User talk:Tropix

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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! By the way, you can sign your name on Talk and vote pages using three tildes, like this: ~~~. Four tildes (~~~~) produces your name and the current date. If you have any questions, see the help pages, add a question to the village pump or ask me on my Talk page. Again, welcome! --JYolkowski 21:42, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

User talk pages and edit summaries

Thanks for your questions. As for getting to other users' talk pages, click on the link that leads to their user page. From there, click on the "Discussion" tab at the top of the screen (everyone calls it "talk", but the actual name on the link is "discussion"). Then click on either the "edit this page" tab or the "+" tab beside it to leave a comment. The talk pages for articles can be found under their "discussion" tab.

As for edit summaries, they stay as you posted it, they can't be changed. If your edit really needs explaining, the best thing to do is either to mention something on the "talk" (a.k.a. discussion) page or make another edit and add something to the edit summary.

Hope this helps, JYolkowski 02:02, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Terri Schiavo

Since you're a new user, you may not be aware of the endless vandalism that takes place on the Terri Schiavo page. A lot of it attemts to dilute court rulings and insert wilder accusations about Michael abusing Terri and attempting to cover it up by removing life support. None of those claims are substantiated, but vandals keep putting them in there. If you add new wording to quote the ruling of the court, please include a URL so it can be confirmed. (vandals generally don't include URL's, they just insert "allegedly" and "possibly" and similar words.) As for the intro, I think it ought to be kept as short as possible, with the details in later sections, but that's just me. There is also a talk page with a number of people working on the article arguing over many details. If you're doing a major rewrite, you might want to check in with the folks there. I think some people (myself included) are trying to cut the article DOWN, not increase its length. It currently exceeds wikipedia's general length recommendation. FuelWagon 05:23, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

If you change the wording, put in a URL. Then I (and everyone else) can verify the change you made isn't some vandal with an agenda. As for the "natural means" comment, I'm not so sure of its relevance, but put a URL to your source, and people can work it out. Oh, zimp.org (.com?) is not considered an unbiased source, in case you're quoting them. FuelWagon 05:41, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

First of all, are you a sock puppet? Second of all, the intro already covers the most important aspect of the situation: the whole history of judicial and legislative battles that occurred around Terri Schiavo. There is no single decision that rises above the others as far as merit. Singling out any particular decision will put a certain perspective on the entire article. The reason Terri is in wikipedia is because of the court battles over many years and the legislative maneuvars that happened in the last few weeks of her life. Greer ruling this or that isn't the point of why she's in the encyclopedia in the first place: her parents drive to keep her alive at any cost, and her husband's drive to fulfill her wish not to be kept alive on life support, that is why she's in wikipedia. FuelWagon 22:46, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

sock puppet is explained here [[1]] FuelWagon 23:04, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

You can go to the Terri Schiavo discussion page and make your claims there. Yes wikipedia is collaborative, and it's also the target of repeated vandalism and other abuses, especially emotional topics like Terri Schiavo. I still do not understand what exactly you think is the "most important" thing that apparently is missing from the intro. Greer's order to remove teh feeding tube? If you want to collaborate, go to the discussion page, there's a whole bunch of people working on this page for a long time, and you just trampled their work from a new account with no prior history. That is how a sock puppet generally shows up. Someone gets blocked, and they make up an new ID to get around it, or to make big changes under anonymity. FuelWagon 23:33, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Bring it to the discussion page. You're bullet "(4) Micheal's decision to terminate her life", already indicates POV bias. Michael claimed that Terri would not want to be kept alive on life support. A trial was held to answer that question. Both sides presented their best case, and the court ruled that Terri would not want to be kept alive on life support. Unless you present that whole history, you're intro will be POV. Bring it to the discussion board. If you really want to collaborate, go to the discussion board. That's what it's there for. talking to me one on one won't isn't collaborating. There's a number of people you're ignoring. FuelWagon 00:01, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Boy, you guys are something else ... I am not an "experienced Wikipedian" nor a "sockpuppet", and I can't imagine what makes you think so and talk like this. Is this some kind of elitism? I'm just me. However, I do disagree with you in that I think that my contributions have been just fine. I suspect there may be a problem with editors that have been here longer. They may start to feel proprietary about the article. Fresh eyes are not such a bad thing sometimes. Tropix 00:56, 2005 Apr 12 (UTC)

If you spent any time reading the discussion page and its archives you would see that this is a highly emotional issue for some people. A number of people seem to think that their emotions are fair representations of the facts of the case and have no problem hacking out wide swaths of facts and replace it with their highly emotional interpretation of reality. That you came in with no experience and hacked up the intro out of the blue says you're either a sock puppet or someone who was clueless of the minefield you had stepped into. I've been hanging out on this page trying to get it to the point where it puts the facts in context and removes the more emotionally charged accusations that have no basis. That you speak of "michaels decision to end terris life" shows a choice of words that are more about your interpretation than about the facts that the court ruled that Terri would not want to be kept on life support. So, I suggest that it isn't about "proprietary" but about a number of people who refuse to allow this to be turned into a witchhunt, and are extremely sensitive to POV wording. If you're intentions are good, you'll learn NPOV and apply it. Do that and you'll have no troubles from me. FuelWagon 01:13, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)