Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Category:Suicides

The following discussion comes from Wikipedia:Categories for deletion, where it is currently listed as unresolved. It may be reviewed again in the future in the light of evolving standards and guidelines for categorization.

Category:Suicides

For the same reasons as Category:Alcoholics: "Would anyone honestly answer, if asked what they are reading, that 'it's an article about a person who committed suicide'?" In most, if not all of the examples in the category, the person's having committed suicide is not directly related to their inclusion in wikipedia. -Seth Mahoney 21:21, Aug 19, 2004 (UTC)

• Agreed. Compile a list article (if we don't have one) and then delete. Otherwise, why don't we categorize all people by cause of death? Postdlf 21:53, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• Disagree Removed my vote - somebody may indeed answer the above question that way, but it's spurious as an argument for deletion anyway. Someone may indeed be interested to read a number of articles about people who have committed suicide...
• ...In fact the follow up confesses as much by suggesting a list. If it's worth having a list, why not have a category? It's ridiculous to replace one with another - categories are there, in part, to negate the requirement for lists... With other controversial categories lists are proposed as allowing shades of grey - I think there will be plenty of uncontroversial suicides to fill the category.
• ...Why not categorize people by cause of death? If there's an easy way to find people who have died from a coronary, or in an automobile accident such category pages may well be of interest...
• ...indeed I've seen many feature articles in magazines that cover famous people by cause of death...
• ...However, I would suggest that suicide is a special case beyond that as it is a very notable way for a person to die.
• ...I have a suspicion that the reason this is in danger of going the way of category:alcoholics is that some people are fretful about any category that might be interpreted as tarnishing a person. However, neither alcoholism nor committing suicide are universally perceived as signifying a person has less worth, so this strikes me as somewhat provincial. If anyone can tell me where alcoholics was discussed before being deleted I'd be very pleased to see the debate.
  • Note: If I remember correctly, there wasn't much discussion over Category:Alcoholics -Seth Mahoney 05:14, Aug 29, 2004 (UTC)
• some content struck out after reading other debates below - I started the category, I've removed my vote, let the community decide (though I'd like to see more people involved with this page...) --[[User:Bodnotbod|bodnotbod .....TALKQuietly)]] 21:18, Aug 24, 2004 (UTC)
• Keep. Potentially of interest and useful. -- Infrogmation 02:34, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• Note: as was pointed out above, I think, this category appears to mirror the List of famous suicides, so moving it to a list is unnecessary. My vote is still delete. -Seth Mahoney 05:14, Aug 29, 2004 (UTC)
• comment - please note, as some people seem to have an itchy trigger finger, that the vote is currently 2/2 and that this is not a consensus to delete. --[[User:Bodnotbod|bodnotbod » .....TALKQuietly)]] 03:13, Aug 31, 2004 (UTC)
• Delete. I would be more charitable toward a category "suicide" (singular) that collected articles more generally on the topic. --Gary D 03:28, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Merge into list and delete. List of suicides is better (because it is annotated and less intrusive for articles on people who only happen to have committed suicide), and this is redundant with that. As a side note, the list is very long; it would be nice if it were sorted by occupation or precise means of death if known, or something other than alphabetical. -- Beland 14:50, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)
• Keep. (I'll admit I'm one of the people who's been working on this category.) A year ago, there were people who wanted to delete every list article. One of the purposes of creating categories was to minimize the need for list pages. Now we have people saying we should eliminate categories in favor of lists. MK 17:33, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)
• I'd also like to remind people that if you're proposing to delete an article or category, you should add this information to the article itself so people are aware there is a debate occurring. I have done so with this article. MK 17:41, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)