Can we link to the quick start guide here as a way to guide users back to the rest of the docs?

https://matplotlib.org/stable/users/explain/quick_start.html

What makes this example special that warrants referencing the quick start guide?

The pyplot vs. OO was just here because the blog post from which the example was created was a general
https://pbpython.com/effective-matplotlib.html. But in the context of our own docs, we don't need to reference everything back to quick start. Instead, we assume that a user has the basic understanding from quickstart already.

It's written as a self-contained doc, so maintaining a bit of context via links seems useful. Crosslinking never hurts and we could do more of it

I'm of a different opinion here. Examples and tutorials in our docs can and should never be self-contained. You cannot jump into an arbitrary place of the docs and expect to understand it without prior knowledge.

Cross-linking hurts if the topic is not directly relevant to the content at hand because it dillutes focus and creates clutter.

Since we obviously have different opinions, I recuse myself from the topic, as such discusions typically lead nowhere. I leave it up to you guys to fix the lifecycle tutorial.

Sure fair enough, but I apologize if it seemed I was demanding this - it was just a suggestion, and you asked why I was making it, so I answered.

Examples and tutorials in our docs can and should never be self-contained.

I think that's a part of a larger discussion on modality and purpose. I also agree w/ @jklymak that a cross-reference is nice to have (here mostly to keep the spirit of the original) but I think removing this is a plus 'cause seperatly I think it's a bad idea to explain things twice cause that introduces the potential for drift.