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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Pinktulip (talk | contribs) at 00:24, 9 February 2006 (→Michael's marriage vows). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.


The archives for the Terri Schiavo page may be found here:


I'd like to set a goal for all of us

Happy Holidays, everyone. It occured to me that in coming months, media attention will once again focus on this subject. *shudders* Wikipedia, and this article, have been called the best, most balanced sources of information on Terri and the tragedy that surrounded her. But, we all know we can do better. Let's do this:

Our goal should be for the article to best it can be by the time the public journeys back to the topic. We have 2 good, solid months to further refine the article.

To achieve this, we must work together. Some things I'd like to see:

  • Refinement of the chronological flow of the article. There's still some jumping back and forth.
  • Reviewing how much of the body of the article can be shifted to sub-articles to control size without leading to POV.
  • Ensuring that the language surrounding Terri's condition is inclusive, rather than absolute. We can avoid bickering and vandalism this way.
  • Seeing if we can trim the references. While amazing in their depth and breath, the references are 1/3 of the article's size.
  • Resubmitting the article for Featured Article status. Too many good people have put too much work into this article to deny it.

What are your thoughts?--ghost 17:57, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't checked in here in months, but I just wanted to comment that the article is looking very good. I had been paying close attention to it for a while, but got pretty busy with work. I look forward to pitching in where needed. Off to read more. (:--Minaflorida 23:38, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A rather odd claim

"Dr. Stephen J. Nelson, P.A., cautioned that "[n]europathologic examination alone of the decedent’s brain – or any brain for that matter – cannot prove or disprove a diagnosis of persistent vegetative state or minimally conscious state."

This is puzzling to me. If a corpse were autopsied and zero brain matter was found - ie., the cranium was completely empty, not that this is likely to ever happen - would that not be enough evidence of "minimal consciousness"? Surely so. And finding an undamaged brain would seem to at least give a firm indication for healthy brain function. So surely there is some dividing line between intact and vanished, which could be an indicator for or against the presence of PVS during life; remove neurons one by one and eventually, PVS will occur, doubtless before the skull is entirely empty; yet what remains can be called a "brain". Is Dr. Nelson saying that medical knowledge has not yet discovered where that line lies, or that there is still controversy over where it lies? Is it impossible to simply state a ballpark probability of minimal brain function based on neuronal damage? It certainly seems plausible, even if science hasn't reached that point yet. Therefore his blanket statement, when he says "any brain" cannot yield the information required for diagnosis, seems ridiculous and overly general. Thoughts? -Kasreyn 08:53, 25 December 2005 (UTC).[reply]

Well, he is postulating that there is a brain to be examined in the first place, which would indicate that there is at least one or more neurons to examine. Looking at brains as tiny as fish brains, which are small enough to fit on the head of a pin, and yet can still be considered conscious or vegetative, seems to indicate that an extremely tiny amount of neurons can be present in a functioning organism and still have *some* level of consciousness. I don't think the debate is necessarily over the amount of neurons required for a brain to function at certain levels, but rather, what level or amount of neurons (a scientifically measurable quantity) and how they functioned (a much harder to measure quantity) can equate to PVS or MCS (which are entirely relative and subjective measurements, unrelated to neuron count, or signs of neuron activity).
So, the debate isn't over the line of "how many neurons", the debate is over "what is consciousness". Putting it another way, if I take 10 human brains and stack them on top of eachother, is the resulting stack 10 times as conscious as one human brain is? I think the answer would be no, because a level of consciousness isn't based on the number of neurons involved. Among vertibrates, the animal with the smallest brain is the Acanthonus armatus, at 0.0035 g, the animal with the largest brain is the sperm whale, at 8,000-10,000 g, and humans have an average around 1,400 g... see the problem? Are whales 6 times "more conscious" than humans? We can certainly scientifically measure the *quantity* of an organisms neurons, but we don't have a way of determining the *quality* of how that organism was working, especially after the death of the organism. Measuring the "conciousness" of an organism is pretty tough. Ronabop 03:56, 26 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

First of all, it's what he said. We report what he said, not whether we feel it works. Second, he said it because, as he made clear, both PVS and MCS are clinical diagnoses, whose pathological basis has not been agreed, so his findings cannot be taken to support either. Ronabop is spot on, I think. He's not saying knowing knows where the line is. He's saying no one has established there is a line. Grace Note 04:59, 12 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

William Maxfield

Where is the source that he was the Schindler's family doctor? I have a blog mentioning him as their family friend which does not seem reliable. Radiologists do not function as family doctors. --DocJohnny 12:39, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

edits removed by originator

Does anyone speak Italian? I've been wondering what this says... Translation anyone? -Kasreyn 16:43, 8 January 2006 (UTC) P.S. on second thought there's a possibility it might be Portugese.[reply]
It's definitely Italian. "I have not found another place on the internet to tell you..." There are a few words I don't know, so I can't translate. The second part of the post is the poster's revision of a poem by Pablo Neruda, "Dies slowly".Grace Note 00:25, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, it's not a Neruda poem. All round the net you can find people thinking that it is, but it doesn't seem that it is. If anyone knows who did write it, please give me a message or an email. Grace Note 03:01, 13 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

edits removed by originator

As no one has replied with any sources regarding Maxfield being a family doctor, I will remove that reference. --DocJohnny 07:51, 18 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Anon user 24.194.166.146 removed the following link from the Advocacy and Commentary section:

And added the following links:

Can we please review these and see if the link are/aren't appropriate?--ghost 15:24, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I removed the Rich Lowry link. It doesn't specifically support either side. Reading into it, one would conclude the oppsite - that Lowry did not support removal of the tube. I don't know his position, but that piece says nothing about it. --Elliskev 18:10, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome!

Someone sent me the following note: Hello 84.148.98.22, (that was ROHA) and welcome to Wikipedia!... (Welcome Template) Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (84.148.79.1 07:57, 12 January 2006 (UTC)); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you have any questions, check out Wikipedia:Where to ask a question or ask me on my talk page. Again, welcome! --Hurricane111 05:33, 12 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

And I answered to this someone (while it talks about the innocent boxer HURRICANE, it has only to do with the innocent Terri Schiavo and the US jurisdictation:)

Do you remember the HURRICANE, the boxer, who was once sentenced to death, while he was completely innocent ? Bob Dylan visited this boxer within his prison cell. Dylan talked with Hurricane. When he left the prison, he wrote the song "Hurricane". This song he published in his album "Desire". Soon after, other people found that the boxer "Hurricane" could not have commited the murder by any chance. Some intelligent people found out, that "Hurricane" could not have, by logic, been the murderer. So they decided: "Hurricane" is not guilty of the murder. So this man was released after a too long time from an American prison. But finally he was a free man. He was not freed because there was a Wikipedia, no. He was freed because there was only one intelligent man who found out and believed that "Hurricane" was completely innocent. Now you may guess the name of this man. (Please publish this my text and your answer to the relevant Wiki discussion pages. Thanks for that.) Hans Rosenthal (ROHA) (hans.rosenthal AT t-online.de -- replace AT by @ ) (1201200) PS: Not that someone gets me wrong: It was certainly the right decision to let Terri go away in a painless way, but it was not the right way to let her husband suffer to help his wife to leave him in such a merciful way.

Um, forgive me for missing your point. I see you copied the contents of the welcome template (which I reduced to improve readability for the other editors), and you mentioned an opinion about several things. But how does this relate to the article?--ghost 21:18, 12 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

User 209.173.6.202

I'm new, so I don't know how to go about filing a complaint on this.

But it appears that user 209.173.6.202 is going around defacing entries. For example, saying Terri Schiavo deserved to die and that someone else's childhood was miserable after he found out his father was gay, etc. — Preceding unsigned comment added by NiftyDude (talk • contribs) 18:52, 17 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You're welcome, and encouraged to revert vandalism like that. For help, you can contact an Administrator. Wikipedia has a very good record of quickly correcting such things. You're welcome to help if you like.--ghost 19:38, 17 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, and welcome to wikipedia. If you want to help with vandals, as a ghost said, first and foremost help by reverting their vandalism. Open the page history, select the last good revision previous to vandalism (you'll need to do an revision difference compare, there is a button for this), and then edit the last good version. Save it as is and the old good version will become the new current version, removing the vandalism. You can also go to the talk page for a vandal (there will be a Talk link by their name even if they're just an IP address), and make a note of their vandalism on their talk page. If they seem to be a new user, they might not know vandalism is wrong, so a friendly warning is always good. If they seem to be a habitual vandal (which you can see from their contribs page), then you can post a notice of their continued vandalism and an admin can take that into consideration when deciding whether to block them. Good luck! -Kasreyn 22:38, 17 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, NiftyDude! Can I join in the welcoming as well? And just to remind you to use the four tildes (~~~~) at the end of posts on talk pages. They will expand into your signature and the date and time of posting. Cheers, AnnH (talk) 23:14, 17 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Lead paragraph: get to the point

This story is long and complicated enough that the lead paragraph really should only say one thing: Why this story is important. No hair-splitting about all the medical details; just the big, obvious pieces for the person who has never heard of this story before. Terri Schaivo is not notable because she lived and died; she is notable because of the legal and political struggle that occurred around her. -- Pinktulip 07:52, 18 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps a bit harshly put, but I suppose it's true. She certainly wouldn't have a wikipedia article (with - what's it up to now? 41 archives?! Good grief...) otherwise. But the original wording of the lead paragraph had been painstakingly hammered out over quite some time and was (in my opinion) very good. Perhaps you could float your suggestions here and get some input before making changes? I'm not personally very concerned and I'm not trying to give you a hard time, actually, I'm trying to protect you. This article has a lot of fierce partisans who will jump straight down your throat if they get the notion that you're trying to mess with the article, and conciliation always seems to work better for me at Wikipedia... best of luck. -Kasreyn 08:04, 18 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The information is still there. It is just not the lead section anymore. The lead section should read like an executive summary of a battle: Why battle started, major participants, turning point, outcome, significance. -- Pinktulip 08:33, 18 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Of course, if some more of the big, gloppy sections could be moved out to their own main pages, that would be lovely too. -- Pinktulip 09:00, 18 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
While I agree that the article needs work to approach FA status (which is my eventual hope), I'd recommend the walk softly/big stick approach to normally Bold editors. This article is a work by a great many Users and Anons, and it's flaws can usually be traced to compromise. Please keep the spirit of the compromises in mind when being Bold.--ghost

ML has reverted the intro back and I was partly waiting for her and others' input before doing the change myself. I don't believe radical surgery is required. Most precisely, "The lead should briefly summarize the most important points covered in an article in such a way that it could stand on its own as a concise version of the article" (WP:LEAD). The lead as it stood at the beginning of the day (and stands now) more or less agrees with this. It is rather lengthy but this is as appropriate as the length of lead should correspond to the length of the article. And note that Pink's lead actually increased article size, which we don't need. Marskell 14:30, 18 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There is plenty of excess verbiage later on in the article if you are worried about overall size. What matters is what is Important.

At the top level:

  • It does not matter how she got into the PVS (Sorry. "Was diagnosed as being in" the PVS.)
  • Does it really matter that she was in a PVS for 5 years or 10? No! This is an absolute life-or-death issue.
  • It does not matter how many appeals there were. What matters to most readers is how long it dragged out for. 5 years of struggle for the huband and parents. Nightmare. That is what the reader wants to know. Which would you rather have: 14 appeals in 14 days or seven appeals in 14 years? It is the slowness of the process that is so agonizing.
  • The reader can do the math and figure out that she was 41 when she died. It does not really even matter what her age was.
  • I would leave in the phrase "Palm Sunday Compromise" in the lead paragraph, because but it does not quickly tell the reader "What happened?".

Look at the paragraph now. Low on details? Yes. Just the high-level concepts to answer the question: "What happened? Why does it matter?". Look at the brief version. Every sentance is essential. That is part of what is ment by brilliant prose. Is that not the goal? -- Pinktulip 22:42, 18 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have been reverted twice. I give up. You guys want to obsess about your favorite details or blindly defend the status quo. It is small wonder that this never made it to FA. -- Pinktulip 23:13, 18 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

First Pink, I'm a little at a loss as to why you would reintroduce an essentially identical copy of a reverted edit given various attempts to communicate over the last day: why have you not actually posted what you want the intro to read here before simply leaping in with radical edits? You've been reverted thrice today. I'd suggest starting a thread, "Suggested intro change", presenting what you desire, and waiting. To make two obvious points: a) your edit actually makes the article longer--not desired by anybody, b) your edit overturns an intro established by consensus. If you want to fundamentally re-jig the intro again start a thread here and wait for various involved people to respond.
Finally, I'm also perplexed by your six points above. Her age doesn't matter? Huh? We shouldn't explain why the PVS occured? Huh again? I actually partly initiated trimming the intro down to the shape it was in when you started out and I absolutely agree leads should be on-point but you are treating as irrelevant things that are not so. Marskell 23:19, 18 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You should explain the details, but not in the lead section. That lead section should say to the reader "Why Terri Schiavo?". Why am I reading about Terri Schiavo? Why not someone else? If she had been hit by a car instead of a heart attack, the issues would all still be the same. If she had been 20 or 50 years old, the issues would have been the same. I am still asking myself: what difference did Terri Schiavo make to my life or my child's life? New laws were involved, but they got overturned. Maybe some precidents were set? How does that effect me? What important leaders got involved? Should I vote for them or their friends next time? That is what I am ultimately looking for. That is what historical Importance is all about. You guys are just not yet ready to produce that version of her biography because you are either still too involved with the story are are blindly defending the status quo. -- Pinktulip 23:42, 18 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Pinktulip's edit is not an improvement. What's missing, inaccurate, or irrelevant in the existing introduction? I believe the existing introduction to be complete, accurate, and relevant. patsw 01:39, 19 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
What is missing is the Importance of the story. Important things happened. Florida passed a law for this person. Gov. Bush got involved. The tube was pulled, the clock was running, Congress and Pres. Bush got passed a law about this. It dominated the news for all of March 2005. And then she died. BTW: The publicity in and of itself it is not very important. Picture this: 20 years from now, a young person asks you about this story. Are you going to follow that first link to "interest group" and go off on that tangent? No. Look at that whole first sentance:

"...whose medical and family circumstances and attendant legal battles fueled intense media attention and led to several high-profile court decisions and involvement by prominent politicians and interest groups."

The reader's eyes glaze over as they realize that the group that wrote this cannot write simple, clear, direct NPOV sentances about just the very biggest chuncks of the story because they, as a consensus group, are obsessed about not offending this or that sub-group.

What is it trying to say? "The story got a lot of publicity." Is that REALLY why the story is so important? I do not think so. That kind of thing happens whenever ANYTHING gets a lot of publicity.

I encourage you to look at the lead paragraphs (which I worked on and which have been slighly diluted since then) in:

The lead paragrphas get to the point of how the crews were killed and mentions the impact to Space program. That is what was historically Important. You could easily drown either of those lead paragraphs with engineering details or other facts, but it would be disservice to the reader. -- Pinktulip 02:35, 19 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As currently written, the lead paragraphs get to the point of who Terri Schiavo was. It is a biographical article. Her historical importance is a matter of some dispute which you can read about in the talk archives. patsw 04:18, 19 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It is easy for you to simply defend the status quo. The "status quo" approach will keep this from ever being a featured article. -- Pinktulip 04:51, 19 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
New approach: I have added a "books" section. I encourage the "status quo" people to read a few of those books, or at least the opening sections of some of them. I have to admit: I have read zero of them. I have to believe that some of them can bang out a single paragraph about the historical Importance of Terri Schiavo. Some of them are biased, but I include them to be fair and because the references does not take up much space. Come on folks. The current lead sectoin reads like a police report: true, relevant voluminous facts, but obviously does not "get it" about the Importance of what happened. Not brilliant prose.

It is almost as if the police arrived at my door, sat me down, spent five minutes going over some police report and then finally tell me that my mother is dead (actually, my mother is still alive). But because they are police, they go through some process and then finally tell me what is Important. Of course, police do not really do that either, but that is what the current lead section reads like. It should be half the size that it currently is. -- Pinktulip 05:45, 20 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The lead section should summarise the article. This is Wikipedia policy - the underlying reasoning is that the lead sections may eventually be used to put a version of Wikipedia onto CD (using just the lead section). The lead section could be 'Terri Schiavo was a woman who was in a coma and then died when life support was removed. There was a large legal fuss about removing the life support.' That gets it, it's clear, it's to the point, yet it's worthless. Proto t c 14:43, 20 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Your one-liner is a lot more respectful of the reader's time than what is currently in the article's lead section. -- Pinktulip 16:35, 20 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Next problem...

OK, since you guys will not accept an executive plan about the historical importance of TS, the challenge is just to find the next big piece of the current oversized article that can be broken out into its own article. Any suggestions? -- Pinktulip 00:06, 20 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Now I see what the problem is: You people think that this is that "Terri Schiavo medical data" article. That is one of the reasons why this article is so hopeless not "FA" quality. I am aware that some judicial decisions might have been based on some medical details, but it is the medical info that is bulky. We can also have a TS "fourteen appeals" article, if you like. Were any of you even aware that that there is a TS timeline article (for which I addded a ref to a "See Also" section)? Any objections to starting a TS "medical data" article and moving most of the bulky medical info there? -- Pinktulip 00:55, 20 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes - the medical data is integral to the article. Proto t c 14:34, 20 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Of course it is, but medical data footprint in the main article is way too much. It could and should be condensed to a much smaller number of kilobytes. This is very similar to how the Space Shuttle disasters stories can turn into what I call "Engineering pornography", with events recorded down to the milliseconds as part X of the Shuttle crumpled and part Y burned. The Important thing is that the crew died. And how they died was NOT recorded down the millisecond because they were NOT robots or some kind of mechanical extension of the Shuttles. Again my point is: just because data is high-quality data does not make it Important. You have to use a little more Judgement in deciding what goes into the main article.

Do you not get it? What happened Politically is more Important that what happened in the Courts (except when it negated the politics), and what happened in the Courts is more Important than what happened in the Hospital. And that is not always true, but it is true in this case. I still say you guys just want to re-fight the Court battles. That approach will consume your writing space (and the reader's patience) faster than almost any other. -- Pinktulip 21:35, 20 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]


I concur that the medical data is excessive. Obviously, I don't think it should all get cut, because it's important; however, the way it's presented is not very accessable to a reader I understand that a vry complete article is what y'all want, but it's difficult to read when every other sentence tells me what her blood sugar was at X time and what the measurments of her electrolytes were, etc. I think PinkTulip is onto something with this. No one will want to read the article if it records every single itsy bitsy detail because it becomes a sort of "can't see the forst for the trees" kind of thing. I'm surprised Terri's haircuts aren't documented in this artcile. (; That's a joke. Don't get mad at me. hehe.--Minaflorida 22:38, 20 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A competing Terri Schiavo page

I want you all to go look at

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Terri_Schiavo

Look at the difference in emphasis. It is not exactly our style, but uses the same technology as we do. Learn from it. -- Pinktulip 07:30, 20 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What a beautiful decision: The super-long list of external links are on a separate page:

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Terri_Schiavo:_External_Links

but you guys are using internal references, so that huge gob of data has to stay on this page.

A) It's not a competition
B) This is an article about solely the media frenzy - the medical information is not here
C) The referencing is fine. Better too much than too few. Putting references on a seperate page is both counter-intuitive and against Wikipedia policy. Proto t c 14:33, 20 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]


A) I would suggest that you can do better than SourceWatch if you try to accept what happened and work together to get the history down in a manner you can all mostly aggree on.
B) You are wrong to suggest that SourceWatch is about the media frenzy: Their focus is on analysis. They do not even bother with Terri's picture, like you guys do. If I may be so bold: it is YOU people who are obsessed with the photos of Terri smiling into the camera and the medical diagnostic images, and the picture of Terri's mother cuddling with her, etc. You are still obsessed about humanizing a dead woman rather than doing your job which is to concisely report WHAT of Importance HAPPENED. We know that she was a human being with a human life and a soul and whatever. You people need to get some distance from the sujbect and the report on it, as if you were watching 1000 people kill some other 1000 people in a battle. THEN you will be ready to report on what Importance happened with Terri Schiavo. And no movies. No pictures. Just the words.
C) It is not just the 70 references that you do have (with many documents in multiple references). It is that you have let the references DRIVE the content. You get some legal document and start to shove in non-Important stuff about some malpractice suit and ups and downs of the relationship between the husband and parents and blah blah blah... And you FAIL to recognize that, despite your rock-solid documentation, and the fact that these details do indeed have to do wtih Terri Schaivo, you have added non-Important stuff to the story. And much of the problem has to do with the tone set by and content provided in the lead section. -- Pinktulip 16:22, 20 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

BTW: I am not accusing you guys of http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Marketing_Terri_Schiavo -- Pinktulip 09:18, 21 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In sum, you guys are need of counseling

I do not mean that as an insult to any one of you, but as an ensemble, you represent mental illness because of what you are doing with this page. Here is what you are doing: You are re-fighting the court battles and DROWNING this story in details. You really need to delegate all the legal stuff to a separate page (or multiple pages, if it bloats like that). Just my trying to fight the link rot this page is painful because there are too many references. Wikipedia technology breaks down after about 20 references and it becomes hard to use. You have 70. No wonder the quality and readability of the article is so low. -- Pinktulip 11:29, 20 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please read and consult WP:CIVIL - why not try and get your opinions across in a diplomatic manner, instead of smacking everyone over the head with them? Wikipedia technology doesn't break down after 20 references - where did this come from? Proto t c 14:35, 20 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The ease-of-use breaks down, at least if you use a regular browser. Just to find the 404 Dead links (which were listed in Wikipedia:Dead_external_links/404/t), I had to copy the text out to a local editor and start searching. Why do you think they bother to have the web interface warn you "This page is 79 kilobytes long."? It is because for those of us who do not know the entire article well may find it tedious to find anything in it, like, the way references work: the label of the reference is not rendered in the regular page, and once you are in the edit form, you cannot search the text. I feel justified in forcefully driving home the point that you guys have failed to make this a feature article. I want you guys to do better and fulfill the vision of Wikipedia. Even Musical Linguist has referred to the consensus-building process as a battle and Wikipeida is not supposed to be a battleground, so just cool it and do not let your feelings get hurt when I call a spade a spade. -- Pinktulip 15:57, 20 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Brilliant prose

Another example of brillaitn prose:

Bee Gees

This lead paragraph was nice short:

The Bee Gees were a British band, formed in Australia. They are one of the most successful musical acts of all time. The Brothers Gibb, consisting of frequent lead vocalist Barry Gibb, and the twins, co-lead vocalist Robin Gibb, and keyboardist/guitarist Maurice Gibb, were born in the Isle of Man in the 1940s.

But that is not good enough, because the Bee Gees were also Great (in the pop musical world). Some people say that they were greater than the Beetles. Why? How do you say it in as few words as possible? I put it my way with this additional text:

The group was successful for all of its forty years and they did much to define to sound of disco. They sang tight three-part falsetto harmonies that were extremely natural and instantly recognizable. Barry sang the low part, Maurice the middle and Robin the high part.

In case you do not recall: two years ago, Maurice died suddenly. I point this out because that means that, to hear tha sound again, you will to listen to their recorded music. I am not promoting the Bee Gees. I am simply answering the question: "Why were they Great?"

Brilliant prose is about demonstrating in as few words as possible that you know exactly why what you are writing about is Important. The Bee Gees were Important because of their Sound. Notice I do not use the word "trio"? It is because some of you pathetic fault-finders will tut-tut me and point out that, for a few early years, they were a quinitet, so I just give up on that word pre-emptively. I still want get some brilliant prose into the TS article, especially the lead section.

I am still looking for the most terse, elegant and appropriate way to indicate that they wrote a lot of their own songs and they stood physically close together in their live concerts. It is not because I like them (well, their music is infectious and nice), it is because that also was part of their Success.

When I wrote "I give up" above, I ment it. I am not going to edit the text mich anymore and I am not going to propose my stuff again in order to run through some gauntlet of reverters. I am going to browbeat you people into doing the right thing. My job is point out why the current article sucks. I have no problem with consensus building, but what you guys have created through your consensus building is too fluffy. You should pare it down and de-crapify it. -- Pinktulip 00:54, 21 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Patronizing, conceited posts rarely lead others to "do the right thing." Marskell 09:28, 21 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I am still dittling with the Space Shuttle paragraphs to make them better. You should be doing the same with this article. Brevity should be striven for. Someday, this article's lead paragraph is going to be as fine the the Space Shuttle's ones are. When you read it, it should be like an apple turnover that you slaved over to make exactly right. Reading it, like eating that turnover, should say only thing: it was worth the effort. -- Pinktulip 11:39, 21 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
As much as you might like to make it so, Wikipedia is not your personal magnum opus. It's not even a community college creative writing workshop. The goal here is neutral point of view first, eloquent prose second. The problem with neutral point of view when it comes to highly contentious articles like this one is that the only way to prevent constant vandalism is consensus. And I do mean literally constant vandalism, I've seen times when this article was getting reverted more than once every thirty seconds. To put it bluntly, it was a massive clusterfuck. It was like an avalanche pouring down a hillside.
Out of that unreadable mess a more or less stable article has emerged, thanks in large part to the efforts of people who literally did slave away over the article - but over consensus-building, not over prose. The avalanche has ended and the scree-pile is more or less stable now, held shakily in place by its own weight and friction. What do you think will happen if someone comes along and starts pulling stones out to make a rock garden? Excuse the flight of metaphoric fantasy there, but consensus is the glue that holds contentious articles together. Any changes must also be done by consensus, or else the article will explode back into constant revert wars and vandalism. There are better places for you to direct your desire to see wonderful prose published on the internet; it's not what wikipedia is here for.
Respectfully, -Kasreyn 19:20, 21 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
(wow, that was beautifully written. honest. Kingturtle 19:28, 21 January 2006 (UTC))[reply]
Kasreyn: TS is dead, and people just do not care as much as they did six month ago. You have given up and just sacraficed quality for the sake of a rather low-quality stability. I am not looking for a fight, I am just looking for quality. For now, I am moving on to the 9/11 article. I note that no one has undone my changes on that lead paragraph on that. The bulk of the 9/11 article might still involved some struggles, but at least now the lead section now gets it right. I assert that once you get the lead section right, and keep it small and beautiful, the other sections will eventually fall into place, and then you have at least a fighting chance of producing a featured article. Face it Kasreyn: You are just managing compromise rather than providing Leadership. I am all for incorportating everyone's input on the article, provided that that input is not junky, but I think that it is even more important that the text of the article has COHERENCE. A train of thought. Readability. That requires that JUDGEMENT, be used when deciding what goes in and what does not. You need Judgement to figure out what is Important. Most of your fights have probably been about un-Important or low quality stuff that never should have been in the story; at least, within our space constrainsts. -- Pinktulip 23:56, 21 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
A few quick points: first off, this was never "my" fight in any way, shape, or form, nor did I ever intend to provide leadership here. I am quite an outsider to this discussion page and when I mentioned people slaving away building consensus here, I definitely didn't mean myself. If it seemed like I was trying to take credit, I need to state very firmly that I didn't intend that. The consensus and quality of this article were achieved with no help from me whatsoever. I've stayed out of this article because I simply didn't have the stomach others did for the constant wars with rabid, unreasoning fanatics. I respect the ones who did, though. As for compromise vs. leadership, wikipedia is a community encyclopedia and must represent balanced viewpoints. Compromise is a good way to obtain that. I suspect that you use "leadership" but you really mean "pushing a point of view". I find the article as it stands quite readable. It's not Shakespeare, but it doesn't need to be. I've never felt anything but pity for the Schiavos, and for anyone who wasted part of their lives getting angry over the whole sorry issue. And as I've said, I've never fought over anything in this article, and don't intend to begin now.
Best wishes, -Kasreyn 03:12, 23 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I will just keep on waving the lead section of http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Terri_Schiavo in your faces as it gets better and better. And do you notice how low-data the opening of 9/11 is now? And the Shuttles? There is a very god reason for that: these stories are complicated. Very long and complicated. A good lead section will drive the rest of the article by declaring what is Important enough to spend more space on in this article. When the time comes to getting this article back down to 30 kilobytes or so (probably by breaking more stuff out into other pages), a good lead section will make the choices easier. See how that SourceWatch lead section evolves? Just bold, broad assertions that capture the essense of the story and just the big chuncks. No footnotes. Just the major players, the major movements, the decisive turning points and the historical context. Those other details, if they survive at all, can go in the LATER sections. -- Pinktulip 07:13, 22 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"Theresa Marie "Terri" Schiavo is the Florida woman who "suffered extensive brain damage when her heart stopped briefly [in 1990] due to a potassium deficiency" caused by the eating disorder bulemia." How is this better than what we have? The potassium deficiency may have been a spurious result and the bulimia is unproven. If you read this article you will know that; if you'd participated in the sometimes combative discussions on this page you'd know that. You think it's brilliant because it's just "just bold, broad assertions"? I save those for the bar. And I'd suggest you save the constant lecturing for somewhere more appropriate. When I need a harangue about stylistics I'll pay a university to provide one properly. Marskell 12:48, 22 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I am not the only editor on the SourceWatch article. The other editor's style is to obsess on quoting news articles, so the quality is still not optimal. At least the lead section at SourceWatch gives a sense of how the conflict around Schiavo grew, who were the biggest players and when were the decisive moments in the conflict, and at least a hint of its historical import. -- Pinktulip 20:10, 22 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You failed to address Marskell's point on potassium deficiency and bulimia. It is indicative of the problems associated with contentious issues and consensus. "Be bold" is one thing, and it's good to be bold. But placing a flat statement about potassium and bulimia will only get you reverted by one partisan or another. You may not think anyone cares any more, but they do. If it seems like they don't because the article doesn't get reverted as often: that's because of the consensus that has already been established. It's enough (barely) to satisfy most of the partisans that the article is fair, and so they leave it alone and stop reverting. It's like the case of the mice belling the cat: six months later, the cat asks to have the bell removed - because he's reformed! Obviously he must be reformed, since he hasn't killed a mouse in six whole months! See the problem with this reasoning? -Kasreyn 03:19, 23 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
According to her husband, her parents and siblings, Terri Schiavo did not have an eating disorder in 1990. She was not underweight, and her weight had remained about 120 in the prior three or four years. The autopsy found no espohegeal scarring characteristic of bulimia. patsw 00:19, 23 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Sigh. Let me try to set some perspective here: See how the SourceWatch article almost ignores what happens in the Hospital? They say that the courts decided on the diagnosis (because THAT is what mattered). The emphasis is on legislative intervention at the state and national level and the politics that drove that intervention. That is the key point of the TS story. That legislative intervention was THE matter of life-or-death for TS. The gains that her pro-life supporters made in the political arena were negated by the judicary, and because of that fact, she is now dead when she otherwise would now still be alive. BTW: Some other editor put the bulemia thing into the SourceWatch article and it does not bother me enough to argue with him about it (because it is not a blatantly false or manipulative claim and because I think that it is not very important. She went from a max of 200 pounds down to 120! Something is going on there.). For those of you who want others to learn from TS's mistakes (eating disorder, whatever), I applaud you, as long as it does not take up an inordinate amount of space in the article. -- Pinktulip 20:10, 22 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

BTW: You see how that "See also" section I created is growing? Did any of you know about the TS timeline article? And look at Tirhas Habtegiris. Mr. Big Fish himself, was busy signing death warrants for hospital patients while back in Texas. Very interesting. -- Pinktulip 01:35, 23 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Terri Schiavo had been successful in losing weight by improving her diet 7 or 8 years earlier. In 1990 she was not in a period of rapid weight gain or loss. What makes you conclude that Terri Schiavo make "mistakes"? The emphasis of the article as it has developed over the months is on all the relevant aspects of her story: biographical, medical, legal, and political. patsw 03:58, 23 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Going from a peak of 250 lbs down to 110 is not healthy, no matter how long it took esp. w/o a physician's supervision. You people insist that TS's heart attack cannot be explained and the SourceWatch article jumps to conclusions. Neither article is perfect. Note how the SourceWatch article has broken out three subpages: Legal timeline, Political, and External Links. I think that the 9/11 article is up to seven subpages. I am sure that we can make at least one more subpage for this article. You have three subpages: gov't involvment, Palm Sunday and public opinion. You will need to break out something more into a subpage in order to have a chance to make this is a featured article. The weakest part of the current article is the excess medical and personal data. I am not looking to de-humanize TS, but this article seems to spend too much time trying to humanize her. I will repeat: what happened in the Hospital is the least important part of the story. In this article, you do not have to report anything more than what the Courts decided about her medical status. The actual medical data is merely input to the court decisions. Most of the actual medical data you have here belongs in a subpage. -- Pinktulip 06:42, 23 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

font=75% footnotes

Why does the article have font=75% footnotes? What WP styleguide is suggesting this? patsw 03:55, 23 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't seen anything in the style guidelines suggesting this. I believe it's just common practice so that half the page isn't given over to footnotes. I've done it at other pages that have a lot of them and don't think it particularly bothersome. Marskell 07:52, 24 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"...graduated from Archbishop Wood Catholic High School, a private school in nearby Warminster Township, Pennsylvania." The high school is already hyperlinked. It is a Catholic school, so I already know that it is a private school (BTW: I went to Catholic grade and high school). If I really want to know exactly where TS's high school was, I can click on the link. You wanna include TS's brother and siser's names? Fine (they are not notable, but I am unwilling to fight about it), but please do not adorn the hyperlinks with unnecessary verbiage. -- Pinktulip 05:24, 23 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A possible delegation

We need to delegate some of the information to a subpage. How about this? We take everything from

  • Rehabilitation efforts and the malpractice suit

to

  • PVS diagnosis ruling – Schiavo IV

and we put it in a subpage. We can call it "TS medical situation" or something like that. Refer to it in a section of a similar name and breifly summarize what the Courts would conclude based on that information. Even if this article is never makes FA, it will make the article better. BTW: I realize that the medical and court stuff is intertwined, but it can be quickly summarized. -- Pinktulip 23:35, 23 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

BTW: I noticed on the TS timeline article that Michael married his girlfriend yesterday. Not quite quite notalbe/newsworthy enough to make the front page of any newspaper, but it is nice that we have a "timeline" subpage where tidbits like that can be added w/o being intrusive. -- Pinktulip 00:14, 24 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Good for him (and her). Hopefully now they can move on with their lives, assuming Jebbie stops trying to burn him at the stake. -Kasreyn 05:36, 24 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
My point in noting that here is to note the useful of having appropriate subpages. We need to get the size of this aricle down: we need to create at least one more subpage. -- Pinktulip 06:39, 24 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have not heard objections in over 24 hours to the proposed subpage... -- Pinktulip 05:28, 25 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • I'm in favour in principle, as long as it's just to remove the bloat, and not to expunge all the medical information from the main article. Let me recommend that you put what you propose to be the subpage in a temporary subpage article entitled Terri Schiavo/proposed medical subpage, and give people a few days (five?) to comment. You may as well start now, as picking apart the references will take time. You might also put what the new main article would become in a temp page also Terri Schiavo/temporary or something similar, again for comments and to get people used to the idea. Would that be okay? Proto t c 11:58, 25 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I finally got to this. Since this is a branch, people should hold off making further changes or double fix any changes they makes, at least until we decide on if we want to commit to this delegation.

I have copied the "Initial medical crisis" as the intro to the subpage. It main article is still over 50 KB long. I still think we should conduct of "battle of the bulge" until we are down to 30 KB, but I certainly do not insist. Perhaps we could also move "Oral feeding II" and "Autopsy" down there as well? We could also just go for yet another subpage: a "Terri Schiavo external links" page. That would help on a size a little (another 7KB). I would like some feedback on this. -- Pinktulip 11:31, 29 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Standard Font Sizes.

I propose to standardize the font size of the text of the article to conform to the Wikipedia style and guidelines by removing the size=75% on the Notes and References section. Personally, I have to reset my browsers font size to read them, so I suspect this is a genuine web accessibility problem. What support do you find in the Wikipedia style and guidelines for using size=75%? patsw 04:02, 26 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There is no reccomendation, but it's done when there's a lot of references. When I got the shoe polish article through FAC, one of the things I had to do was get rid of the size=80% it had, so I would suggest this article does the same. Proto t c 13:35, 26 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thoughts all please

In the interests of thrashing out a viable solution to the bloat of the article, Pinktulip has put together a suggested form for a subpage on the medical info associated with Terri Schiavo (link above). There's also a temp version of what the main article would look like. Your thoughts, please! I'm in favour, but the paragraph linking to the medical subpage will need redoing I think. Proto t c 21:18, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't believe there was a consensus that there was bloat, but I've got an open mind to see if a reorganization is an improvement. patsw 03:13, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Based on the lack of input, I think that five day waiting period is excessive. On the other hand, the rate of change to the current article does not seem to make any fixups a major task. Ann: do you have an opinion? Does anyone object to commiting the changes after only three days? I am sure that Ann does not miss the allusion. -- Pinktulip 09:25, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This was done once by Gordon (who sadly has left the place) and undone by FuelWagon (who has been banned). The argument then, which still largely holds, was that "medical info associated with Terri Schiavo" is the Terri Schiavo article to a large extent. To remove it would be a little like removing the Presidency section on GWB in favour of a sub-page.
The other possibility is incremental shortening. Given that Gov involvement has its own page, 6 odd K could be knocked out of it; ditto Disputed opinions and Public opinion. We probably also don't need 69 refs. At best though, this would only get it into the high 60s in terms of K size Marskell 13:31, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion is not about "removal"; it is about moving the information. It is about organizing this information. A subpage is a not a trash can or oblivion; it is a subject or facet of the story that can be defined and then summarized with the most important results on the main page. The interested reader can always visit the subpages of interest. The subpage makes the top page easier to navigate and find such information. Right now, the presentation of the bulky medical information is linear and intrusive. Obviously, the medical data is about exactly one person, but that does not mean that it must go on only this page. -- Pinktulip 16:14, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
As always, thanks for the disquisition. Marskell 18:14, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The article has had a sad history of "reorganizations" that added and removed massive amounts of text. patsw 04:02, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I suspect that most of the problem was that it was an ongoing event, but, of course, that is not really the case anymore. I think that the four or five editors who are actively involved on this subject (i.e. create a med. subpage) in the talk page are aware of this. But in this case, what would change is very easy to see and follow. We have been talking about it (to some degree) for ten days now. Clearly, the incremental shortening that Marskell mentions is not a faster pathway to stability. I am aware that a good/featured article is supposed to display stability. It would be nice to think that this article could stabie in 2006, rather than, say, in 2007. I suggest that one reason why the article lacks of stability is that it is still too big. I would like that point out that Talk:Space Shuttle Challenger disaster got some kind of "good article" mark at the top on the day of 20th anniversay when it was mention on the W's Main Page. I started to work on the article using my "User:Fplay" account. That article was suffering from too much engineering data. -- Pinktulip 10:18, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The article is more or less stable already. The only instability it's seen recently was when you scrapped the intro. It's more or less stable but its also too long. We can do a straw poll, I suppose, over whether a medical subpage is warranted. The incremental shortening should be undertaken anyway. The end of the page is absolutely overloaded with links, for example, which isn't Wiki's purpose.
As for the good article tags, I think they're a joke and should be scrapped. Anyone can add them anywhere. Marskell 11:20, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, that "good article" nonsense is not worth beans, but somehow the aritlce is now in Peer Review. I can hardly understand why. -- Pinktulip 15:11, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Let us keep the process forward-looking: Do we want this to be FA in 2006 or in 2007? If in 2006, then how are we going to get there? I suggest that some structural re-organization is imperative and I have made my specific recommendation. The lack of response tells me that, despite whatever battles have been fought in the past on this (be they in 2005 or back to 2003 or further), the number of soldiers in the armies on each side of the battlefield can now counted one hand. Simply put: most other people have moved on. Surely, those who might now object have been given ample notice and are being given ample time to respond. -- Pinktulip 21:36, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Here's a different viewpoint you may not have considered: I don't want this article to ever reappear on the front page. Why? Do I want to hide the truth? No, I just found the entire sordid affair both hideously inappropriate and wildly, revoltingly disrespectful to the privacy and memory of Mrs. Schiavo. The only thing I can imagine that is worse than suffering the fate of entering a PVS is to have video of my handicapped condition aired on the nightly news alongside the rest of the sick American freakshow. It was a monstrous three-ring circus, where a real, human tragedy that tore apart a family was cynically used as a club with which to bludgeon political opponents on the national stage. From the members of the media to the politicians involved to those private citizens who demanded to know more, there is not enough blame or shame in the world to go around for this invasion of privacy. I am sick of hearing about it and I'm sure many others are as well.
This does not mean I am not committed to a fair and unbiased article on the subject on wikipedia. I am simply praying that this sad affair never again receive such undue attention. -Kasreyn 06:15, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
My understanding of Wikipedia is that it is here to provide the true and correct information in a civilized fashion and then let the reader make their own decisions about the information that they input into their own minds. If it violates Schiavo's privacy in some way, I would suggest that such a violaion is a tiny increment on top of what has already happened. If it did not involve legislation at the state and national level, I might conceed the point. Clearly, this story does involve such legislation and so I do not conceed the point. -- Pinktulip 07:47, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It's not a matter of points. I wasn't arguing that the article should be changed in any way. I was just bringing to your attention that not everyone feels that the article should be Featured Article. That's all. -Kasreyn 10:12, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
My primary interest is not getting this article on the main page. "Featured Article" is simly the most convenient phrase to describe my goal. My interest is in seeing that it becomes an article that readers of average intelligence and motivation would tend to read in its entirety: from start to finish. I imagine that currently, many readers just give up partway through because of the article's current mediocrity. -- Pinktulip 10:47, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Featured article status is also of minor importance to me. What I want, and what I struggled a lot for some months ago, is that the article will not be written from Michael Schiavo's side. A few months before Terri died (and before I joined Wikipedia), the page was mostly written by NCdave, who strongly supported the Schindlers (as I do). He did not understand NPOV, and he wrote things about her "estranged husband" wanting to "starve her to death". It was completely inappropriate for Wikipedia. I think he got away with it because it wasn't, at that stage, such a big news item, so he was the main editor. Later, the page was controlled by passionate supporters of Michael Schiavo, who believed that because the court found in Michael Schiavo's favour, Michael's position (that she was in a PVS, and that she had wanted to die) automatically became facts and should be presented as such in the article. Lots of pro-Michael POVs were reported as fact: she was in a PVS; she collapsed as a result of bulimia; the noise woke Michael (now how do we know that?); he studied nursing because he wanted to learn how to take care of Terri; he eventually came to terms with the fact that she wouldn't get better; she died cradled in his arms. All the Schindler side (if presented at all) was heavily qualified with "claimed", "alleged", etc. A complete and utter violation of NPOV. My aim is to see that no uncorroborated statement of Michael Schiavo is presented in the article as a fact not open to dispute. I'm not likely to object to changes in format or in changes that relate to whether information goes on the main Terri Schiavo page or a subpage. Just as long as we remember that NPOV means that we don't say she was in a POV or that she wasn't. We don't say that he wanted to kill her or that he fought to carry out her wishes. In any case, I'm busy with other articles, and with real life. :-) AnnH (talk) 12:51, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
As with Ann, my interest in editing the article was to get past the issues with advocacy of the POV's, with both sides' outrageous POV editing and one side creating absurd barriers to any presentation of facts according to the account of the Schindlers. As books solely on the subject of Terri Schiavo appear, they will be far better footnoted than some of the magazine and newspaper accounts that represented the sources now in the article. I've added two such books and within a month, according to the publishers, the books from Michael Schiavo and the Schindlers will be published. I expect substantial revision to this article based on what will be in those books. patsw 13:49, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ann and Pat: I appreciate that input, but let me point that this story now falls in the realm of historical narrative. Look at that SourceWatch article again: except for the lead section, it is just bunch of quotations. It that what we want? I do not think so. Good historical narrative requires that author get the facts straight and then make reasonable assertions within a coherent train of thought. Trying to constantly get some source to tell the story is likely to lose the reader, because the reader can sense that that author does not have enough mastery of the facts to state them clearly and confidently.

As far as I can tell, there are very few issues of fact that are both Important and still in dispute. I do not expect a lot of "he said"/"they said" between Michael and Terri's parents as some kind of dual-presentation within the aritlce text. We benefit from additional information, such as the autopsy, and so we are in a good position to come up with a single narrative.

I appreciate knowing that problematic and POV editors in the past have participated, but NCdave's last Wikipedia contribution was in July 2005. Clearly, he is now on indefinite, and I would guess permanent, Wikivaction. If I add some phrase that is POV (such as "allowed to die" or comatose rather than PVS), please assume that it is a technical error rather than some deep-seated POV and if you would simply reword such phrases (or ask me to do so, if you that that is more efficient) rather than revert all my changes, and please assume that such an action would resolve the disagreement.

On this business of the story being from Michael's POV: I am ill-informed about his public statements except that he did not make many of them relative to TS's parents. I also happen to feel that it was no accident TS's parents chose Randall Terry (please feel free to contribute to that article) as their spokeman. As I emailed to James Jewel recently:

They made a brilliant choice in Randall Terry as their spokesman. I am sure that they are sincere and sympathetic people, but they are parents first. Terry, through his special talents, would ensure that the Terri Schiavo story got maximum publicity, thereby giving them the best possible chance of extending their daughter's life. It is silly for you to imagine that they would chose someone less polarizing out of concern for the rest of the pro-life movement. They had their priorities sorted out and they took their best shot at prevailing.

Mr. Jewel responded to me in an email that he had no argument my using his quotations being in the RT article and also in the District of Columbia Civil Contempt Imprisonment Limitation Act. Obviously, he is clearly still on the pro-life side of the argument.

I am mentioning all this in order to point that that TS's parents did get their side of the story out to the public and their side of the story belongs in this article, but ultimately, they did not prevail, neither in the political arena, the courts, nor the hospital. This is not to argue that we surrender to that shallow adage that "History belongs to the winners", but one also has to face facts.

We all know how it turns out, but the story can still be told in a manner that is much more readable that the article in its current state. By "coherent train of thought", I am hoping that we can take a cue from Barbara Tuchman, who advises: Write the historical narrative as if you do not know how it is going to turn out. I am hoping that we can follow the events of 2003 to 2005 pretty much as they happened.

Again, my main goal is to elevate this article above its currently entrenched mediocrity. I refer you to William F. Buckley, Jr. article, and in particular this link in the article [1]. And in particular:

  • WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY JR.: Buckley: The conservatives (vs. the socialists in the USA over the past 50 years) won that fight.
  • Q: Do you feel you can take some credit for the outcome?
  • WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY JR.: Well, certainly, naturally, you can. Yeah, I suppose I can. The conservatism that I identified myself with was an anti-communist, anti-socialist. And the principal lodestone of that was National Review magazine, which I founded and served as editor. So, in that sense, you're correct. Ronald Reagan said that he got his inspiration from National Review, words I love to hear. I hope they survive this broadcast. And Barry Goldwater said the same thing.

Pinktulip is not here to dispense POV inspiration. I am here to inspire good journalism. I am here to show that this story can be told in an FA-quality manner. All I want is for people who want to know "What happened?" in the Terri Schiavo story to come to this article to get a quick answer that covers most of the important points, fairly and accurately. That is my understanding of what Wikiepdia is for. -- Pinktulip 15:29, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Bookends

I am looking for when history seems to repeat itself. I want to point out some of my recent efforts:

I want you see how I have changed (I created the Morgan article under a different account) these articles and how they do form a pair, like a pair of bookends on a shelf. My perspective is legal and political (well, engineering/management in the case of the Shuttles). I want to point out what obvious parallels exist.

In the cases of Schiavo/Morgan, what interests me most are the judicial/political parallels. Both are cases of legislative intervention, which does not happen by accident. In both cases, conservative/religious forces formed the main thrust of that legislative intervention. I am attempting to point out the flaws in each intervention but not to otherwise judge those interventions.

I am saying this to share with you my true perspecitive on Schiavo's case. I want to you see how beautifully Simpson's trial is delegated, without whitewashing (pun intended) him as a person. Ultimately, we, as a society based on laws, have to accept the verdict of his criminal trial. Do you see how the Blake trail is NOT about the Simpson's trail, but about Simpson after his trial?

Again, the Shiavo medical info matters, but it can be framed and summarized. That is why I stress: the medical information is merely input to the judicial and political process. It can be summarized in the main article. -- Pinktulip 09:42, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have been working on my delegation chops

In this case, by "chops" I mean "skllls gained via practice" rather than some reference to amputation or burchering. O. J. Simpson and Noam Chomsky articles now have a bright future because of the delegation I have performed on them. Simpson no longer drowns in his trial, and Chomsky no longer drowns in his vast array of politics. Now, it is this article's turn. No meaningful objections have arisen. As you can see, my approach is iterative, so I am going to need several hours with no reversions please. It is going to be like a canine spleenectomy (which I have assisted in the performance of w/o loss of life): there will be a lot of litlte connections that need to get fixed up once the major mass is moved elsewhere. -- Pinktulip 02:41, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You see how that works? You have shape the bridging paragraphs so that the segue into the following "2003" section that follows. Let me tell you what is going to happen for now: The reader is just going to become exasperated with the lead section and skip over it, hoping that the subsequent sections have a more coherent train of thought. The story has a tempo:

  • 1990-1994 Hoping
  • 1994-1998 Michael gives up hope and starts to make his moves
  • 1998-2003 The two opposing parties lock horns and five years of inconclusive conflict occur
  • 2003 the first buildup and climax

The point of all this is not to dramatize it. It is to make it clear to reader what periods of time were inconclusive and to rapidly proceed to those moments and decisions that were more decisive and thus, more Important when describing in the larger sense both what happened and why things went historicaly in one direction or the other. It is fine to talk about the lesser events that lead up to those decisive moments, but you have to make the cause-and-effect relationship of those lesser events to the decisive moment has to be constructed in a clear fashion. Otherwise, you are just presenting each reader with a pile jumbled facts and forcing them to figure out where those important, decisive moments came from. -- Pinktulip 04:48, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A sandwich with no meat. This page is incredibly lopsided now. Marskell 07:36, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Au contraire. There is a nice, thick slice of ham, right next to the eggs and vegetables. It is just off to the side now, just like the father/son breakfasts I used to attend on Sunady mornings as a Boy Scout. I better stop with the food analogies now. Have you seen that Tietjen's copy of the video yet? I saw it for the first time, two days ago. You see, despite the fact that I have lived in large, urban American cities all of my life, I have never owned television since going off to college(I watched WAY too much as a child), so there is a lot of video that has hit the media that I have never seen. Do you see how Image:Challenger explosion.jpg was added to Space Shuttle Challenger disaster? I deleted the word "famous" from the caption because it is such a tired word and instead chose "iconic". I saw the smokey column with my own eyes that morning, because I lived in Melbourne, so my memory of it is a few minutes later, when more parts had spread out and it looked much more like a big billowy white palm tree in the sky with all the broken machine parts and people and stuff. In some ways, I am lucky that I did not see the flash of the explosion, because that moment would have domnitated my memory of the event and that flash does not really contain a lot of information. Without that visual memory, I spend a little more time thinking about and analyzing the event. Do you see how Terri's eyes follow her mother in the video? That is what makes the video so powerful. But when if you are first introduced to the biological facts about smiles and eyes and science and stuff, the video loses much of its influence. Have you ever seen pictured of soldiers who were killed via gas. As I recall, with cyanide gas, they die with a great big hideous grin (just like in Tom Lehrer's Irish Ballad) on their face. Oh, there it is:
Her mother she could never stand,
Sing rickety-tickety-tin,
Her mother she could never stand,
And so a cyanide soup she planned.
The mother died with a spoon in her hand,
And her face in a hideous grin, a grin,
Her face in a hideous grin.

Part of Leher's comic effect is that he knows exactly what he is talking about. The Ballad is not quite as funny as his Vatican Rag (" Two, four, six, eight! Time to transubstantiate!) because the Ballad is a bit darker. (In the recording I've heard, you can hear those 20-something Catholic school girls out the in audience positively squeal with shock and laughter). The grin is a muscular thing or something. It is funny that Lehrer and Shirley Temple both live nearby me here in Palo Alto and neither of them want to talk about the past entertainment lives much now. Avoiding typecasting or getting on with their quite accomplished serious lives or something like that. Am I going on like like James Joyce now? I guess I am. It's my Irish mother's depressive influence, I guess. She grew up in Newfoundland. Anyway: Is it fair to first inform the viewer about the biological facts (or whatever you want to call such details)? -- Pinktulip 11:15, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No, I didn't see her eyes follow her mother because her eyes aren't following her mother. You might see the autoposy report where her brain weight was listed as half the human average and all of the primary neurons in her cerebral cortex were lost.
But this is incidental to the structure. We now jump, with a two hundred word bridge, from 1990 to 2003. This page has been gutted of most of its relevance and if the goal here is an FA (I'm perfectly happy waiting 12 mos before sending it back there BTW) we have taken a step backward. Marskell 11:38, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Look at the photo sequence. The fact turns away, but the eyes keep tracking. Of course, now, we are going to proceed to look at the video's effect on the politician's votes back down in swampy old Florida. -- Pinktulip 11:41, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Marskell: 1990 to 2003 was "inconclusive". The tube goes in and out and stuff, but nothing decisive happens. By then, Michael and the Schindlers are opponents of each other, but exactly how that happened just a soap opera. Now they are opponents and that is what matters. It is not like some priest or counselor is suddenly going to appear and make them all lovey-dovey now, is it? No, it is not. They are in a life-or-death struggle, and neither is going to back down. If I were making a TV movie, of course the soap opera would get its full ten minutes or whatever, but this is about Terri Schiavo. Her fate lies in the hand's of the courts (which are SO much more dull, dull, dull).

We can set up the context for the 2003 struggle and just take it from there. We already know Micheal wants so, he will remain almost mute for the rest of the story. Really, Terri is the same person with the same Soul in 2003 as she was in 1990/1991. All of the issues are the same. I feel that we still could use some more context in that 1990-2003 section, but the scene is now set. The story is pretty much the Schindler's story from here on in. 2003 is when things get more complicated because that is when more power players get involved and the story branches out into additional and simultaneous threads. That is what the reader will need help in understanding: All of those things and legal and political stuff all going on at the same time. -- Pinktulip 12:23, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Marskell that the page is lopsided now. At the moment, I don't intend to revert, though it was probably no surprise for you all to see that I reverted the edit which implied that she died in February 1990! We need a lot more input from editors, but many of us have moved on. If other people discuss these changes, I'm sure I'll join in to agree or disagree, but I don't have the time to start a five-page analysis of the major changes. If I make some minor edits, that should not be seen as an agreement with leaving the new changes in place. I think we should just wait and see what the general reaction is. AnnH (talk) 23:40, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I made some of the references invisible, as I think it interrupts the flow of the article to have things like "page seven of nine pages" intruding in the middle of a paragraph or even of a sentence. In fact, I recall that I did part of that job some months ago, and there were no objections. I don't take them away, as we do need to know ourselves where we got our information, but beyond that, I don't see a need to be quite so precise. Regarding Michael's request "both that palliative care against infections be halted", that sentence is incomplete. I presume that it should be something like "palliative care and treatment against infections". Did he request that palliative care be discontinued. I know he gave orders that a bladder infection was not to be treated, and also that he placed a DNR notice in her charts, but I've never heard that he tried to stop palliative care. In any case, she didn't need palliative care, did she. She was in good health, and wasn't dying. I took out "palliative care", but am open to comments. Finally, I think it should go somewhere that Michael married Jodi on 23 January 2006. In my view, it's relevant to the case in that it's something that people who were interested in the story of Terri Schiavo would want to know. Are there objections? If it goes in, where should it go? In the "memorial" section? AnnH (talk) 00:27, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I used the word "palliative" incompetently and I stand corrected. I am still just an amateur at this (note that I did not lead that canine spleenectomy). Unlike Christ, when I fall, you angels are here to catch me. You might have noticed that I tried to add Michael's children with "another woman" to the SourceWatch article and I got pushed back. I did add the marriage and the children to our timeline article as best I could. If anyone has their approximate dates of theirs births, that would also be helpful in our understanding who Michael is. I am going to turn my attention to his Wikipedia article for a little while. If I may add: my reference to some who might "hate Michael" is just shorthand for "hate Michael's actions". We should all, of course, still love him as one of God's children, despite his flaws. -- Pinktulip 15:50, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Ann: I decided to put it as early possible because that is where it belongs:
In 1995, Michael began a relationship with another woman, Jodi Centonze. In the fall of 2002, their first child was born.
Anyone else have any reliable and convincing evidence of Michael's sexual activities with other women between 1991 and 2001? The marriage ceremony, by comparision, seems to me less important for the purposes of understanding Michael's actions per Terri. -- Pinktulip 02:06, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Scenario is the wrong term

I've changed one place where scenario is used to "events".

The other place it needs to be changed is from "Medical Scenario" to "Medical Background" or something equivalent. patsw 05:02, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Done. -- Pinktulip 05:08, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Now, it is the autopsy's turn

I think that the autopsy can go down into the medical subpage. The autopsy in and of itself is not a major event and it generally supports the assessment made in the 2003 bridge paragraphs. I can wait two days while we talk about this move. Feedback? -- Pinktulip 13:56, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Two episdoes of gov't intervention

I am trying to highlight the fact that there are two major episodes of gov't intervention. I do not think that have a single "gov't intervention" section is going to work. It is too jarring to have two sections called "Terri's Law". It breaks the chronology. I have marked out the second "Terri's Law" section. The obvious change is to put it into chronological order and maybe just reference the gov't interversion subpage twice. I am going to think about this for a while and allow time for feedback. -- Pinktulip 14:38, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Re: gravestone and POV

I have to disagree with you on this one, AnnH. Now, if wikipedia were to state, "Michael Schiavo kept his promise", or "Terri Schiavo departed this earth February 25, 1990", then yes, that would be biased POV and unacceptable, and I would join you in removing it. But wikipedia reporting what the woman's gravestone says, is merely reporting the facts. Michael Schiavo obviously chose to use it as an opportunity to make a final stab in the direction of his critics. Some might see this as moving, and some might see this as petty. How about we let the readers decide? -Kasreyn 07:06, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Kasreyn, the edit that I reverted did not say that her gravestone said that she died on February 25 1990. I would have no objection to reporting what Michael Schiavo said, as long as it's reported as something he said, not as an undisputed fact. (In fact, there is a large photo of the gravestone in the article, and shortly after her ashes had been placed there, Wikipedia did actually transcribe the whole contents of the inscription as well (saying something like, "the words. . . were placed"." That is the point that I have been making for months here. The edit summary for the edit I reverted said that her graveside said that, but if you look at the actual edit, it says:
Theresa Marie "Terri" Schiavo (December 3, 1963 – 25 February, 1990/March 31, 2005) was a woman from St. Petersburg, Florida. . .
That is what I object to. In fact, I can recall that some months ago, there was some invisible text inserted into the article (not by me) saying "please do not alter this to say that she died on 25 February 1990".
Be assured that I will never object to Wikipedia reporting that Michael Schiavo said that he was fighting to carry out her wishes, or that he woke up from the noise when she collapsed, or that he studied nursing because he wanted to take care of her or that he gradually came to terms with the fact that she wouldn't recover. Unfortunately, there has been a definite tendency to leave out the "Michael said" throughout this article. AnnH (talk) 07:54, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Michael's authority was always his to lose

I think that it is helpful to reflect on the fact that MIchael authority over Terri was always his to lose. One false move, one moment of abuse, and his authority would have vanished. Once he decided his course in 1994 or 1999, his role in this saga is much like that of the Grim Reaper. Mute. Patient. Waiting for his turn. When everyone else gets out of the way, he swings his scythe without passion and, in ths story he has the final word. He choses to forever distinguish between brain death and biological death in Terri's epitaph. Hate him, love him or indifferent, it is by the retention of his authority that he gets the final word. Either he knew instinctively to mostly keep to keep his mouth shut or he had some good advice. -- Pinktulip 15:04, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I see your point, but I don't see how this could be added to the article in an unbiased way. It also appears to be Original Research. -Kasreyn 00:06, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oh no! It cannot go in the article. It just sort of sets the mood for my next series of NPOV suggestions. -- Pinktulip 01:30, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
That's a very melodramatic way of putting it. It was always possible for Michael to leave the care of Terri to the Schindlers and get on with the rest of his life. patsw 05:04, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, sure. And I can just surrender the upbringing of my 12-year-old daughter to my ex-wife and ex-in-laws and just think of her as some kind of mistake or something. I mean, they provide her with excellent care and all. -- Pinktulip 15:19, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
On a second reading, I think your view might rankle some on the Schindlers' side of the affair. After all, many who opposed Terri's passing believed the (in my opinion slanderous) allegations that Michael did abuse Terri, and therefore to them he only retained his authority due to a cover-up. I don't think your theory will have many takers in the opposing camp.
What intrigues me more is the "damned if you do, damned if you don't" nature of Michael's life post-1990. On the one hand, the Schindlers told him to get on with his life, and he knows it's what Terri would have wanted, and so he starts dating again after a long hiatus. On the other hand, he needs (from his viewpoint) to retain his authority over Terri's care in order to fulfill a promise he took very seriously, and this requires remaining very involved in her care, such as getting medical training. So the horns of his dilemma are that on the one hand, if he spends the rest of his life just hovering over Terri's bed, he'll be miserable, but on the other hand, if he does what he should and gets on with his life, he will be (and was) accused of being "unfaithful" to her. There really was no way to avoid getting vilified the way he did, and for that, he has my sympathy. -Kasreyn 11:53, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"Bitch" line belongs on Micael's page

The "bitch" line belongs on Michael's article. They are just words. You want to get into Michael's head? You go to his page and take the measure of the man there. You get to talk about what he did to Terri on Terri's page, but that is it. I will wait for feedback before removing the "bitch" line again. -- Pinktulip 17:52, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't understand. This passage was about what Mrs Iyer said. This is part of what she said (actually I have just discovered the weasel word in there), so why remove it from this passage? Str1977 17:59, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Terri's page simply does not have room to get inside everyone else's head. Michael's non-decisive statements and asides are about what is going on inside his head. He has got his own article and so it goes there. As far as Terri's page is concerned, those words are simply not notable enough when compared with his deeds and decisions while exercising his authority over Terri. He called 911. He provided care. He made medical decisions. He ensured that Terri was ehuthanized. That is what he did to Terri. You wanna go suggest things about if he loved Terri and stuff? You go do it on his page. There is still plenty of work to do there. -- Pinktulip 18:18, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
First of all, getting off that apodictic tone would help matters. "It goes there ..."? Says who?
Now, if this article is too long and you want to remove something? There are many thing up for grabs, but why this one? And note, it isn't something inside his head, but something he allegedly said. Why do you thinkg all this positive things you mention notable while a not so positive remark must "go over there"?
I am not so much concerned about the inclusion of that actual quote but about the overall direction (and the style of argument). Unfortunately, your remarks here are less than reassuring. Str1977 18:29, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The inclusion of the "bitch" remark is about exactly one person: Michael. If the reader of Terri's article is indifferent to Michael's motivations, then they should not have to endure an analysis of them here when Michael has his own article. I am not trying to whitewash him or cannonize her. I am just trying to organize this information in an NPOV manner. -- Pinktulip 18:59, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I have emphasized the line further on Michael's page. I think that this is all the attention that it deserves, but I am willing to sleep on it. -- Pinktulip 19:21, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

patsw removed the link to:

http://www.nndb.com/people/435/000026357/

I find that NNDB is not perfect, and at times are quite snide, but the information is usually pretty good. Their page certainly makes a large number of assertions of fact on the page. They cannot all be wrong. They jump to conclusions a few times. I would hope that patsw would take the time to notify them and us about their specific inaccurracies. Wholesale deleting of stuff as "inaccurate" is so easy with this wiki technology. Provinding accurate (or at least fair) information; now that is work.

Oh..... Is it the Ka-deficiency causing-the-heart-attack thing? I am still looking, but I noticed that http://abstractappeal.com/schiavo/infopage.html says:

  • Q:What happened to Terri?
  • A:The Second District's opinion in the first appeal in this case explains:
    • On February 25, 1990, . . . Theresa, age 27, suffered a cardiac arrest as a result of a potassium imbalance. Michael called 911, and Theresa was rushed to the hospital. She never regained consciousness.

Did the court jump to conclusions also? What authoritative body refuted this finding?

I also noticed that this precious artifact:

which suggests that there was a pre-concieved notion that no heart attack (and therefore, not-so-much brain damage) occurred. But that theory seemed to have taken as much damage to its credibility as the "Nobel prize-winning" Dr. Hammesfahr's reputation has. And how come we do not refer to Dr. Michael Baden? That web page does and we have an article on him. Perhaps it is time to stitch him back into the story. As you can tell from the Elizabeth Morgan article, I am a big fan of using's Wikipedia's special powers to drag all the power players back in, especially if they have Wikipedia articles (and, if necessary, making new articles for them if they are notable enough).

I am going to move this down the "medical background" page, where is belongs. Really, the only question here is: Do we put the NNDB back in? I say we do. -- Pinktulip 20:59, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

2nd DCA in 2001 says its was the potassium

Check this out:

http://www.miami.edu/ethics/schiavo/1-24-01_DCA%20Opinion.pdf

District Court of Appeal, 2nd District Opinion filed January 24, 2001.

One February 25, 1990, their lives changed. Theresa, 27, suffered a cardiac arrest as a result of a potassium imbalance.

and that is pretty much how the Wikiepdia article is going read, unless someone has later and more authoritative information (and I do not mean some TV show). No need to link it to some bulemia thingy. Any objections? -- Pinktulip 21:50, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

lopsided?

You should explain a little more about what you mean by "lopsided". The "medical background" article is where we examine the medical stuff and we provide the conclusions, if any, in this article. If we need to, we can presentt the "he said"/"they said" dualities briefly if the courts did not make a finding. Both sides had plenty of money and time and competent attorneys and appeals. Yeah, people are sometimes wrongly convicted or wrongly exonerated, but this one is a clear case of the courts, for those matters that they addressed, as being the finder of fact. Who disagrees that we must defer to the findings of the courts in this case? -- Pinktulip 01:17, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Vandalism

I'm pretty sure there's vandalism on this page, but I'm not in a position to go through and fix it all up because it's scattered throughout the edit history. Can someone do this please? - Richardcavell 05:27, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Richardcavell|: That's right. When things do not go your way, just cart out the V-word and see what knee-jerk reversions you can elicit with it. Why do not just cry "rape" while you are at it? How about terrorist? Plagerizer? Oh! Here is a good one: "abuser"! Those words might work also... amongst mobs. WHAT THE HECK MAKES YOU "PRETTY SURE"? Huh? And then suggest "Oh my! I was so confused and naïve... I... I... certainly was not trying to be manipulative or tricky or just plain stupid or something...". If you cannot get very, very specific (and that might actually entail some WORK) about your problems with the recent changes that are have happened on this page, then please go to one of the other 900,000 pages on Wikipeida and make a constructive and more thoughtful contribution. We are now reviewing this story as it was tried in the civil courts, rather than how it was tried in the headline-grabbing press. Your v-word headline STINKS! You want to engage me sir? Then please do so at my level of intellect. Otherwise, please leave this talk page. You wanna see an argument? Go read the 40+ archives this talk page has already piled up. We have been having a conversation here at a higher level of mutual respect and trust and we do not wish to be dragged back down into that muck. If you are "not in a position" to "go through" the changes and post thoughtfully, then please make yourself "not in a position" to post at all. -- Pinktulip 11:18, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I wrote that vandalism addition *before* I edited out your reference to Michael's marriage vows, Pinktulip, and did not apply the v-word to you. - Richardcavell 14:22, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I won't take a stance on your claims of vandalism, but I'd like to point out that we're not here to edit for you. I already have way too many pages on my watchlist and I have my own edits to make. If you think wikipedia needs fixing, do it yourself. If it's too hard, then don't. Why should it concern me? -Kasreyn 12:49, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Richardcavell: Wow. You catch on quickly! You have made an astute observation in the article (one that I was going to make, but was not yet in the mood to). You correctly point out that the autopsy cannot demonstrate something about an electrolyte imbalance that might have happened 15 years earlier. I already ripped out (00:34, 6 February 2006) our inappropriate statement

  • "The cause of the cardiac arrest which felled Schiavo 15 years before she died has never been determined."

Now, I am going to suggest that we just remove the entire paragraph and stop wasting the reader's time with all of these negative diagnoses. Personally, I am not very interested in what science cannot tell us about Terri, for I am sure that such a list would be very, very long; I am interested in what science CAN tell us about Terri. If we cannot just rip out the whole paragraph, then I suggest we move all of the "autopsy details" down the medical page. -- Pinktulip 12:56, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'd suggest that we actually reduce the size of the main article but keep the extra information in additional articles. By the way, there is a CT scan that purports to be of Terri Schiavo's head. Should that be put here? - Richardcavell 14:22, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The CT scan is on the medical page. As long as we and the courts all agree on PVS and its legal implications, the details are best left to the page that drills into that area deeply: the medical page. -- Pinktulip 14:30, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

We are underplaying the politics

Folks: We do not really make it clear that the Terri Schiavo story dominated American politics for all of March 2005. I think that the time has come to state that more clearly. Would someone else like to try to make that clear? Preferably in both the lead section and the gov't intervention section as it is a very notable aspect of the story? -- Pinktulip 13:58, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Michael's marriage vows

I am afraid that Micheal's choice of an ambigous declaration on Terri's stone that "I Kept My Promise" and his pre-existing adultery (and I mean that in the legal sense, say, in the way the Army decommisions officers for adultery) require us to note that discrepancy clearly. If he wanted to go screw that other women, he could have paid the price and divorced Terri, ceding control to her parents. He could have been more circumspect and left that eternal self-congradulatory comment out, but he chose not to do so. There is a REASON why, even in the strictly legal vows, they say "In sickness and in health". What say you all? Do we note this discrepency or do we not? I say that we do. -- Pinktulip 14:27, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Reading Michael's mind is not the task for the editors here. patsw 14:55, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Pat puts it right. Plz choose a second footnoting system before adding editor's notes--these were unneeded anyhow. Marskell 17:38, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Marskell: We all know what you want. You want User:Marskell/Schiavo. Let me tell you something Marskell: I got the real powerful hunch that even AnnH (who, I am happy to say, no longer reverts me so tersely) does not want something as stupid and easy as that. Let her respond, if she chooses to. Peace symbols are not very exciting, so they do not make splashy headlines or reports: they just make other Wikiepdia articles, and we do not need footnotes for those. And the intention of these asterisks was to not INTRUDE on the solmenity of text of the stone. That last "promise" line has historical irony to it, intended or not. What do you think happened historically? Terri said something like "Mike, if I get injured really bad someday, please promise that you will finish me off."? Huh? That might happen on some military battlefield between soliders, but not in a young couple in peacetime in a wealthy country. I, "Pink tulip", have recognized that this line bugs a lot of people who read it, and I recognize that the irony of the line, intended or otherwise, is what bugs people. The preponderance of the evidence suggests that the most important "promise" that Michael ever made to Terri was that he would remain faithful to her for the duration of their marriage when he said the words "I do". I bet that there were a whole bunch of other people there when he said, too. If he made some private, personal promise (promise to himself, promise to her, however you want to put it) to finsih her off despite the length of the time he would have to wait for his turn to swing his scythe, well... that is all fine and good, but he never really documented that promise at the time for posterity now, did he? Huh? No, he did not. He was pretty wishy-washy there between 1994 and 1998, before he finally set his course. And who knows if maybe he was already porking good ol' Jodi by then? I respect him for going the distance on his court fight, but despite his fortitude, he is still lacking sometime (maybe big, maybe small) in the departments of Character and Judgement. If he was not prepared to keep his first promise to Terri, he could have just lived with her in sin or something. We all agree that he started to refer to her as "bitch" (a fact that can safely go on his page). Oh.... Oh.... I got a compromise for us. (because I am willing to THINK and WORK for these agreements) He chose Terri's gravestone text, so that goes onto his page also, and we do the annoation there and let the reader decide what they think of this guy. I will save this message anyway for the sake of posterity and to provide the reader of this talk page with insight into the creative process of writing fine historical narrative. -- Pinktulip 21:04, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Pat put it well: "Reading Michael's mind is not the task for the editors here." I really could care less what he meant (I don't know what he meant, and I've never had a wife unresponsive in a hospital bed for 15 years if that matters). He said X, we report X. Nothing you've said overturns that basic obligation. Indeed most of what you've just said is inchoate, juvenile, rambling babble. Marskell 23:23, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Orphan page?

What is this page: Selected court cases in the Terri Schiavo case  ? Note: If it is no longer active, I would still appreciate a few days to review it before it gets deleted. -- Pinktulip 15:20, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Now I am a "hijaker"

Since the terms vandal, rapist, terrorist, plagiarizer, "blocked user" and abuser do not seem to stick, now I am "hijacker" because I moved Terri's smiling face down into the "early life" section (which, it seems to me, is where it belongs). Now, ya look at NNDB and they have pretty limited format and attention span. They do not do longitudinal studies like Wikiepdia can and they only they only do the one photo in the upper right-hand corner. We have much better technology than they do. We have sections. Terri's beautiful, smiling slender photo is pre-1990 and that is the section that it belongs in. I say it goes there. What say you all? -- Pinktulip 23:37, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The current version is fine and matches the standard Wikipedia formatting. --Davril2020 23:39, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"Everything is fine and try not to think very much". -- Pinktulip 00:30, 7 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I must be one heck of a slow hijacker. Tortise-like. Pathetic. History is like that: It requires an attention span of more than your average 60-second TV commercial (which is about how long it takes to revert almost anything in Wikipedia). -- Pinktulip 00:52, 7 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The navigation template goes into the article

Where the heck do you wantit to go? Bottom of the page? Not the "standard format", but it works for me, for now. -- Pinktulip 23:55, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Marskell is becoming destructive

I added U.S. House elections, 2006 to the Category:Terri Schiavo and User:Marskell removed it. Terri Schiavo is an excellent tool for studing the candidates, but User:Marskell, who is a Canadian, would prefer that we U.S. citizens vote in ignorance. I am adding the category back in and I expect the admins to intervene and stop this crazy man if he continues to destroy my work. I note that, while a Canadian citizen, he prefers to live in country that does not know Democracy. Perhaps his time over there has effected his judgement in some adverse way. Ann: You have recently realized the benefits a serious Wikibreak. Perhaps you could encourage the information-destroying and ignorance-expanding Marskell (à al Karl Popper) to take a long one and realize its healing properties.

I note that he also reverted the memorial section, adding back the Protestant-heretic word "sermon" when the newspapar article clearly indicated that it was a Homily. What is wrong with this man? Is he spending too much time with those heathens in the UAE or something? The word in the newpaper article, which is the cited source, is HOMILY. H-O-M-I-L-Y. Get it? Maybe patsw can help you to look it up in the dictionary, but in MY last version of that section, it was there and it was wikified. Marskell: you have a performed a disservice to the reader of the article by your destructive act.

You know, had you done the WORK of EDITING the material, I might understand, but your style is the STUPID STUPID STUPID: approach of just reverting, no matter how many edits it took me to get it right, and no matter how hard I tried to get you involved in the process, with dialog. I bet that even you would have left the word "homily" in, if you had noticed it, but rather than take the constructive and intelligent approach (which is WORK) you just hit the reset button and somehow expect us all to applaud you for that.

AND you broke the wiki-link to Father Frank Pavone! -- Pinktulip 14:42, 7 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Whew! Now that I have expressed myself, I know that as a man of honor, you will put my work back the way it was and, if you want to rip out the picture, that works for me, but Terri is stuck with the words that Michael saddled her with forever, both at the graveyard and here at Wikipedia. I do not really like the picture, but my version of the easy-to-read words stay with Terri forever, just like in the graveyard. She has no escape from them, so stop trying to obscure them. Trying to obscure them is a destructive act, as if you went to the graveyard and tried to smash out the letters with a sledgehammer. We all recognize that obscuring the words is a loss of Information and is evil. -- Pinktulip 16:21, 7 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please try to discus editing issues more calmly. U.S. House elections, 2006 is not an appropriate category here. The images certainly are appropriate as they do impart relevant information. Jonathunder 17:32, 7 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Buddy: Take it over to THAT article's talk page. Until you get youself over to the correct discussion page, it goes back in. -- Pinktulip 00:15, 8 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Terri Schiavo as Rorschach Test

Now perhaps you see that utility of Terri Schiavo is as Rorschach Test. You dangle that pretty, slender alive and aware young face in front of the Power Players (on both the Left and the Right) and you see how they respond. If they respond inappropriately, then you make a note it, as if they were just some rat in your laboratory. That is what make Wikiepda so powerful. And it is all true and NPOV; notable and fair. No need to go after little old ladies or TV commentors. Just the men and women of power, pretige and responsibility. They are ones who can really screw things up. -- Pinktulip 00:06, 7 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

First, your comments are an attack. My citizenship has no bearing on what we're doing here. "Crazy," "information-destroying," and "ignorance-expanding" are petulant and violate WP:CIV.
Second, you are misunderstanding categories. We could under U.S. House elections, 2006 add every conceivable category that might be an issue in the election: Category:Iraqi insurgency, Category:Taxation, Category:National security, Category:Political corruption etc. etc. Categories are not meant as placeholders for every conceivable linkage between a subject and other subjects. Marskell 15:25, 7 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
For the reader who wishes to use the Categories to browse information, we either provide them with a rich experience or poor one. When you think about Terri's brain a whole, it worked at a lower level of fucntion partially because many of the connections between still-alive cells were lost. Even "George Walker Bush" is in 26 categories, including "Worst Actor Razzie", which has little, if anything, to do with his political career and yet you do not see foaming-at-the-mouth to have that junk quickly removed from his article now, do you? Huh? NO. That is because I can patient about such junk-food quality of information. I am in no rush, dearie. You could not even wait the length of a TV commercial before you had to start going and undoing my work. You declared in you message to me that you are going to undo "most" of my work. Go ahead and try it, buddy. I dare you to. -- Pinktulip 15:41, 7 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I added U.S. House elections, 2006 to the Category:Terri Schiavo and User:Marskell removed it. Terri Schiavo is an excellent tool for studing the candidates, but User:Marskell, who is a Canadian, would prefer that we U.S. citizens vote in ignorance. I am adding the category back in and I expect the admins to intervene and stop this crazy man if he continues to destroy my work. I note that, while a Canadian citizen, he prefers to live in country that does not know Democracy. Perhaps his time over there has effected his judgement in some adverse way. Ann: You have recently realized the benefits a serious Wikibreak. Perhaps you could encourage the information-destroying and ignorance-expanding Marskell (à al Karl Popper) to take a long one and realize its healing properties. -- Pinktulip 14:42, 7 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Pink Tulip rides agian!

Read 'em weep User:Marskell . Category:Terri Schiavo minor players . There is no way on God's green Earth that you will succeed in convincing anyone that the minor players in the Terri Schavio story are not "notable" when taken in aggregate. Have a nice day.

Come hither Marskell! Your ridiculous hair-splitting was anticipated. Admit defeat in your attempts to hide this information, pulling strings on the Admin notice board, and controlling our view of the information from your desert fortress. Come back to Democracy. Sweet Liberty and Freedom beckon to you! -- Pinktulip 01:01, 8 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

This talk page is becoming much too confrontational for my liking. I have other articles I'm interested, plus lots of real life commitments, so for the moment, I'm not even going to try to study all the recent comments. A few points:

  • I think the "when is that bitch gonna die" quote should remain in this article, not, of course, as something Michael said, but as something that the nurse reported that he said. It is, in my view, relevant to Terri Schiavo's case, as the whole case (of whether or not she would have wanted the feeding tube removed) hinges on Michael's credibility.
  • I think the last two sections ("Disputed opinions" and "Public opinion and activism") would be better incorporated into the body of the article. It seems odd to have her death and burial, and then to jump back to the trial in 2000.
  • I think also that Michael Schiavo's subsequent marriage to Jodi should be mentioned, perhaps after bit about the burial. It would only take one line, and it is certainly something that people who were interested in the Terri Schiavo case would want to know.

AnnH (talk) 01:39, 8 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]


  • Hair splitting. The nurse is credible enough. We are all convinced that he said it. But they are just words. Even if he said it on television for whole World to see and know with absolute certainty, do we have it in this article, and/or over on his page? They are just words. They are not an exercise of authority. They are not a statement of intent. You, of all people, should recognize that they are questions. Almost certainly they were said in frustration. It does not take a genius to go and restat them. How about
I want that bitch to die soon.

No big jump in logic, really. But his words are not exactly

And I would like to personally help speed up the process.

That is reading a bit much into it. And rather far from

Blow her brains out! Now! Gimme that gun! I want to dust her!

No, that is right out. You see what I mean about exactly the words he said? They really do not mean a heck of a lot. He had been, on and off, helping to clean her bedpan for almost a half a decade at that point. I am sure that the routine was getting kind of old. He is only human. He DEFINTELY has his flaws. Ann: please do as you see fit (but you do not have time, so that means that we do nothing about it). The critical, well-educated reader will recognize the irrelevance of this information, but I am not sure how many of those Wikiepdia attracts, so I am not willing to fight about it.

  • I am a big fan of strict chronological order. There is a certain beauty in the order and brevity of the TS timeline, is there not? Even on the Elizabeth Morgan page, there is only one tiny bit of out-of-sequence event and they are not jarring (I will leave as an exercise for you all to locate it). By comparision, this article is still a tragic messs in the chronology order department. We are gonna work on that real soon now.
  • The marriage is notable and makes an epilog some some solemnity. Ann, I will go ahead and it on your behalf.

Mention what you want to about Michael, but remember: Our space in this article is limited (I feel like the ghost of Christmas Present à la Dickens, but I digress). Choose what you want in the article with care. When your lawyer argues you case in court, he picks the topics to talk about with care in that adverserial process, because the judge will eventually cut him off if he goes over his allotted time. Fortunately, despite the manipulative grandstanding, the venial and very stinky intrigues and the sneaky vicious backstabbing, especially by those heretics, and in particular those Lutheran heretics who started it all almost 500 years ago (steady pinky, steady...), we are in a cooperative process here. That process is one of mutual love, honor and respect.

Rule of thumb: This article should be no more than 40KB. Some detalis must be delegate further. No more food analogies about sanwhich with or without meat and I will leave the irresistable snipes about vegatables out also.

Do not destroy information! Just organize it better and in a manner that is easier to browse and even skip around in. This article was so LINEAR even only a month ago. It was like Mass: you start at the beginning and you grind through it to the end. No skipping around. This is NOT Mass. We have other options. If the reader wants to skim, then help to skim! Do not bog them down. Frame discrete informational components like court cases. Ignore Barbara Tuchman's advice about these seemingly-endless appeals. Give the verdict up front. We do now. It helps.

When a lawyer reads a non-jury judgement handed down, do you think s/he starts at the beginning and reads it through? Or course not! S/he skips straight to the ruling to see if they won or if they lost, or something in between if it is complex. The lawyers knows the traditional format of the judgment from years of experience and knows straight where to go. THEN they read it from start to finish. Our readers are less sophisticated and we are making up our layout as we go. Make it easy for the reader to be, to the extent possible, as efficient as a professional. Again: If they want to skim, help them!

Again, about that 40KB smallness goal, most notably, in my recent gathering of information:

We know it is "better" now, but there is still room for improvement.

Deal with it. Please. For Terri. For history. For TRVTH! All of it.

You take high road and I'll take the low road... Oh wait. That is Scotland. Anyway: I had better shut up for now and get back to work. -- Pinktulip 03:06, 8 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

And I will leave that irrelevant photo of her where it lies: at the top of the page. I PARTICULARLY resent that that nigger-word-loving real-nigger-hating (a Linguistic object/reference duality that Ann is particular well-prepared to discern and appreciate), incomptent and lying Mark Furman uses it on the cover of his book by which he currently makes his filthy money (because he is morally unfit to earn his living as a policeman or have any manner of elevated civil authority whatsoever) off of Terri's tragedy, but I will leave it there. That is, until that piece-of-crap "good article" mark arrives on this talk page. Then we talk about it some more. -- Pinktulip 03:15, 8 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If you have trouble following my train of thought, then I refer you to this page: William Chester Minor. My penis is still attached and performing all of the functions that Nature intended it to, thank you very much. But my mind... well... you get the idea... -- Pinktulip 03:22, 8 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Marskell, the reverter is back

I want every to note that Marskell, the reverter of my work on the Terri Schiavo page and the Terri Schiavo Cateory (or articles thereof) is now also reverting my words on the Terri Schiavo talk page. He would rather that you see only his selected version of my words rather than the final product of my efforts. I am sure that that style worked very well for him when he tossed me up on WP:AN as well. He snideness about the "good article" mark the I helped to get for the Challenger Space Shuttle page suddenly disappeared into smooth-talking, politeness, with the obivous implication of "We are all just victims of the nasty Pinktulip". "No need to talk to Pinktulip when he does not merit that level of fairness." Just dislike him and undo his work. How genuine of Marskell. -- Pinktulip 09:11, 8 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I do not often do this looking at other people's contributions, but take a quick look at User talk:Android79 for Marskell's very narrow focus on individual words I wrote, with no context to see if he can get some admin to push the "block" button on me. -- Pinktulip 09:16, 8 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I do not normally do this looking at other people's contributions (because I can hear the cries of "stalker!" already), but take a quick look at User talk:Android79 for Marskell's very narrow focus on individual words and phrases I wrote, with no context to see if he can get some admin to whack me in some way. You know that this is just an vicious cycle of frustration caused by that guy. You know that reverter attitude, if not by Marskell, then by others of his ilk, is why this article FAILED to become a featured article.

Hi Pink. I didn't revert your words here--at least not intentionally. I reverted an anon who had edited your words. There is no context sufficient for launching personal attacks, which is what you've been doing the last 48 hours. Marskell 09:26, 8 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You reverted my words here. If it was an accident, then I apologize. However, I note that the comment you provided in your revesion was
rv. I'd like to read with psychosis in full swing
So tell me about this pleasure that causes you to "like" it. When I was child, I used to like kicking my little brother the stomach and making him cry. That is because I was bully then. Then I Catholic school and learned not to do that anymore. How are you, sir? Again, tell me about this pleasure that you feel. Is it the same pleasure you feel when you declared that you were going to revert "most" of my category work? Did you like that? Did it make you feel good? Maybe powerful? Describe the pleasure, as best you can, please. As far as I can tell, you could not be trusted to provide care for people in a clinical setting, because your pleasure is misplaced and based on sadistic power to watch others suffer in frustration, especially as you silently revert them with ease. -- Pinktulip 09:36, 8 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
An anon edited your words with this summary copyedit this phychotic man's prose. The poor dear!). My own summary was a joke playing on that. I reverted back to your own post and removed nothing. I'm not getting pleasure editing the category--cat-sorting is boring. I have made very clear the logic behind it. It is not punitive. It's in keeping with how categories work. Marskell 13:14, 8 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to work on the Terri Schiavo article without being reverted by that guy just as soon as he finds out about my new work. Have I reverted any of his work? No, partially because he has not done that much new and creative work. He just sits there and reverts and hauls in mediation (for mediation sessions that Marskell himself does not have to be involved in) or the admins, one by one. Instead, we are just going around again (but because you are dealing with a mature man, it is all happening on the talk page). We are not having a revert war on the article because I have some respect for it and because I am not in a hurry. I have already had hours of my work reverted in seconds my Maskell. I am willing to work this out, but he is deliberately avoiding talking about the article content. His only interaction with me is his running around, trying to get me in trouble, over and over and over again. -- Pinktulip 09:16, 8 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Pinktulip and a suggestion

Pinktulip, I moved your sentence on Michael Schiavo's remarriage to the 'Memorial' section, as one line isn't really worth a whole new header (and one line is all we would need on this). I also renamed the section 'Following death', as the section isn't about solely the memorial (and wasn't even before I moved the Michael Schiavo line).

Suggestion (this to all) - how about moving all the 'Advocacy and commentary' to the Public opinion and activism in the Terri Schiavo case article? It'd get rid of a good 5k off the article, and it's all public opinion stuff anyway? Nothing would be deleted or expunged, just moved to a more suited location. I'll make the change in a day or two, but thought I'd throw it up here first, to see if anyone thinks this would be silly. Proto||type 09:43, 8 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Acknowledged. There is some unfinshed business between me and Marskell about his reversion of my work in that section that I was trying to avoid complicating, but no big deal. -- Pinktulip 09:46, 8 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I reverted it because a) you manually inserted an "Ed's note" and this is not Wiki style b) we have already gone over whether to list the words. There was a consensus to remove them three months ago. You continue to insist I have not edited this. I have--repeatedly and often, from August through November last year. I know what the consensus is (was) for various parts. Given that I believe the version prior to your gutting the medical history without consensus is superior to this one, I'd rather not edit substantially.
Regarding K, the body is already under 30. If we can remove 15 K the medical history should be moved back. Marskell 09:57, 8 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
At the moment the links and references alone are a good 15k of this article, and so there must be some way to pare these down without offending people's sensibilities. Proto||type 10:01, 8 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Acknowledged. I have been encouraging the delegation of addtional material to subordinate pages. You have picked an appropriate section to further that process. Note that you must still effectively summarize the material and capture its essense in a compact blurb. -- Pinktulip 09:48, 8 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I've decided that waiting a few days isn't needed, and have just done it. The blub is a whole one sentence. Each of the subheadings describes what the articles relating to it are about well enough, so no need to repeat ourselves. Note that it's got the article down to below 50k for the first time in a good 9 months, which I think deserves some kind of celebration. Proto||type 10:01, 8 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
But remember, the 30K limit doesn't apply to the stuff after See Also. Again, the body is already under 30K. We should move back the 25 odd K removed and see if better summary style can't knock down a complete page to the low 60s. I think this would be fine and we'd avoid the problem that exists now where we jump haphazardly from 1990 to 2003.
The removal of some of the links was needed anyway because Wiki is "not a repository of links". So good job there. Marskell 10:08, 8 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
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