Marcie

Additions to articles

Please consider making your additions to articles smaller (and then summarize them individually), allowing easier review and copy editing in the future. Good contributions though so far, although by now broadly edited. Please also (re: your comments in the Abortion in Canada Talk page) review the many articles on the Wikipedia about *how* to edit, including how to link to other pages. See, for example Wikipedia:How to edit a page. --MtB 05:43, Oct 2, 2004 (UTC)

Just in case you don't have the discussion set to "watch", I've responded to your questions on my talk page --MtB 23:42, Oct 4, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for your message. I could give you one tip: before hitting "save page," highlight the entire text of the article you're editing. Cut it and paste it in your word processor, then run a spell-check. It will save you from most errors. Welcome to Wikipedia. HistoryBA 19:38, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Little stuff

The best way to pick up on how to edit, I've found, is to go to pages which have the options you want, click "edit", and see how things have been done. For instance, if you clicked on the edit option on this page, you would see how I started this fantastic, amazing, super cool list. Generally, people pick up on style trends quickly in the same manner, things like bolding the first occurrence of the title of the page, and italicizing books, newspapers, movie titles, etc. If you want a more formal introduction, see the link MtB gave you. It's pretty comprehensive.
It's a common courtesy to copy edit at least for spelling, grammatical and typographic errors before posting. People around here will, generally, help where help is needed and pick each other up, but most of us find it a little tiresome when we have to edit for missing vowels and improper capitalization.
Generally, user biographical information goes on the user's User page (in your case, User:Marcie) rather than their User talk page. It is up to you, but as your User page is most commonly what people will search for when they want to find out something about you (and is what is linked to when you sign posts), it may be best to switch that information to that location.
Sign your posts at the end. Like this: -- Matty j 23:36, Oct 2, 2004 (UTC)

Abortions, Genetic Testing

For what its worth (in response to comments you made on my talk page), my wife is an OTC carrier, a rare X chromosome linked genetic disorder. With our first child, we had an amnio done and received our genetic screening results back from Yale that said she (we already knew we were having a girl) was not a carrier. She is now two years old and a little princess.

With our second, almost a year ago however, we received word back that he was in fact a carrier -- he had the same markers as my wife, and as a result would almost definately die within three days of birth.

We had already both decided that we would carry the pregnancy to term and enjoy the life we were given for whatever time we had, no matter the result. The results gave us time to come to terms with what would happen that December (right before Christmas, 2003). He (Colin Isaac Babcock) was born at Mt. Sinai hospital in Toronto, Ontario which has excellent facilities and where we'd had all of our prescreening work done.

The doctors were incredible and very kind and compassionate. They were all inspired by our decision to have the baby and enjoy our time with him and allow him to enjoy his time with us. I said at the funeral for him that "he had a better life than most; he met his entire family, was held and hugged and loved for his entire albeit short life and never had to suffer the loss of friends or family the way we all will. He didn't know his life should have been longer and didn't suffer any more than any other dying person. We all eventually die, and someone eventually mourns our loss. At least he had an incredible three days, and we all got to enjoy him for that time."

As someone who's been through such a situation and still discusses it with his wife from time to time, and still takes time to cry about it too, I don't believe abortions are necessary in many cases that people think they are necessary in. I don't believe most people use abortion as a last resort but rather as an easy out. I wish I could get out of debts or heavy traffic on the 401 as easily as one can get out of pregnancy these days. How's that for a POV? ;-)

That's why availability isn't what bothers me -- its misinformation and indoctrination (in either direction) that I find troublesome.

Anyway, that's where I'm coming from.

ADHD category change

Thanks for the message. I spent a day reworking all the psychiatric categories to be more in keeping with DSM-IV. Now if you go to Category:Disorder you can branch off to all the various categories and see each of the psychiatric disorders. I am glad you have found it a better category. --CloudSurfer 05:18, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Re: your comments on my talk page

Firstly, sorry I didn't reply to your first comment, I took a look to see if I could think of a way to improve the wording, couldn't come up with something off the top of my head, and forgot about it.

Freedom of choice is an interesting thing. I view the word freedom with suspicion: people who talk about freedom are often trying to sell you on something. In my view, everytime you gain freedom in some way, you have to give up some freedom elsewhere. These amounts aren't always equal; I don't mean to imply it's a zero sum game. Perhaps there are two types of freedom in every situation, a freedom from and a freedom to. When it comes to freedom of choice, if you're given unlimited freedom of choice you can't necessarily have the freedom from those whos actions would deny you the ability to exercise that choice.

I think the only way to cope with a wiki is to write what looks good at the time and expect people will change it such that it's not quite what you originally intended. Sometimes this will be a good thing, other times its bad. You could say that in giving everyone the freedom to make any edit they choose, we take away the freedom from having your words twisted.

It's always going to hit hardest on the emotive issues like abortion. My biggest beef with the discourse on that issue is the term pro-life is deliberately evocative and decidedly non-neutral. I could at least sympathise with their views if they put them forward in an intellectually honest way, but as they don't, it makes it hard. My take on the issue is it shouldn't matter how you personally feel about abortion, if you outlaw it people only do it illegally and dangerously. How having both mother and fetus dead is an improvement is beyond my ability to comprehend.

I don't know a lot about the faculty's bias where I went to university (University of Melbourne), I'm just a Computer Science graduate who's interested in political ideology as a self taught hobby. I do know that the student union is run by vapid and tired adherants to quasi-Marxist theories, but who have no real understanding of them and certainly nothing of their own to add to them. Basically, they just parrot the information back with a glzed look in their eyes. They only get into power because the alternative is worse: a bunch of moderate to right wing career politicians associated with the youth branches of the Australian major parties. Suffice to say I wasn't particuarly impressed with the intellectual level of the political "debate" I encountered on campus.

As far as socialist democracies go, I'm loath to use the word socialist to describe them. I feel they are distinctly capitalist, although clearly not as hardline about it as the US. I don't mean that as a negative thing, merely an observation. It seems to me that anything less than full laissez-faire capitalism is labelled socialist in some quarters, perhaps this is an indication of how far to the right mainstream political thought has shifted. I agree, things are better in Europe, although my impression from afar is that Canada is pretty good too, certainly better than Australia has been doing over the last couple of decades, particuarly the last 8 or 9 years under John Howard.

Anyway, thanks for saying hello on my talk page, it's nice to see people sometimes want to just have a chat rather than argue the latest edit. Shane King 10:23, Oct 21, 2004 (UTC)

NPOV and abortion

Marcie, thanks very much for contacting me. If you have a POV problem with a page the first thing to do is to try small edits that remove the POV slant that you perceive. Discuss it on the talk page first if you think this would be wise (with a subject like abortion I would always recommend this). If you still cannot solve the POV problem by editing because other editors will not agree to your changes, add tag {{npov}} at the top of the page and in the talk page, explain why you are doing this. This tag puts a message into the text of the article with a link to the talk page, so anybody reading the main article will be directed to the discussion and will see all points of view.

Anyway, that's the way to start challenging a page that you think is violating NPOV. It is important that the NPOV tag should be placed by someone who is actively editing the page, in my opinion, otherwise I would do it myself. I don't know why you chose to contact me in particular, but it was a good choice. I will do my best to help you. Don't be afraid to ask if you need any further help. --[[User:Tony Sidaway|Tony Sidaway|Talk]] 15:38, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Abortion/Cancer debate

A little work needs to be done to iron out the POV problems in the main Abortion article. When I can get that reasonably NPOV, I promise to move to the cancer article. Meantime I will edit the main page and insert {{npov}} and explain my reasons.

Abortion in Canada

The current notice indicates that, in the opinion of the person who put it there, the article is more or less NPOV but could use some tweaks here and there. For instance, perhaps he thinks the language is a little loaded in places, or he thinks too much emphasis is given to one shade of opinion at the expense of another here and there. It's a water-down NPOV notice to be used by people who think the article is not so bad, but could use some work.

Nobody gets helicoptered in to decide who to take it down. If you think it should be taken down, put a message on the talk page of the person who put it there, and another message on the talk page of the article, suggesting that it may be appropriate to remove that notice now.

Axtually comparing the version at which the notice was added and the current version, the wording has deteriorated in places and the determinations of the Canadian courts are now watered down to "decisions." I'm going to copy-edit it to fix that.--[[User:Tony Sidaway|Tony Sidaway|Talk]] 04:36, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Reverting

I understand you weren't sure how to revert?

If you want to revert an article, it's quite easy. Go to the history list and open the past version you want to revert to, click on the edit this page link. Enter a message in the edit summary (this is very important) to indicate why you are reverting. Then click save page. A copy of the past page will then be made into the current version of the page.

Don't worry if you screw up, I do all the time, just apologise on the talk page and let someone else fix any mess. If this doesn't happen (for instance you try to revert vandalism on a little-used page and nobody else is around to fix it) just ask a friend to look at the page. You can ask me.

It's considered polite, and I find that it certainly improves the way people regard my edits, if you put a message on the talk page before reverting, explaining what you intend to do, and why, and offering to discuss the reasons for the edit that you are choosing to revert with the other editor.

There's a recent example of one of my reverts here. In this case, I performed the revert first and explained it later.

A diff showing my revert

diff showing my comment on talk page

Hope this helps. --[[User:Tony Sidaway|Tony Sidaway|Talk]] 20:06, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for your revert. You did a great job. --[[User:Tony Sidaway|Tony Sidaway|Talk]] 21:42, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Talk page of Abortion in Canada

Hey Marcie You've posted a lot of information in the talk page of Abortion in Canada recently. The page is getting huge. Although there's no limit to the size, people on dialup might have to wait a long time for the page load. I've also had my browser crash in the past if edit boxes contain too much text. Don't be shy to continue adding information, just create new pages for it. You can do this under your User pages. For instance, if you click on User:Marcie/AbortionCanada/WinnipegDecision, you'll see the standard "no page found under this entry" page. If you click on "Create an article with this title" in red, you'll see the usual text box where you can add your information. There's no limit to how many subpages you create and they are normal in every way; people can edit them, they will have their own talk page, etc. You can then add a link on Talk:Abortion in Canada to the information. This is practical for information that isn't immediately necessary for the conversation, like the Winnipeg decision. Someone interested in viewing what's going on in the talk page may not necessarily want to read the whole decision, but it's only one click away and still on Wikipedia if s/he chooses to do so. You can also create subpages under Abortion in Canada as well (ie: Abortion in Canada/WinnipegDecision ) Don't worry about messing anything up. Anything and everything that's done to a page is saved under the history, so a quick revert is all that's needed to fix any sort of mistake. Hopefully this will keep things a bit more organized. Right now, seeing all that extra information in one place is a bit overwhelming.

I've looked at the history of Abortion in Canada and I've noticed that you've done several considerable edits in the past which gives me the impression that you might consider this a "pet project". Like I've already said, apart from a few exceptions, I don't really have a problem with what's being said, just how it's being said. Something that may look like a fact or completely neutral to you may actually appear slanted to someone else. I'll speak for myself: when I start getting the slightest impression that an article is biased, the article (to me) quickly loses credibility, usually because everything snowballs. I've had that happen with other articles that I've read and I may not care enough about the subject to actually mention something in the talk page but ultimately, I take everything with a grain of salt. Considering the great strides Canada has done in regards to abortion, I don't want potential readers developing a suspicious feeling about the article. I know everyone can't be pleased, but I'm only interested in the portion that can. I'm not saying that we don't share similar goals or that you don't feel the same way, I just want to clarifiy my position because I'm sure at one point (if not already) you'll get the impression that I'm working against you.

Perhaps I'm wrong but I get the impression that Tony Sideaway is more concerned with being a helpful mediator who wants to see this article get finished and NPOV'ed. I don't really know if he actually wants to take an active interest. It doesn't matter either way but I'll speak as if it is just me and you. Having that said, and since I think that you have a greater interest than me in what actually goes in the article, here's what we can do. This is just a suggestion, feel free to turn me down. You can start by going through each section / paragraph that exists now, and make brief notes, point form / bullet style of what you want to keep/add, along with a mention of where that info comes from, if necessary. It doesn't have to be anything fancy or exhaustive. For instance:

TAC Section of History

descibe characteristic of TAC (# of members, who appointed them, etc)
abortion need to be approved by TAC
some doc wouldn't refer to TAC
half of TAC in Qc not even active, only paper committee
TAC causes huge delay

-found in some report/website p. 888 / halfway down screen, etc

would be sufficient. I will then write up something, in a way which I believe to be neutral but at the same time strive to keep all the information you want. Since I'll be doing the writing, this will eliminate all of my complaints regarding what I think you're implying in your writing (which is my major concern) and since you'll be deciding what we're going to be talking about, you don't have to worry about losing out on content (which seems to be one of your concerns). I'm sure there will be some disagreements, but I think that because of the approach, they will be solved relatively quickly.

I don't want to start a debate here (we can do that later if/when we get there) but I just want to explain my way of thinking, sort of like a heads-up of how I'll act and then you can decide if it's worth it. Regarding pro-life doctors and the TAC, I don't really feel it's necessary to mention them and here's why. The fact that half of TAC are paper committees (as quoted by Chief Doctor whoever in Quebec) along with other key parts from the report is more than enough to show how utterly useless TACs were. After reading that section of the Morgentaler decision (I believe it was the Powell report?) I was completely sold. It was clear to me that TACs were a joke. However (and please don't take offense), reading that same section in the article with vague mentions of pro-lifers doing something bad activated my tinfoil-hat-conspiracy-theory alarm. At this point, you have to decide whether it's more important to mention pro-lifers, at the risk of losing "credibility", or conveying the same point in a neutral way, which in this case would consist of quoting from a report written by an independent third-party. Someone can dispute the neutrality of the report but it then becomes their burden to prove it's biased. (I haven't really looked at who commissioned the report, so I'll just temporarily assume, for the sake of this conversation that it's neutral.) If the article stays as is, you have the burden to prove that what you said about the pro-life doctors is actually a fact, which I don't believe you can reasonably do. (Even though I don't dispute this at all, allow me to be a pain and insist that unless it's proven somewhere, it should be removed.) Another example is the bit about the party leader candidate who suggested abortion be restricted. I'm sure you can prove this without any difficulty, but what I see is this one guy making comments on/sharing his personal opinion, which he may not have stated/pushed/supported if elected (or even running) as party leader being singled out as a pro-lifer, for no apparent reason. I know this part isn't in the article but this kind of thing would effectively make me question the bias or direction of the article. I'm aware that you're just listing political activity in regards to abortion, but this just seems more like an excuse to show that the pro-lifers are out there, they are actively trying to get elected and they want to mess up MY LIFE!!! I'm not saying that was your plan, but if that fact (which seems benign, since it's true) would have made it into the article, that is the impression I would have formed. As pro-choice, I'm aware of the existence of pro-lifers and I realise they would like to have things their way, just like I want things to stay my way. A pro-lifer will probably not dispute that they are actively trying to get into government and want to reform/create abortion law. So that sentence is trivial/obvious/not surprising to pro-choice/pro-life but might possibly give a neutral person, the most important audience (IMO), the wrong impression about the article. This applies at several other places in the article as well. I don't doubt you can fill pages and pages of 100% accurate, true, provable, verifiable and notable facts concerning pro-life activities but at the end of the day, you won't convert the pro-life, you won't surprise the pro-choice but you might give a neutral person the wrong idea, causing them to dismiss the whole article as propaganda.

My point is just to show you how I think about what's in the article now and about what you say, and how I'll consider what you want to add. I know I may sound like a devil's advocate but I think when it comes to NPOV of an abortion page, this is necessary. Remember than in most cases, I'll be aware of all the nuances (most likely, I'll have researched the topic somewhat) and I might not necessarily question the validity, but only whether it's important/provable/notable/relevant enough to add, especially if it can risk creating a schism. If you have a fundamental problem with my attitude/position/stance or the general direction I want to take with this article, then please let me know. Don't be afraid to tell me that you think I'm a crackhead, that you disagree with me and my thinking or that you can't work with me. No need to explain why. I really don't care. If that's the case, I'll only insist that the POV notation remain and leave the fixing to someone else and we can both continue to devote our time elsewhere. --jag123 14:39, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Glad to hear from you. I'll be replying to your comments in a mish-mash manner, so please bear with me. I'm not sure what comment you're referring to (vaguely show...) but if it was from me, don't take it (or any other, for that matter) personally. Don't let some bozo across the internet upset you; it's never worth it. I don't understand this: "I see you point as to what to include as well being an issue." Regarding the summarizing, like I said earlier, it doesn't have to be anything fancy. Re: your caveat, I have no problems discussing any problems. I'm all for discussion. If it gets too complicated, we can just throw whatever is in there and come back to it later. Personally, unless the main article is too big, I'd prefer to keep everything together. In any event, we can always move it out later into it's own article if needed. As for the cleaning up of the page, I can help you with it. I just wanted to let you know that was an option. So like I said, don't worry too much about the notes. I'm already familiar with the Morgentaler decision and have a good idea of where to find everything, so that's a good start. Like you said, there is no rush, but if you find that putting something together is taking a lot of time, you're probably including too much ;) Just so you know, I might not reply again until the 28-29th. Enjoy the holidays! --jag123 22:56, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I'm pleased to see you both prepared to work on this article. Yes, Jag123, I see my position here as a mediator. Marcie asked me for help a while ago and I have been mentoring her and cheering her from the sidelines, because clearly her research abilities are very impressive. Marcie, I'll be watching from the sidelines and I think that with your work and Jag123's the article should very soon be a very good resource on the legal, clinical, health management, ethical and logistical questions surrounding abortion in Canada. I'll try to let you sort stuff out for yourselves, but I'll poke my nose in if I think you're getting stuck. Jag123, I like the questions you pose, although I may not always feel comfortable about facing them. Wikipedia needs more people like you and Marcie.
And before I forget, in case you don't get back for a week or so, have a good Christmas and New Year break. --[[User:Tony Sidaway|Tony Sidaway|Talk]] 23:21, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Hey Marcie, I just wanted to let you know I'm back. If you have anything ready, let me know. --jag123 22:26, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Your summary

Hi, I moved your "Some of the political" etc page to a subpage under Talk:Abortion in Canada: Talk:Abortion in Canada/Some of the political ways the pro choice vs. pro life movement were playing out in the 1980's in Canada. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 20:52, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Hey Marcie, Just a few things I need cleared up. In the Activities Categories section, the figures (2-3%, 20-25% etc) represent what? Those numbers add up to 100%, does that represent the Canadian population? Why do you think American's extremism is a success for anti-choice? What's the relation between gay-marriage and anti-choice, other than leaning to the right? A section quotes McLelland (via MP Robinson [which I think is weird, but anyway]). Apart from the not revisiting the 1991 debate, everything else that's quoted is from Pro Choice Action spokespeople. Ideally, the point is to get facts from other places than Anti/Pro Choice ~~propaganda~~ press statements. I consider the "forced abortion" to be manslaughter. It wasn't the fetus that was bleeding, it was the woman. I'm not sure where you want to go with that, but I'm a bit scared ;) Also, there's a lot of information that is repeated for some reason. --jag123 23:47, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Sorry Marcie, I wasn't aware you weren't done. To make a subpage, all you need to do is just add a slash after the article (or talk page) name and enter your own name. For instance, User:Marcie/MyStuff or User talk:Marcie/MyBlahBlah. You can enter the slash in your browser's address bar or just do a search for the new name. After, just click on "Create a new article with this name" or "Start the **** article". Also, you don't really use any PHP. I don't know what it's called (Wikicode maybe?) but the PHP is used "behind the scenes", to generate the pages from the database and all that. I'm not really sure what page you are talking about, but if you want to rename it, you can click on the Move tab/button and enter your new title there. If you need more help, don't be shy. You can also email me if that's better for you. --jag123 09:03, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Cabamazepine

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