h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Mozart's Death: Murder, Accident or Disease? - A1233686
Author: Farlander - disgruntled boffin - U206300

hello there,

here's another of my incredibly long rants . i've always been fascinated by this subject, and since nobody's ever discussed it here from the medical point of view, i thought i'd do just that.

the thing is... i just did a hootoo check, and discovered that samarkand had written an article entitled 'who killed mozart' (or something like that. it was on the conspiracy theories). i'd have contacted him to see if he was interested in a collaborative, only he hasn't been around for the last year. the thing is - should i credit him? i took nothing from his article (having found it only today), but should i put credit him for having written a similar article anyway?

all comments and suggestions are greatly appreciated.


far.

Wow, this is certainly very thorough. I can't see much wrong on first read.

Regarding crediting samarkand... I think ultimately it's up to you, but if you haven't used any of his article at all it's probably best if you don't credit him, especially seeing as though he hasn't been about for a year.



me[Andy]g

Hi Farlander,

I read this and it makes interesting reading.

I'm no expert on the content, though familiar with some aspects of the story. We studied the Shaffer Amadeus for a-level, and I love the man's music!

Anyway, one or two minor nits picked for you:

"Mozart himself had fueled these rumours of murder by telling Constanze in 1798 "

- Yet he died in 1791 (as you state)... did you mean '88?



"This may have had its roots in anti-Semitic prejudice."

- something of an understatement?



In the 'Uremia' section: "an interesting exchange once took place between the when"

- just a missing word, i think.

anyway, i think this is good, and if you didn't borrow at all from the other entry, i don't think there's any call for a credit. Should look good on the Front Page,

just my
cya
spiff

Very thorough

There are a *lot* of footnotes, and you'll probably find many of them get chopped by the subeditor (assuming, of course, that it gets picked ) Therefore, you may want to prune a few (a lot?) of them yourself so that you can keep the ones you're really attached to

Oh, just one last thing... err...
oh, yeah...
The footnotes... some of them were quite hefty, and that makes it difficult to read without going down the page to do so. And of course, they are quite frequent.

This can be a question of style, and i'm not saying, 'Ditch the footnotes!'

Just pointing to an area that struck me could benefit from a second look.

A bit of a mammoth read, but an interesting one, Farlander.

I can't comment on the content, but I have no difficulty with the footnotes.

You've done it again Farlander! You've written an entry so thorough that the footnotes are longer than some of my entries I agree with Spiff's point about the footnotes. Some of them can be worked into the text

Some of them, such as footnote four don't really contribute anything to an already long entry.

Okay, my nitpicks are quite a many.
All "" marks that aren't enclosed in ''s should be ''s It's the house style, and personally I think it looks nicer. Words such as Dr. and Mrs. should not be dotted in the house style. All GuideML tags need to be in capitals. This could end up as a very large job for a sub editor, which we certainly don't want

We're trying to keep the entries well polished and with little problems for the subbie to deal with, and this would be a nice one to work on Mostly just house style stuff. The entry itself is very nice

ai yi yi! i leave h2g2 for 24 hours, and i come back to get buried in an avalanche of electrons!

to those who have commented - thank you so very much! i have no idea how to reply to all of the postings at once, but... here goes...

first, to address the footnotes bit (yes yes, i'll try to cut 'em down )- here's an interesting little nugget of information i got off a scout quite a long time ago that makes reading footnotes a lot easier: you hover your mouse over the footnote number and wallack! the footnote pops out in a little yellow box - which disappears when you move your mouse away from the footnote. cool, innit? this whole guideml thing never ceases to amaze me...

andy: thanks for going over the article! i guess i'll leave the credits as they are for the time being, and let the subbie decide (assuming of course, as danny said, that this article gets picked )

spiff: yes, the shaffer version *is* wonderful, isn't it? it's not all true, of course - but he managed to make it so convincing. re 1798 - you caught me there! my typo - it's supposed to be 1789. i have a rather awful number dyslexia problem when i type, with the consequence that when i went through my article i found really odd dates like 1970 or 1897... the 'interesting exchange' thing should've read: 'an interesting exchange once took place between *them* when...'

danny: i'll try to remove whatever footnotes i can, but some of them look a little weird in the main body, especially the jones criteria for rheumatic fever. any suggestions?

jodan: ok... i had no idea that the tags should be in upper caps (too many years of writing html and actionscript can do that to you ). i'll go see what i can do about it. oh, and can you please elucidate on this sentence: "All "" marks that aren't enclosed in ''s should be ''s "? i'm afraid that, seeing as it's a very early wimpy morning, i don't quite follow. maybe after a strong cup of ... but thanks for looking over the article!



far.

I haven't read all of it yet but it looks good

I'm pleased to see a link to my Requiem entry

Have you read A593462? It's got a bit about this, and it mentions the official cause of death as being "miliary fever", which you don't say - well, like I said I haven't read all of it, but I did a search for miliary in the entry and couldn't find it.

Okay...I hope to finish reading it when I have more time...

Niwt/Elephants

hi elephants!

thanks for dropping in. yeah, i did mention miliary fever - it's in footnote 2. (and 'dropsy of the heart' as well! i tried putting all that in the main body, but it just didn't fit in anywhere)


far.

ps: mozart's 'requiem' is one of my favourite pieces of classical music. i can't say that my labmates like it when i play it, though... i was extremely pleased when i heard it in the second x-men movie.

hiya,

just regarding hovering over the footnote number to read them - this is *exactly* why some of yours are 'inconvenient' for my reading habits. As you can see from A662221!

I always do the hovering thing, but...and perhaps this is only true of IE, but there is a quite short time limit on how long the box appears. If the footnote takes more than 4 or 5 seconds to read, you are cut off in mid flow. You can't even just hover over it again to 'finish off' quite a number of your FNs.

just thought you might like to know this
spiff

"danny: i'll try to remove whatever footnotes i can, but some of them look a little weird in the main body, especially the jones criteria for rheumatic fever. any suggestions?"

Simple - write an Entry on Rheumatic Fever and link it

Or... *thinks*

Do you really need to specify criteria? Perhaps it would be enough for a general Entry such as this to state that "Mozart's symptoms fulfill the accepted criteria for rheumatic fever" or something and leave it at that. If people are interested, you could link to an external website such as http://www.gpnotebook.co.uk/cache/-697630716.htm

I don't blame you farlander, I was a bit vague...

Quotation marks (") in the sentence should be replaced with apostrophes (') unless there is a quote within a quotation, when you should use the "s. Kinda hard to explain, but it's the house style

hello there,

i have hacked away at the footnotes!!! removing those that are not *absolutely* necessary and incorporating the rest into the text... as you can see, i have cut down the number of footnotes from 32 to 20! (as a large number of the ones that are left are highly informational, i'll leave them there for the time being until i figure out what to do with them...)

spiff: i *have* noticed that the boxes disappear after a while, but i guess it never made much of an impression on me because i'm a speed reader and am usually long done before the box disappears. i'll try to cut down on the length of the footnotes, though...

danny: that is a great idea! unfortunately, that would also mean a great deal more research i have two other articles on my to-do list, but well, if i have the time after writing those... we'll see!

jodan: ah... i understand perfectly now. (could also be because there's a hot mug of next to me. i think trimethylxanthine coaxes my brain to *work* ) i'll just pop over and make the changes... thanks!

Looks pretty good so far from my nitpicks

I've really enjoyed reading this fascinating entry, well done Farlander..

thanks, z! i hope you went over the medical details - you're the expert on medical matters, not me

so much of a problem had Mozart's physician had been more thorough -> so much of a problem had Mozart's physician been more thorough


(I like footnotes. Especially long ones.)

oh, and:

who only were interviewed only years after Mozart's demise -> who only were interviewed years after Mozart's demise

or

who were interviewed only years after Mozart's demise

Freemasonshad -> Freemasons had (unless this is some type of fish: freemason shad)

denied that the skull was not that of Mozart as seen in portraits -> denied that the skull was that of Mozart as seen in portraits

A little note on HSP from a parent of one who suffers from it: The epidermal vasculitis is confined to the lower extremities. Also, the intestines frequently become involved. I'd have to agree that there is nothing in Mozart's symptoms that is consistent with HSP.