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Isn't this a scary sentence? What it says is "Once you have passed your peak ......" —The preceding unsigned comment was added by MartinGugino ( talk • contribs) 08:03, 23 January 2007 (UTC).
Quote taken from the last paragraph.
Sorry, but that's a little too happy a conclusion for me. I left it alone however.
I know that many people were shocked, appalled, stunned that this could happen. Er, like, in "America". I think a lot of people were not ready for this. To me, for example, it seems an insane result. What a fiasco.{{The precedingunsigned comment was written at 08:31, 23 January 2007, by MartinGugino. So says GordonWatts 09:35, 23 January 2007 (UTC)}}
At this diff, we again find Calton causing trouble. He revered my edit, removing every single link that I put in, supposedly because of angst with one particular link that is a blog.
I don't think he is right to oppose that, but at least he makes a half-way argument about not being notable. (I say this to contrast the arguments Proto made about blogs not being acceptable; Of course, he is wrong: Many blog links had been in the article after his edit.)
I will be fine with any consensus by the community on the links in question -if for not other reason than to make Calton stop arguing, a worthwhile motive, but not the best motive, I admit. (We should have as motives simply to make an Encyclopaedia article with sufficient details -and references to back them up.)
So, in short, Terri Schiavo's article seems OK, but help is needed at the Public_opinion_and_activism_in_the_Terri_Schiavo_case article -specifically, the links section.
PS: Any user can look at my recent contributions to see that I am a responsible editor, just in case anyone wants to know. Plus, I was the one who created the pretty Template:TOCcenter template you see at the top of the Wikipedia_talk:Village_pump page and seen in the page history here, which, for some reason, is needed: The Table of Contents doesn't automatically show on the Village Pump's talk page, like it used to -and like it does on this page. Anyone can help here??
In closing, if I am not around to vote, then my "vote" for each and every link enumerated is "add this link," but in the end, if some links are voted down, I would hope that at least some of them could stay -to strengthen the references section.-- GordonWatts 09:39, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
The open sentence is rather vague. It is certainly possible to tell the read about the main two factual aspects of Terrir Schivo without all that vagueness. How about:
This way, you stop trying to characterize Terri and you simply say "what happened", mentioning only the most important aspects of the story and keeping the narrative following the timeline. -- 64.9.234.5 21:47, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
Theresa Marie "Terri" Schiavo (December 3, 1963 – March 31, 2005), of St. Petersburg, Florida, was a hospital patient diagnosed as...
GW: A bit of advice: dwelling on the feeding tube is asking for people to misread your intentions. This is because the perception of "loss of dignity" for the patient is central to much of the conflict about this article. I admit that "long-term hospital patient" is a little vague, but since the patient was not quite "comotose", I leave that adjective out (it would have been handy, because comatose implies feeding tube). Too many readers (and W editors) will interpret any terse mention of "feeding tube" as a loss of dignity for the patient. It ultimately falls in the realm of diplomacy and anticipating a re-fight over this fought-over ground. I am not going to revert your latest change, but I expect that somebody else will. Hoepfully they will not revert deeply, but I am taking a wait-and-see approach. -- 70.231.140.181 17:29, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
One more change: "most well-known for" is always asking for trouble. Let's me try to take a physician's approach to the description (I am not a physician, but I am trying to take the POV os a good doc and see if that elevates the level of the conversation and the prose). -- 70.231.140.181 17:36, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
OK, I did another re-word to avoid phrases like "well-known". How does it look to you now? -- 70.231.140.181 17:44, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
A real pediatrician I met recently took a quick look and suggested that the parent's legal argument be added. I did my best to do so but to also keep it brief. -- 70.231.140.181 18:04, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
And to emphasize once again: the media coverage and "fame" is the least-important aspect of this story because it is the most ephemeral and derivative of the relevant facts. Let's strive to keep it as the last item in the paragraph. -- 70.231.140.181 18:59, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
I am happy with this new, brief first sentence. Nobody else gets to interfere. The prose just takes the reader to Terri in her quiet but lonely hospital bed. It says only what needs to be said about her role, but still, it cannot help but to invoke thought and compassion from within the reader for this human being:
A wise person once pointed out to me that on your deathbed, you can be surrounded by family and friends, but death is an individual and private experience: you die alone. If I may:
-- 69.236.33.219 05:45, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
OK, now that the opening paragraph is crisp (not brilliant prose yet, but crisp), let's see what we can do to move in the direction of FA quality. Sure, this one article is not going to get us to WP:100K, but it could be progress towards, say, 2K FA's at W. It seems like the sections called "Initial medical crisis" and maybe the whole "Five years of family conflict" is where things really start to bog down for the reader. In everything else, something happens and the story moves along, but these two sections have several qualities:
It seems that Judge Greer campaigned in 2004 for re-election in Florida and some of the police officers (the Sheriff and two deputies) did a commercial for him and only now is some kind of ethics investigation is resulting. Is this part of Terri's story? Does it fit into some medical/legal ethics thing? -- 71.141.252.50 20:23, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
As I read the cited story, it involves improper use of government assets and employees, for a non-governmental purpose: a re-election campaign ad. Not relevent to Terri. There may be other ethical questions about Greer; such as being an ex-board member of the Hospice, and that Terri was not dying and so should not have been there. MartinGugino 06:55, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
The Wolfson report has its own section. Is ths appropriate? I ask because it is my impression that Wikipedia should speak in its own voice. It should report, in its own authentic voice
Also, while blue-ribbon investigative commissions occasionally get a section, such as the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster#Rogers Commission investigation and even the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, the report itself is treated as a document to be used in references. If people want to criticize our sources, then they should be able to go to the "Notes" section and get the whole picture. Personally, I feel that we should just "digest" the Wolfson report, extract the new facts and refer to the report only in the refs.
To be honest, I think that the same should be done for many of the other documents generated by the court cases. The cases themselves are not notable: only the truths revealed in those procedings that are relevant to the article's subject matter. Our subject sits in her lonely hospital bed, waiting. All of the fighting is about her, but only what it tells us about HER really matters. The facts (or claims) should be sorted out chronologically as to when they happened, not when they were claimed or later discovered.
The Barbaro story suffered from this same problem early on, with every sportwriter dramatically piping in about the creature's prospects, until somebody just went in last summer and "objectified" the aritlce, focusing on the horse's foot and how it broke and the medical procedures actually performed. Some editors claimed that the new version bled the story of its spirit, but that new, objective version stood the test of time, and that story is ongoing, with new events even in the past few days. That article was transformed to speak in its own authentic voice, much to its unification and increase in its readability. This article should be also. There is no loss of dignity to Terri in this comparison because this argument is about the brilliant prose. Brilliant prose should be intricate, poetic, and very conscious about the perspective imposed upon the reader. When we learn something new from the court battles, we should be always re-sort the facts by chronological order and then take the reader back to Terri's lonely bedside, and THEN continue the discussion and the footnoting.
One user characterize the Barbaro linear narrative as "lifeless" and longed for the lively day-to-day commentaries during that creature's July 2006 crises. That style was very easy, but Wikipedia is not a newspaper, nor it is a daily version of Sports Illustrated. Wikipedia should present a timeless account of the enternal Truth within that Truth's chronological context, as it pertains specifically to the subject. Even in the past year, there is ongoing sequella with Nurse Iyer, who was ultimately exonerated and her nursing license restored (but this does not change the relevance of her affidavit), and the county Sheriff and some of his buddies, who are the subject of some kind of politically-realted ethics investigation. While that is interesting, it does not belong in this article because those are sideshows of the non-notables. We already have a "Related articles & documents" template for those notables who ended up involved in the story and their details are on their pages. Now, it is time to focus on our subject in her hospital bed. It strikes me that the "legacy" section could be expanded because the reality is that the precedents set by the legal and politcal events are what still matter today and perhaps for decades to come. How should we deal with the long list of legal procedings of the 1998-2003 period? In my humble opinion, they are just a bunch of line items of decisions handed down (and a rather monotonous list at that). The rest of the revealed facts should be incorporated back into the storyline. I am not in a rush: I just want people to think about this and respond.
-- 71.141.246.35 16:32, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
As if my reference was some sort of kiss of death, that horse was euthanized in the past few hours. -- 71.141.246.35 18:14, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
Can we just move the Schiavo memo to the Palm Sunday Compromise? I am still probing for what else can be trimmed out w/o somebody taking offense. The other two targets, in my mind, are still the Wolfson report and the 2003 petition. Any dialog at all would be appreciated. -- 199.33.32.40 01:07, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
Response: One of the constant ideas of the Schiavo case is that the elected politicians, executive and legislative, are spineless panderers who would do anything for political advantage. The Shiavo memo is the only hard evidence that supports this opinion, and upon which to base disdain for the positions those august bodies seemed to be driven to.
I do think that the memo is a tangential, and minor, issue. MartinGugino 07:11, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
Re: trimmed out
I am trying to think what needs to be kept. What the organizing principle should be - and then all the detail pushed away, available as support. Aspects that somehow should be included in what is left
What does this mean? How can the senate pass a bill with only 3 votes? I generally don't like parentheses. Could this be rewritten without the parentheses?
MartinGugino
05:50, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
Changed it to unanimous consent - the bill was passed under unanimous consent rules. Any senator could have vetoed it. The comment about only three senators present is true but misleading. There was more to that than that.
Martin |
talk •
contribs 12:32, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
Martin |
talk •
contribs 21:11, 8 February 2007 (UTC) Article updated. Paragraph closed.
Martin |
talk •
contribs
21:11, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
I feel better about something like this:
This allows
MartinGugino 06:41, 1 February 2007 (UTC) (could you all use names instead of IPs?)
Hmmm. Ok, then:
MartinGugino 21:03, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
How about:
End MartinGugino 10:23, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
My point was to cut the text in half. I do not understand the point that you are making.
May I note that one of the points of conflict in the Shiavo case has been whether she received appropriate care. One goal should be to characterize her treatment with sensitivity to that issue. MartinGugino 20:52, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
The first sentence could be changed, to accommodate the first comment, to
If you don't like the "brain damage" comment, that could be omitted, but there is little controversy about whether her brain was damaged, or whether that played a major part in the story.
Thanks for the feedback. I updated the paragraph, above, rather than modifying it and copying it here.
![]() | This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Isn't this a scary sentence? What it says is "Once you have passed your peak ......" —The preceding unsigned comment was added by MartinGugino ( talk • contribs) 08:03, 23 January 2007 (UTC).
Quote taken from the last paragraph.
Sorry, but that's a little too happy a conclusion for me. I left it alone however.
I know that many people were shocked, appalled, stunned that this could happen. Er, like, in "America". I think a lot of people were not ready for this. To me, for example, it seems an insane result. What a fiasco.{{The precedingunsigned comment was written at 08:31, 23 January 2007, by MartinGugino. So says GordonWatts 09:35, 23 January 2007 (UTC)}}
At this diff, we again find Calton causing trouble. He revered my edit, removing every single link that I put in, supposedly because of angst with one particular link that is a blog.
I don't think he is right to oppose that, but at least he makes a half-way argument about not being notable. (I say this to contrast the arguments Proto made about blogs not being acceptable; Of course, he is wrong: Many blog links had been in the article after his edit.)
I will be fine with any consensus by the community on the links in question -if for not other reason than to make Calton stop arguing, a worthwhile motive, but not the best motive, I admit. (We should have as motives simply to make an Encyclopaedia article with sufficient details -and references to back them up.)
So, in short, Terri Schiavo's article seems OK, but help is needed at the Public_opinion_and_activism_in_the_Terri_Schiavo_case article -specifically, the links section.
PS: Any user can look at my recent contributions to see that I am a responsible editor, just in case anyone wants to know. Plus, I was the one who created the pretty Template:TOCcenter template you see at the top of the Wikipedia_talk:Village_pump page and seen in the page history here, which, for some reason, is needed: The Table of Contents doesn't automatically show on the Village Pump's talk page, like it used to -and like it does on this page. Anyone can help here??
In closing, if I am not around to vote, then my "vote" for each and every link enumerated is "add this link," but in the end, if some links are voted down, I would hope that at least some of them could stay -to strengthen the references section.-- GordonWatts 09:39, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
The open sentence is rather vague. It is certainly possible to tell the read about the main two factual aspects of Terrir Schivo without all that vagueness. How about:
This way, you stop trying to characterize Terri and you simply say "what happened", mentioning only the most important aspects of the story and keeping the narrative following the timeline. -- 64.9.234.5 21:47, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
Theresa Marie "Terri" Schiavo (December 3, 1963 – March 31, 2005), of St. Petersburg, Florida, was a hospital patient diagnosed as...
GW: A bit of advice: dwelling on the feeding tube is asking for people to misread your intentions. This is because the perception of "loss of dignity" for the patient is central to much of the conflict about this article. I admit that "long-term hospital patient" is a little vague, but since the patient was not quite "comotose", I leave that adjective out (it would have been handy, because comatose implies feeding tube). Too many readers (and W editors) will interpret any terse mention of "feeding tube" as a loss of dignity for the patient. It ultimately falls in the realm of diplomacy and anticipating a re-fight over this fought-over ground. I am not going to revert your latest change, but I expect that somebody else will. Hoepfully they will not revert deeply, but I am taking a wait-and-see approach. -- 70.231.140.181 17:29, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
One more change: "most well-known for" is always asking for trouble. Let's me try to take a physician's approach to the description (I am not a physician, but I am trying to take the POV os a good doc and see if that elevates the level of the conversation and the prose). -- 70.231.140.181 17:36, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
OK, I did another re-word to avoid phrases like "well-known". How does it look to you now? -- 70.231.140.181 17:44, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
A real pediatrician I met recently took a quick look and suggested that the parent's legal argument be added. I did my best to do so but to also keep it brief. -- 70.231.140.181 18:04, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
And to emphasize once again: the media coverage and "fame" is the least-important aspect of this story because it is the most ephemeral and derivative of the relevant facts. Let's strive to keep it as the last item in the paragraph. -- 70.231.140.181 18:59, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
I am happy with this new, brief first sentence. Nobody else gets to interfere. The prose just takes the reader to Terri in her quiet but lonely hospital bed. It says only what needs to be said about her role, but still, it cannot help but to invoke thought and compassion from within the reader for this human being:
A wise person once pointed out to me that on your deathbed, you can be surrounded by family and friends, but death is an individual and private experience: you die alone. If I may:
-- 69.236.33.219 05:45, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
OK, now that the opening paragraph is crisp (not brilliant prose yet, but crisp), let's see what we can do to move in the direction of FA quality. Sure, this one article is not going to get us to WP:100K, but it could be progress towards, say, 2K FA's at W. It seems like the sections called "Initial medical crisis" and maybe the whole "Five years of family conflict" is where things really start to bog down for the reader. In everything else, something happens and the story moves along, but these two sections have several qualities:
It seems that Judge Greer campaigned in 2004 for re-election in Florida and some of the police officers (the Sheriff and two deputies) did a commercial for him and only now is some kind of ethics investigation is resulting. Is this part of Terri's story? Does it fit into some medical/legal ethics thing? -- 71.141.252.50 20:23, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
As I read the cited story, it involves improper use of government assets and employees, for a non-governmental purpose: a re-election campaign ad. Not relevent to Terri. There may be other ethical questions about Greer; such as being an ex-board member of the Hospice, and that Terri was not dying and so should not have been there. MartinGugino 06:55, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
The Wolfson report has its own section. Is ths appropriate? I ask because it is my impression that Wikipedia should speak in its own voice. It should report, in its own authentic voice
Also, while blue-ribbon investigative commissions occasionally get a section, such as the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster#Rogers Commission investigation and even the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, the report itself is treated as a document to be used in references. If people want to criticize our sources, then they should be able to go to the "Notes" section and get the whole picture. Personally, I feel that we should just "digest" the Wolfson report, extract the new facts and refer to the report only in the refs.
To be honest, I think that the same should be done for many of the other documents generated by the court cases. The cases themselves are not notable: only the truths revealed in those procedings that are relevant to the article's subject matter. Our subject sits in her lonely hospital bed, waiting. All of the fighting is about her, but only what it tells us about HER really matters. The facts (or claims) should be sorted out chronologically as to when they happened, not when they were claimed or later discovered.
The Barbaro story suffered from this same problem early on, with every sportwriter dramatically piping in about the creature's prospects, until somebody just went in last summer and "objectified" the aritlce, focusing on the horse's foot and how it broke and the medical procedures actually performed. Some editors claimed that the new version bled the story of its spirit, but that new, objective version stood the test of time, and that story is ongoing, with new events even in the past few days. That article was transformed to speak in its own authentic voice, much to its unification and increase in its readability. This article should be also. There is no loss of dignity to Terri in this comparison because this argument is about the brilliant prose. Brilliant prose should be intricate, poetic, and very conscious about the perspective imposed upon the reader. When we learn something new from the court battles, we should be always re-sort the facts by chronological order and then take the reader back to Terri's lonely bedside, and THEN continue the discussion and the footnoting.
One user characterize the Barbaro linear narrative as "lifeless" and longed for the lively day-to-day commentaries during that creature's July 2006 crises. That style was very easy, but Wikipedia is not a newspaper, nor it is a daily version of Sports Illustrated. Wikipedia should present a timeless account of the enternal Truth within that Truth's chronological context, as it pertains specifically to the subject. Even in the past year, there is ongoing sequella with Nurse Iyer, who was ultimately exonerated and her nursing license restored (but this does not change the relevance of her affidavit), and the county Sheriff and some of his buddies, who are the subject of some kind of politically-realted ethics investigation. While that is interesting, it does not belong in this article because those are sideshows of the non-notables. We already have a "Related articles & documents" template for those notables who ended up involved in the story and their details are on their pages. Now, it is time to focus on our subject in her hospital bed. It strikes me that the "legacy" section could be expanded because the reality is that the precedents set by the legal and politcal events are what still matter today and perhaps for decades to come. How should we deal with the long list of legal procedings of the 1998-2003 period? In my humble opinion, they are just a bunch of line items of decisions handed down (and a rather monotonous list at that). The rest of the revealed facts should be incorporated back into the storyline. I am not in a rush: I just want people to think about this and respond.
-- 71.141.246.35 16:32, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
As if my reference was some sort of kiss of death, that horse was euthanized in the past few hours. -- 71.141.246.35 18:14, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
Can we just move the Schiavo memo to the Palm Sunday Compromise? I am still probing for what else can be trimmed out w/o somebody taking offense. The other two targets, in my mind, are still the Wolfson report and the 2003 petition. Any dialog at all would be appreciated. -- 199.33.32.40 01:07, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
Response: One of the constant ideas of the Schiavo case is that the elected politicians, executive and legislative, are spineless panderers who would do anything for political advantage. The Shiavo memo is the only hard evidence that supports this opinion, and upon which to base disdain for the positions those august bodies seemed to be driven to.
I do think that the memo is a tangential, and minor, issue. MartinGugino 07:11, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
Re: trimmed out
I am trying to think what needs to be kept. What the organizing principle should be - and then all the detail pushed away, available as support. Aspects that somehow should be included in what is left
What does this mean? How can the senate pass a bill with only 3 votes? I generally don't like parentheses. Could this be rewritten without the parentheses?
MartinGugino
05:50, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
Changed it to unanimous consent - the bill was passed under unanimous consent rules. Any senator could have vetoed it. The comment about only three senators present is true but misleading. There was more to that than that.
Martin |
talk •
contribs 12:32, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
Martin |
talk •
contribs 21:11, 8 February 2007 (UTC) Article updated. Paragraph closed.
Martin |
talk •
contribs
21:11, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
I feel better about something like this:
This allows
MartinGugino 06:41, 1 February 2007 (UTC) (could you all use names instead of IPs?)
Hmmm. Ok, then:
MartinGugino 21:03, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
How about:
End MartinGugino 10:23, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
My point was to cut the text in half. I do not understand the point that you are making.
May I note that one of the points of conflict in the Shiavo case has been whether she received appropriate care. One goal should be to characterize her treatment with sensitivity to that issue. MartinGugino 20:52, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
The first sentence could be changed, to accommodate the first comment, to
If you don't like the "brain damage" comment, that could be omitted, but there is little controversy about whether her brain was damaged, or whether that played a major part in the story.
Thanks for the feedback. I updated the paragraph, above, rather than modifying it and copying it here.