Talk:Manner of death

Untitled
Most of this is utter nonsense! No one EVER lives forever and when an old person dies, that's that! This is why science gets a bad rep! It is unable to communicate to laypeople without waving their darned brains at everyone who will no, nor cares what killed their beloved great-grand-pappy!

I've often found it interesting (and very comical) how 104year-old people die of Covid! What BULLSHIT!!!

All to pad stats for some unnecessary gov't agency to get more funding for research on why more old folks die of this particular disease than ... Ma-fucking-laria!

Am I angry? You bet! Let some idiot Double Dome (to quote Rocky and Bullwinkle) scientist tell me why I ought not be!!!

Old talk
Cause of death and Manner of death are distinct concepts. Manner typically includes several categories, such as Accident, Homicide, Suicide. It seems inappropriate to link to a section about autopsies, rather than have a separate page which discusses Manner of Death, a legal concept. rhyre (talk) 15:04, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
 * This is now its own article. -- Beland (talk) 20:03, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

Sources vs. references
MOS:NOTES has a bit of explanation, but in short usually there is a "References" section with footnotes. Sometimes it's called "Sources" but there is never both. For the items listed in "References" currently - are those sources used in writing the article, or are they just for readers who want more detail? Depending on which, I think they would want to be either turned into footnotes, or moved to "External links" or "Further reading" sections. -- Beland (talk) 20:03, 27 April 2019 (UTC)
 * I think sources are the published information used to add content to the article, References is published information that an editor looked at and found useful, but chose not to add to the article; the References influenced the editors knowledge, but weren't used for copy to the article, sources were used for copy. Sederecarinae (talk) 20:12, 27 April 2019 (UTC)
 * OK, then to follow the standard naming convention, I renamed "Sources" to "References" and put the rest in "Further reading" and "External links". Note that we try not to use bare URLs; see Bare URLs for rationale and advice. None of these sections are for "information the editor looked at but isn't citing specifically". I suppose that might be requested by a teacher for a school report, but for the encyclopedia, books, articles, and web pages in those sections should have more detail on the topic than the article itself has room for, or have a different type of information than is appropriate for an encyclopedia (like personal experiences or how-to information). -- Beland (talk) 01:05, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

Scotland vs. England and Wales
It's unclear to me that Scotland has the same manner verdicts as England and Wales, but you've just put them both under "United Kingdom". England and Wales is a single jurisdiction under English law, and Scotland has its own legal system under Scots law. Have you seen any sources that explain what the verdicts in Scotland are? -- Beland (talk) 20:08, 27 April 2019 (UTC)
 * The list was true for "England and Wales", the United Kingdom includes England and Wales, therefore the change of heading to United Kingdom makes no difference to the truth of the verdicts shown in the list, "among other verdicts:" is an open statement that allows for a lack of inclusion of any mention of verdicts for Scotland. The verdicts list is not sourced. Sederecarinae (talk) 20:45, 27 April 2019 (UTC)
 * "In the United Kingdom, when people die, either a doctor writes an acceptable natural cause of death medical certificate, or a coroner"


 * c.f. Harris - Natural and 'Unnatural' medical deaths and coronial law: A UK and international review of the medical literature on natural and unnatural death and how it applies to medical death certification and reporting deaths to coroners: Natural/Unnatural death


 * "UK and international review" is therefore applicable to all jurisdictions.


 * vis-à-vis 27 avril 2019 à 19:54 diff hist +426‎  Manner of death ‎ →‎United Kingdom: added "nidirect", and deleted "natural cause" from the list because "natural cause" in "Harris 2017" precludes the existence of "natural cause" at unsourced "Inquests may declare"~ Sederecarinae (talk) 20:52, 27 April 2019 (UTC)


 * What I want to demonstrate by the previous comments, is the doctor identifies the natural cause because the cause is a medical cause, the coroner or medical examiner identifies the unnatural cause because the cause is not a medical cause. Sederecarinae (talk) 20:56, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

The claim being made by the article right now can indeed be false if there are verdicts returned in England and Wales that are not returned in Scotland, which I believe is the case. (The reverse is true for criminal trials; Scotland has "not proven" and England and Wales does not.) If you don't have any evidence about what happens in Scotland, I will narrow the language in the claim without changing the header, to be specific to England and Wales. I have found a source that documents the verdicts there.

What you say about whether the coroners and doctors and natural vs. unnatural is not related to this question, but I'm not sure what you're claiming is true. For example, see the flow chart that is Figure 1 at. -- Beland (talk) 00:18, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

Query of passage
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manner_of_death#Undetermined

The Norwegian Medical Association classifies what other jurisdictions might call "undetermined" as "unnatural":[7]

Sudden and unexpected death of an unknown cause

Deaths in prison or while in civilian or military detention

Unknown corpses

what is the actual evidence in sources for the statement "other jurisdictions" ? plus the order in incorrect since the passage is under the heading undetermined, it should read " call "unnatural" as "undetermined" " cordially, Sederecarinae (talk) 20:45, 27 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Looking at the Snohomish County source, it seems they do not classify deaths in the same way as Norway. Though it's unclear to me what's going on in Norway; do they just treat deaths in prison and sudden deaths as unnatural for legal purposes, in that they are referred for investigation? Would these be reclassified as natural if a death in prison or a sudden death was determined to be from natural causes? Or does "unnatural" just mean "not proven natural" and thus actually combine what in Washington State is two different classifications? -- Beland (talk) 00:29, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

“Natural Causes”
When I took journalism classes at Long Beach City College a few years ago under Pat McKean we were taught to avoid saying somebody died due to natural causes. There are several reasons. First, it is vague and not specific. Next, it doesn’t indicate that somebody knows the cause of death written on the death certificate, so maybe they aren’t actually dead. “Natural causes” is never written on a death certificate because it is not an actual cause of death.

I am upset at the way the mainstream media fails to inform people about the cause of death from time to time even when revered newscasters die. However, Wikipedia prides itself on being encyclopedic, so writing “natural causes” should be unacceptable.

Thoughts? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jasonagastrich (talk • contribs) 20:11, 9 March 2020 (UTC)


 * I believe you are confusing the more general Manner of death, and the rather more specifc Cause of death. Pharos (talk) 16:09, 9 May 2023 (UTC)