperate articles. This kind of content discussion can be had through a merge discussion involving all three articles should those advocating a redirect/merge wish to do so. Barkeep49 (talk) 04:49, 22 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Ernie (Sesame Street) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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A notable character, yes, but does he transcend the even more notable Bert and Ernie duo? All non-trivial noteworthy things about the character are already in the duo article (WP:OVERLAP), so a merge proposal doesn't make sense. I'd BOLDly redirect it to the duo article, but I just know that would get undone due to the popularity of the character, so it's AfD then.

I am also nominating the following related page for the same reason:

Bert (Sesame Street) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

– sgeureka ^t•c 12:23, 27 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions. – sgeureka ^t•c 12:23, 27 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Television-related deletion discussions. Toughpigs (talk) 04:03, 29 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete the duo is notable, they are so rarely portrayed on their own it is not worth having seperate articles.John Pack Lambert (talk) 13:48, 27 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Redirect to Bert and Ernie. I agree that having two separate articles on each individual is a needless WP:SPLIT from the article on the duo, as nearly all reliable sources discuss them as a group. However, both articles would be logical redirects to the main article. That would also leave the history intact in case anything needs to be merged, though neither article is especially well-sourced, so I'm not sure how much potential merging content there might be. Rorshacma (talk) 16:10, 27 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Redirect to Bert and Ernie. No need for duplicate content, but this is a logical search term. Hog Farm (talk) 16:59, 27 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose. Yes, this and the Bert article needs work, but I think that there's enough information out there to warrant keeping both articles. If anything, Bert and Ernie should be deleted; it contains all kinds of duplicate content. I realize that Muppet Wiki shouldn't be our model, but they have two articles with different content and no article about both characters as a duo. If they're kept, I promise to work on both articles and bring them up to snuff, although I'm busy, so it may take a little while. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 18:52, 27 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose and potentially merge relevant Bert and Ernie content into this (or Bert) article to resolve WP:OVERLAP problem. Agree with Figureskatingfan above. They’re separate characters and do appear independently of one another as well as together, more appropriate to have two articles than one. Shelbystripes (talk) 23:14, 27 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Redirect both. While notable together, there's no sense in them being separate. While they are separate characters, they're also a combined skit (for lack of a better word), so pretty much all information on one will be relevant to the other. TTN (talk) 12:09, 28 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose. The character is clearly notable, and even the nominator and keep votes acknowledge that, which means the AFD is the wrong venue for this discussion. A Merge discussion should be held in the talk pages instead, where a discussion can be held and a WP:CONSENSUS can be reached about whether a merge or redirect is appropriate. That discussion should take place outside of a deletion discussion, so I would suggest this AFD be speedily ended and the Merge discussion templates be added to the pages instead. — Hunter Kahn 14:43, 28 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • AFAIK, there is no wiki venue for discussion if you simply want to redirect something (without merging), so I consider AFD as good as any other. Re-read nom. – sgeureka ^t•c 08:58, 31 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Redirect to Bert and Ernie. Yes, the two have appeared separately, but they are most commonly used together. What unique elements there are for Ernie can be merged into a section about that character in the duo article, and same with Bert. Its an unnecessary split otherwise. --Masem (t) 21:28, 28 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep/Oppose. There is quite a bit in the Ernie article that isn't in the combined duo article, and it could be expanded. For one thing, Ernie sang "Rubber Duckie" as a solo, which peaked at #16 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1970. I think that makes the character fairly notable. -- Toughpigs (talk) 03:57, 29 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Actually, "Rubber Duckie" (as the most important fact on stand-alone Ernie) was already mentioned with sources in Bert and Ernie pre-AfD, which makes/made me question why Ernie needs a stand-alone article at all. – sgeureka ^t•c 07:34, 1 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • Because it has nothing to do with Bert, and it would be confusing for people actually familiar with the characters to get redirected to “Bert and Ernie” for something that wasn't a Bert and Ernie thing? If anything, there should be a WP:SPLIT discussion about reducing the content on the “Bert and Ernie” page, possibly even just to a disambiguation page, with links to each character’s page (and having the content relevant to each of them there). They’re independent characters that don’t always exist together. Shelbystripes (talk) 14:39, 13 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      • Not always together, but most often together, as the reader of this article will soon discover. Rubber Duckie has to do with Bert because it has to do with Ernie, who is half of the muppet duo Bert and Ernie. Rubber Duckie is the signature prop that is employed in the skits that Ernie does with Bert. Were someone to seek information about the song, I suppose they would search for Rubber Duckie first, followed by Ernie and Bert / Bert and Ernie / Ernie & Bert, with Ernie the Muppet / Ernie from Sesame Street / Ernie (Sesame Street) being last because they are less intuitive. StonyBrook (talk) 22:18, 19 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep, in the latest 26 episodes alone, Ernie appeared solo at least three times. (https://muppet.fandom.com/wiki/Episode_4909 https://muppet.fandom.com/wiki/Episode_4913 https://muppet.fandom.com/wiki/Episode_4916) He appeared with Cookie Monster, sans Bert, way back in episode 8 of the show. Along with Journey to Ernie, which the article briefly mentions, he had another solo recurring segment. Last year Wynton Marsalis had a Sesame concert at the Lincoln Centre, where Ernie performed four songs, only one of which was a duet with Bert. They are separate characters. -- Zanimum (talk) 21:17, 29 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Poor Ernie just can't seem to keep that Bert off his back:( StonyBrook (talk) 14:28, 19 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep per WP:IAR and potentially bad publicity for Wikipedia. I don't care if there's no sources primarily about him, I don't want to see Oprah or Christine Teigen blasting us for destroying a beloved childhood character. Bearian (talk) 22:19, 30 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• You are aware that Bert and Ernie is an article, right? This discussion is about the necessity of having separate articles. I don't think anyone would argue that the characters aren't notable. TTN (talk) 22:24, 30 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Redirect To Bert and Ernie per everyone else. Most of their notability comes as a pair._{ZXCVBNM (TALK)} 06:14, 1 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge, and obviously leave redirects. They are mainly famous as the dynamic duo of Bert and Ernie, no need to have standalones. The individual pages have some good content, which should be saved and added into the main article. I think a straight redirect is not very useful here. If folks feel a merge discussion is more appropriate, I'd support that too and would support closing this AfD as no consensus. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 19:10, 1 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep The Bert and Ernie article only briefly mentions the characters on an individual basis and to delete the individual articles would result in a significant loss of information. Rillington (talk)

• Merge with Bert and Ernie. As others have noted, the pair is most notable as a duo, not on their own. Anecdotal evidence for this comes from reading their separate articles, which mentions their partner in almost every paragraph. The standalone articles seem to bend over backwards to find unique things about them, for, it seems to me, the express purpose of creating retaining a WP:REDUNDANTFORK. Case in point is Category:Sesame Street Muppet characters, where the subjects must appear needlessly twice. Merging is necessary in order to replace the good content that was unnecessarily spun off. A similar problem exists with the Tom Cat and Jerry Mouse articles, where a WP:MERGE (not Afd - that happened already) to Tom and Jerry (characters) discussion should be opened. A good example to follow in all of this is Tyke (character) which redirects to Spike and Tyke (characters), (the "character" in the above 2 cases is only necessary due to the existence of the Tom and Jerry and Spike and Tyke series, which does not apply here). Abbott and Costello were also most notable as a duo, but deserve their separate articles because they were people who had real lives outside of their act, while here we are talking about puppets and cartoon characters, endearing as they may be. StonyBrook (talk) 13:31, 19 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. You might could argue Bert doesn't justify his own article, but Ernie has been used a great deal as a stand alone character since the character began. Granted, most of the time, we talk of "Bert and Ernie", but the charting single and other solo work justifies a standalone article. As for the argument, I would point to Captain & Tennille, who are obviously notable as a pair, but you likely couldn't recite from memory a reason why they have individual articles; yet they do, for good reason. I could be wrong, but I think Ernie has charted higher as a solo artist than Toni Tennille has solo. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 22:54, 21 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.