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References

Oh, one thing struck me and I may be vilified for questioning it, this of course is for later consideration: aren't there just too darned many citations and references beneath the entry? I mean, it's more in sources/citations than it is in content. That seems oddly lopsided to me. In other words, whom can we do without, to make the facts work?75.21.155.47 (talk) 08:16, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

The citations and references are there to give the article credibility. If they are removed readers cannot do further reading themselves. An article without references is not verifiable. I would never support removing references. That is a rather dubious tactic at best. If somebody claims something in this article it must be verified using a credible source. Problems have occurred previously as can be clearly seen when unverifiable sources have been used or at worse verifiable information has been deliberately twisted, distorted and actually altered. Finneganw 10:23, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, I believe the article will be expanded with a full rewrite, so hopefully this issue won't persist. Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 12:30, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

1. I did NOT propose removing citations willy-nilly, or even much at all, but the reference material is at some point going to sway toward a POV of some kind-- it's thrice the length of the entry! So the new person appearing above is quite correct: leave it, since it will expand somewhat. And I do not appreciate a valid question to be described as "dubious". This page is finally being used rightly and nonsense like that is not needed, finneganw.

2. No one looks like they're taking a week off, but go right ahead if you want. This thing is about finished and done very well, thanks to DrKiernan and Vyvyan's super-concentrated hard work.76.195.82.162 (talk) 18:56, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

I've been thinking about this, and I'd like to reduce the references section. Specifically, the references from the Cathedral, Antonov, Massie's first book and Znamenov are about the Romanovs, not Anderson. So, I think they can be removed. I also think that the two primary sources, von Rahl and Yussopov can be removed without detriment, since none of our readers has access to these primary sources except through secondary sources. DrKiernan (talk) 07:58, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Anderson is mentioned in Nicholas and Alexandra by Robert Massie. Finneganw 15:25, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Expansion

As we're still waiting for a brief sketch on her life for the lead, I don't think it's necessary at this early stage to discuss any expansion of the biography. We can do that once we have agreed on the biographical bit in the lead.

Instead, we can work on expanding less contended sections.

I have taken two, on popular culture and DNA evidence, out of the archived old version and worked on them a little. Please post relevant comments in the appropriate section below.

I think the reasons have been pretty clearly outlined why a brief sketch of /Schankowska/Anderson's life is very difficult indeed to write. I think that has been explained. Finneganw 14:03, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't think it's that hard to write a brief sketch because the key events that are not yet mentioned in the lead (suicide attempt, institutionalisation, marriage, life in the United States) are not contentious. It only requires someone to draft it. You've already had a couple of attempts yourself: "For a time she went by the name Fraulein Unbekannt (German for Miss Unknown} as she refused to reveal her identity to anybody in the mental hospital she had been placed in due to a suicide attempt. Later she adopted the false name of Tschiakovsky and later Anderson. Late in her life she married a John Manahan and adopted his name." and "Bare bones about her life - birth, change of identity, losing court case, marriage, death and place of burial." DrKiernan (talk) 14:48, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Well you have got what you have got. Finneganw 11:57, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

See, the above is why we get nowhere. If that quote Kiernan used is typical of your writing style, f, I hope someone else does the writing. How about following the suggestions and drafting something decent? Frauds still lead lives!76.195.93.15 (talk) 16:09, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

DNA evidence

Draft: In 1991, the bodies of Tsar Nicholas II, Alexandra and three of their daughters were exhumed from a mass grave near Ekaterinburg. They were identified on the basis of both skeletal analysis and DNA testing. For example, mitochondrial DNA can be used to match maternal relations, and mitochondrial DNA from the female bones matched that of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, whose maternal grandmother Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine was a sister of Alexandra.

A sample of Anderson's tissue, removed during a medical procedure in 1979, was stored at Martha Jefferson Hospital, Charlottesville, Virginia. Anderson's mitochondrial DNA was extracted from the sample and compared with that of the Romanovs and their relatives. It did not match that of the Duke of Edinburgh or that of the bones, confirming that Anderson was not Anastasia. The samples did match DNA provided by Franziska Schanzkowska's great nephew Karl Maucher, indicating that Karl Maucher and Anna Anderson were related and that Anderson was Schanzkowska. Four years after the original testing was done, Dr. Terry Melton of the Department of Anthropology, Pennsylvania State University, stated that the DNA sequence tying Anderson to the Schanzkowska family was still unique though the database of DNA patterns at the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory had grown much larger, leading to increased confidence that she was Franziska Schanzkowsa.

Similarly, several strands of Anderson's hair from an envelope labelled "Anastasia's hair" found inside a book that had belonged to Jack Manahan were also tested. Mitochondrial DNA from the hair matched Anderson's hospital sample and that of Schanzkowska's relative Karl Maucher but not that of the Romanov remains or living relatives of the Romanovs.

Though the bodies of the Tsar, Tsarina and three of their daughters were identified, the bodies of Tsarevich Alexei and one of his sisters, identified as Grand Duchess Maria by Russian scientists and as Grand Duchess Anastasia by American scientists, were not in the grave with the others. In 2007, Russian archaeologists working near Ekaterinburg discovered two partial skeletons matching the descriptions of the two missing Romanovs: a 12–15 year old boy and a young woman between the ages of 15 and 19. Repeated and independent DNA tests proved that the remains were the two missing Romanovs, and confirmed that Anastasia died in 1918.

Any comments or objections? DrKiernan (talk) 08:47, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

I think more needs to be said about the fact that she was fingered as FS as early as 1927, and the Berlin police did accept the identification made by the private detectives that she was FS, a young woman who went missing in Berlin around the same time AA appeared. This would make more sense when explaining why the DNA matched. I really think there is too much detail on the bodies and ages of the family members, while what you have written is good and true, just as I wanted to avoid the part stating as fact Anastasia was buried in 1998, I don't like mentioning that there is still some question over whether she was the buried body or the burned one found in 2007. Personally I feel the evidence much more strongly points to her being the burned body, and this would be more dramatic that she was only recently found when some claimed she'd never be, but the fact is even the scientists are not sure which girl was which due to a lack of nuclear DNA sample from the girls when they were alive to match to the skeletons. IMO, mentioning that there is still some controversy- even though there is NO controversy on whether or not they all died in 1918- only invites the kind of speculation and questions we are trying to bury with this article.It would be best to word it that all the bodies are found and identified and there is no question they all died together, and leave out all the stuff about why she may be which body, or how old they all were, etc.Aggiebean (talk) 12:19, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Redacted. There's no consensus on the inclusion of the 1920s identification (see #Franziska Schanzkowska above). I've removed some of the detail on ages of family members. I'd prefer to discuss the two separate studies one after the other; I see no controversy about Anastasia's death. It is known that she died, and no-one here has claimed otherwise. DrKiernan (talk) 07:48, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

But there's one thing you need to understand, and Finneganw and many others can back this up- EVERYTHING Chat says, from denying she was FS to taking up for her bogus 'memory' stories, is because he believes AA was Anastasia and wants that idea to come across in the story somehow. All of us who have dealt with him for years know this and he's not changing. He's not stupid enough to tell you that outright, but all his posts leave that message, and if you don't believe me go back through the talk page history and see for yourself. This is why if you're waiting for the 'consensus' to include him, we're in for quite a long and unpleasant haul.Aggiebean (talk) 11:46, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

And I'm interjecting here because I want to reply to aggiebean--she's tried to tar/feather me with ChatNoir's brush. Everyone knows I am not ChatNoir. I believe in the practical ideas aggie has had for this entry--it is important to balance the Anna biography with the DNA evidence. It's really fruitless to try to say the cops made her back in '21. That is an unsourced allegation until aggie produces the source. But we have all we need, now. The article MUST NOT question that this was Franziska! Why are we still arguing this??76.195.93.15 (talk) 16:09, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

What in the world are you talking about, cops in 21? The cops did accept her as FS in 1927, and this is true and documented.Aggiebean (talk) 23:09, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

There is consensus over Schankowska by eminent historians and scientists. You will never get that though from rabid Anderson supporters as they believe still that she was Anastasia. It's very simply to work out. Finneganw 03:36, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

That's right, in the real world, there IS consensus, it's just a few diehard Anderson supporters here who can't accept it. No one famous other than Kurth questions it, and as the article mentioned, major news agencies state as a fact in their reporting she was FS. We also have a sourced quote from "Seven Daughters of Eve", along with other things. Really, all that's stopping us is that Chat and Bookworm don't want to believe it, and is that good enough reason to not put the facts in the article for the rest of the world?Aggiebean (talk) 12:40, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

And here I agree with aggie 100%. Of course she will just say I'm ChatNoir and get me into more trouble. But I say she's right. And the sooner she loses a little monopolgy on this page, the sooner the article gets completed correctly!!76.195.93.15 (talk) 16:09, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Popular culture

Draft: In 1928, a silent film called Clothes Make the Woman was based very loosely on the woman who would one day be called "Anna Anderson". In 1956, another highly fictionalized film was made about a figure based on Anna Anderson, Anastasia, starring Ingrid Bergman as Anna/Anastasia. Bergman won an Academy Award for her portrayal of the central character. The 1997 animated film of the same name was inspired by the earlier 1956 film, but the central character ("Anastasia" or "Anya") is depicted as Grand Duchess Anastasia, even though the film was released after DNA tests proved that Anna Anderson was not Anastasia.

NBC ran a two-part fictionalized mini-series in December 1986 titled Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna which starred Amy Irving and won her a Golden Globe nomination. It was based on a book about Anna Anderson written by Peter Kurth.

Kevin Hearn of the band Barenaked Ladies wrote a song called "Anna, Anastasia" for his solo album H-Wing, and Tori Amos wrote a song titled "Yes, Anastasia" for her Under the Pink album.

In 2006, Diana Norman, writing under the pseudonym Ariana Franklin, published a novel City of Shadows, a fictionalized account of Anderson's time in Berlin from 1920 to 1933. In it she seems to accept that Anderson was a fraud, but invents a colourful post-Revolution history for the Grand Duchess herself.

See the essay Misplaced Pages:"In popular culture" articles for some guidance on what popular culture sections should contain. DrKiernan (talk) 08:47, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I should have said, I think I saw the 1956 film many, many years ago, but I've completely forgotten it and I haven't seen any of the others. All this material is lifted from the old version, not something I've looked up myself. DrKiernan (talk) 08:49, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

I tend to think the 'Popular Culture' section should be classified as 'Trivia'. The vast majority tries to claim Anderson was Anastasia which NEVER was the case. Ingrid Bergman starred in the role as 'Anastasia'. Yul Brynner was also in the film. It pretended that Anderson was Anastasia. Helen Hayes played the role of the Dowager Empress and even unbelievably because it never happened even met the fake Anastasia!! There was also a Kenneth McMillan ballet 'Anastasia' in the repertoire of the Royal Ballet based on the myth. Meant to say that the text of the 'Tsar' book is by Kurth and Radzinsky. Christopher took the photos only so the bibliographical entry is incorrect. Kurth of course pushes fake information about Anderson in that particular work, as always so that is unverifiable. What is laughable about Marina Botkin Schweitzer and her husband Richard is the fact that even though they knew the tissue belonged to Anderson at the hospital and always stated that Anderson was Anastasia, once the results of the DNA tests came out proving Anderson a fraud they chose to claim the samples were not hers as they were desperate to prove Anderson was Anastasia. I think DrKiernan you really need to be very careful with all of this as the main facts are that she was a fraud and never Anastasia. She was in fact Franziska Schankowska. I think you have seen the tactics that have been used by desperate Anderson supporters. They range from she was Anastasia to she wasn't Schankowska trying to still keep the door open that she was Anastasia. It's all rather pathetic really. What I think any sensible person would want here would be for the article to be very brief indeed. Otherwise as Aggiebean has stated it will go all over the place. No information that doubts her DNA proven identity should be allowed. Please also note that Kurth's main book was never a biography. What it was in fact was a very POV work pushing Anderson as Anastasia. That is not a biography by any means. It is completely inaccurate, slanders the reputations of people who were 100% accurate and fabricates 'information' which never came from them. That is why I say again the bare bones are already included in the lead about her. There has never been a biography published on Anderson in fact. Finneganw 14:14, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

There were also 3 very bad 'off brand' ripoffs of the "Anastasia" cartoon that went straight to video, two of which untilize the Anderson cart story, which the Don Bluth production avoided. One even has "Alexander Tchiakovsky", her fictional 'rescuer', as a named and faced character! Seeing this, it's easy to see what a fairy tale her whole legend was, and now it's in the same category as other stories that never happened like Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty.

I agree Kurth's book isn't really a biography but a presentation of her cause from her POV. It avoids much negative and damning evidence that was available long before it was written, and leans heavily on the writings of Rathlef and Botkin, big time supporters who sold stories about her. Much of it actually reads like a very romanticized novel, check out the chapters "Shadows of the Past" and "What have I done" for starters if you don't believe me. In his book "Tsar", Kurth even had blatantly false information, such as that 1994 facial tests proved her to be 'with certainty' Anastasia- in fact, the tests, done by Oxlee, found her to be Franziska, but sadly for awhile the false info was quoted here because it was sourced in a book. This is why we have to be very careful about anything written by AA supporters. I also agree about Marina Botkin and her husband, they were so strongly fighting to get the tissue sample from MJH to prove she was Anastasia, but once it proved false, they immediately said 'something must have happened', which started the intestine switch conspiracy theories. Same with Kurth and the hair, he endorsed it until it gave a negative result, then suddenly it wasn't hers anymore? This is how the AA supporter are and why we have to be so careful. Of course now that we have all the bodies, the intestines and hair don't even matter as much since we have proof the real Anastasia was dead in 1918, but still some won't accept that fact and will try to pollute the article with their very wrong POV and insinuations meant to leave the door ajar for AA to sneak back in as AN. We can't let that happen.Aggiebean (talk) 16:39, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Please try to split both the above posts and put the relevant portions in the appropriate section. Comments on improving the DNA evidence section should be placed in the DNA evidence section, and comments on improving the popular culture section should go here. DrKiernan (talk) 07:38, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Just wanted to say, I am finding this format very difficult to follow. Having to scroll back up and dig through numerous posts and indentations and having only a date to go by to see what is new is extremely confusing. I liked it better all in a straight line. I agree very much topics should be kept together, and that works well on a message board where each thread is its own entity you can click on, not a long stream of writings where anyone can interject like this. It's too hard to find what's being discussed.Aggiebean (talk) 11:10, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

I see. I find it confusing the other way. There are two ways around this. One is that we only tackle one issue at a time, and everything else is put on hold. The other is to use the "Compare selected versions" button on the history page. You click the tick box on the most recent version and on the last version you looked at it, and then click on "Compare selected versions" to see how the page has changed since the last time you looked at it. DrKiernan (talk) 11:20, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

1986 film reference?

Why do you keep avoiding the dreadful 1986 film "Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna"? Even if it is horrid, based on Kurth's book, and starring the ever-annoying Amy Irving, it should be listed with any other pop-culture crap. But this TV movie was different: based on Kurth's goofy book, it purported to show on film the "true" story of Anna. 75.21.100.46 (talk) 15:54, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

It is there, listed above as:

NBC ran a two-part fictionalized mini-series in December 1986 titled Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna which starred Amy Irving and won her a Golden Globe nomination. It was based on a book about Anna Anderson written by Peter Kurth.Aggiebean (talk) 21:25, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

You see what you want to see...and yes, my apologies for missing the actual reference, listed in the entry. 76.195.93.15 (talk) 15:51, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Draft sections

I've added the proposed DNA evidence section to the draft article at Talk:Anna Anderson/proposedarticle. DrKiernan (talk) 07:58, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

I have two issues with it- one is that the part about Dr. Melton saying the sequence was still unique 5 years later is already mentioned in the lead but repeated in the DNA section, we don't need both. You could leave it out of the lead since the one in the DNA section is more complete and sourced. The other problem I have is that you have re-added the controversy over whether the body found was Anastasia or Maria.(there is no controversy over whether or not they both died, but people may take it that way) As I said before, this is unnecessary, all we need to say is that the two missing bodies were found and all have been idenitified, proving all claimants to be imposters. Bringing up the disagreements of the Russians and Americans over which body was which(they have all admitted they can never tell for sure because there is no nuclear DNA from the girls when they were alive to compare to the bones) is confusing to those who don't know the whole story and may lead to undue speculation that the bodies weren't real, or of if they don't know who was who how can they know for sure, etc... I'm saying this may seem simple to you but it really does confuse some people and we want to bury all questions, not create more. So once again the Maria/Anastasia issue and the ages of the bodies found should really be left out. All we need to put is that every member of the family has been found, including the two previously 'missing' ones. It would also be nice to add that Dr. Coble stated there were four separate DNA profiles for four different grand duchesses, proving none of the daughters survived. I hope the link to his report is still in there somewhere because it's the best and explains the final results and how the mystery was solved.Aggiebean (talk) 11:22, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Amended. DrKiernan (talk) 12:00, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

OkayAggiebean (talk) 14:21, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

I have to agree with Aggiebean. I also have amended the article because you chose to leave out the link with Prince Philip. He was crucial as a close relative of the Romanovs in disproving Anderson. It was a major blow to the Anderson side as he is the great-nephew of Tsarina Alexandra. He is not just any relative. Remember that it was his Uncle Earl Mountbatten of Burma who fought Anderson tooth and nail in the court case. The entire family did. There would be Romanov relatives alive today, a friend of mine in particular, who would be mighty offended at leaving out such information. You also chose to place renowned when you were repeatedly asked not to. I have replaced this with well known. You also put sanatoria when it is known asylum is more correct. Please do not try to sugar coat this article. It is fact that she was committed. I am sadly starting to become a touch disillusioned at people wishing to place inferences on Anderson that never existed. Anderson was never renowned at anything. Finneganw 16:26, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

I have blocked you for disruption. Changes to the article should be agreed on talk in advance. If you disagreed with the wording of the proposed lead, then you should have made specific comments, as you were repeatedly asked to do. You know full well that three other editors agreed with the word "sanatoria" but you chose to ignore that and impose your own version against the compromise position in a deliberately disruptive act. DrKiernan (talk) 06:40, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

On your two other specific points:

1. The detail of which relatives were tested, who also included the Duke of Fife, Countess Xenia Cheremeteff-Sfiri, Tikhon N. Kuilkovskii-Romanov (who initially refused but later relented), and Grand Duke Georgij Romanov (who was exumed specifically for the testing), is unnecessary in the lead. Prince Philip is given as the example in the DNA evidence section.
2. I can find no record whatever of "renowned" discussed on the talk page. Please either provide a diff or retract. I shall, however, change renowned to "well-known", as I have no problem with either term. DrKiernan (talk) 08:53, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

I really don't think I need a lecture on Russian history or Anna Anderson. I think that was rather unnecessary. You assumed there was consensus when there was not. As somebody who has extensive knowledge and considerable academic experience in the area I tend to think you have jumped the gun a touch. I could choose to use the Dr here as well for your information, but I have no need. If you bother to check you will find I did make specific comments. I have tried to be very supportive of you. I trust you will extend me the same courtesy. Finneganw 13:38, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

That is one of the reasons I have reverted to the original rather than the proposed version. I don't want to implement the proposed version until we truly have consensus. DrKiernan (talk) 12:44, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

warning to all

I think it's helpful that the article has been semi-protected for now. This is a last warning, put here because everyone having to do with it will see it: Stop all personal attacks now. Any editor or IP linked with this article who makes another personal attack will be blocked for 72 hours without further warning. Comment only on content and sources. Bickering over wordings must stop now. Quote the sources if need be. Unsourced content can be removed in good faith by any editor (who must be autoconfirmed so long as semi-protection lasts, which could be awhile if need be). New reliable sources can be cited, to put new text in the article. Gwen Gale (talk) 15:42, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Just wondering what happened to most of the talk page which has disappeared since last night. Was this the work of a vandal or did a mod do it for some reason?Aggiebean (talk) 16:21, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

They were archived here: Talk:Anna_Anderson/Archive_4, by User:DrKiernan. If anyone has further comments on sources and how to deal with them in the text, they're welcome below. Gwen Gale (talk) 16:27, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

cleanup

Owing to its long history of back and forth PoV edit warring and lack of thorough inline sourcing, the text was a mess. I've flowed and cleaned things up into something more encyclopedic, with neutral wording. Moreover, I've put adjectives which might be challenged into quotes drawn straight from the citations. Some of the text still needs inline citations, although all of it is most likely supported by citations already listed. If any text or wording is challenged, give it an inline citation (with a quote if need be), otherwise it can indeed be removed (but not swapped out with other unsourced wording). Gwen Gale (talk) 20:02, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm afraid your changes aren't acceptable either. I've restored the original lead. Comments on the proposed lead should be made on talk. DrKiernan (talk) 06:40, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Nobody can remove verifiable content which has been reliably sourced. I think it would be far more helpful if you would not edit war but rather, restore this version. Thanks. Gwen Gale (talk) 10:45, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't think you appreciate the situation. I am not edit-warring. I am mediating a dispute, after a request on the Administrator's noticeboard for a mediator with access to administrative tools and specialised knowledge of the subject matter. After lengthy discussion on the talk page, I judged that consensus was reached on the proposed lead and implemented the consensus version . You over-rode that consensus and without any discussion imposed your own version of the article, disregarding that the article is contentious and currently in mediation. Changes should not be made to the page unless prior approval and consensus is obtained through discussion on the talk page.

There is no way that your version would gain consensus. To take the first paragraph only: (1) You claim that there were 200 Anastasia claimants. That is untrue, you have misrepresented the source. It says 200 Romanov claimants. That includes false Alexei's, false Tatiana's, false Olga's, etc. (2) It is certain that Anderson was not Anastasia; phrasing like "strong scientific consensus" is far, far too weak, and would never be agreed. (3) Calling her "Anderson/Schanzkowska" is original research; there are no sources which use the term. There was lengthy previous discussion about how to refer to Schanzkowska. The proposed version is a carefully-worded compromise, but you chose to ignore it completely in favour of your own version. DrKiernan (talk) 11:23, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

I didn't "claim that there were 200 Anastasia claimants." However, mistakes can be easily fixed and I agree the wording was wrong and should read who claimed to be Romanov children. Meanwhile, the sources don't straightforwardly support the wordings of your version and taken along with its lack of content, your version falls short of anything near encyclopedic thoroughness or NPoV. Most worrisome of all, you've deleted much verifiable and reliably sourced information from the article, which you cannot do. Please restore it now, thanks. Gwen Gale (talk) 11:42, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

You wrote "Anna Anderson Manahan was the most widely known of over 200 people who claimed to be Grand Duchess Anastasia of Russia". That is a direct quote from your version. Why "Romanov children"? Can you say this figure of 200 does not include false Tsars and Tsarinas and cousins and uncles and aunts?

Of course it lacks content, it is the lead. It's supposed to be a brief summary. The rest of the article will follow after that is agreed. This is all explained in the talk archive. If you wish to suggest that the current lead be shortened to the first paragraph only and the rest of it turned into the article, then suggest it. I will not restore your version unless it is approved by other editors. If they prefer it to the current or proposed version, then yes, of course, it will be restored. But not until then. DrKiernan (talk) 11:55, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Furthermore, I don't have a version. So, I'd be grateful if you didn't use the term "your version" when referring to individual or proposed revisions. DrKiernan (talk) 11:58, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

The source says In fact, since 1918 over 200 people have claimed to be one of the five Romanov children. As I said, I made an easily fixable wording mistake there, this can be dropped now. The talk archive can't be cited for article content. Verifiable content cited to reliable sources can't be deleted, even by consensus. Anderson was clearly an imposter and the evidence is overwhelming that she had a clinically diagnosable psychiatric illness. The version you reverted puts this forth in neutral, encyclopedic language which much more carefully follows the sources (even given the mistake in wording that I made). As for "your version," it's your version, you reverted to it, you're responsible for it and from what I've seen, the editors here aren't happy with your version at all. Please restore this version and we can carry forward from there. If you don't want to take responsibilty for doing so, no worries, I understand, I can restore it myself and take the responsibility. Gwen Gale (talk) 12:11, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

I am afraid I have to agree with DrKiernan here. The Anna Anderson page needs to be dealt with through discussion due to gross abuse over a number of years. I suggest it needs to be dealt with through consultation slowly. I feel the new additions are perhaps well intentioned, but do not not have the benefit of the strength that comes from constructive discusson. Finneganw 13:19, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

The bygone is bygone. It's most likely that this version (with one or two tweaks) can far more easily withstand most abuse. I should say, Anderson fooled a lot of people. There are reasons for this and giving more background to her own history will quickly show most readers how this happened. Readers won't learn from bare assertions and PoV wording, however well-meant. Rather, they'll be misled and won't gather the knowledge and understanding to spot frauds like this. There is no reason under en.Misplaced Pages policy to hold back verifiable, reliably sourced content from the text. Gwen Gale (talk) 12:38, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

One of the problems all along has been editors pushing information that is not verifiable and is in fact inaccurate. Anybody can write a book or article with gross inaccuracies. That does not mean it should be used as a verfiable source when it is inaccurate. That is why the article was considerably shortened to prevent inaccurate POV information being repeatedly presented. That is why matters are discussed before editing. I am sure you realise that now Gwen Gale. Any reader of the current article will see that DNA testing exposed Anderson as a fraud. That is made quite clear. Finneganw 14:39, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

You don't seem to understand that en.Misplaced Pages is not about truth, it's about verifiability. Moreover, as I said above, unless the article gives readers background as to how she fooled so many for so long, it will be misleading and harmful to readers (as it is now). If y'all don't want my help in making this article into something encyclopedic, ok, but the PoV language and lack of content are wholly unhelpful. Gwen Gale (talk) 16:34, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Bygone is NOT bygone, the attitude which caused the edit wars WILL return if you mods were to leave today. Nothing has changed Chat's mind or his desire to fill the article with info that tries to imply AA was Anastasia, and things now proven false and impossible by the DNA testing. We must do it the way Dr. Kiernan is doing it. I do not agree with everything that has happened here, but it appears to be the only way. Honestly Gwen you have never seen anything like what is going on here, it's been very extreme and strange and Dr's way is the only way we can hold this thing down.Aggiebean (talk) 23:15, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

I understand this quite well. It is about accurate verifiability, not pushing inaccurate sources. This was highlighted by administrator Trusilver repeatedly. DrKiernan is doing a very good job in ensuring that the article is accurately verifiable and not full of so-called 'sources' that are openly ridiculed and proven to be completely inaccurate and unverifiable. Finneganw 17:47, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

What? So wiki would rather have a source that is WRONG as long as you can verify it? That is what we are trying hard to avoid here! We will have them verifyable but we want them to be accurate too. In the case of AA, much of the previous source material is now inaccurate, obsolete and some of it proven to be complete fiction. That's not what you want in your articles, is it? I have always argued, just because you can put a page number to something does NOT necessarily make it a valid source.Aggiebean (talk) 19:34, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Structure of draft

Let's get back to discussing Talk:Anna Anderson/proposedarticle. One thing that came out of Gwen's edits, and the first thing I think we should address (let's not get into any other discussions for now), is whether the proposed structure is a good idea. I've been working on the assumption that this was the lead, and the rest of the article would follow section by section. Gwen's version actually transforms this version into the article by inserting sub-headings. So, the first paragraph becomes the lead. The second paragraph and first few sentences of the third paragraph become a section called "Claim" or "Claims". The third paragraph becomes the "DNA evidence" or "DNA tests" section. Do you prefer the structure with sub-headings or the structure without? DrKiernan (talk) 07:29, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Considering the subject matter and all the problems we've had in the past, I think your way was working the best under the circumstances. The more we drag it out and try to draw attention to different categories the worse it will be. We need to stick to our original consensus of a very brief article, lead, DNA, pop culture, the end.Aggiebean (talk) 14:21, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree that there will be considerable issues if the article is once again broken down into sub-sections. That is one of the causes of problems that resulted in an edit war in the previous long winded article. The article needs to be concise. The main thrust of the article should be letting readers know in no uncertain terms that Anderson was an imposter. Her claim can be summed up in one sentence. It does not need to be expanded. What is important is that the DNA tests are quite clearly mentioned as they prove her claims were fraudulent from the very beginning and that she never ever was Anastasia and that she was Franziska Schankowska. I tend to think we were making progress here. I think going off on a tangent is not a sensible or good way to go. Finneganw 17:39, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Just popping in, but I don't understand why it would be desirable to have "a very short article." I'm not an Anderson supporter - I'm perfectly well aware that she was not Anastasia and that she was (almost certainly) Franziska Schankowska. But this is not some kind of skeptics' dictionary, where our purpose is to debunk legends. The thrust of the article should be describing this woman's life, not "letting readers know in no uncertain terms that Anderson was an impostor" (although obviously the article should do that as well.) This is an article about a woman who became quite famous, and whose life has been written about at considerable length, even if much of that writing comes from untrustworthy sources. I don't see why on earth this article should exclude a detailed discussion of her life, as Aggiebean seems to suggest. Ideally, the article should, in a neutral way, tell the full story of her life, so far as we can gather it from reliable sources, and so long as it doesn't become excessively long. I think the means of starting out by getting consensus on the lead, and then moving on to other parts, makes sense. But Aggiebean and Finneganw seem to be saying that Anderson is only notable for the simple fact of her not being Anastasia. That seems ridiculous to me. The only reason anyone even bothered to do the DNA tests was because so many people were convinced she was Anastasia. The details of her imposture in the 20s and 30s, of the post-war court case, of her life in Germany and America, are all worth going into in the article. They should just be done in a responsible way. john k (talk) 21:23, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Why? Because what you suggest is IMPOSSIBLE, and the history of the article over the last several years proves this. As you know, I have written a very long and detailed website on AA, and I would originally have liked to have a long article, in fact I was a big contributor when it was long. However, as Finneganw pointed out and as I have seen to be true, the more we mention, the more will be contested, disputed, and worst of all edit warred ad nauseum into infinity. This was a constant circular motion for years, and it will not change due to Chat and other AA supporters trying to add, even in the form of POV vandalism and sneak attacks in the middle of sentences, discredited, fictional and very much questionable pro AA arguments, which, given the DNA results of 1994 and 2007, have proven her 'amazing memories' and other such alleged legends to be completely false. Anyone who doesn't understand is free to take a look at the very long and sordid history files of this article, and especially the archived talk pages, to see what a horrible mess it's been and how the only way we can avoid such trouble again is to whittle the article down to basics and never bring up things on which consensus will never be reached. I also must add that the poster JohnK may not be an "AA supporter" but he is a supporter of Alexei claimant Heino Tammet, which places him firmly in the same category, so consider that while reading his remarks.Aggiebean (talk) 22:41, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

First, on substance:If people are incapable of contributing constructively, they should be banned. Material that is inappropriate should be removed. This can certainly be difficult, but you don't own this article, and article content should not be determined by our fears of what POV pushers will do to it. And creating a short article is just an invitation for Anna Anderson supporters to create much worse articles as soon as you turn your back. The solution ought to be through disciplinary measures for POV pushers. And, again, the purpose of this article isn't to explain that she wasn't Anastasia. A single sentence could do that. The purpose of this article is to present a biography of the person best known to the world as Anna Anderson. That person did interesting things which our readers may be interested in and which should be described. This is not vitiated by a) the fact that she was not Anastasia; or b) the fact that there are still people who unaccountably believe that she was Anastasia and put stupid material on[REDACTED] to try to demonstrate that.

Second, on my supposed status as a supporter of Alexei claimant Heino Tammet: What on earth are you talking about? I've never contributed to the article Alexei Tammet-Romanov. I'd never even heard of Heino Tammet until you just mentioned him. I have no doubt that he was not Alexei, who perished with the rest of his family in Ekaterinburg. This is just a complete falsehood, made up, so far as I can tell, out of thin air. I ask that you please retract it. john k (talk) 23:00, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

More on this: I am not John Kendrick. I happen to be named John, and my last name begins with a K. I have no other connection to John Kendrick, who is apparently the author of a pro-Heino Tammet website. I am not he. john k (talk) 23:04, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Of course I don't own the article, that's why the mods have taken it over and are helping us rebuild it via consensus. I personally do not agree with some of what has been done, but I realize it is the only way to keep peace here under the circumstances. As far as those who should be banned, Chat has done so much disruptive editing, sneak attacks, passing off his POV as sourced material posted by another that said nothing of what he said, and using only the discredited 'Harriet Rathlef' as a source, IMO he should have been banned long ago. I do not know why he is still here, considering his LONG history of sneaking in pro AA propaganda and POV vandalism, but he is, and he is being asked his opinion on the consensus, which I personally disagree with. I do not believe any AA supporter should ever be appeased due to the fact that they no longer have a 'side' because their POV has been proven wrong, which discredits much of the sourced material from the past alleging she was for real. So you see if I had my way in this article, it would be long, it would be completely Chat-free and give no appeasement at all to those who still believe in her and tout her story as valid, therefore, I do not 'own this article'. I do, however, 'own' my website, and there I do what I want if you want, which is very different from what I am able to do here. So you can bury that accusation. Again, Finneganw and I have been here long enough to know what the deal is, he longer than me, this mess was going on at least a year before I ever came here. Given the long past volatile history, this article is indeed a special case and extreme situation that cannot be dealt with as most other things have been, and Dr. and some of the other mods see this and understand it, and that's why things are the way they are. If you do not believe me you are free to read the past history files of the article and the talk page, especially the old archives, for proof.Aggiebean (talk) 00:42, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

That whole long response, and you aren't willing to apologize for accusing me of being somebody that I'm not? That is really weak. john k (talk) 05:41, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

It was an honest mistake, he hangs around all claimant discussions. I hope you do understand now why we can't write a long article. It's been tried and rehashed for nearly 3 years, it can't work, not with this topic.Aggiebean (talk) 14:16, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

So your position is that it is simply impossible for Misplaced Pages to have a good article about Anderson? Firstly, that is a complete cop-out. Once again, there are tools to deal with POV pushing. If we can have reasonably informative articles about things like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we ought to be able to have a reasonably informative article about Anna Anderson, whose supporters grow older and less numerous by the day. Secondly, the article isn't going to be semi-protected forever, and as soon as it's unprotected you're going to start having Anderson nuts adding nonsense to it. Much better to have a solid, well-structured article put together before that point. Otherwise you're just going to end up with the nutters gradually adding nonsense. Creating a small article doesn't solve any of the problems that you seem to think it will solve. Can I ask: is there a general consensus for a short article, or is that only something that Aggiebean and Finneganw support? john k (talk) 19:30, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

john k very few people are interested in Anderson since her fraud was exposed. Only rabid supporters want to keep their fantasy that she was Anastasia alive and will stop at nothing in their quest. I guess it takes all to make up a world. That is why there are basically no contributors to this page apart from those who know the reality of Anderson's proven fraud and those who try to deny it. Those who cannot accept her reality are still out there. Through DrKiernan's good graces and other administrators their avenues for spreading historical and scientific inaccuracy at[REDACTED] have been severely curtailed. Trust me that what you are proposing will not work. It never worked for years. Why should it work now? The so-called tools that you speak of have not worked in the past. If you examine the past history of the page that becomes quickly apparent. There are in fact very few contributors to the issue at all. What is interesting though is many of the rabid supporters have been banned from numerous other internet sites for pushing their discredited agendas. They now find that this site also does not encourage their unusual discredited viewpoints either. Finneganw 03:50, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

What does the question of how many people are interested in her have to do with anything? Why would we expect to have contributors to this page who know nothing about Anderson (i.e., who would we expect to contribute here who isn't either an Anderson supporter or someone who knows she was a fraud?)? And, again, you are basically proposing that this article should be treated differently from every other article on Misplaced Pages - that its content be curtailed because, apparently uniquely among all subjects of human dispute, this subject so uniquely attracts nuts that we cannot have a decent article about it. We have a relatively lengthy article about Immanuel Velikovsky, for instance. Just like Anderson, Velikovsky attracts die-hard supporters who don't care that his claims have been utterly discredited, and they like trying to slant the article in their direction. I haven't read the article closely to see how well they've succeeded, but a quick glance shows that they are able to describe Velikovsky's theories, but also indicate that they are fringe and not believed by anyone other than cultists. Those who think Velikovsky is nonsense certainly haven't seen it as necessary to drastically curtail the article into a stub in order to defeat Velikovsky's supporters. john k (talk) 17:04, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Sorry John, but there is really no need to even argue this. All of us who have been involved and the mods who've had to deal with it see how it is. We tried for over 2 years to have a long article, it DID NOT WORK and this has been proven. It's actually pointless to come here trying to preach to us when we have been through it all and know better. This is how it is, and we have not come to this conclusion briefly or lightly. Again, I challenge you to take the time to read the back history of the article and the archived talk pages and see what we mean.Aggiebean (talk) 22:27, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

As far as I can tell you are entirely misrepresenting the state of things. You and Finneganw support a short article that doesn't attempt to present a biography of AA. I see no evidence that anybody else agrees with you. Here's what DrKiernan said about two weeks ago: "She was a real person. She was born, she lived, she died. It's perfectly feasible to write a biography about her. It's completely unrealistic to expect the article to remain as short as it is now. However, we should finalize the lead before moving onto future sections." This seems completely sensible to me, and correct. As it stands now, the article is a complete failure at its primary job, which is to provide a biography of Anna Anderson. It basically says nothing about her life, and this is absurd, given how much has been written about her. john k (talk) 22:48, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Dr. K is in full agreement with a brief synopsis mentioning her claim, lawsuit and later life and death. He summed it up and that's what we have. If you want to get into the details of the claim, who said what, what she allegedly remembered when we now know she didn't, etc.. that is what has caused this article and talk page to be a war zone for nearly 3 years. I don't know why I can't get you to understand, no matter what you want it to be, or think it should be, it CANNOT BE due to the circumstances faced here. That is why things have come to what they are. How many times do I have to say this?Aggiebean (talk) 00:09, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

I suppose we should let him speak for himself, but hev ery specifically said "It is completely unrealistic to expect the article to remain as short as it is now. However, we should finalize the lead before moving onto future sections." This suggests that, at some point, there will be "future sections" to move onto. The fact that he consistently refers to what is currently being worked on as "the lead" also suggests that he does not believe that this should be the whole article. But I'm sure he can explain himself what he meant, so let's move past that. Beyond that, I said nothing about talking about "what she allegedy remembered," although we should certainly talk about the people who believed her claim. I think we should talk about the narrative of her life - the development of her claim in the 20s, some of the encounters with the people who knew Anastasia best, the Grand Duke of Hesse's endeavor to discredit her and discovery of the Schankowska connection, the incredibly prolonged lawsuit, her life in Germany throughout that period, the move to Charlottesville and marriage, and so forth. I do not think we should include nonsensical conspiracy theories, but I think it should be possible to describe her life in a dispassionate way, and I don't see how having a stub is going to keep the Anderson supporters away. She had a long and interesting life which has been much written about. Obviously this can lead to POV disputes, and such, but the contention that we CANNOT have an actual article about her life is absurd and insupportable. john k (talk) 02:01, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

ALL of those things were included in the article until very recently, and they all caused hopeless arguments, edit wars and POV vandalism until we had to delete it all and start over and know we could never get into that much detail. For the fiftieth time, READ THE HISTORY LOGS of this article and the talk page and you will know what transpired, and what repeatedly happened and why we CANNOT HAVE A DETAILED ARTICLE! For example, the quotes and intentions of Olga Alexandrovna have been quoted, misinterpreted, and very much argued over. Same with Ernie, Gilliard, etc. I am tired of arguing with you over this, if you won't accept my word for it just look at the history!!!!!!!!!!!!Aggiebean (talk) 02:18, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I would like to try to expand the article to about the recommended article size: 30 to 50 kB, but would prefer it to be near the low end of that range. There is no way it should get bloated to around 100 kB, which it was before blanking. I think we may be able to achieve this if we are strict about removal of irrelevant or POV or unsourced material, and do not use lengthy quotes from primary sources. Anyway, I think it's worth a try even if it's ultimately unsuccessful and we have to keep the article short. I've also been secretly drafting a "Biography" section, so I would at least want to try running it by you at some point. I've been keeping it under wraps because I think we're agreed that we should take things fairly slowly and just expand bit by bit for the moment. Otherwise, we may get bogged down in a wide-ranging discussion like before. However, I'd be happy to paste it into the proposed article if people prefer to see it.

I've amended the Talk:Anna Anderson/proposedarticle once again to address Finneganw's points. Specifically:

1. "best known" is added to the first sentence
2. "Kashubian" changed to "Polish"; I can't find any source that she was Kashubian ethnically.
3. "well-known" is changed to "notoriety"
4. the asylums/sanatoria sentence is changed to: "Between 1922 and 1968, Anderson lived in the United States and Germany with various supporters and in sanatoria and nursing homes, including at least one asylum." I really can only find sources to support one asylum stay between those years. I am unable to find a source that calls the wing of the institution at Ilten in which she lived an asylum.
5. Can I assume that with Prince Philip in the DNA evidence section, we can leave him out of the lead?

Can I ask once again to either express approval for the lead, or make comments on how it could be improved. DrKiernan (talk) 07:33, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Aggiebean, I wholeheartedly agree with John. There are hundreds of articles with more conflict-ridden histories than AA, yet all of those articles have managed to survive as non-stubs. I understand your past frustrations, but a cop out is simply not the way to go. You have more individuals involved now, and I'm sure they would all be glad to help expand this article to a respectable length. Shall we give it a try? Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 12:39, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

As I have said before, I would have liked a long detailed article, and I wrote a very long website on her. However here on wiki it is impossible due to the personalities and attitudes involved (AA supporters, mainly Chat) If it goes into detail, it will only be one big headache, torture us all for a long time and nothing will be resolved. A brief article is not what I want, it's what is necessary for this subject due to everything else we've tried failing miserably and causing constant edit wars. Does anyone recall that the reason this article was turned over to the mods was because of endless edit wars over content? The same thing will happen again if the AA supporters are allowed to participate. The whole reason we gave up, deleted everything but the lead and tried to rebuild in a condensed version is that the trouble that happened over the last 3 years isn't suddenly going to stop or change now. All the evidence is in the history logs. Honestly, Chat's long history of POV vandalism and sneak attacks should have gotten him banned from working on the article, but as long as he's around, things will remain the same. Aggiebean (talk) 17:31, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

I tend to think that Aggiebean is right in what she has stated. Due to the fact that what Anderson and her supporters put forward was never at all true I tend to think it is impossible to write accurate fully verifiable information about Anderson. Misplaced Pages does not support inaccurate unverifiable POV articles. Any article which tries to put in the inaccurate information Anderson tried to foist on the unsuspecting is not verifiable NPOV. Anderson consistently claimed to be somebody she never was. Her whole pathetic attempt was seen through by a great many long before she died. Her fantasy claim was fraud. DNA evidence solidly proved this to be the case. All in all she was a very insignificant person who did a lot of damage to the reputation of the real Grand Duchess Anastasia who was so terribly and brutally murdered. Thankfully since Anderson's total exposure as a fraud, attention has now shifted back on to the real Grand Duchess Anastasia who had a far more interesting and important life as one of the last Grand Duchesses of Imperial Russia. After all she never attempted to be anybody she never was and information on her life is fully verifiable. Finneganw 15:09, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

What's your point here? I am not advocating "trying to put in the inaccurate information Anderson tried to foist on the unsuspecting," but verifiable details about her life, of which there are plenty. And you may think Anastasia's life was the more intereesting one, but that's really just an opinion - AA's life was a pretty bizarre and fascinating one, it has interested a large number of people over the years, and certainly there's a lot more to say about her than about Anastasia, who died at age 17, and whose notability effectively rests on who her parents were and her horrible murder, rather than any actual accomplishments of her own. We have a quite long and detailed article about Anastasia - 53 K - in spite of this fact. Given that Schankowska/Anderson lived for roughly four times as long as her, and did actual things which are not covered in any other article on wikipedia, an actual detailed article on her in the range DrKiernan says above (30 to 50K) seems totally appropriate and achievable. john k (talk) 15:41, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

You may not advocate it, but if the article is long, and if AA supporters are allowed to contribute, that is exactly what's going to happen- again.Aggiebean (talk) 17:32, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Well, you now have something that you didn't have before: administrator attention. I'm sure Dr. Kiernan, John Kenney and I can handle POV pushing from AA supporters. On an aside, it is indeed our role to detail in length the mainstream view that AA≠FS, but it is also our responsibility to describe notable events that transpired in this woman's life.

Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 18:22, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

The problem Finneganw and I have with describing her 'life' is that it wasn't her life, it was pretending to be Anastasia. We have included the main events, suicide attempt, lawsuit, marriage to Manahan, death, and disproven by DNA. All the rest of the story is tainted horribly by the fictional and embellished writings of supporters like Rathlef and Botkin and do not belong in a factual article. Now that she has been proven a fake, the article needs to reflect that fact and give no value or appeasement to any 'mystery' that is no longer there. Aggiebean (talk) 20:14, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

The crux of the matter is that none of what Anderson claimed about herself after her suicide attempt ever happened. That is why it cannot be included in the article as it is completely fabricated invention. Misplaced Pages is about fact not fantasy. Anderson's claim was never true ever. That has been totally proven repeatedly. It's very easy to understand unless a person is a rabid Anderson is Anastasia supporter. Anderson supporters should perhaps have an Anderson in Wonderland page to perpetuate their fantasies. Their inaccurate disproven nonsense certainly has no place in this article. Finneganw 21:57, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Huh? It is a fact, of course, that Anderson made the claims that she did, and it's a fact that other people believed her and championed those claims. David Hampton was not actually Sidney Poitier's son, but our article on him still talks about how he pretended to be that. Anderson's story has been detailed in numerous books, and of course a summary of it should be relayed. I'll add that I wasn't even talking about her claims about events between 1918-1920, but rather that the article should discuss her life between 1922 and 1984, which of course is heavily documented. john k (talk) 03:36, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

You are correct that Anderson's 'life' is heavily 'documented' with 'sources' that have been totally discredited. As such they are completely unverifiable and as Admin Trusilver pointed out, they have no place at wikipedia. I suggest JohnK that you do reading on the discussion that has taken place here. It is all archived. Pushing fake information about Anderson/Schankowska has been excluded. Finneganw 12:18, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

John never suggested that. He agrees with you that Anderson was an imposter, and the article should deal with facts.

This thread is not getting us anywhere, and I know from experience that it will just go round and round and round. I suggest that editors refocus their comments on the proposed content. DrKiernan (talk) 11:53, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

As a matter of fact he did, because to add the things he wants to add, you are going to have to depend on the discredited tales of Botkin and Rathlef, which have now been downgraded to fiction. As Finneganw stated, the 'fascinating' things she allegedly did, and 'why people believed her for so long' is all based on lies, because it did not and could not have happened the way it was portrayed. We know for a fact she was never in Imperial Russia and obviously got her info from emigres and books, however, since there is no source stating that (other than the DNA proof) we cannot put it in the article, and the story will fall, as we fear, into the realm of the fantasy and play right into the hands of the AA supporters. See, there is much written by supporters, but very little written against her since the tests, and literally nothing written after the 2007 tests, so while we know for a fact what we say is true, there is nothing to source it to, therefore, the article could not include those statements and leaving it as it was would leave the impression that everything went her way except the DNA- leaving questions on the DNA, and this is exactly what the AA supporters want for the impression of the article, though not in so many words, certainly in message. This is why we must avoid all those old tales because they couldn't have actually happened, and it's wrong to tell them as fact just because you can source them to Kurth. Also, when you get into telling 'both sides' (which I believe to be wrong since there no longer is a mystery or a 'side' for AA's cause) you get the long, drawn out article, longer than the one for Christ, with endless edit wars, insertations, vandalism and tit for tat quote matching. If we could do this without the imput of any AA supporter, it might work, but I doubt you're going to keep them away, therefore, we stand right back where we started, unless we agree to go with the brief article as we had planned. If you think this thread is going in circles, you ain't seen nuthin' yet, until you try to write a long article with me, finneganw, chat and bookworm.15:27, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

There's plenty of people who have written about her without being supporters. Massie, obviously. Just a quick look at Amazon reveals Frances Welch's A Romanov Fantasy, which looks to be a very skeptical account of Anderson's life from only two years ago. a Perhaps this would be an acceptable source? At any rate, basically your whole problem seems to be that if you can't draw implications yourself, you don't trust your readers to. If the article is clear that Anderson cannot have been Anastasia (due to the DNA tests), then of course any intelligent reader can infer that there must have been coaching, and what not, to explain her apparent memories - and I highly, highly doubt that nobody anywhere has ever written about that, anyway - this is an excuse. This will be my last remark on the subject, although Welch's book looks like it ought to be massively useful. john k (talk) 15:54, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Two things I asked you to do before we argued was to look at my website to see what I'd do with this article if I could, and to review the sordid history of the article and talk page. You have obviously done neither, so you continue to misunderstand me and my intentions. If you did look at my site, you will see I made great use of Massie's and Welch's books as references. You would also have seen in the page history that those 2 books were used extensively in the long version of the article, and we still have enormous trouble with the AA supporters. What I mean by no sources for what we need is nothing written since the missing bones were identified- final results were march 2009- and nothing stating in so many words that she got her info from books and emigres. We can say Olga A. thought that, or it is obvious considering the way things turned out, but no proof of who or when (though I feel Rathlef and Botkin are very guilty, Rathlef even encourages her to 'remember' and 'if you are right I'll tell you' how would she know unless she had oodles of resources on the family? So clearly she helped her, but proving it in a sourced article is impossible) As I have asked many times, if you would please, please review the past history of this article, you will see what Finneganw and I mean about it not working. It really does no good to keep telling us how it could work when we have been through it all and know better. And no, I'm sorry, I do not give the average person enough credit to be able to put two and two together, you would be surprised at how lame brained some people are and will only gather 'wow how did she know if it wasn't her?' Also you disregard the strong desire by some to believe the mystery and how they may grasp at any straw to hold onto it. My goal from the beginning here was to completely bury the last vestiges of any question or mystery as to her identity, lock the door, throw away the key, nail the coffin closed and bury it. We can't do that if we get into all those petty details. Again, the history proves this, time and time again. There are hundreds of previous edits if you would only take a look and see what we mean instead of continuing to lecture on why we are wrong when we know we aren't. With all due respect Finneganw and I are the voice of experience on this subject and article so please believe us.Aggiebean (talk) 16:54, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

I have certainly read over your website, although I didn't look closely at the footnotes. As I think I may have briefly said before, I think it's got a lot of useful material, but that it is weak in many of the areas I have been suggesting that this article needs to be improved on - in particular, if I'm not mistaken, it doesn't provide any kind of chronological narrative of AA's life between 1922 and 1933 or so, and the facts of the period of AA's life when she was most famous have to be pieced together. I haven't looked too closely at the old versions of the article, but I have read it over occasionally over the years. In terms of "what we need," I don't see how we need any of those things. In the first place, there are tons of journalistic sources about the discovery of the bones, which is, at any rate, not all that important to begin with since we've known for certain since 1997 that whether or not Anastasia may have survived, Anna Anderson was not her, so I don't see why that's so important. In the second place, we simply don't need anything "stating in so many words that she got her info from books and emigrés." This is because there is, of course, no direct evidence that she got her info from books and emigrés. This is simply an inference that anybody can make from the fact that a) she seemed to know stuff about Anastasia's life; and b) we know that she had never been in Russia and was not Anastasia. If we can cite primary sources like Olga Alexandrovna who actually explicitly say that this is what they believed, that makes the case more strongly. There is no need for the article to accuse Botkin or Rathlef of lying and purposefully coaching her, something which, at any rate, we can't know for certain that they did - look at Clever Hans, for instance, whose trainer had no idea that the whole thing was a fraud, even though he was giving the horse the cues. Botkin, Rathlef, and whoever else may have been conscious frauds - your website makes a decent, but not overwhelming, case that they were. But there's simply not enough evidence to say for certain - there's a whole lot of speculation on such issues on your website, but not too much in the way of fact. The fact that people wish to believe in her is really not our concern here - the[REDACTED] article is never going to convince such people anyway. And the purpose of this article is not, of course, "to completely bury the last vestiges of any question or mystery as to her identity, lock the door, throw away the key, nail the coffin closed and bury it," (a procedure which would, unfortunately, seem to leave you locked in the room with the corpse, which might be an apt metaphor...). It is to produce a quality encycloepdia article about a notable individual. A huge part of the problem here seems to be that you and finneganw do not believe that is the purpose of the article, but rather that the article's only purpose is to convince people she was not Anastasia. This is both futile and not helpful to the surely numerous readers who, I'm sure, are interested in learning more about this woman than the barest facts and a detailed discussion of DNA test results. john k (talk) 17:55, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

My site was never intended to be a chronological narrative of her life. That's not what it's about. The point of it is to explain the 'other side' (Anti-AA) so ignored in writings by supporters, and try to show how and why she was a fraud all along. I examine various aspects and situations of her story, and especially the long standing myths and the truth behind them. I also offer common sense and logical deductions to explain away all the questions, which of course is not allowed here. I did not mean for the article to mirror my site, it is something different, and is in no way neutral, purposely. There is too much pro AA stuff out there, I was trying to balance the load. But it's not a biography and should not be taken as such.

Obviously your website can be about whatever you want it to be about. The point was that you were just presenting it as a model for what you would like this article to look like, if not for problems with pro-Anderson editors. ("As you know, I have written a very long and detailed website on AA, and I would originally have liked to have a long article, in fact I was a big contributor when it was long," you said. Then "As I have said before, I would have liked a long detailed article, and I wrote a very long website on her. However here on wiki it is impossible due to the personalities and attitudes involved." Then "Two things I asked you to do before we argued was to look at my website to see what I'd do with this article if I could" On my talk page: "And if you want to see what I'd put in a long article check out my website, Anna Anderson Exposed.") Given that, I looked at your website and gave my assessment - lots of useful information, but problematic in some ways as a model for what an article here should look like. Now, of course, after I point those things out, you say "I did not mean for the article to mirror my site." But clearly that is what you were implying before, repeatedly. john k (talk) 04:36, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Another issue you need to realize is that AA herself never tried to convince anyone, it was all the work of supporters. It is very likely that the mentally ill woman was used by opportunists and she just went along for the ride, having all her expenses paid. Sure beat life as FS. She never even took the stand in her own defense during her trial. Again if you look at the history you will see what all transpired in the past and why we can't try those things again. It's actually become rather insulting that you continue to preach the same things we are telling you won't work and not believe us.Aggiebean (talk) 00:58, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

If I were her lawyers, I wouldn't have wanted her to take the stand, either. That obviously would have been a total disaster. As for insulting, please. You seem to find it insulting that I continue to disagree with you. That's absurd. Look, I've read a fair bit of the history of the article. But it's quite evident that you and finneganw are something approaching half the problem here. You have the advantage over the Anderson supporters in that your POV is based on actual fact, and not delusional nonsense, like theirs. But you don't seem to be any more interested in creating a neutral article. john k (talk) 04:36, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

There is no mystery at all over Anderson. She was Schankowska and wasted most of her life pretending to be somebody she never was. That is the sign either of a con artist or a truly mentally ill woman. Really it is all very pathetic and uninteresting. She never had any memories as she was not Anastasia. She was fed information from unscrupulous others who did make money out of her. Quite often she was shown up for the fraud she was as she couldn't even get the information accurate. The only mystery is why so-called intelligent people chose to be conned by such an obvious fraud. The answer is they wanted to believe the fantasy or had financial motives. Her whole fraud has been completely shattered though and the reality exposed. Basically nothing Anderson claimed was ever true. That is why it cannot be included in the article as the article must be accurate and verifiable. Finneganw 01:16, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

You are not the one who gets to decide whether the subject is interesting or not. Obviously many people do find her interesting. Obviously, you find it interesting, given that you seem to devote a huge amount of time to it. You also demonstrate a profound misunderstanding of how Misplaced Pages articles work when you say that because Anderson's claims were untrue, they can't be included in the article. Obviously, they can't be treated as though they are themselves descriptions of real things. But this isn't how things work. If somebody is famous for being a liar, or delusional, we can describe their documented lies and delusions in the[REDACTED] article. Again, David Hampton was not Sidney Poitier's son, but we can still mention in his article that he claimed to be, and other details of his various lies. Clifford Irving did not ghost-write Howard Hughes' autobiography, but we can still describe all the lies that Irving put forward in his fraudulent claim to have done so. Emperor Norton was a lunatic whose various decrees had no relationship with reality, but we can still describe them in a neutral manner. If lies and delusions are documented in reliable sources, we can of course discuss them in Misplaced Pages. john k (talk) 04:36, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't find her at all interesting - very few do. I just find her attempts at fraud rather pathetic. Only rabid supporters have any interest in her. I doubt you will find any credible sources on her. The ones supporters relied on have been totally discredited and have been agreed to not be used in the article as they are unverifiable. By the way going off on a tangent is irrelevant to the content of the discussion. It would seem you have a curious interest in frauds. Finneganw 08:46, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

There seems to be a misapplication of Misplaced Pages terminology here. Accuracy and verifiability refer solely to the proper attribution of text to reliable sources. No one here denies that Anderson was a complete and utter fraud. However, the falsities from Anderson's life were what made her notable, and as such, we can thoroughly describe them in the article, under the provision that we state that these were all a bunch of lies. I think the only way to present this article is to state Anderson and her supporters' claims and then offer a refutation of these claims. Simply ignoring the claims originally made by her supporters (which lends a lot of credence to her notability) is going to make this article very one-sided. Remember, our role here is not to debunk falsity. We're here to present a subject in a neutral manner, and in this particular case, note how the mainstream world has confirmed that Anderson was indeed a fraud. Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 12:32, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Change of Header

The change of header is excellent. It alerts editors that discussion is essential before random editing. Thanks very much DrKiernan. Finneganw 17:56, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Proposed article put forward by DrKiernan

I think you have done well DrKiernan. I am glad your proposal concentrates on verifiable fact and makes no mistake in representing the real identity of Anna Anderson. Thank you for your input. It works well. Finneganw 14:57, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree, it's fine the way it is. Too much info will only lead to more arguments and edit wars and after years of that we know it doesn't work. Look at World Book Encyclopedia, even articles on Nicholas II and Rasputin, they are very brief, though there was much more to their stories and lives. This is an article, not a book.Aggiebean (talk) 17:34, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

In that case, I think I'm going to press on with the proposed article by adding the next draft section on popular culture. I've taken into account the Misplaced Pages:Trivia sections guidelines, so I've removed mention of the songs, and not mentioned the straight-to-DVD animations as I really couldn't find anything notable to say about them. I've tried to focus the section on how Anderson was portrayed in fiction. DrKiernan (talk) 14:43, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

There is certainly nothing 'notable' about those off brand "Anastasia" DVDs, however, two of them actually follow parts of the AA story, including two using the cart tale and one even Alexander Tchiakovsky, something that the more famous Don Bluth video does not do. That version mentions absolutely nothing about AA and the story is totally different from AA's, in it, it has an eight year old Anastasia separated from her family during a 1916 revolution led by Rasputin (which of course never happened) and she leaves an orphanage 10 years later. There is no element of Anderson's story at all in the Don Bluth cartoon (which is, BTW, most often mistakingly called "Disney")other than the part about trying to pass her off to the Dowager Empress for money, which many claimants hoped to do. The 1997 cartoon really isn't AA's story, other than generally being a claimant.Aggiebean (talk) 17:38, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

One more thing, in the external links, we should really remove the site "Anastasia: Duchess in Disguise" since it is only a main page and nothing else as the link provided for the "HIH Anastasia Historical Society"(http://www.concentric.net/~tsarskoe/) is a site that no longer exists. It has been deleted by its author, who no longer believes in AA. (I have spoken to him personally and know this to be true) Also, in Oct. all Geocities sites will shut down, and it will then become a totally dead link. Since there's nothing there anyway, it might as well be eliminated now.Aggiebean (talk) 18:00, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

The 1997 cartoon arguably isn't even about Anastasia, or about the Russian Revolution, or anything tied very well to real history at all. Wasn't it loosely based on the 1956 movie, though? And the 1956 movie was loosely based on Anderson? john k (talk) 19:28, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

I never said to exclude it, only not to exclude the other cartoons which were based on AA's story while this one was not.Aggiebean (talk) 20:11, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

If some of you had to suffer and deal with the long drawn out headaches and annoyances that Finneganw and I did every day with this article for so long, you would understand why we are so against going into detail with it all again. On the surface it may look like a good idea, but please believe us, it's not.Aggiebean (talk) 20:30, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

I've added something about the other cartoons, and to do so I had to add the story about leaving Russia on a cart. DrKiernan (talk) 06:59, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

I have a question about the following:

Coincident with the release of the films, a version of Anderson's story, entitled Ich, Anastasia, Erzähle (I, Anastasia, an autobiography), was published in Germany. The book begins with the life of Anastasia, and continues with the extraordinary claim that she escaped Russia on a farm cart with a man called Alexander Tschaikovsky, whom she married and had a child by, before he was shot dead in a Bucharest street and the child, Alexei, disappeared into an orphanage. This "fantastic tale" is considered a fable. Anderson's supporters said the claims "might seem bold inventions even for a dramatist", and her detractors considered "this barely credible story as a piece of far-fetched romance".

My understanding was that this (cart, Tchaikovsky, etc.) was Anderson's own story of how she supposedly escaped from Ekaterinburg. If so, this isn't at all made clear by the proposed text. john k (talk) 18:03, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

DrKiernan is 100% correct in his description. It was fable as it never ever happened. It was complete fabrication. Her so-called autobiography was not even written by her. All in all a rather pathetic fraud. Finneganw 01:10, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

The story was not "Anderson's own", looking at the history of how it evolved, the cart story was originally invented by Baron von Kleist. An earlier different version by Clara Peuthert featured a trip to Paris with unknown assailants in pursuit. The details changed several times as she took up with various emigres', and was finally honed to the present version by Harriet Rathlef. There were also differing versions of the baby's name, birthdate, and what happened to him. The history of the changing of the story is covered, with references, on my site so I won't take up space here.Aggiebean (talk) 01:05, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Sigh. I understand that the events described never occurred. But why does it matter whether AA wrote I, Anastasia herself? Most non-writers' autobiographies are ghost-written. Why does it matter who originally came up with the story? Anderson herself told it and claimed it was the truth, right? So it was "her own story of how she supposedly escaped from Ekaterinburg," no matter who originally made it up. The point is that the text does not make clear that I, Anastasia was an (ostensible) autobiography. It describes it as "a version of Anderson's story," and notes that the title included "an autobiography," but the implication is left open that it is a work of fiction. You guys' obsession with not giving an inch to Anderson supporters seems to involve insisting that the article be confusing and potentially misleading. john k (talk) 04:17, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

See, this is where we start to run into problems and differences. We do not know it was her own story, in fact, the details and evidence point to it being invented and embellished by others. We do know the story wasn't true, but it does matter if she made it up or if others helped her. Because of all the doubt, it's wrong to put it in the article claiming she invented it, we don't even know that she told it. Say von Kleist made it up. He's not going to say that, he's going to say she told him, but there is no proof. Since it is very much in question, it should not be stated as truth. It DOES matter that she didn't write "I, Anastasia." Parts of it were taken directly from other books, such as Anna V's account of the Riga trip, and the events of daily life in Tobolsk taken directly from "Last Days of the Romanovs" by Robert Wilton. Of course the book doesn't admit to this, but when you match up the original and paraphrased versions, it becomes painfully obvious. No, we should not give any inch to Anderson supporters, any more than the 9-11 article should give an inch to conspiracy theorists, other than to say that such theories exist. Nothing is more misleading than allowing the fiction invented by Anderson and her supporters to be passed as fact, or even allowed to be presumed as possible fact by readers. John you are starting to give yourself away as one of those who wants the AA supporter story told from that POV (though you claim not to believe in her and may not, that is how you are now coming across) For years, the problem has been that this myth perpetuated because people found it more interesting and fun than the truth. It's time to stop that and state the cold hard facts to the reading public, with no room for questions or games.Aggiebean (talk) 04:30, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

How about changing "a version of Anderson's story" to "Anderson's ghostwritten story"? DrKiernan (talk) 07:48, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

I think you have already mentioned DrKiernan who wrote it and that it was not Anderson. Aggiebean is correct though. 'I, Anastasia' was never Anderson's story. It was written by others in a pathetic attempt to try and assist her legal case. It was total fabrication as it is fact that Anderson was Schankowska and never Anastasia. The work was pure invention and very poor invention at that. Of course Anderson supporters have always tried to be misleading otherwise the reality comes out and they have never been able to cope with that. Sadly John K seems to be a rabid Anderson is Anastasia supporter making very little positive suggestions on developing the article. He seems more interesting in pushing his POV discredited opinions. I guess he must have been somewhere else when the DNA evidence finally exposed Anderson as a total fraud. Finneganw 08:56, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

As you're more interested in insulting other editors than answering my question, I'm going to take your response as a yes. DrKiernan (talk) 08:24, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

DrKiernan repeating my answer from above as you appear to have missed it.:

Dr Kiernan is 100% correct in his description. It was fable as it never ever happened. It was complete fabrication. Her so-called autobiography was not even written by her. All in all a rather pathetic fraud. Finneganw 01:10, 15 July 2009 (UTC) It was a "version" but clearly not an autobiography as it was never written by her. Finneganw 13:34, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

"A version" is fine with me. It was a version, of which there were many, and it doesn't mention who originally made it up since we really don't know. Also, the 'autobiography' isn't the original source of the cart story, (it had been around since the spring of 1922 and had been mentioned in other writings) so it shouldn't be described as such.Aggiebean (talk) 10:38, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

FinneganW, I'm warning you to knock of the personal attacks. WP:NPA: "Comment on content, not on the contributor." Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 12:44, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

1. Gill, Peter; Ivanov, Pavel L., Kimpton, Colin, Piercy, Romelle; Benson, Nicola; Tully, Gillian; Evett, Ian; Hagelberg, Erika; Sullivan, Kevin (February 1994), "Identification of the remains of the Romanov family by DNA analysis", Nature Genetics: 130–135, doi:10.1038/ng0294-130, retrieved 29 June 2009 {{citation}}: Unknown parameter |volum= ignored (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
2. Russian Tsars by Boris Antonov, p.172
3. Cite error: The named reference godl1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
4. Cite error: The named reference Xenia174 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
5. ^ Cite error: The named reference nature was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
6. Cite error: The named reference godl2 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
7. ^ Cite error: The named reference plosone was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
8. Cite error: The named reference cbsnews was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
9. Gutterman, Steve (2007), Remains of czar heir may have been found, Associated Press, retrieved 24 August 2007
10. http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/04/30/russia.czar/index.html?section=cnn_latest
11. Klier and Mingay, p. 96
12. See, for example, "fabulous tale" (Kurth, Anastasia, p. 40)
13. ^ von Nidda, p. 81

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