Talk:Suicide of Ryan Halligan

Neutral Point of View

This article appears to be written by someone close to the victim, please rectify by a)opposing information or b)remove biased information. 01001010101010010101001 (talk) 04:55, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

—I have been familiar with this case since first encountering the sad tale in a wire service report some years ago. My interest in the case was my empathy for the child, having been once in his place and having come from a quite similar background, socially, religiously and ethnically. I felt as though I understood exactly how Ryan had felt: his self-enforced silence (as he got older); the sense of hopelessness and the resulting despair such engendered. I had written a fictionalized account of my own experiences in school as a kid in the form of a short story that later was published on an internet zine.

Because John Halligan chose to make his family’s tragedy public and into a (very effective) cause célèbre, I strongly favor retaining this article. Its purpose is not primarily one of being a memorial or a biography of, in many ways, a quite ordinary thirteen-year-old boy, but rather it symbolizes the plight of bullied kids in school and the issue of school bullying itself: an often insidious social disease present since the advent of schools themselves.

In regard to the neutrality dispute, certainly characterizing Ryan’s online “pen-pal” (another child around Ryan’s age) as a “dark twisted person…," is questionable, no matter how strongly some might feel about this boy and his perceived role in the tragedy, which is open to dispute. (I believe there was a time lapse of about two weeks between the “pen-pal’s” reportedly urging suicide upon Ryan and the latter’s actual commission of it.) I am uncertain if the bulk of this article was written by someone personally familiar with Ryan and the Halligan family or not. Most of the information recounted has been made public knowledge by or through Mr. Halligan, though it does contain a few facts (such as what the boy used to hang himself) that I had not previously been familiar with.

Perhaps Mr. Halligan revealed such information in one or more of his lectures or in articles I have not read. I am familiar about some circumstances of this case that I have not seen publicly revealed as yet, though I shall keep such to myself as I strongly believe a sender of a private email is entitled to the expectation of privacy even if not explicitly stated or even asked for. These facts are incidental and would not change anything of substance concerning the publicly disclosed facts of the tragedy.

Whoever wrote the bulk of this article is certainly most literate. However, he or she is not quite ready to become even a good amateur writer. It is rambling, filled with extraneous details not necessary or appropriate to any encyclopedia article, and makes judgments such as the one to which I previously referred. It is unnecessarily lengthy and, by and large, constitutes a rehash of information found on the Ryan’s Story website to which readers of a summarized article could easily be directed. Also, the writer seems largely unfamiliar with the concept of paragraph breaks which renders the article a somewhat arduous chore to read.

On the other hand, whoever wrote this article is obviously a very interested and caring person and did a ponderous amount of work. Therefore, I don’t feel comfortable simply coming in with a literary buzzsaw by way of editing and undoing a substantial part of what he or she has worked to produce here. However, I am ready to do substantial editing if—and only if—others here would like me to. The article would be considerably shortened. Therefore, any comments to that effect, one way or the other, would be appreciated.HistoryBuff14 (talk) 16:55, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

The overall flow of the article seems like it was written by someone who was either close to him, or someone who was also bullied and feels empathy and sympathy towards him. While I think that being empathetic is possibly the most important trait any living creature could have, it is not suitable for the article. The bullying should be covered, and it is, very extensively. However, it seems like it is being sensationalized and emphasized over other areas. Sentient Planet (talk) 11:46, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

I think pretty much most coverage used as sources will be sympathetic etc. Most media would likely shy away from being critical or not seen as supportive of a suicide victim fearing reader/viewer opinion so it might not be that easy to find a lot of impartial coverage.RafikiSykes (talk) 12:13, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Categories

Please see the discussion at Talk:Suicide of Tyler Clementi#Categories. Would there be any objection to reverting the most recent changes of the categories on this page? --Tryptofish (talk) 22:04, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

I take it there are no objections. I'll partially revert, but taking into account the discussion at that other page. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:12, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Suicide of Kelly Yeomans which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 15:29, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

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