Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Suicide methods (4th nomination)


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   Speedy close This was a cautionary, procedural AfD simply because of the length of the PROD reasoning. I have already trouted -- I mean, warned -- the prodder for an inappropriate prod. Any issues can be taken up on the article's talk page. Non-admin closure. Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • (Broken clamshells•Otter chirps) 00:44, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Suicide methods
AfDs for this article: 
 * ( [ delete] ) – (View AfD) (View log)

Procedural AfD listing for User:Prowikipedians, who gave the following rationale in the longest PROD I've ever seen:

This article contains inappropriate material for the internet audience for any and all ages, as well as the possibility of violating federal laws in the United States as well as those in Flordia where the databases are stored. In addition, this article fails to reach its purpose, by actually doing more harm than good. None of the information has been considered useful. Should a list of "how-to" be useful, why does Wikipedia not have a guide to bomb-making? This article does not reach it's purpose in any way what-so-ever. From arstechnica.com, it has been stated that"

But perhaps most disturbing was that the most frequent results were pro-suicide. "The three most frequently occurring sites were all pro-suicide," note the authors, who also found that "Wikipedia was the fourth most frequently occurring site." All four of these top sites provided information about methods, speed, and pain associated with suicide attempts.

"

What purpose should this article serve? I declare that this article be deleted as soon as possible.

(Note: If you are suicidal right now, I recommend that you call a hotline or call 1.800.SUICIDE) Ten Pound Hammer  and his otters • (Broken clamshells•Otter chirps) 16:59, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment Also, just because we have an article on suicide doesn't mean we're pro suicide. We try to maintain a neutral point of view here. Ten Pound Hammer  and his otters • (Broken clamshells•Otter chirps) 17:03, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep as Wikipedia is not censored. The nomination doesn't seem to say anything that was not said in the previous AFDs.  The main issue with the article is that it poorly written.  I just added a couple of details to explore the topic and found that there is a huge amount of scholarly material out there to digest.  Much of this relates to prevention of suicide and understanding of the common methods is helpful in this. Colonel Warden (talk) 18:08, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep I can't see the "how to" and do see enough relevance to this article, its subject is definitely interesting enough. And I don't think its pro either. Also, TenPoundHammer missed one nomination (Articles_for_deletion/Suicide_method). This is the fifth nomination. Steinberger (talk) 18:12, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep Perfectly reasonable subarticle of Suicide. An encyclopedia without discussion of suicide methods is incomplete, and the Suicide article is very long as it is.  Powers T 18:36, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep, Wikipedia is not censored, we do have articles on bombmaking, and this is not pro-suicide (nor does the ArsTechnica quote seem to indicate they thought so). It isn't a WP:HOWTO; it doesn't tell you how to tie the knot or time your jump or measure your pills. --Dhartung | Talk 19:45, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep No valid reason given for deletion. The article isn't written in the style of a how-to guide and, as for 'reaching [sic] it's purpose' - the purpose of an encyclopedia article is to present information in a neutral fashion - nothing more, nothing less.  I personally don't see the need for a separate article detailing methods of commiting suicide when most of them have their own articles, so a list in the main suicide article would suffice.  However, this is not a valid reason to delete.  The nomination is just repeating the same old arguments put forward time and again in favour of censorship of the web.  Cosmo0 (talk) 20:23, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Reluctant keep, if only to prevent the main suicide article from becoming too long. But I'd like to see the article focus on topics that have been the subject of published research – like differences in methods across cultures and time periods, or the reasons people choose particular methods – rather than taking a list of methods as its structure. Unlike some of the above commenters, I do think large parts of the current article read like a how-to guide, and I fear that Wikipedia will get a lot of bad publicity some day from a news report blaming this page for someone's death, justly or not. EALacey (talk) 20:26, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep As has already been said. Wikipedia is not censored and the article is not written like a guide or instuctions. -- neon white user page talk 21:41, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Weak Keep I have issues with the article's lack of referencing, but I am erring on the side of keeping because this the fourth attempt to kill the article -- c'mon, guys, let the article live! Ecoleetage (talk) 22:19, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete While I don't agree with the rationale given for deletion-- i.e., that this will encourage the suicidal to do something-- this is a worthwhile topic that never has been given a worthwhile article. The article is a piece of crap, as if a bunch of ghouls sat around and brainstormed over all the ways one could kill oneself, and the lack of sourcing is ridiculous.  There's a section about beheading oneself, sourced to a couple of articles about someone finding a body (and a head) next to a guillotine; a lot of unsourced facts about drowning, suffocating, electrocuting, shooting or blowing up one self; what sources there are refer to little factoids.  Since there are articles about different suicide methods, it would make more sense to just go with a category.  Mandsford (talk) 22:36, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep, doesn't violate any law that I know of. Suicide methods are a subject of public interest as demonstrated by Jack Kevorkian, Karin Spaink, and the book Final Exit. WillOakland (talk) 22:51, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep as Wikipedia is not censored, and the article is not written like a how to guide.   Esradekan Gibb    "Talk" 23:21, 18 May 2008 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.