Talk:Heather O'Rourke

message: According to snopes.com, Heather was diagnosed as having Crohn's Disease the year before her death.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.20.193.90 (talk • contribs) 03:45, 22 June 2006
: It does.  However, Snopes.com (much like Wikipedia) cites all of their sources used in their work.  Of the sources provided, none actually referenced a diagnosis of Crohn's disease.  If another reliable source can be found for it—providing Snopes itself isn't, I haven't checked—it could go in.  —  pd_THOR | =/\= | 06:57, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  crohns? 

message: As a WP:BLP, I culled the article of all unverified information, striking everything uncited and rebuilt it with 100% referencing.  The prior version is here for anybody interested in going back to try and reference any of the information that had been there with reliable sources.  —  pd_THOR | =/\= | 06:57, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  articular reconstitution 

message: Can someone please remove the whole "Sold his sold to the devil" reference to Craig T. Nelson? That's classless and tacky.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.8.111.249 (talk • contribs) 02:34, 15 October 2008
:  seems to have taken care of it.  —  pd_THOR | =/\= | 03:50, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Craig T. Nelson's Soul reference 

message: reverted w/o edit summary to the previous image of O'Rourke, which I recently replaced.  I uploaded a new picture for specific reasons (as spelled out in the IDP).  (a) The picture from her most recent work best depicts the actress as she appeared before her death.  (b) The copyright specification and rationale are much clearer and spelled out in this image than the previous one uploaded by .  Barring elabouration and discussion here, I'll revert to the more recent image per my points above.  —  pd_THOR | =/\= | 04:23, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I also prefer the later image for the reasons stated above, but if there's a reason for using the earlier image, I'd be interested to know. Rossrs (talk) 09:05, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Time to wait for consensus or reply?  I ask because I'm getting nagged about the orphaning of the newer image.  —  pd_THOR | =/\= | 06:21, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd be inclined to revert simply because the later image has a much clearer fair use rationale.   The other one is quite weak.  At least you've given reasons for the image you prefer, and I think that "reasons" outweighs "no reasons", and I also think that such a change requires an edit summary at the very least.  Rossrs (talk) 12:50, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

text: The more recent reversion is grainy and of poor resolution, which is not a major issue for an unfree image, but the other one is clearer, and yet still of a low enough resolution to comply with image use policies.  The newer image doesn't show her face as clearly, and considering this is the only image being used and is being used as identification in the infobox, it seems to me that a clear image of her face is important.  The newer image has a very weak fair use rationale that does not begin to address the reason for using the image.  I have to wonder if there are ownership issues considering that the object seems to be to use any image rather than the one discussed by User:pd_THOR and myself, judging by the flurry of similar reverts by editors/anons.  Rossrs (talk) 13:05, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: At this point, links to the specific images would be helpful, because so many images have been tacked to this article (4 at least) that I don't know which ones you guys are talking about when you say the "newer" or "later" images.  Personally, I prefer :Image:Heatherorourke.JPG over :Image:Heather O'Rourke as Carol Anne.png because the former is nice and bright whereas the latter is very dark and grainy.  And now we've got :Image:Heatherorourke2.JPG coming in from out of left field, but I feel that one is inferior because of the color shift towards red; her face looks like a pumpkin. --Captain Infinity (talk) 18:32, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm sorry - you're right.  Links would be helpful.  I prefer :Image:Heather O'Rourke as Carol Anne.png due to it being a more recent image, well supported by a fair use rationale.  The two alternatives :Image:Heatherorourke.JPG & :Image:Heatherorourke2.JPG, I find less suitable.  :Image:Heatherorourke.JPG is a nice image, but it's fair use rationale is very weak and it doesn't look like a screenshot, so in my opinion the sourcing is also dubious.  :Image:Heatherorourke2.JPG is a fairly poor quality image also with a weak rationale.  I should have been clearer in my earlier comments. Rossrs (talk) 21:15, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  imagery 

message: There were a number of things wrong with this edit by , but since it seems to have been made in good faith, I'd like to explain the individual points for my reversion.
* We have no citation for O'Rourke being "best known for" any particular role; that's original research and weasel wording.
* None of the references in the article provide any citations for O'Rourke's biological father and the circumstances therein.
* Grammatically, you shouldn't end sentences in prepositions.  Just a little thing.
* (a) The Manual of Style says not to link inside of headers or sub-headers, (b) Poltergeist links to the entity, not the movies.
* Ms. O'Rourke was mis-diagnosed with Crohn's, i.e. she did not actually have it.
Also, I used popups to accomplish the reversion because I'm wary of my browser accidentally screwing up template spacing (see here).  —  pd_THOR | =/\= | 11:38, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  20090504 reversion 

message: I'm generally against using this new  template as it simply adds unnecessary complication to an already complicated construct (the infobox) without adding anything in exchange.  I've removed it a second time; please discuss here before adding again, if editors would.  —  pd_THOR | =/\= | 23:18, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: You may be against it, but it is a widely used and useful template. If it's used properly (as it was here) what's the problem? You could also argue that the  and related templates also add "unnecessary complication", but they are also widely used in bio infoboxes. – ukexpat (talk) 02:02, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  I was actually surprised at the existence of this template, as after 23136 edits over 1859 days I had never seen it.  That being said, it requires more characters to use the template than the original wiki syntax, and a modicum more experience and expertise to understand its function and application than the same.  As for  used herein, that actually performs computational work for the article in its calculation of dates that editors once calculated themselves incorrectly.  It also allows for a standardization of date/age formatting across Wikipedia; on the other hand, such standardization for places is not necessarily desirable depending on the context of the location and its pertinence to the article at hand.  —  pd_THOR | =/\= | 02:14, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Well as my arguments have not convinced you and you appear to have assumed the role of unofficial guardian of this article, I won't bother to argue further. – ukexpat (talk) 02:33, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  It certainly wasn't my intention to bully you out of the discussion, if that's how I struck you.  Ultimately here, the template provides the reader with the same information (legibly and aesthetically), I'm just arguing against the systematic usage of such a template in instances/articles where its supposed benefits seem to be baseless.  —  pd_THOR | =/\= | 02:53, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

text: Hope you don't mind another editor in on this topic, but I'm not sure I understand pdTHOR's argument.  Tinton5 (talk) 23:10, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  For what its worth, I certainly don't mind.  I don't see any reason to implement another template; (a) it actually requires more characters to type than the wiki-formatted original, (b) an infobox is intimidating enough for new editors; nesting templates is another added level of unnecessary complexity in light of a, (c) the template not only requires more typing and more complexity, for since it produces the exact same output as the original wiki, it places that little bit more of a demand on the server than not.  It just seems like unnecessary obfuscation across the board with no discernible benefits here.  —  pd_THOR | =/\= | 23:38, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, when you put it that way, I can't argue with that reasoning.  Just one more thing I'd like to point out, this also pertains to the infobox. I noticed another user type in United States to replace USA, how come you undid that? I think typing out the full name of the country is actually better than an abbreviation and as crazy as this may sound, people in countries outside of America may not know what USA stands for.  I know that may sound a bit silly, but we should never assume that the viewer looking at this page will know what abbreviations we use.  So, it's not a huge deal, but its something to think about.  Tinton5 (talk) 23:52, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: On the characters point, it may in this ibox but it doesn't in the situation for which the template is designed, for example: , compared to Boise Idaho. Also, there are many examples of templates used within infoboxes - are you saying that they should not be? This all smacks to me of an "I don't like it" argument. – ukexpat (talk) 01:54, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  "Situation[s] for which the template is designed"; exactly.  There very may well be situations where the usefulness outweighs the detriments, but I don't see how this is one of them.  I'm not arguing for never nesting templates, but simply to eschew obfuscation where it doesn't provide any benefit."I don't like it" isn't an argument, it's an opinion based on an editor's personal tastes for formatting, aesthetics, or inclusion usually without regard for arguments.  IMO.  —  pd_THOR | =/\= | 02:33, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  recent formatting 

message: In response to this edit by , I don't understand what the problem was with the information provided.  Was the publisher and location information incorrect for the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, whereas the rest of the cited news organizations were correct?
I realize that the information is "optional", but shouldn't we strive to be as informational and comprehensive as possible?  I don't understand (if the information is correct for these two newspapers) why their optional information shouldn't be included in the references, but that of others' should.  I could even understand--although certainly not agree with--if somebody were to remove all of the "optional" parameters on the basis that they're just not necessary.  I would certainly fight such an excision of potentially pertinent information, but the cherry-picking of sources to delete doubly confuses me.  —  pd_THOR | =/\= | 01:29, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, I just re-read 's edit summary and better understood to what she or he was referring.  The documentation for  allows the omission of the location if it's a part of the publication's name, and the omission of the publisher if it's a "well known" publication.  I still prefer the comprehensiveness of the previous version, especially as the excision of the information is only an allowance of the template, and not a stylature guideline.  I certainly don't plan to edit war, but would appreciate if Lambiam could explain her or his impetus for removing the optional variables when they're potentially informative and pertinent to readers and researchers, and leaving them caused to harm except for conformity with other sources/references.  —  pd_THOR | =/\= | 01:37, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Citation template optional parameters 

message: Interesting - back in November 2008 when this was discussed (20081130 reversion) WP:ABB showed "USA" as a suitable abbreviation for "United States of America".  Now it doesn't.  It only shows "U.S." and "US" with some talk page discussion saying that USA is "deprecated" and that "US" is preferable over "U.S."   The table shows "USA" as an abbreviation for "United States Army" which seems bizarre to me.  Who sees "USA" and thinks "right, that's United States Army"?   On the other hand USA redirects to United States.   Just an observation.  Rossrs (talk) 14:53, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Wow, I had no idea that'd been changed.  The nation name is United States of America, USA seems like the least confusing and most applicable initialism.  I agree with you, and have reverted 's seeming unilateral April decision to remove it.  I noted in my edit summary though that I could be wrong and invite discussion at WT:MOSABBR.  (By the way, nice to see you're still around, Rossrs)  —  pd_THOR | =/\= | 06:07, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

text: I do. I think "US Army" and so does many other US Army person past and present.71.110.229.69 (talk) 09:09, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: United States/USA/U.S./US

message: and  have removed ( and  respectively) the box_width variable from this article's implementation of .  Yobot's edit summary was the opaque "Updated infobox (BRFA 15) using AWB (7782)", and Magioladitis' was "use standard box_width", which I don't understand as that is the standard variable listed at template:infobox person.I know that  says the box_width parameter "should not normally need to be set", but it does go on to give detailed instructions for how to implement it.  I'm using it here as my comment says to improve the aesthetics of the box and its contents given some particularly long variable entries.  The width provided prevents (a) the data in resting_place and resting_place_coordinates from spilling over into a second line (particularly the former), (b) the variable name from doing the same unnecessarily in conjunction with a, and (c) the variable names of other_names, years_active, and notable_works from spilling onto a second line when their data spans only one.I don't know if these users' objection is to the widening of the box itself or using the particular variable, both of which are IAW the template's own provision.  I've reverted each user ( and  respectively), and in the latter referred either or both to this discussion as the D in the WP:BRD process.  —  Fourthords | =/\= | 19:15, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Are you sure this works for all screens? In my screen it shows awful because there is large space around the image and covers a large part of the screen. Going from 200px to 320 is more than 50% expand and I don't think nowrap of 1 parameter is worth that. That's only my opinion ofcourse.  -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:41, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
replies: text:  I haven't tested it across browsers actually, I assumed as an implemented infobox template it would have already been pretested like that.  I can look around at that later, but don't have the time until later this evening.  Also, it's not just nowrapping the resting_place data; even if I were to use a  on "Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery", it still causes variable names in the lefthand column to double up for data which only fills one line, effectively inserting blank spaces in between the righthand lines in the infobox.  —  Fourthords | =/\= | 19:51, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

text: OK. I won't touch it until we make some more tests. I stopped the bot and in fact I edited before because I haven't noticed you reverted and I a sorry for not going directly to the talk page. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:57, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
replies: text:  On my MacBook Pro the page comes out looking the same in Google Chrome, Firefox, and Safari; I don't know if what I'm seeing on my end is the same you're seeing though, so I added the image you see here now.  That's what I see across all three browsers, and it's intentional on my part for the reasons I listed above.Do you see something similar or different?  If different, I'm confused and frustrated by the infobox's lack of consistency.  If similar, then I want to ask again whether it's the aesthetics of the matter with which you disagree or if you have a problem with me using the infobox's sizing variable.  (My Wikitime is sporadic this week; my apologies for potentially untimely replies)  —  Fourthords | =/\= | 16:45, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: On my screen it leaves a big gap after "in the" in the first line similar to the gap after "Before" on your screen in the first line of the first section. As you see there is a big margin inside the infobox around the photo too. Anyway we can just leave it as is. My main argument is/was that all infoboxes should have the same width and that the width should not be custom adjustable. I abandoned the specific bot run anyway. There is a small chance that there is some leftover in my code somewhere but I think I ll sort it out. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:25, 14 July 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  box_width 

message: The link for reference 29 seems to have expired.  Any chance we can find something to back up the story of Carol Anne's ghost haunting the studio?  It's a great story, but there's nothing here to verify it.  96.225.153.143 (talk) 08:10, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: That link actually never went to the story, it just went to the magazine's page at Google Books; I don't know why I put that in there when I added it.  I've removed the unnecessary link and just left the magazine reference.  —  Fourthords | =Λ= | 15:20, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Expired reference

message: the first part (on her family) seems rather obvious, and thus needless to mention. I was really curious about the 2nd part, but I don't see anything about it in the article. I mean the promotion of Poltergeist III was toned down, but that's not a long lasting effect.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.211.62.177 (talk • contribs) 14:41, 28 March 2012
: I concur with your analysis and have removed the sentence.  —  Fourthords | =Λ= | 17:06, 28 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  and her death had long-lasting effects on her family and the media industry. 

message: I had given a link to the Internet Movie DataBase (IMDB) site regarding Heather's sister Tammy. This was removed
The person who removed the link has said the reason was that their relationship was already established. I don't deny this.
I returned it. This is a service to anyone reading it and wish to find out more information about her sister Tammy; short of establishing an entirely new article just on Tammy.
Montalban (talk) 11:55, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I'll say that I don't like it.  There's no precedent for such a thing, and I worry it could set one for EVERY TIDBIT OF EVERYTHING.  However, I can't find anything that explicitly prohibits such a linkage, and I don't really want to have an Internet fight over 61 bytes right now.  —  Fourthords | =Λ= | 15:40, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sister Tammy 

message: I'm not familiar with the advanced editing style of this article. Perhaps those who are actively editing this article may want to add that the DirecTV commercial at the end of the article utilized a voiceover from Terri Douglas, a childhood aquaintance of O'Rourke who is a voice actor. You can reference midway through this interview with douglas - http://getinmedia.com/articles/film-tv-careers/pitching-voices-terri-douglas
Dizziewiki (talk) 17:11, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Voiceover in DirecTV commercial 

message: Shouldn't we use an image from the original Poltergeist as she's most famous for that, rather than Poltergeist III? Paul Austin (talk) 04:13, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: The included photo of Ms. O'Rourke from Poltergeist III specifically corroborates both the 3 February 1988 New York Times citation and the 1989 Motion Picture Guide Annual citation.  If you have a reliable source explicitly mentioning that Ms. O'Rourke's appearance in the first Poltergeist was more important or iconic than III, or that her third character appearance was out of the norm for such, that could warrant adding such an additional photo.  —  fourthords | =Λ= | 21:51, 11 May 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  More famous for the original Poltergeist - shouldn't we use an image from that 

message: Substituted at 17:28, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Assessment comment

message: I'm going to ask that this article be locked down for at least two weeks. Paul Benjamin Austin (talk) 05:35, 3 April 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Posting a message on an article talk page (or other users' talk pages) is not the process to request protection per WP:PP. AldezD (talk) 12:48, 3 April 2018 (UTC)
replies: text:  I've been told that semi-protection wouldn't work as the copyvio culprit is autoconfirmed. Dammit. Paul Benjamin Austin (talk) 13:10, 3 April 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  people putting copyvio photos of O'Rourke in the infobox 

message: Change "casted" in the third sentence to "cast" to conform with normal current English usage. 184.152.81.48 (talk) 18:24, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Done. AldezD (talk) 19:01, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Semi-protected edit request on 23 January 2020 

message: This article does mention Poltergeist III, but I have to go to the Poltergeist III page to see the use of a double for Heather's part in the ending. Carlm0404 (talk) 00:58, 2 October 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Use of double